. . . . . . KNEEL!"
Posted on 07/23/2008 7:14:14 AM PDT by SJackson
Muslim spokesmen in the U.S. are outraged over remarks made last Friday by Bud Day, a key supporter of John McCain. Day, a much-decorated Air Force Colonel and Medal of Honor recipient who was a prisoner of war in Vietnam with McCain, said during a conference call organized by the Florida Republican Party that “the Muslims have said either we kneel, or they’re going to kill us.” Day added: “I don’t intend to kneel, and I don’t advocate to anybody that we kneel, and John doesn’t advocate to anybody that we kneel.”
The reaction was swift. Saif Ishoof, president of the Center for Voter Advocacy, said that Day’s remarks were “perpetuating a form of Islamophobia.” Khaled Saffuri, the Executive Director of the Islamic Institute (which he co-founded with Grover Norquist), was also deeply offended. “‘This is as close to racist as it gets,” he declared. “These are cheap street tactics. Even if this is called a mistake or a slip of the tongue, it shows a bigger problem with racism. McCain and the Republican party should denounce this.” (Keith Olbermann also termed Day’s words “racism and religious hatred,” although neither he nor Saffuri explained what race Islam is.)
Corey Saylor, national legislative director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), also called on McCain to distance himself from Day, stating that “CAIR would like to see Senator McCain come out and make a clear statement repudiating these remarks. We don’t believe they’re helpful at all in either putting out the campaign’s message or winning the hearts and minds in the Muslim world that America needs to be winning.”
However, a repudiation from McCain was not immediately forthcoming. McCain campaign spokesman Michael Goldfarb said only: “The threat we face is from radical Islamic extremism.” However, a spokeswoman for the Republican Party, according to the Miami Herald, “said later that Day acknowledged he misspoke and ‘made an unfortunate mistake’ because he meant to say ‘terrorists’ and not ‘Muslims.’ The Herald itself took for granted that Day had said something wrong, calling his remarks a “gaffe on Muslims.”
Unnoticed, however, in the controversy over Day’s remarks was the fact that what he said was essentially accurate. While it is certainly true that not all Muslims are trying to “make us kneel,” there can be no legitimate question whatsoever that there are indeed Muslims who are engaged in such an effort. The Muslim Brotherhood in the United States is, according to a Brotherhood operative, engaged in a “grand jihad” aimed at “eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”
What’s more, there is considerable reason to suspect that some of the Muslim leaders who have been most indignant over Day’s words are involved in this “grand jihad.” Investigative journalist Kenneth Timmerman wrote in 2004 of Khaled Saffuri’s considerable influence in Washington, and then noted that “some of the very people Saffuri introduced to Bush and Rove are in federal prison on terrorism-related charges. Others have been expelled from the country. Still other former colleagues and donors have become subjects of a massive federal probe into U.S. funding of terrorist organizations that is code-named Operation Greenquest….Saffuri’s ties to radical Islamists and apologists for terror are neither superficial nor coincidental.” And CAIR, of course, was in 2007 named an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation Hamas terror funding case, and has had several of its officials arrested and convicted on terrorism-related charges.
Why was none of this been mentioned in mainstream media coverage of this story? It isn’t really surprising that it wasn’t, given the tendencies and perspectives of the mainstream media – indeed, it would have been more surprising if they had mentioned it. But Bud Day’s remarks should have been judged for their accuracy: are there, or are there not, Muslims trying to make us kneel? No one would have objected in 1944 if a military spokesman had said that “the Germans are trying to make us kneel,” and someone who took offense to such a statement on the grounds that not all Germans were pro-Nazi would only have been ridiculed. However, CAIR has shown in the past that the accuracy of statements to which it takes umbrage does nothing to mitigate their hurt feelings. And now the primacy of hurt feelings has been enshrined into law in Canada: as we have seen in the Mark Steyn trials in Canada, truth and accuracy is no defense against charges of “hate speech.” In a sane world, instead of taking offense, Islamic spokesmen in the U.S. would have been assuring reporters that they were working energetically within Muslim communities against those who wished to make non-Muslims kneel. But sanity is at a premium in the public debate on Islamic jihad today.
I hope McCain doesn’t throw this hero under the bus the way he did with GRamm (sp?).
Don’t like what is going on in this country? They can go home......
Gosh. Muzzies offended? When aren’t they whining?
If McCain throws Colonel Day under the bus on this he will have lost my vote.
I dont think he will. His speech has been strong regarding radicals. I had the pleasure of seeing him twice now...He is much better in person. Of course, the media does not give him much attention.
Well, finally, someone was caught with a bit of backbone! What is a crime is that as illegal immigrant supporters, they’ve allowed hundreds of OTA’s (Other than Mexican) to flood north across the border, “to do the work Americans won’t”. Glad to see that others have had a wake up call to an ugly future that needed action 20 years ago.
Oh yeah, that. Well, Muslims are commanded to conquer the "World of War" (the non-Muslim world), whether peacefully or by use of force.
Christians are called to convert the world as well, but never by use of force.
This obvious difference between the two religions seems to be too difficult for celebrators-of-diversity to grasp, largely because they have an a priori commitment to religious relativism.
I am sure he will. Instead, though, he should respond by quoting various contemporary Islamic luminaries on the subject, like that fellow in Iran.
I don't know what throws him off during a televised appearance. Maybe it's the cameras, maybe it's his speechwriters who tell him to knock off the "wanted dead or alive" lingo. Shame really. He would have much higher support among the populace if he was more natural-IMHO.
GO BLOW IT OUT YOUR TURBINS!
...and now for news that MATTERS....
Well said.
We aren't kneeling to you or Muhammed or Allah. Go molest a piglet.
Looks like he already did. In the dead of night, out in the back 40, with the bus merely idling to hold down the noise. Day was right the first time, but McCain and his handlers went into damage control mode...again.
And to everybody, I want to sincerely thank all of you, and freerepublic for this forum. I’ve lurked for years, and today decided to actually dive in and get involved. My earlier post was my first, I will gratefully welcome the advice of others if I break any posting policies,,,It would only be out of ignorance, not disrespect. Thank you all again.
Bud Day for VP.
Well, ... yeah, but they didn't come here to "go home." They came here, as Bud Day noted, to make us kneel. Extracting apologies for hard truths when spoken by others is part of their game plan. Get an apology and the "object of their affection" is suddenly on the defensive. Game, set, match.
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