I am a military veteran, a Christian, and a lifelong Republican. I was wounded in uniform, clearly recognizeable as a US solider, and had my life saved by a Muslim family who could have let me die with no harm to themselves. They went out of there way to save me simply because they were decent human beings.
Simple human decency. That’s pretty much the core Amerrican value, and there’s not a trace of it in this rant. Set aside the ridiculous, “save the last bullet for yourself” paranoia. This stuff oozes with hatred for “the Other.” Any Other will do; Muslims are just the current stand-in.
Fortunately, the people who founded this country were better than this. The vast majority of the people who fought and died for this country are better than this. And the majority of our citizenry are better than this. I won’t vote for Obama this Novemeber, but he’s also better than this.
I'll call your bullsquat and raise you a question...newby.
Precisely WHEN, WHERE and WHAT has Obama done in his entire life to be "better than this"...
Was it when he snorted coke?
Was it when he smoked weed?
Was it when he attended a black racist church for 20+ years?
Was it when he befriended every anti-American lunatic, racist or terrorist he came into contact with?
Was it when he held his crotch, and refused to show proper respect during the National Anthem?
Was it his voting record as the most Leftist critter in Congress?
Was it his speech were he promised to unilaterally disarm the United States?
Was it his recent stupid statement that we could save more oil by inflating our tires that we could get by drilling?
Perhaps he DID do something spectacular - in the 57th State while we weren't watching!
Are you convinced he is an honest man - coming out of the Chicago Democrat Machine and Thugocracy? -- He WOULD be the first!
Back up your ridiculous statement, or go back to your DU, Code Pink, or KOS buddies and tell them "ya done good"...
As Winston Churchill said:
How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live.…A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.
Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities ... but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome.
[The River War, first edition, Vol. II, pp. 248-50.]
You are sadly mistaken about Obama AND Muslims.
You need to educate yourself.
How quickly you forget.
Nice try.
Tool.
New member:
disgusted Republican
Since Jul 31, 2008
Having said that, as a soldier in Iraq, you know full well then that there is a large, very violent, very fundamental group of Islamics who are waging Jihad. They are not operating in a vacuum and they follow very literally what the Prophet taught in the Koran.
I thank God for the Muslims who eskew that, and we know many tens of thosuands of Iraqis are dying fighting the same enemy we have. But we dare not let up, or even look like we are turning tail in the face of these others or they will sieze the moment and our job will become monumentally harder. Yet this is precisely what Obama would have had us do.
As to this election...this particular issue is not necessarly if Obama is a Muslim at all...it is the fact that he and his campaign are deceiving and lying about his own upbringing and background. His own site says he never studied it or was raised in it...yet in Indonesia it is now fairly demonstrable that he was. Why lie about that?
...and if he will lie about something as intrinsic as that, what else will he lie about and cover over?
When you add that basic issue to the mix of his willful associations of longstanding with the most left leaning, hate-filled associations that he has had, one inparticular an unrepentant domestic terrorist, all kinds of red flags go up...and well they should.
Finally, on top of all of that are his positions...and I am not talking about the positions that he changes almost on a daily basis now during the campaign. That's politics and he is trying to make himself appealing to as many as he can...I am talking about his voting record in the IL and US Senates when it counted. That is where he willend up governing from and that record is the most left leaning, socialist...even marxist...record in the Senate.
I have a question or two about this.
Were you the only soldier left alive?...or were all other soldiers incapacitated?
Where were the other members of your squad or platoon? Why did they not "save" you and what conditions led to your being left alone to a Muslim family to save you?
Was it SpecOps...and if so, under what conditions were you clearly identifiable as a US soldier?
Mind you, I do not want to demean your service. If things happened as you say, as I intended in my last post...God bless you for your service.
I am just somewhat leary of people who come into a strange place and on the first day of their visit there they share such stories...there have been too many others who fraudulently done so and we had, a number of years ago, on this forum that exact thing happen. where people were taken in and ultimatley monies were solicitied and paid to a fraud.
So, forgive me for questioning, but I am interested in knowing how this story you have shared came to be because it would certainly not be the norm.
Forgive me as well while I ping some other members who have much more bonafides than I as to service in uniform to hear your response.
You do not say where this took place, if it was in Iraq, it's quite believable, where factions of al Qaida commited atrocities on numerous tribal leaders and their families. Muslims in Iraq are learning that the islamists in their midst are their worst enemies.
What to you think gave rise to the Anbar Awakening? Why are muslims acting in their own capacity in defence against the islamic killers - Iraqi's have woken up that muslims are killing muslims in Iraq - just as they do everywhere else. Muslims kill more muslims than 'infidels' so it's no wonder, if true, you were not seen as the enemy by the people whom you claim saved you, who would have done so in self-interest.
And, after all, that's why you were in Iraq, if that's where you actually were. I'm surprised you never bothered to mention it.
One swallow does not a summer make. If All were as you say, we could bring the troops home tomorrow. The reason we cannot abandon Iraq is because there are too many muslims who would annihilate other muslims in an attempt to establish the Caliphate and sharia law.
If anyone saved you it was because they understood that only the US stands between them and a far worse fate than 'occuptation' by the Coalition.
The Suicide of Reason: Radical Islam's Threat to the West by Lee Harris
Here's one of the reviews:
An important book changes your view of your world. Harris' "The Suicide of Reason" succeeds in doing this and points out serious threats to the survival of Western Civilization from the inside and the outside. Harris shows that the most important message that America's leaders have failed to grasp is that not everybody sees the world the same way. Harris' "rational actors" act to change their culture out of enlightened self interest whereas his "tribal actors" act to preserve their culture.Nominally the conflict is presented as fanatical Islam's tribal actors versus the West's rational actors, but his paradigm applies to groups within the West as well. As you read this book you will recognize "tribal" views in many rabid Democratic Party supporters, Chicago Bear's fans and Intelligent Design advocates, among others. These people have ceased listening to any counter-positions.
The "tribal mind" dominated Earth until The Enlightenment. How did this revolutionary change come to occur? Harris invokes Hobbes, Spinoza, Condorset, Locke, Marx, Huxley, Voltaire and others to show how it took root in the time of the French Revolution and came to fruition in America.
Is it inevitable that the rational actors' democratic ideal will come to dominate the world? It looks like it will be unlikely to survive without a prompt change of direction by the West. Recent western generations have ceased acting in ways to protect their hard won culture. They are now dissipating this monumental asset in the name of political correctness. "Right thinking has replaced real thinking."
Harris' rephrased titular question, "Does reason commit suicide when it blinds itself to the reality and the power of the irrational?", presents the West's primary problem: its leaders live under the delusion that everybody looks at the world the same way. They must consider that different groups have very different perceptions of the world. All problems can't be resolved by win-win positive thinking; inevitably testosterone will enter into the equation. The most rational among us must accept that in the world of the blind the one-eyed man isn't king by divine right.
This is an exceptionally insightful book that deserves to be read by serious people seriously concerned about the survival of their political and cultural traditions into the next generation.
Then there's "The Legacy of Jihad: Islamic Holy War and the Fate of Non-Muslims , Andrew Bostom.
And a review from the Amazon site:
The politically correct would have it that Islam is a religion of peace, but in this far-ranging collection of Muslim and non-Muslim eyewitness accounts, theological treatises by great Muslim scholars and jurists throughout history and historical surveys of superb historians, Islam has in fact practiced a grisly jihad campaign against non-Muslims from its earliest days, in the hope of satisfying the Prophet Mohammed's end goal---forcing the "one true faith" upon the entire world.In 759 pages, divided into eight parts, Dr. Andrew Bostom has provided a fantastic compendium of historical surveys; jihad literature; classical Muslim scholarly treatises; historical overviews from important 20th century historians; foldout, color-coded maps; eyewitness accounts of jihad campaigns from the Near East, Asia Minor, Europe and the Indian subcontinent; historical and contemporary accounts of jihad slavery; and Muslim and non-Muslim chronicles and eyewitness accounts of jihad campaigns.
It is hard, after viewing these compelling accounts and histories, to continue to believe that radical Islamists are in fact all that radical. For Islam, at its core, seems to be a faith bent upon the conquest and subjugation of non-Muslims.
In part two, Bostom collects many jihadist teachings in the Qur'an, for example, Qur'an chapter 9, verse 29, "Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the last day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and his apostle, nor acknowledge the religion of truth even if they are the people of the book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and fell themselves subdued." These teachings fill all of two pages in the text.
But Bostom does not stop there. The third chapter is devoted to classical and modern teachings of Qur'anic commentators on Chapter 9, verse 29. Al-Suyuti (d. 1505 CE), for example, writes "Fight those who don't believe in God nor in the Last Day [Unless they believe in the Prophet God bless him and grant him peace] nor hold what is forbidden that which God and His emissary have forbidden [e.g. Wine] nor embrace the true faith [which is firm and abrogates other faiths, i.e., the Islamic religion] from among [for distinguishing] those who were given the Book [i.e., the Jews and Christians] until they give the head-tax [i.e., the annual taxes imposed on them] (l'an yadinl) humbly submissive, and obedient to Islam's rule."
Also commenting on the Qur'anic chapter 9, verse 29 are al-Zamakshari (d. 1144), al Tabari (d. 923), al-Beidawi (d. 1286), Ibn Kathir (d. 1373), Sayyid Qutb (d. 1966) and al-Azhar, al-Muntakhab Fii Tafsir al-Qur'aan al-Kariim, 1985. Let no one say that Bostom has taken these teachings out of context, for the classical and contemporary commentators interpret the passage in precisely the same way as it appears.
Chapter 4 is then devoted to jihad in the Hadith, with commentary from Sahih Bukhari and Sahih Muslim.
Part 3 presents the classical writings of Muslim theologians and jurists on jihad. This 110-page section spans the entire history of Islam, beginning with commentators from the 8th century and continuing through the 20th century. Bostom has gleaned writings of Malik B. Anas (d. 795) from the Muwata, as well as a 1915 Ottoman Fatwa.
He also includes several works translated into English for the first time. For example, Ibn Qudama (d. 1223), writes, "Legal war (jihad) is an obligatory social duty (fard-kifaya); when one group of Muslims guarantees that it is being carried out in a satisfactory manner, the others are exempted." Almost everywhere in this text, the author is belligerent. "It is permitted to surprise the infidels under cover of night, to bombard them with mangonels [an engine that hurls missiles] and to attack them without declaring battle (du'a)."
Similarly, the renowned Sufi master al-Ghazali (d. 1111) writes (now in English for the first time), "One must go on jihad (i.e. Warlike razzias or raids) at least once a year... one may use a catapult against them [non-Muslims] when they are in a fortress, even if among them are women and children. One may set fire to them and drown them." The marriages of slaves, al-Ghazali continues, are automatically "revoked. One may cut down their trees.... One must destroy their useless books." This belies the notion that Sufism is peaceful.
Al-Hilli (d. 1277) appears for the first time in English on the traditions concerning the tax on certain infidels, who have not been enslaved or murdered. And the Persian scholar Muhammad al-Amili (d. 1621) has been translated from Farsi concerning Jihad holy war: "Islamic holy war against followers of other religions, such as Jews, is required unless they convert to Islam or pay the poll tax."
The 117-page Part 4 includes overviews of Jihad by important 20th century scholars, including Edmond Fagnan, on jihad according to the Malikite school, Roger Arnaldez on the holy war according to Ibn Hazm of Cordova, Clement Huart on the law of war, Nicolas P. Agnides, on the classification of persons under Islamic law and John Ralph Willis on the jihad ideology of enslavement.
As Ibn Warraq notes in the forward to this monumental study of Islamic jurisprudence and prosecution of war, Dr. Bostom (a non-specialist from the field of clinical medicine) is the first scholar to have had translated from Arabic into English the works of al-Bayadawi, al-Suyuti, al-Zamakhshari and al-Tabari, as well as works by Sufi master al-Ghazali, Shiites al-Hilli and al-Amili. He also includes representatives from the four schools of Sunni jurisprudence-Averroes and Ibn Khaldun (Maliki), Ibn Taymiya and Ibn Qudama (Hanbali), Shaybani (Hanafi), and al-Mawardi (Shaafi).
Ibn Warraq continues: Some contend that Dr. Bostom is right to expose history hitherto denied, but this was not the right historical moment to do so. But, as Isaiah Berlin once noted, from the ideologue's willingness to suppress what he suspects to be true has flowed much evil.
What you come away wit his a profund understanding that "Radical Islam" is not the problem: it is Islam itself. You lucked out, pal - that's all. From it's inception, cruelty, atrocity, enslavement and impoverishment have been written into Islam's DNA. History, bloody awful history is my witness. Islam has left death, starvation and destruction everywhere it has gone, with atrocities and slaughter that makes the likes of Old Adolph, Mao and Pol Pot look like amateurs. And if you think that's hyperbole, think again. The truth is more awful than I can describe.
I have said that Islam cannot reform itself to accommodate our Western ideals - equal justice and individual liberty - for then it would cease to be Islam. The concept of freedom doesn't even exist within the confiens of Islamic thought.
Islam is the perfect self-replicating meme that by its very nature innoculates itself from any possibility of 'reform' or real change. It is in fact very much like a cancer that has metastasized and is now spreading throughout the world in via the revival of Jihad.
If we in the West care about preserving our civilization, then we must treat Islam like the disease that it is. With everything that implies. You don't negotiate with cancer. You can't bribe a malignant tumor, not if you want to survive.
You destroy it.
You're not believeable, newbie. You sound like another DU mole ................... Goodbye
SNIFF !!!
Your Muslim family sounds real nice. Now go and tell your story all of the US soldiers who survived capture by al qaeda. Oh yeah, there aren’t any! :(
It's THEIR.
I just HATE that. Makes you want to pinch their little heads off.....
Welcome to FR. What was your DU screen name?
Welcome to FR - I think.
disgusted Republican,
Your post saddens me. I feel I should turn in my keyboard and my decoder ring.
But I’ll just remain bitter and cling to my religion and my guns.
You really need to change your name to “disgusting Democrat”
No one on this site is incapable of making a clear distinction between decent people of whatever background and evil, deranged murderers intent on destroying Western civilization. While I may not buy all the way into a conspiracy behind the Obama campaign (I tend to think most people incapable of that kind of sustained, organized action), I do not doubt that the Islamofascists are taking advantage of our citizenry’s blind spot where they and Obama are concerned.
America’s strength may also be our fatal flaw: we project onto others our respect for the rule of law and belief in the sanctity of human life.
I call Bull$hit.
Where was the rest of your unit, that left you behind to be cared for by a local family? What unit would leave a wounded comrade behind, unless there were no survivors?
Oh, I get it - you were BLACK OPS! You can't TALK about it!
B.S.
I’m betting you were never in uniform, ever.
Nor are you a Republican.