If you don't back the Muslims who speak out for moderation, you're not going to get any moderation.
If you do back the Muslims who appear moderate, you get Arafat syndrome. They've got the deck stacked, because they don't consider us to be human beings, and anything goes when dealing with us.
He's lying through his teeth. Islam a religion of moderation? In what? Moderate beating of wives? Moderate in execution of rape victims? Moderately letting schoolgirls burn to death for fear their ankles would show? Moderately raising a generation of suicide bombers? At the very same event at which he is speaking, they're stoning Bush, Blair, and Sharon as the Devil!
You can find this very same speech from countless imams, Islam is peace, Islam is moderate, Islam does not encourage terror. But when that say that one day out of the year and the other 364 are about how you are commanded to kill the infidel in the name of jihad, it is not representative nor moderate to pick out the one thing he dissimulates for the infidel's consumption.
Until we see actions - removing imams who preach terror, for example, would be a good-faith start, or declare terrorists to be apostate and not merely misguided, and mobilize their followers to seek and punish them - then this is certain to be taqqiyah, the Islamic doctrine of lying to the enemy to gain advantage over him.
from MEMRI (it's in English)
As the Imam of the Al-Harram mosque in Mecca, Sheikh Abd Al-Rahman Al-Sudais explained in one of his sermons: "Brothers in faith, what do our Koran and our Sunna say? What does our belief say? What does our history prove…? They show clearly that the conflict between us and the Jews is one of belief, identity, and existence…" "Read history and you will understand that the Jews of yesterday are the evil forefathers of the even more evil Jews of today: infidels, falsifiers of words, calf worshippers, prophet murderers, deniers of prophecies… the scum of the human race, accursed by Allah, who turned them into apes and pigs… These are the Jews - an ongoing continuum of deceit, obstinacy, licentiousness, evil, and corruption…" "Oh nation of Islam, today our nation is at the height of conflict with the enemies of yesterday, today, and tomorrow - the offspring of [the three Jewish tribes of Al-Madina] Banu Qurayza, Banu Nadhir, and Banu Qaynuqa, upon whom Allah's curse rests until Judgment Day. Do the sons of our people realize the truth about the nation of wrath and deceit…? The insult to and contempt of Arabs, Muslims, and their holy places reaches its height at the hands of the rats of the world, the violators of agreements, in whose minds abide treachery, destruction, and deceit and in whose veins flow occupation and tyranny… They are indeed worthy of the curse of Allah, of the angels, and of all people…" [23]Wake up and learn what we're dealing with.
"If you don't back the muslims who speak out for moderation, your not going to get any moderation."
Personally I'm not holding my breath until 2 moderate muslims show up...not that their definition of moderation would match MY definition of moderation.
My definition of a moderate muslim is one who is standing in line at the airport with a valid ticket back to his/her country of origin...
"If you don't back the Muslims who speak out for moderation, you're not going to get any moderation."
I couldn't agree more. Why abase the very sentiment that many complain has not been expressed among Muslims? We are still trying to win hearts and minds to keep our troops and ourselves safe, that effort involves supporting clerics like this.
Let the Muslims who fear eradication come forth and denounce Islam, and they'll be OK, in the end.
HEY HEY HEY NOW! That will be just about enough of that making sense. Don't you know all REAL patriots know that this is a war against Islam, and all Muslims live only to kill us?
All REAL patriots that is except for George Bush Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, Condi Rice, Richard Perle, Natan Sharansky, Michael Novak, Daniel Pipes, Bernard Lewis....and me.