What's important is 'where' they are leading you."
Posted on 09/10/2010 6:44:34 AM PDT by Kaslin
Is there anyone who has not weighed in on the Saturday night, Sept. 11, bonfire of the Qurans at the Rev. Terry Jones' Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Fla.?
Gen. David Petraeus warns the Quran burnings could inflame the Muslim world and imperil U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Hillary Clinton declares it "disgraceful." Sarah Palin calls it a "provocation." President Obama calls it "a recruitment bonanza for al-Qaida. You could have serious violence in ... Pakistan and Afghanistan," and Muslims could be inspired "to blow themselves up."
The State Department has put U.S. embassies on alert in the near 50 countries where Muslims are a majority. The Vatican calls the bonfire "an outrageous and grave gesture. ... No one burns the Quran."
Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the defender of the ground zero mosque, is consistent. Burning Islam's most sacred book is "distasteful," he says, but the "First Amendment protects everybody."
Everybody frets and wrings their hands. No one acts.
Yet if, as President Obama and his commanding general both say, the torching of hundreds of Qurans could so enrage the Islamic world as to incite terror-bombings against U.S. troops and imperial our war effort, why does not the commander in chief send U.S. marshals to arrest this provocateur and abort his provocation?
For Jones, who sells t-shirts saying "Islam is of the Devil," may be an Islamophobe, but he is also a serious man, willing to live with the consequences of his deeds, even if he causes U.S. war casualties.
The questions raised by his deliberate provocation are not so much about him, then, as they are about us.
Are we a serious nation? Is Obama up to being a war president?
Constantly, we hear praise of Lincoln, Wilson and FDR as war leaders.
Yet President Lincoln arrested thousands of citizens and locked them up as security risks, while denying them habeas corpus. He shut newspapers and sent troops to block Maryland's elections, fearing Confederate sympathizers would win and take Maryland out of the Union.
President Wilson shut down antiwar newspapers, prosecuted editors, and put Socialist presidential candidate and war opponent Eugene Debs in prison, leaving him to rot until Warren Harding released him and invited the dangerous man over to the White House for dinner.
California Gov. Earl Warren and FDR collaborated to put 110,000 Japanese, 75,000 of them U.S. citizens, into detention camps for the duration of the war and ordered the Department of Justice to prosecute antiwar conservatives.
During Korea, Harry Truman seized the steel mills when a threatened strike potentially imperiled production of war munitions. Richard Nixon went to court to block publication of the Pentagon papers until the Supreme Court decided publication could go forward.
This is not written to defend those war measures or those wars. It is to say that if a president takes a nation to war, and commits men to their deaths, as Obama did in doubling the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan, he should be prepared to do what is within his power to protect those troops.
And if Petraeus says letting Jones set this bonfire could imperil U.S. troops, Obama should act to stop it. And if he is so paralyzed by uncertainty as to whether he can do anything -- and, as a result, soldiers die -- what would that tell us about their commander in chief?
Would stopping Jones and confiscating the Qurans violate Jones' First Amendment rights? Perhaps. And perhaps not. But if Eric Holder cannot find a charge against Davis, or an inherent power of a war president to prevent actions imminently damaging to the war effort, Obama should find some Justice Department attorneys who can.
Let the ACLU make the case that interfering with Davis' bonfire violates his First Amendment rights. Let a U.S. court decide whether Obama has the power to take a decision previous wartime presidents would have taken without hesitation.
And if Obama does not have the power to stop actions like this, imperiling our troops, then we should get out of this war.
This episode reveals the gulf between us and the Islamic world. Despite all our talk of universal values, tens of millions of Muslims, in countries not only hostile but friendly, believe that a sacrilege against their faith, like the burning of the Quran by a single American oddball, justifies the killing of Americans. What kind of compatibility can there be between us?
What do we have in common with people who believe that evangelism by other faiths in their societies merits the death penalty, as do conversions to Christianity, while promiscuity and adultery justify stonings, lashings and beheadings.
And what does it say about our ability to fight and win a "long war" in the Islamic world if our war effort can be crippled by a solitary pastor with 50 families in his church who decides to have a book burning?
Action creates consensus, Mr. President. People follow when a leader leads.
“Of course they are, but there is no need to even to put them in more danger, is there?”
Wouldn’t that be kinda like making a pregnant woman more pregnant?
“Don’t worry - I am burning pages of the queeran today and tomorrow after soaking the pages in bacon grease for additional fuel.”
I might just do the same!
Would Israel declare war simply because someone burned a Torah? Of course not. YOur question is irrelevant.
The cruel irony is we have 3 to 4 x their energy. The libs just keep locking it up on federal land. The problem is they control TV.
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan - anow they are a total waste because he is a muslim agent. I think the wars were largely a cover for the Saudi royals being a lot more involved in 9/11 then we will ever know.
They control TV now. The endless “peaceful Islam” spin on every network. ALL the TV networks want deals with them because they have TRILLION of dollars.
TV has enslaved America. If any conservative or Repubs stands up - TV goes in full destroy mode.
“This is not the way we fight the war.”
What war? We are not fighting the war with Islam. We are surrendering because they own all the politcians and they own TV.
They own Bloomberg and he controls everything in NYC. Why? Billions in profits for his company to provide TV and financial data to islamic stock markets including Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, you name it.
You mean the war ion Iraq and Afghanistan?
Post Nov 2008 it became totally pointless. The Saudis are in charge. They control the white hut. These wars now are design to get as many american soldiers killed as possible and to humiliate the military and USA.
And ALL Of TV backs Islam.
How does a war in Iraq and Afghanistan make sny sense at all now when you have an islamic in the white hut?
When the Saudis have major investments in 5 of the 6 TV networks?
Are troops are being pawned and set up.
How much MORE danger can they be subjected to?This”pastor”in Florida is a ZERO looking for fame(not to mention a congregation).The State-Run Media is responsible for this whole brouhaha.Guess what.I’m goin to burn a koran.I’m not really going to(I don’t even have one)but ALL Christian relics,Bibles,etc.is VERBOTEN in places like Saudi Arabia and routinely(when discovered by authorities)DESTROYED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That was a mistake!
Killing Afghan Muslims and blowing up their caves will not???
What's important is 'where' they are leading you."
Because it sells laundry detergent.
Very few will read a paper anymore just to read Obama's promises, or him telling them the economy is headed up.
If you put a Muslim Girl (caricature) in the balloon, the Muslims themselves would shoot it down, Korans and all.
Muslim women are not allowed to be involved with 'science' and 'technology'.
Not by inflaming the masses by burning their book, but by trying to talk sense into them by offering them a free life and a wholesome existence...but of course that probably won't work. They are itching to blow themselves up. So just shoot the SOBs and win this by attrition. There, I've said it.
Then they will have cameras at every Muslim rage protest burning US flags and Bibles...what a wonderful news day for them.
They hope they can get footage of US troops being shot as well. Film at eleven.
I agree. No point in going to war unless you’re in it to win. I don’t think Obama wants us to win.
I was wondering the same thing. I suspect he meant "Jones" and this is just a typo or moment of cerebral flatulence.
Reminds me of a rebuttal Charles Krauthammer gave to Juan Williams in talking about angering the "Muslim street". After Juan gave the usual liberal talking point, Charles observed: "Juan, Muslims don't hate us because of what we do; Muslims hate us because we woke up this morning!"
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