War On Terror's Other Cost: Undeserved Anger At All Muslims
 

A US serviceman explains how he keeps anger over Islamist terrorists from becoming prejudice against Muslims in general.

However - YMMV...and so it goes...

Richard :munchin

War On Terror's Other Cost: Undeserved Anger At All Muslims
CSM, 30 July 2010

This September and October, Americans mark the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks and the ninth year of war in Afghanistan, respectively. This war has become arguably the longest in our history. Given the jihad-until-doomsday rhetoric of the Islamists, the war on terror will probably stay with us in one form or another for the foreseeable future.

As the costs mount in blood and treasure, little wonder that the war corrodes the way we think about Muslims and Muslim countries. After all, the worst attack on American soil was hatched in Afghanistan, allegedly planned by a Pakistani, and carried out mainly by Saudis.

It is admittedly tempting to let conflict define our relationship with Muslims. Controversial bus ads about Islam in several US cities are forcing an uncomfortable conversation about this relationship. For those of us who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan, it becomes personal. Nobody likes getting shot at.

Firsthand Experience In A Muslim Country

But several years ago, I had a different kind of experience in a Muslim country – one I like to recall in contrast to the events that dominate the news today.

On the first flight of my deployment, our Air Force C-130 cargo plane lifted off from Dhaka, Bangladesh. Water the color of mocha rippled beneath us, inundating slums and hovels, streets and fields. Bangladesh was suffering a flood of historic proportions.

Unlike most floods in the US, where a river overflows its banks and runs swollen along its course, the Bangladeshi flood had no identifiable river channel. Just a flat, drenched expanse – miles of it. As we climbed, the water stretched to the horizon. It was like an inland sea, dotted with treetops and shanty roofs. Tarp shelters clustered on the few patches of ground high enough to remain dry.

We carried about a dozen Bangladeshi air force cadets; it was the first time most of them had ever flown. Several minutes after takeoff, an oil pump failed. In less than 90 seconds, all the oil from one of our four engines spewed and misted into the floodwater. We shut down the engine, declared an emergency, turned around, and landed back at Dhaka. Muddy water lapped at the airfield’s perimeter.

I apologized to the cadets for their short and perhaps nerve-wracking ride.

They did not seem fazed.

“Not a problem, sir!” one of them barked, locked at attention. We could not get those guys to relax, but even through extreme military protocol, they exuded goodwill. “Thank you for the experience, sir,” another offered.

Due to the flood, our mission to demonstrate the capabilities of the C-130 Hercules quickly turned into a real-world relief operation. Working with Bangladeshi civilians and military personnel, we delivered food and medical supplies to places where floodwater had cut off highways. The Bangladeshis ended up buying four refurbished C-130s for just that purpose.

Not A Single Moment Of Hostility

We encountered not one single moment of hostility, not from anyone anywhere in that devoutly Muslim country. It was 1998.

I still have fond memories of the Bangladeshis, their delightfully subtle sense of humor, and their grit and creativity in the face of adversity.

Heartbreakingly poor, they knew how to get the most from whatever they had.

“Sir, we must save the fuel in this generator if you really do not need electricity now,” one soldier told me. Second to Islam, the guiding creed of Bangladeshis seemed to be common sense.

Granted, this was all before 9/11, but it shows that Americans and South Asian Muslims are not necessarily natural enemies. Bangladesh does have its radical Islamists, but the country has never become a major schoolhouse, refuge, and transit point for them like its historical cousin, Pakistan. Islam alone is not the problem.

Sloppy Thinking

In the post-9/11 world, it’s way too easy to get sloppy in our thinking and extend our anger over terrorism to Muslims in general.

I understand the root of this anger: My wife works in the Pentagon. In 2001, I worked as an airline pilot – friends of friends were on the hijacked planes that slammed into the Pentagon and the World Trade Center. On my first missions in Afghanistan, I carried in my flight suit pocket an outdated navigational chart that depicted the Twin Towers.

Yes, I still harbor anger about 9/11. I get angry about continued efforts to attack the US, such as the attempted Times Square bombing earlier this year.

I get angry when I hear of soldiers maimed by improvised explosive devices. I get really angry when my aircraft’s cargo compartment contains flag-draped boxes.

But when I feel that anger metastasize into prejudice, I try to remember that Bangladesh mission, when the allies were Muslim, and the only enemies were hunger and waterborne disease.

Thomas W. Young is a flight engineer with the West Virginia Air National Guard, a veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the author of the “The Mullah’s Storm,” a forthcoming novel set in the Afghanistan war.

http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/...at-all-Muslims

On the other hand...
 

The link: http://article.nationalreview.com/43...rew-c-mccarthy

July 31, 2010 4:00 A.M.

It’s About Sharia
Newt Gingrich resets our national-security debate.

by Andrew C. McCarthy

The 2010 midterms have not happened yet, but the 2012 campaign is under way. For that we can thank Newt Gingrich. Not because Gingrich is a candidate, though he almost certainly is. And not because he can win, because that is by no means certain. We should thank Gingrich because he has crystallized the essence of our national-security challenge. Henceforth, there should be no place to hide for any candidate, including any incumbent. The question will be: Where do you stand on sharia?

The former speaker of the House gets the war on terror. For one thing, he refuses to call it the “war on terror,” which should be the entry-level requirement for any politician who wants to influence how we wage it. Gingrich grasps that there is an enemy here and that it is a mortal threat to freedom. He knows that if we are to remain a free people, it is an enemy we must defeat. That enemy is Islamism, and its operatives — whether they come as terrorists or stealth saboteurs — are the purveyors of sharia, Islam’s authoritarian legal and political system.

This being the Era of the Reset Button, Gingrich is going about the long-overdue business of resetting our understanding of the civilizational jihad that has been waged against the United States for some 31 years. It is the jihad begun when Islamists overran the American embassy in Tehran, heralding a revolutionary regime that remains the No. 1 U.S. security challenge in the Middle East, as Gingrich argued Thursday in a provocative speech at the American Enterprise Institute.

The single purpose of this jihad is the imposition of sharia. On that score, Gingrich made two points of surpassing importance. First, some Islamists employ mass-murder attacks while others prefer a gradual march through our institutions — our legal, political, academic, and financial systems, as well as our broader culture; the goal of both, though, is the same. The stealth Islamists occasionally feign outrage at the terrorists, but their quarrel is over methodology and pace. Both camps covet the same outcome.

Second, that outcome is the death of freedom. In Islamist ideology, sharia is deemed to be the necessary precondition for Islamicizing a society — for Islam is not merely a religious doctrine, but a comprehensive socio-economic and political system. As the former speaker elaborated, sharia embodies principles and punishments that are abhorrent to Western values. Indeed, its foundational premise is anti-American, holding that we are not free people at liberty to govern ourselves irrespective of any theocratic code, that people are instead beholden to the Islamic state, which is divinely enjoined to impose Allah’s laws.

Sharia, moreover, is anti-equality. It subjugates women and brutally punishes transgressors, particularly homosexuals and apostates. While our law forbids cruel and unusual punishments, Gingrich observed that the brutality in sharia sanctions is not gratuitous, but intentional: It is meant to enforce Allah’s will by striking example.

On this last point, Gingrich offered a salient insight, one well worth internalizing in the Sun Tzu sense of knowing one’s enemy. Islamists, violent or not, have very good reasons for the wanting to destroy the West. Those reasons are not crazy or wanton — and they have nothing to do with Gitmo, Israel, cartoons, or any other excuse we conjure to explain the savagery away. Islamists devoutly believe, based on a well-founded interpretation of Islamic doctrine, that they have been commanded by Allah to kill, convert, or subdue all who do not adhere to sharia — because they regard Allah as their only master (“There is no God but Allah”). It is thus entirely rational (albeit frightening to us) that they accept the scriptural instruction that the very existence of those who resist sharia is offensive to Allah, and that a powerful example must be made of those resisters in order to induce the submission of all — “submission” being the meaning of Islam.

It makes no sense to dismiss our enemies as lunatics just because “secular socialist” elites, as Gingrich called them, cannot imagine a fervor that stems from religious devotion. We ought to respect our enemies, he said. Not “respect” in Obama-speak, which translates as “appease,” but in the sense of taking them seriously, understanding that they are absolutely determined to win, and realizing that they are implacable. There is no “moderate” sharia devotee, for sharia is not moderate. Gingrich noted that in response to global outcry against the prospect of death by stoning for an Iranian woman, Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, convicted of adultery, the mullahs’ great concession appears to be that she will be hanged instead. Islamism is not a movement to be engaged, it is an enemy to be defeated.

Victory, Gingrich said, will be very long in coming — longer, perhaps, than the nearly half-century it took to win the Cold War. Invoking JFK, he urged that the survival and success of liberty will still require an unwavering commitment to pay any price and bear any burden, for as long as it takes. Will that entail an ambitious project to democratize Islamic countries — notwithstanding that sharia dictates waging jihad against Westerners who try? Gingrich’s embrace of President Bush’s second inaugural address suggests that he may think so.

How we go about it and whether we use our military to spearhead a “forward march of freedom” are matters the former speaker did not flesh out. He also wondered aloud why, after nearly nine years in Afghanistan, we had not tasked military engineers and contractors to blanket that backward land with highways, the roads to advancement and prosperity. But we haven’t defeated the enemy yet. One can agree wholeheartedly with the former speaker that, having taken on a war against Afghan Islamists, it is imperative that America win. But in World War II, which Gingrich invoked repeatedly, and to great effect, we had our priorities straight: unambiguous victory first; then, and only then, the Marshall Plan’s ambitious reconstruction of Europe and Japan.

Debate over all of this is essential. The crucial point is that we must have the debate with eyes open. It is a debate about which Gingrich has put down impressive markers: The main front in the war is not Afghanistan or Iraq but the United States. The war is about the survival of Western civilization, and we should make no apologies for the fact that the West’s freedom culture is a Judeo-Christian culture — a fact that was unabashedly acknowledged, Gingrich reminded his audience, by FDR and Churchill. To ensure victory in the United States we must, once again, save Europe, where the enemy has advanced markedly. There is no separating our national security and our economic prosperity — they are interdependent. And while the Middle East poses challenges of immense complexity, Gingrich contended that addressing two of them — Iran, the chief backer of violent jihad, and Saudi Arabia, the chief backer of stealth jihad — would go a long way toward improving our prospects on the rest.

Most significant, there is sharia. By pressing the issue, Newt Gingrich accomplishes two things. First, he gives us a metric for determining whether those who would presume to lead us will fight or surrender. Second, at long last, someone is empowering truly moderate Muslims — assuming they exist in the numbers we’re constantly assured of. Our allies are the Muslims who embrace our freedom culture — those for whom sharia is a matter of private belief, not public mission. Our enemies are those who want sharia to supplant American law and Western culture. When we call out the latter, and marginalize them, we may finally energize the former.

It’s that simple. Not easy, but simple.

Then again...
 

FWIW, Jessica Stern has spent time getting to know the enemy in a number of different settings and contexts.

Foreign Affairs published her view of the enemy in its January/February 2010 issue. That essay is available here. Her view differs markedly from that of Mr. Gingrich and Mr. Sullivan. Ms. Stern avers:

I respectfully choose to disagree with Mr. Young for the following reasons, which I posted in a similar thread.

1. It took me almost ten years to go to the WTC site and pay my respects.
(I lived on Leonard Street btw Church & Brdway)

2. A VIVID NYC memory from that time frame: Muslim cab drivers beeping their horns and being extra jovial towards each other, while the city picked itself up…that day and for weeks after the attack.


3. My wife has three really close girl friends. One lost her entire wedding party that day. I mean, who comprises a wedding party, your very best sisters, friends etc…now all dead; is but one permissible islamic example: the right to kill anyone at anytime.

I knew so many people that died that day, people I trained and had worked with, innocent people that dined in my restaurant, companies that we catered events for, or just the Joe who said hello on his way to work, the guy that doesn’t get to see his kid grow up…fuck these scumbags muslims. They will never assimilate to/in our culture. ..but you know that already?

4. You want me to be politically correct in response to a belief system that a. see’s no value in our openness, or personal freedoms.
b. actively engages with deadly force on a NOW current/regular/routine basis while simultaneously seeking to smother and suppress any mention of their muslim belief/religion campaign. Especially, as it continues to destroy/subvert our freedoms to confront it.

5. There is no solution in appeasement, accommodation, or tolerance with muslim ideology. They must be confronted without compassion or mercy, as an entire culture and destroyed with the same deadly indiscriminant force.

6. I am beyond anger, I am hateful to the core of my being. If you're a rag head, I do not believe anything you say, and I don't trust you, Not because I don't want to, but because Your religion taught me that.

There a section in Philadelphia that has been declared a muslim only section, by native converts no less. Do the math on that, and then look up what a former Mayor Frank Rizzo did when confront with the Move organization in the 70's.

We can't be far from the edge at this point. Farrakhan stated recently that he wanted to push the devils over the edge; all he has to do is order/send his true believers into the street with their AK's. Do It!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Edited for inaccurate word choice. Richard

Her resume (Harvard) automatically puts her argument into question due to a conflict of interest. So too would Georgetown or other Ivy league schools on the Saudi pay roll.

As for Saudi's "Deradicalization Program," converting AQ Terrorists into Muslim Brotherhood operatives hardly constitutes success. YMMV.

War On Terror's Other Cost: Undeserved Anger At All Muslims
 

I really don’t see it that way, my beef isn’t with ALL Muslims, my anger, or should I say my loathing, is directed towards the supremacist ideology of Islam. Most of the people who are now Muslim never chose to be so, simply because almost all of their ancestors were forced into being Muslim, whole countries were conquered, and Sharia law was imposed - and the penalty of death - is levied towards those who want to leave.

c2.5 The unlawful (haram) is what the Law-giver strictly forbids. Someone who commits an unlawful act deserves punishment, while one who refrains from it out of obedience to the command of Allah is rewarded.
(3) and unbelief (Kufr), sins which put one beyond the pale of Islam (as discussed at o8.7) and necessitate stating the Testification of Faith (Shahada)…
o8.2 In such a case, it is obligatory for the caliph (A: or his representative) to ask him to repent and return to Islam. If he does, it is accepted from him, but if he refuses, he is immediately killed
(A: though if there is no Caliph (def: o25), no permission is required.
o8.7 (2) to intend to commit unbelief, even if in the future. And like this intention is hesitating whether to do so or not: one therby immediately commits unbelief:
(The Reliance of the Traveller)

Countries with theocratic regimes or tendencies, puts pressure on everyone to become Muslim. I’m certain most Muslim’s as a rule, are pretty good folks, yet the ideology of Islam, encourages the struggling towards the political goal of the dominance of Islamic law. However, the existence of good a Muslim does not invalidate Islamic teachings from the Qur’an that advocate intolerance and violence toward non-Muslims.

o1.2 The following are not subject to retaliation:
(2) a Muslim for killing a non-Muslim
(3) ….for killing an apostate…
(pgs. 580-590 / Reliance of the Traveller)
o4:17 There is no indemnity for killing a non-Muslim...
(pgs 588-595)

How many Generals during WWII would have been willing to kiss Mein Kampf :confused:

If the anger towards the Muslim population is as predominant as the original article indicates, wouldn’t there be a backlash?

The rest here > http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=34363

Very well said, Chef.

Lost a lot of co-workers that day, and a part of my soul. A lot of folks did.

In addition, each and every precious American Soldier, who has since given their life in battle against this enemy, are the ones whom I would ask, "Is The War On Terror's Other Cost: Undeserved Anger At All Muslims?"

Some Americans will never forget, and will never forgive.

Holly

Gawd...how un-WWJD...or is it. :rolleyes:

Richard's $.02 :munchin

This posting was the lunch conversation with me and Big H. He knows where I am coming from albeit rather a bit more emotional (cuz I am a girl) than for some of you. Penn, hadn't posted his comments before I left for lunch...but I am 100% with him.

The interesting thing about the lunch, my fortune cookie stated "Hate does not conquer hate. Only love can conquer hate". How appropo, right?

I agree with Echoes to an extent....I did forgive but I didn't forget. I will never forget and until every last one of them is either sent packing or they realize this is America, not another nation of islam...none of them will be my friend. None of them are the slightest bit removed from suspicion. Those monsters that perpetrated the most heinous attack on our country...they assimilated. They were neighbors, co-workers, friends, fellow students. Look what they did!!

I appreciate and respect everyone's opinion on this forum. We are all entitled to our feelings ...especially about things we are passionate about. But no amount of "feel good, kumbyah" stories will change my mind about them. And when I am put in a position where I HAVE TO deal with them, I am polite and businesslike but I do not go out of my way for them.

Richard Sir,

If you so choose, you will have to explain the above abreviations, because I do not know what you have said, Sir.:( Sorry....

My sentiment remains the same:

"...Each and every precious American Soldier, who has since given their life in battle against this enemy, are the ones whom I would ask, "Is The War On Terror's Other Cost: Undeserved Anger At All Muslims?"

Holly:munchin

Delusional political correctness, but in the end, muslim strategy at work.

Appeasement, Accommodation, & rationalization

Rationalization….yeah….however, I do not believe they should be accommodated nor appeased, and I think Islam should be demoted to cult status.

Nevertheless, my views fall more in line with those of Hassan Yousef: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odTyzaKYYd8

My father was an employee of Marsh and the impact of 9/11 was nothing short of devastation - 295 employees & 60 contractors were killed :mad:

IMO, Muslims are like Obama voters, a few of them may mean well, but they know not what they do...

According to some theologian somewhere in History, some Jewish guy may have said that once...;)

And so it goes...

Richard :munchin

Or,

I remember the Jesuits were very firm disciplinarians, and no matter how much I wanted Hey Suez to intervene, he was a no show.

WWJD, what HS always does, transcend into vapor, put the mojo on the next spiritual leader who has been echoing his direct contacts and construct a musk-ox at ground zero, as a faith based test on true enlightment, forgiveness, and oneness with the various single deity belief systems; all mind you, as a marketing ploy to create revenues streams tied to sales insuring the believers resting spot next to the pearly gates. Or, Hey Suez, in his galactic comedic awareness has you invest your life savings not in Jim Jones, but in Bernie Madoff. HS, then reclines in his chair, lights a cobia, chuckles over Fidel, and Hugo, and thinks " Damm that was a great last name I gave Bernie". While in the background, you hear someone complain' to no one in particular "Jesus Christ what are you doing".
Out of the whirl wind you hear " Oh nothing , just Giving Nuclear weapons to I'm in Jihad".

Richard Sir,

Again, am confused.:confused:

:(

Holly......

The days of the sign gifts have ceased, or at least… until you see those from Judea fleeing to the mountains :D

Meanwhile, the TJ principle applies :D

“I abuse the priests indeed, who have so much abused the pure and holy doctrines of their master, and who have laid me under no obligation to reticence as to the tricks of their trade. The genuine system of Jesus, and the artificial structure they have erected (clergy), to make them the instruments of wealth, power and pre-eminence to themselves, are as distinct things in my view as light and darkness: and while I have classed them with soothsayers and necramancer, I place him among the greatest of the reformers of morals, and scourges of priest-craft that have ever existed. They felt him as such, and never rested until they had silenced him by death.”

Holly,
Sir Richard is referring to Jesus on the Cross saying "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing" Luke23:34

IMHO, Islam as a religion is not peaceful, however, some Muslims are - trust is an issue - al Taqiyya.

Those that undertake Islam's political goal as an earthly religious duty, the subjugation of all non-Muslims to Islamic law, are just as dangerous as the ones blowing themselves up. Extremely devout mainstream "moderate" Muslims who've succumbed to Islamic ideology who are active, working towards the end-goal of worldwide Islamic dominance, are just as dangerous as the radicals IMO.

You be the judge...

o9.0
(O: Jihad means to war against non-Muslims, and is etymologically derived from the word mujahada, signifying warfare to establish the religion.

o9.1 Jihad is a communal obligation (def: c3.2). When enough people perform it to successfully accomplish it, it is no longer obligatory upon others.

Not equal are those believers who sit (at home) and receive no hurt, and those who strive and fight in the cause of Allah with their goods and their persons. Allah hath granted a grade higher to those who strive and fight with their goods and persons than to those who sit (at home). Unto all (in Faith) Hath Allah promised good: But those who strive and fight Hath He distinguished above those who sit (at home) by a special reward,- (Qur'an 4:95)

‘Fighting is prescribed for you’ (Qur'an 2:216)

‘Slay them wherever you find them’ (Qur'an 4:89)

‘Fight the idolaters utterly’ (Qur'an 9:36)

(A: though if there is no caliph (def: o25), no permission is required).

Then, when the sacred months have passed, slay the idolaters wherever ye find them, and take them (captive), and besiege them, and prepare for them each ambush. But if they repent and establish worship and pay the poor-due (Jizya), then leave their way free. Lo! Allah is Forgiving, Merciful. (Qur'an 9:5)

o9.8 The caliph makes war upon Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians [kafirs] (N: provided he has first invited them to enter Islam in faith and practice, and if they will not, then invited them to enter the social order of Islam by paying the non-Muslim poll tax (jizya, def: o11.4) - which is the significance of their paying it, not the money itself-while remaining in their ancestral regions) (O: and the war continues) until they become Muslim or else pay the non-Muslim poll tax (O: in accordance with the word of Allah Most High.

(A: though if there is no caliph (def: o25), no permission is required).

Sources - have at it :D

http://www.usc.edu/schools/college/c.../muslim/quran/

http://www.usc.edu/schools/college/c...muslim/hadith/

http://www.amazon.com/Reliance-Trave.../dp/0915957728

http://www.wikiislam.com/wiki/The_Le...ter_Jihad_Myth

Hate
 

My best friend's Grandpa taught me how to fish and throw a football as a kid. He was tough, honest, and extremely generous. He had served at Okinawa in WW2 and hated the Japanese. He would not own anything made in Japan, let us watch Godzilla movies at his house, or even eat at a Japanese steakhouse. He was never rude to anyone, but he would tell us, "boys remember you just can't trust them." I don't know what he experienced during the war, and though I don't share this belief, I don't judge his views either.

9/11 is emotional for many Americans. I still don't like Ground Zero, I lost friends there. The notion of that Mosque going up there is reprehensible to me. I want AQ and their supporters terminated, no questions asked.

America is a great melting pot of immigrants, a land of freedom and opportunity, yet have we forgotten the past errors of singling out fellow Americans in times of crisis because of their heritage or background, instead of their actions and character?

A Sikh taxi driver who often took me to work in 2001 , draped his cab with US flags after 9/11. He said " imagine the irony of this, they actually think I am Muslim"

Bad men are bad men, whatever they choose to call god.

Frankly, a man I respect had "TAC AIR" on the last line of his dog tags in Southeast Asia... which as faith goes is elegantly pragmatic, and perhaps a solution for all sorts of crisis....

Saudi/Ivy League
 

Mr. Paine could you expand on this train of thought?

Hate
 

Interesting...

The theology and legal system of Islam codified by sharia with Muhammad as the role model is nothing more than a system of legally-mandated hatred.

Big "Mo" hated non-Muslims and advocated the enslavement, robbery, rape, and torture of the Kafir - nice guy he was :munchin

How much funding from overseas does it take before we realize that it has significantly influence academia to promote an agenda?

http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/1741
http://www.breitbart.tv/gingrich-sla...saudi-funding/
http://spme.net/cgi-bin/articles.cgi?ID=85

As one key example, John Esposito is perhaps the highest paid intellectual prostitute out there:
http://www.investigativeproject.org/...ion-vs-reality
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...121200591.html

http://97.74.65.51/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=29951
http://www.faithfreedom.org/articles...-saudi-puppet/

This disgusting issue has to be re-framed, the marketing argument should not be a political discussion based in 1st amendment religious rights, a musk-ox constructed at ground zero. It should not be called a religious center. It should be address by member of the press sympathetic to the subtleties of muslim intent for what it is, as:

"The Muslim Victory Center Located At Ground Zero".

By re-framing the center as a triumphant memorial maybe all of America will refocus
and see how insidious and determine muslim are, by employing our cultural sensibilities(freedom of choice/right to worship/ speech) against us.

I do not support the construction of the "Muslim Victory Center Located At Ground Zero".

Listening to FOX this morning, the vote is coming this morning, is it or is it not a go. If this building is NOT landmarked (the one they want to tear down for the Palace of Evil), up goes the Palace of Evil and hello to tons of asspain!
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/08/03...d-zero-mosque/

They TRIED to interview two gentlemen regarding this matter. One, a muslim who "over spoke" the American when he was trying to give his argument as to why this mosque should not happen and as he related a story of a Mother, who lost her FDNY son in Tower 1. She left the committee meeting last week, after arguing with these dhimmis, and had a heart attack. Immediately, of course, it's a lie and its hate spewing.

T-Rock, I find your posts very informative and I thank you for them. However, I do not see islam as a religion. It is an ideology. It encompassed the very definition of an ideology. And for the fanatics....a cult!

Broadsword, yes this is a very emotional issue. I think it should be for every American who loves, respects and values this country and what she has stood for. Now, with the help of the new Emperor and the amount of money that the muslims have poured into this nation, we are going to hell in a handbasket.


UPDATE: The dhimmis have approved the Palace of Evil. They did not landmark the building. Mayor Bloomberg and this committee has spat all over the people we lost that day and their families.

When every enemy organization that is at War with the U.S right now. Referes to their religion when talking about the defeat of their enemy, The U.S. How is it prejudice when we hate this enemy.
When we fought the Japanese we hated Japanese in general. Maybe Bloomberg thinks if they build enough Mosques in the City they won't attack NY again. You know, it's called Surrender.

Precision not Surrender
 

Sir,

My question is not so much prejudice as precision. America has to fight and kill those at war with her, this won't change, I am grateful for your service, and of all the vets here. There are veterans here of several conflicts. However, reading through the posts here on Southeast Asia for example you don't see this bile for the Vietnamese people. The NVA, and the VC who did barbaric things to villages etc, yes. The corrupt South Vietnamese administration, yes. If anything there is compassion for the sufferings of the Vietnamese people, an understanding that terror and Marxist ideology were forced upon them. There is also respect and admiration for those who fought at our side, the Montagnards, and ARVN when properly led. Folks might say the Vietnamese never attacked America, okay then how about the Japanese, WW2 especially in the Pacific with the cultural differences was a different scenario, the conventional nature of the conflict as well as the geography dictated the only contact our troops had with the Japanese until the occupation was with determined enemy soldiers. Yet during the occupation many veteran accounts of Axis civilians were they were just like people everywhere good and bad, led into a brutal conflict by militant dictators.

Once again at the point you take up arms against the USA, you are the enemy period. What were our views on the Mujahideen when with our support and training they were taking on the Soviets? There are folks here who worked with them, They were still Muslims, were they all evil back then too, was it simply the lesser of two evils?

What happens in 2050 if our grandkids are eyeball to eyeball with the Chinese in a big conventional war? If Iraq has developed into a modern secular state, and both they and NATO Turkey have sent troops to fight on our side, what will our views on Islamic allies be then? History seems to guarantee our friends and enemies flip flop as time and shared interest passes.

This thread is an emotional topic for many of us. By my read the original post here cited Flight Engineer Young's positive experiences with Muslims in Bangladesh, just his $.02. Many folks here are familiar with the views on Islam that BTDT types like MSM Billy Waugh and Major Gant have. IMHO their experiences are extremely salient, not because they were SF, on an SF site, but due to the depth of their experience, because they are both soldiers who lived among the people in Islamic nations, they fought against and with Muslims, yet they were clear on who exactly the enemy is.

Ivy League Islam
 

Mr. Paine,

I read through the provided links with the above quote in mind. Thank you for posting them, by my read I formed the following impressions.

1) Harvard was hypocritical in accepting Saudi money, given their views on homosexuality, and then turning on the ROTC for the same reason.

2) $20 million doesn't buy you much Islamic influence at Harvard, remember this was the school who's endowment was so profitable they were considering doing away with undergraduate tuition before 2008 hit.

3) Kagan and Esposito are misguided and myopic at best.

4) The Saudi prince's allocating money to two colleges in the US and the Middle East for greater education and cultural understanding isn't a bad idea, he lost me with his views on American responsibility for 9/11, kudos to Rudy Giuliani for telling him to shove his $10 million check given these views.

Finally, having worked almost extensively with Ivy League graduates my experience, other than an annoying persistent sense of entitlement and increasing lack of "common sense" ( no monopoly here), on the whole they tend to be very bright and capable once you hit them over the head a few times.

America was this once....true. But no longer. Instead of a melting pot of cultures and ideals becoming that which made us uniquely "American", we have become a salad bowl of individual cultures existing within the same space. Each entity fighting for it's own identity within our borders. We are no longer striving to be "Americans" - we are Latin Americans, African Americans, Italian Americans, Asian Americans, Pacific Islander Americans, and any other "de-jour" cultural or ethnic title to be placed in front of what we USED to be....Americans.

Everyone wants their own month, week, leader recognition, poster, tax break, college fund, grant, statue, etc....the Statue of Liberty no longer good enough for all.

So too when it comes to jihadists and the Muslim community, only we (collectively) as now "Culturally Sensitive America" bend over backwards to ALLOW freedoms of those trying to DESTROY us. We abhor "profiling" of Arab looking men at Airports or on aircraft while they are speaking in their own language...but stop the 4 year old blonde haired, blue eyed, white kid going through security with his blue haired grandmother.

We are building a FRIGGING MOSQUE at the site of one of the worst attacks on US Soil EVER, and "we" are supposed to be OK with that. The NYPD will have to defend it, investigate threats against it, and people who lost loved ones at GZ will have to walk by that abomination of poor taste EVERY TIME they visit the place where their family member was killed. No doubt call to prayer will be broadcast 5 times daily.

Our government now lacks the will to do the EASY right, for fear of hurting the feelings of others. Whether it be from Islamic Extremists, or from illegal immigrants. Oddly enough, the same person can indeed be both.

Penn said it best...it is a victory monument. And it, as well as the cowards who have allowed it to come to fruition, absolutely disgust me.

Eagle

If they ever get it built, I hope they have excellent security, for their sakes.

I, for one, cannot get the image out of my mind of the cheeering crowds throughout the Middle East on the afternoon of 9/11.

That told me everything I needed to know right there.

We just gave the Paks $10,000,000 in aid money yesterday, for a nation where almost 90% of the public hates us more than Al Qaeda. Just put it on our kids' and grandkids' tabs.

I do not like this. At all. But that is just me.

TR

AKV,

My father,bless his soul,was Sicilian and was drafted at 37 years old in 1942,he was married and had one child,my self,big teddy........He could have easily gotten out of serving his country because of his age and dependent status but he didn't,his only request was not to have to serve and fight in the European front because he had significant family n Sicily,believe it or not,the Army honored his request..........:confused: He was a Combat Medic who served in the Pacific from Guadacanal to Okinawa..........He HATED the Japanese and with good reason,he saw more shit than most men are required to see......... Heavy duty experiences that left him with memories he tried to forget,but never,ever to forgive.........My point is those like Saoirse, who have suffered, and find this request appalling and so it should be!............. Its like putting a Japanese Memorial on the very site of the USS Arizona !!!!! And yes,Richard I saw your post,I thank GOD my father never had to....... I'm an old man who looks at WTF is happening regarding this particular issue and I just thank GOD,and if you should happen to get a little tear in your eye from remembering that hallowed day,well thank God for you your still an American............... :) (Excuse my grammar and spelling I'm sure I'll be taken to task by my brother QP's,but as always, in a PM as not to embarrass me in front of the Forum)........;)

Big Teddy :munchin

:munchin

Profound and to the point...

Read the rest here > http://www.jstreetjive.com/2010/08/k...-ruins-of.html

On 9/12 one had a one-time opportunity for all Americans to come together. All did. Except the Muslims. Did you see them marching in the streets in protest of the attack on our country? No. They just stayed home. We could have stood there, arm in arm as fellow countryment. But no.

I don't trust them because of their religion. I don't trust them because they never cried with us. They celebrated. A man cannot serve two masters. He will love the one and dispise the other. That's a quote, Richard.

They have not joined the right side so they must be on the wrong side.

These scenes will be forever seared in my memory :mad:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6uOf...eature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMOZv...eature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3u3r...eature=related

Absolutely couldn't agree more, if theirs is a religion of peace why don't they publically denounce those who do evil in the name of their faith and their god? Why is it that the only clerics/imams we hear from are those that preach hate...why do we never hear from any who preach peace... I was raised Catholic and every time some idiot shot up or blew up an abortion clinic I heard how wrong it was from priests and bishops on the news and in my churches, I have yet to see an imam or cleric on TV denouncing the CONSTANT attacks on innocents by extremists both here and around the world, maybe they say it in their Mosques, it’s hard to say as non believers are not allowed to enter....I guess they don’t want to have to be constantly cleaning the floors of the blood of infidels after they remove their heads as dictated by the Koran...

Who are "They"?
 

Sir,

I see the clips of Palestinians cheering 9/11 and my first thought is lets just pull our troops back and turn the whole place into a glowing parking lot. But Sir, where does this end? My question is who exactly is "They"? At the core of our legal system, is a belief which though maddening at times, states we would rather see guilty men walk then innocent men convicted of crimes, such beliefs make us a great nation. Operating under the assumptions we put America's interests first, the people of Palestine, Iraq, and Afghanistan are currently relevant in that enhanced modernization and stability in the Middle East will reduce the chance of nuclear proliferation and further more devastating attacks on our shores.

I was a NY'er in 2001, by my recollection the city was in a state of shock for weeks. People were good to each other for the most part yet there was a lot of fear. Frankly most people I saw with olive skin or Middle Eastern features were scared of retaliation, and the ignorance/backlash of mobs. There was an Afghan Kebab House draped with US flags, Sikh taxi drivers hoping folks would know the difference, and a third generation American of Lebanese Christian descent friend of mine reading a Sports Illustrated was kicked off a flight home to Memphis because some lady said he made her nervous? In this environment would you expect American Muslims to take to the streets arm in arm to show solidarity, perhaps the brave ones. I wonder how Japanese Americans would have been received in Times Square on December 8, 1941? Many of them went on to serve our country bravely in combat while their parents were interned.

If "They" are AQ terrorists or insurgents, or frankly anyone planning or taking up arms against America, they gotta go period. But is "They" law abiding Americans who call god a certain name, or folks in rural Afghan villages who are human currency for the Taliban, or folks like the Bangladeshi cadets Mr. Young mentioned, how are they the enemy?

We have seen instances of Muslims denouncing radical Islam, AQ, terror tactics etc, and they are brushed aside as crocodile tears, Taqiyah or disingenuous by those who advocate The Heart of Darkness solution.

We are Americans, not Soviets or Nazi's their eternal infamy has already shown us the dangers of this path; personally this issue brings the following two quotes to mind. My fear is our enemies cause us to abandon our values and turn on ourselves.

Who are "They"?
 

Hitler's Jews of Mein Kampf are Muhammad's Kafir of the Qur'an...

Powerful. Poignant. Too bad most Americans don't even know what a Kafir is.

LINK:
www.politicalislam.com/blog/kafir

Not by me, Big Teddy. Never!

Personally, I think you missed, or deflected, AKV's point.