Posted on 10/22/2006 7:50:40 PM PDT by World_Events
WEST POINT, N.Y. (AP) _ Muslims at the U.S. Military Academy numbered just two in 2001. This year, there are 32.
Now West Point has opened its first space dedicated to Muslims, a worship hall complete with a pulpit facing Mecca. The space officially opened Thursday.
"I knew the Army had a policy of religious tolerance, but I didn't know it was to this extent," said first-year Cadet Ahmed Moomin, 20, from the Maldives.
Until now, Friday prayers were held in an increasingly crowded first-floor office, said Imam Asadullah, the academy's Muslim cleric. The number of Muslim cadets jumped by 10 from last year.
The new hall is large enough for dozens of followers, he said.
West Point's Muslim leaders approached administrators last year for help.
"We live in a world where everyone is looking at the United States saying, 'You're anti-Islam.' But here at West Point, that's not what we do," West Point Chaplain Col. John Cook said.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsday.com ...
Maybe in some other countries. Not in the U.S. It's like any other religion in a couple key ways -- you get people who leave, those that join, a whole spectrum of varying degrees of following. I've seen a lot of secular muslims, a bunch of very religious ones, some that are in between.
West Pointers become officers in the military.
Not really an answer to my question, but I'll roll with it. So you're saying the military as a whole is the target. The institutional military, like the guys in ties who run things? Or the operational military, like the guys in boots who shoot things? With what weapon are they targeting the military? What are their likely courses of action, and what are the likely sequels to those COAs? Will they go after soft targets, or use Fabian force-on-force tactics?
Please, help me identify the vulnerabilities here and how they will be exploited. If we can provide the government with a life-saving warning, they'll probably give us medals.
You appear to believe there are "moderate" muslims, I don't.
I live next door to one of the larger Muslim concentrations in the United States. They own and operate businesses, have government positions, and send their kids to public schools. I am, if you please, on the front line of the "Muslim invasion." It's pretty benign so far. They seem to have ignored Bin Laden's 1996 call to war, as well as all the subsequent calls to war over the last ten years. I read the police blotter in the local paper, and they don't even seem to be committing their share of crimes. Maybe these people are moderate, maybe they're not; I don't know what qualifies one as "moderate." But if this is the face of extremism, I'm not worried.
And I'm still wondering why our putative Johnny Jihad joined West Point instead of enlisting, ROTC, or OCS. No offense to Academy graduates, but once you're on the job, it doesn't matter what your commissioning source was. The Army Chief of Staff graduated from Wyoming. The Chief of Military Intelligence was a direct commission. The Deputy Commanding General of the Intelligence and Security Command is an OCS grad. There is absolutely no reason for Johnny Jihad to attend West Point to infiltrate the US Armed Forces. There are much easier ways in.
Exactly, and here in my urban area, mostly very secular ones (engineers and technical personnel with whom I work). That's why I asked her how many she knew personally, or if, as she says, her knowledge comes through a venue like FR, where other people are interpreting for her.
I don't want our jails to "make an impression" on them , even if they all get life sentences for anything and everything they might be convicted of. They will then, living in American prisons, have found another way of having us support them and sustain them through this life.
This we should not do, and ultimately CAN not do. Prisons are already a fertile breeding grounds for Muslim conversion. This should be acknowledged and dealt with.
It has not been. We could have seen it coming in domestic form over 50 years ago, with the Black Muslims, but that issue was never really addressed,debated, or answered, and these lunatics are still given face-time on Cable News, though they have no following....keep it up and in due time they WILL have a following. i WANT THEM OUT---Europe should deport them ,very large numbers of them, unless it wants a halfcentury more of bullying, intimidation, terror, and eventually co-equal rule in its own lands.
Uh, my knowledge is kinda first hand, too -- a couple months ago I went out with a group of people and there was a chick from Cairo doing shots of tequila and karaoke with us. Also, the guy at my local breakfast joint regularly indulges in bacon egg and cheese sandwiches. So, I guess I'd call them secular. This is not all that unusual for people in the U.S.
Do a little research on the nation of islam...
What about muslims who were born here and are American citizens?
Ladyjane,
This information is quite correct. The problem is this: when it comes to most philosophies and religions, devoutness is directly correlated with good citizenship. When it comes to Islam, the opposite is true.
You think too much of Muslims. Most don't care about religion just like most Christians. Very few really care at all about politics. And thus, the Commie=Muslim=Nazi arguement doesn't work. They aren't the same. The equivalent would be Commies=Al-Quaida=Nazis. The ones who fight are only the radicals and the ones who don't fight don't care usually or they help US.
I know ones who have left :) And, yes, they're still alive.
I was there!
Y'know, all of you that see a problem with the Academy providing a place for Moslems to pray, you're right. Eliminate all of the 'places of worship' in the Academies and millitary units worldwide. My tax dollars shouldn't go towards any religious services for Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Bhuddist, or Muslims. We're paying these soldiers to fight, not to go to Church/temple/mosque/etc. If any of them want to pray, do it on their time, and their dime.
George Washington started the Chaplaincy in the Continental Army. He considered Godliness an essential virtue in an American army.
Tellingly, "godliness" in Muslim armies means a much, much different thing than "Godliness" in a Christian one. Usually the opposite, in fact.
But, as Washington was the founder of this institution, I can see why some (ex)Brits such as yourself might be against it. You didn't have him (or us) figured out the first time, either.
"Do a little research on the nation of Islam."
------the first real scholarly study I ever read was
THE BLACK MUSLIMS IN AMERICA by a black academic sociologist, C. Eric Lincoln. That was in the mid 60s, when I was in high school. That was a lot more self-directed exposure at the age of 16 or 17 than anyone I knew. And this was in Chicago, and my girlfriend's father had personal and business dealings with Elijah Muhammad. I have observed NOI, it's permutations, its internal politics, through Malcolm X , through Muhammad Ali, through all the sad casting about for identity that has been the plight of American blacks for about 140 years now. Observed right up to the present moment the sunglass-wearing poseurs who consider Louie Farrakhan their supreme leader, and continue to be given face-time on Cable TV like they have anything worthwhile to say about anything.Yes, and I too have noticed how "Islam" has found a fertile ground for recruitment in prisons, and that has been going on for a long time. It has worn a political/criminal cloak to one degree or another for at least a half-century, and now it is in full swing globally, extending its influence wherever it can. It is basically fulfilling the same social and political role that Communism provided decades earlier here, and across the world. I know all about it.
And yes, what about Muslims who were born here and are American citizens? What about them? What do YOU say about them? Are you suggesting I called for the deportation of every Muslim in the USA? I think it's Europe that has the more serious problem at the moment.
You need to do more research on them. Stanley Crouch has written about them extensively.
While this may seem alarming, we need Muslim friends to help penetrate Al-Queida and the other Islamic radical groups, intelligence officers, and translaters. Also, it will show the world that we do care about all religons and that there is seperation of church and state.
OTOH, Muslims should be subjected to much more extensive background checks by the FBI before entering the US Military.
Don't West Point prospectivees also have to score high on ASVAB tests???
I do worry, though, about the tendency of those in government with respect to dealing with the members of minority religions and ethnicities. To reach out to those with radical/anti-American views and look at those without them as somehow illegitimate. Thomas Sowell has noted for decades that the GOP's general "outreach" strategy to blacks is to try to silence the Ward Connerly types and settle for being "Democrat lite". Similarly, outreach to Muslims seems to usually take the form of legitimizing CAIR. One would hope that a Muslim Chaplain with the views of a William Sloane Coffin, the former Yale Chaplain and anti-American radical, would be disallowed at West Point, just as one would hope Christian chaplains in the mold of William Sloane Coffin would be.
What do you mean, "So what?"
BIG "what." All the difference in the world.
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