Posted on 10/25/2003 5:21:58 AM PDT by sarcasm
The White House has issued President Bush's annual greeting to Muslims around the world who will observe the holy month of Ramadan.
In his message, President Bush says Islam is a peaceful religion that has helped shape the character of the United States, and has made great contributions to the world.
Mr. Bush said Americans cherish the freedom to worship and, he said, "we remain committed to welcoming individuals of all religions."
During Ramadan, President Bush said Muslims fast, pray, contemplate and renew their commitment to lead lives of honesty, integrity and compassion.
We're talking about the religious faith of American citizens.
There is one simple thing that I notice seems to have been overlooked about this entire matter - allow me to explain -
What would be the reaction to President Bush if he stood before the world and said that Christianity was a religion of peace and tolerance - But the Anglicans have perverted a peaceful religion.
"Anglicans who claim Christianity as their inspiration defile one of the world's greatest faiths. Homosexuality has no place in any religious tradition. It must find no home in America."
Think!
Now consider this - Of over 1 Billion Muslims worldwide an estimated 5-10% of them are fundamentalists (depending on who you ask) - that is 50-100 million people worldwide!!
The remaining 90-95% are for the most part sympathizers (moderates) who, when push comes to shove will ultimately support their own.
What President Bush has done and continues to do is to excuse the western-like moderate Muslims and attack the fundamentalists and this is the wrong strategy.
The correct strategy would be to attack ALL of Islam and force the moderates to deal with the extremist views in their own religion. In the short term this seems bad, but it will have the effect of forcing moderate Muslims to purge the extremists from their midst for their own self-preservation.
What President Bush has accomplished does just the opposite and now we have the entire Muslim world against us. You are fooling yourself if you think that any Muslim country is actually helping the United States. They are helping themselves.
In another thread Im told that moderate Muslim countries like Indonesia are "helping" us. This is simply not true. They are helping themselves. The US government is paying MILLIONS of dollars for the Autocratic Indonesian government to hand over a few small fish while the big fish like Bashir go basically untouched.
It is a religious war and the sooner we realize it the better off we will be.
9/11 was just the beginning for what is worse to come.
Between 100 - 200 million people have been killed or died under atheistic (communist) regimes. Millions have died at the hands of atheists, why aren't you denouncing atheism?
I’ve been watching this discussion for a while, and you really are a poor debater. Ad hominem attacks (including comparing those here critical of Islam to the KKK), hiding behind “the group” (in this case, for some reason, anonymous soldiers at Fort Lewis), and as quoted above, gross exaggeration to the point of unintelligible nonsense.
You choose not to debate the tenets of Islam, which are at all times and in all places antithetical to the continued existence of our Democratic Republic, but instead keep littering the discussion with red herrings and strawmen.
Since you insist on using the Muslims in the military as a shield for your beliefs, can you explain, without resorting to the tactics listed above, why Chaplain Abdul-Rashid Muhammad, the most senior Muslim chaplain in the U.S. military, asked two prominent Islamic scholars in the U.S. for a fatwa (religious ruling)on the permissibility of U.S. Muslim servicemen to participate in the war effort in Afghanistan and other Muslim countries prior to Operation Enduring Freedom? A press release publicizing this fatwa (which, in somewhat bitter irony, also heralds Chaplain James Yee as the newest Islamic chaplain) is widely available on DOS websites worldwide
Did servicemen of any other religion require a ruling from their religious hierarchy before they proceeded into battle? And how does the publication of such a religious ruling by our State Department, and value judgments about a particular religion by our President accord with our jealously-guarded constitutional injunction against promotion of any particular religion?
We know, from the precepts of Islam, why this fatwa was necessary – that Muslims owe their allegiance to Islam before country, and for a Muslim to kill a Muslim is a worse crime than to kill an infidel. We saw, with Sargeant Akbar of the 101st Airborne, how such an allegiance can lead to divided loyalty, treason and murder, and there have been reports of Muslim soldiers (in an all-volunteer military) requesting religious exemptions from battle in the camps in Kuwait prior to the Iraq war.
Exactly how does this fractured allegiance to Islam benefit the military?
I will explain in any manner I wish. The United States military doesn't seem to have any objections with the points you bring up. In fact, the United States military has not revoked any security clearances simply because a member is Muslim. They are not excluding Muslim's from any fields nor from deployment. They recognize the contribution of Muslims to the point where they have introduced Muslim Chaplins and supported them.
In short, the United States military doesn't seem to have the reservations about the loyalty of abilities of Muslim's that some civilians on this thread do. The United States military also must accept the Muslim faith as legitmate with their support of it through the Chaplain's Corps.
Now I know some people do not like the fact that:
- Muslim American's are valued members of the United States military.
- That Muslim service men and women are defending this nation in Iraq already, and more will soon deploy to joing them.
- That the United States military gives full recogniztion to Muslim troops and their faith.
- That the Commander in Chief honors those citizens, their courage and their duty no less then he does that of Christian or Jew.
You cannot separate those, as you call them anonymouse troops, from this argument simply because it is not convenient for you.
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