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

[Richard]

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

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

[Bordercop]

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.

[Sigaba]

Originally Posted by Bordercop

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

<<SNIP>>

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.

<<SNIP>>

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

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:

...Terrorist movements often arise in reaction to an injustice, real or imagined, that they feel must be corrected. Yet ideology is rarely the only, or even the most important, factor in an individual's decision to join the cause. The reasons that people become terrorists are as varied as the reasons that others choose their professions: market conditions, social networks, education, individual preferences. Just as the passion for justice and law that drives a lawyer at first may not be what keeps him working at a law firm, a terrorist's motivations for remaining in, or leaving, his "job" change over time. Deradicalization programs need to take account -- and advantage -- of these variations and shifts in motivations.

Interestingly, terrorists who claim to be driven by religious ideology are often ignorant about Islam. Our hosts in Riyadh told us that the vast majority of the deradicalization program's "beneficiaries," as its administrators call participants, had received little formal education and had only a limited understanding of Islam. In the Netherlands and elsewhere in Europe, second- and third-generation Muslim youth are rebelling against the kind of "soft" Islam practiced by their parents and promoted in local mosques. They favor what they think is the "purer" Islam, uncorrupted by Western culture, which is touted on some Web sites and by self-appointed imams from the Middle East who are barely educated themselves. For example, the Netherlands-based terrorist cell known as the Hofstad Group designed what one police officer described as a "do-it-yourself" version of Islam based on interpretations of takfiri ideology (takfir is the practice of accusing other Muslims of apostasy) culled from the Internet and the teachings of a drug dealer turned cleric.

Such true believers are good candidates for the kind of ideological reeducation undertaken by Task Force 134 in Iraq and by the prison-based deradicalization program in Saudi Arabia. A Saudi official told the group of us who visited the Care Rehabilitation Center in Riyadh last winter that the main reason for terrorism was ignorance about the true nature of Islam. Clerics at the center teach that only the legitimate rulers of Islamic states, not individuals such as Osama bin Laden, can declare a holy war. They preach against takfir and the selective reading of religious texts to justify violence. One participant in the program told us, "Now I understand that I cannot make decisions by reading a single verse. I have to read the whole chapter."

[Penn]

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

[echoes]

Originally Posted by Penn

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.

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

[Richard]

...and will never forgive.

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

Richard's $.02

[olhamada]

I've been off line for a while, but grateful to see some PASSION behind this issue finally.

I was infuriated when I first heard about it, and am simply in stunned disbelief that NYC is actually thinking of allowing this for PC's sake.

We need to stop being PC and finally get some balls and be Americans with national defense as a first priority. Where did "defend her from all enemies foreign AND DOMESTIC" go? Starting with our CinC.

I love the sign I saw on the news yesterday - "We'll build a mosque in NYC when you build a synagogue in Mecca".

Originally Posted by Penn

6. I am beyond anger, I am hateful to the core of my being. If you're a {deleted}, 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.

As one of Lebanese ancestry, I must admit that I'm a bit sensitive to this, so I've gotta ask - What's your definition of a "{deleted}" - a Muslim or an Arab? Keep in mind that they are not interchangeable groups. Many Arabs are Christian and most Muslims are not Arab - in fact only 1 in 4 are. That said, most Lebanese don't really consider themselves Arab.

[Thomas Paine]

Originally Posted by akv

"Good Nazis" would seem to be an oxymoron for anyone with common sense.

Glad we can agree on one point. Have you studied the doctrine of islam enough to know that is or is not evil. Clearly not given your remarks. And let’s not make this a theological discussion of the significant differences between the Judeo-Christian God and the prince of darkness known as Allah (yes, the Allah of islam was/is the pagan moon god.)

Originally Posted by akv

If there is a lesson to be learned from the Nazis, it is we should never forget how they came to power, how they suspended civil rights bit by bit, how they turned on subsections of their own citizenry, the evils they perpetuated by manipulating fear, and most importantly how it ended for them.

My point exactly. And what do you know of the Muslim Brotherhood. Al Qaeda and their ilk are NOT the only enemy. Yet you seem solely focused on those who would pull triggers or plant bombs. What about the financiers? What about those engaged in legal warfare as an active method of advancing sharia law? And those involved in political warfare and cultural warfare?

Shall we ignore ALL of the other aspects of jihad?

You claim not to know the doctrine in one breath, yet unwilling to accept the possibility that when you pick up that rock there will be snakes under it. Read the sharia. Read their doctrine. Study it. Until you do, STFU.

Originally Posted by akv

IMHO the difference in our beliefs, is you think of Islam as a disease, that once exposed turns you into a mindless zombie, which supercedes everything else in life, character, family, tribe, ethnicity, nationality etc. it doesn't matter if you are a man, woman, or child, once exposed you are fockered forever, period.

I have never said that. There are some, few, who have escaped the evil grip of islam. Nonie Darwish is one whom I admire deeply. Ayaan Hirsi Ali is another. Dr Zuhdi Jasser is a muslim whom I believe has the best of intentions, but his personal opinions simply cannot overcome the weight of the doctrine he is attempting to reform. The laws surrounding scholarly consensus simply do not allow for the reformation of islam.
Do you even know what scholarly consensus is?
What the requirements are to reach scholarly consensus?
What the implications are?
How can you change scholarly consensus? You can’t. End of discussion.

Originally Posted by akv

I see it as just another operating system. I'm amazed at folks who believe they are privy to the true thoughts and intentions of men, woman, and children they don't know or of a particular faith they don't share.

I NEVER claimed to be privy to anyone’s thoughts. This is an analysis of their doctrine as they have written and confirmed it’s translation as true and accurate. If you want to talk about someone who claims to know the thoughts, lets talk about Georgetown’s John Esposito, who wrote an entire book on a survey without including a copy of the survey or the methods which it was administered.

Originally Posted by akv

I don't think I can selectively interpret the true meaning of their scripture, or give them lectures on the evils of their faith, nor am I omnipotent enough to identify crocodile tears from condemnation of violent acts perpetuated in the name of their faith.

Not discussion faith here. Islam is a political doctrine. Faith deals with what one has to do to get to heave. The preponderance of islam is focused on how muslims should deal with non-muslims. And that is political, not religious.

Originally Posted by akv

You can argue talk is cheap, yes but that is a double edged sword. I don't imagine most Muslims like being told they are all terrorists anymore than Christians would appreciate being reminded men of your faith started WW2 and perpetuated the Holocaust.

I don’t care what muslims do or don’t “like” being told. If they don’t like being told that their faith makes them adherents to an evil ideology, perhaps they should renounce that evil ideology.

But THEY CAN’T!

Why?

That evil ideology REQUIRES them to be KILLED for apostacy in renouncing their faith.

Nice huh?

Originally Posted by akv

I remind myself I have not walked in your shoes as a military officer, however Major Gant has, he has lived among Muslims, eaten their salt, played with their kids and fought their insurgent enemies. Sir, what are your views on his experiences, beliefs, and suggestions? I believe he is brave, and insightful, am I wrong?

You are wrong. But not about MAJ Gant. This is an interesting attempt at a digression towards getting me to denigrate a Special Forces Officer. I will not take the bait. MAJ Gant is as brave and as patriotic as any American willing to put on a uniform and cross the pond to face our enemies. He is well intentioned and may have had luck on a LOCAL basis.

This is a GLOBAL threat. It’s an evil, racist, supremacist ideology that was promulgated by a 6th century mass-murdering gangster pedophile.

And it MUST BE STOPPED.

[Thomas Paine]

Originally Posted by Sigaba

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

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.

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.

[T-Rock]

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

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

The Phantom Backlash
by Robert Spencer

Backlash fever is sweeping the nation...

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano declared: “We object to, and do not believe, that anti-Muslim sentiment should emanate from this. This was an individual who does not represent the Muslim faith.” She said that DHS was taking steps to “prevent everybody being painted with a broad brush.”

The media was mining the same territory. AP reported Friday that there had been “immediate” anti-Muslim “backlash.” What happened? Did armed bands of furious Islamophobes throw molotov cocktails at mosques? Did ferocious white supremacists maul fragile little girls in hijabs on their way to school? Did angry bigots spit at pious imams quietly going about their business?

No.

Had there been any report -- any report at all -- of any innocent, random Muslim being attacked in a “backlash” after the Fort Hood jihad?

Nope. Not one. Americans are decent people. Americans believe people are innocent until proven guilty...

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

[Penn]

This is the wrong headline, it has nothing to do with Asian men, it's not racial, its Muslims and their world view.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/...dCU_story.html

9 men sent to jail in UK for raping, abusing girls in case that stirred racial tensions

“All of you treated (the victims) as though they were worthless and beyond any respect,” the judge told the nine men. “One of the factors leading to that was the fact that they were not part of your community or religion.”

[Richard]

Originally Posted by Penn

This is the wrong headline, it has nothing to do with Asian men, it's not racial, its Muslims and their world view.

D - I don't think it's as simple as that.

• Based on their ancestry, I think Islam may be a contributing factor for a number of this group, but we don't know that all of these men are, in fact, Muslim.
• Geographically speaking, they are Asian men.*
• Such racially motivated behaviors remains a factor amongst groups where social alienation and the latent effects of various international policies (e.g., colonialism, slavery, religion, etc) continue to be used as perverse justification for people's misbehaviors throughout our modern world.

And so it goes...

Richard

* South Asia - Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, and Bangladesh.