What I expect from American Muslims

Vanity | 9/19/01 | Antoninus

[Antoninus]

An insidious, monstrous criminal atrocity has been committed against our country. There's now little doubt that this barbaric act was committed by fanatical Muslims as part of a jihad against the 'Great Satan' America. In the aftermath, we are treated to platitudinous and largely unnecessary calls for Americans to exercise 'restraint' and not take out our anger against other Americans who happen to be of the same religious extraction as the maniacs who perpetrated this act. These calls for restraint could be made unnecessary if American Muslims would simply do the following...

Convene a very public, nationally televised 'town hall' meeting of Muslim clerics and high-ranking officials with in their communities around the country. Within this public forum, allow presenter after presenter to state unequivocably that they:

1. Decry the dastardly attack on the World Trade Centers in no uncertain terms.

2. Declare to be false and pernicious the notion that a murderous, suicidal death leads one's soul to heaven. State in no uncertain terms that this teaching is contrary to true Islam.

3. Renounce the use of terroist violence to achieve political ends, and call for ALL foreign governments to do the same.

4. State publicly that they support the right of the United States to wage war against those nations and groups which harbor and abet terrorism whether they be Muslim or otherwise.

5. Put forth a dire warning to the terrorist cells that may be in their midst that Muslim-Americans will not think twice about turning these perfidious scoundrels over to the US government.

6. Mention that any public celebration of these attacks by Muslim-Americans is a deplorable act which harms not only the Muslim community, but America as a whole.

What I don't want to hear in relation to this is one single word about:

1. How this would never have happened if the US didn't support Israel.

2. How our 'imperialist' oppression of Arab nations brought on this attack.

3. Any kind of justification for terrorist barbarism.

Individual statements along these lines have surfaced here and there, but until the Muslim community as a whole does this in a very public fashion, I will have to view them with some suspicion. The mere fact that we haven't seen more of these kinds of statements indicates to me (and I hope I'm wrong on this) that there is decent amount of clandestine approval of the attack within the Muslim-American community...

[Storm Orphan]

The war on terrorism could be likened, they said, to the war on drugs or poverty

Oh brother.

[FITZ]

Try to look on the bright side. If they're going to fight this slaughter of US citizens on US soil with political correctness, they'll have to send our liberals over to those countries ---sort of like a peace corp to teach them how to be politically correct. We can give them all our NOW women, the ACLU, Rosie, Ophrah, all of Hollywood, the Clintons and Gores....

[baxter999]

No, actually you are wrong. With the opening of some of the Russian files, multiple books have pointed out that Mccarthy was right nearly 100% of the time. But then why let reality change our most cherished myths?

[Storm Orphan]

But then why let reality change our most cherished myths?

....

Nah, too easy.

[Jolly Rodgers]

With the opening of some of the Russian files, multiple books have pointed out that Mccarthy was right nearly 100% of the time.

I just started reading a history of the phenomenon we call McCarthyism. It goes to great length in the forward to point out that very few of the people targetted were innocent. I look forward to working through the material it presents.

[KDD]

Then let the Muslims excise their own cancer before we have to do it for them. If we have to do it I can assure you that we will be more through and more likely to remove more collateral healthy tissue to eliminate the cancerous disease taking root within Islam. That cancerous disease is hatred...hatred for Christians and Jews.

[KDD]

You are right.
This is a blueprint for failure. Israel has tried this approach to some degree with little to show but more dead citizens. A politicians effectiveness will now be determined by the terrorists latest attack on us. No attacks=good politician...more attacks=bad. Terrorism as a means to influence our election results becomes a possibility. We just don't have the time to play nice with these terrorists. This is Powell and Cheney. That's for sure. Because of Powells advice to G.H. Bush, we didn't finish Saddam off when we had the chance. And this plan smells of appeasement to the countries that support and finance these terrorists. We know many of them already renounce terrorism on the one hand while feeding and housing it with the other. This plan does not address that reality at all. If the administration really intends to take this course, I will have a difficult time supporting it.

[rebdov]

Abraham Lincoln demanded an Oath of Loyalty.

[Cinnamon Girl]

From a CNN article Storm Orphan posted: "CAIR, at its press conference, passed along this message: "We denounce the terrorist attacks. They don't reflect the behavior and thoughts of the majority of Muslims. And ... we are Americans, too."

Why haven't these groups denounced Osama bin Laden in particular? Why just the vague 'we denounce terrorist attacks?' How about a fatwa on him?

Nahid Awad, the group's executive director, said, "There is no place in Islam for acts of terrorism and violence against innocent people."

Rhetorically, the use of the word 'innocent' is subjective.

Awad said the majority of Muslim scholars throughout the world condemn the attack.

And why are people who don't condemn the attacks still called "Muslim scholars" by the Muslim community? Why not, 'fringe nuts' or 'evil-doers?'

"We cannot allow the acts of the few to determine and take over the debate of important issues."

What issues is the speaker referring to?

[KDD]

bump.

[Blade]

Does the Koran encourage violence against non-Muslims?

If Islam is inherently peaceful, why are religious minorities persecuted everywhere Islamics are in the majority?

If Islam is inherently peaceful, why are all Islamic governments authoritarian to the core?

If the Islamic world disagrees with last Tuesday's slaughter, why has not a single Islamic cleric issued a fatwa against bin Laden?

Given that the USA has 280,000,000 people, does the small number of attacks that have been carried out against Muslims really justify all these sermonettes about "bigotry"?

What's more important: lecturing the 99.99% of Americans who are not racist for the actions of a handful of bigots or figuring out how to stop future terrorist attacks?

A few of the questions FR's professional anti-racists don't want to discuss.

[Blade]

Would signed loyalty oaths and a blood sample be sufficient, Mr. McCarthy?

The auone is proposing "loyalty oaths," Straw Man Orphan.

[Blade]

The auone No one is proposing...

[Antoninus]

Happy now, Antonius? Is this enough to end your witch hunt?

Maybe it's time for you to take a reading comprehension course. Where in anything I wrote did I call for 'witch hunts'? To even compare what I wrote with anything of the sort is nothing but straw-man obfuscation. As usual, you're full of cr@p.

What I wrote was a piece of advice to Muslims in America. I wrote it from the perspective of a non-Muslim American who desperately wants to believe that American Muslims have the same ardent desire to defend and protect this country that I do.

And yes, in a country of 280 million souls, 40 incidents is positively MINISCULE when considering what happened in Manhattan, who the perpetrators were, their modus operandi, and that certain of their compatriots in this country were celebrating the act.

And here you are trying to play what I wrote off against what President Bush has said. The amusing thing is that the President and I are on the same page. He's calling for unity - so am I. I would simply like to see a bit more p!ss and vinegar from our Muslim brethren in response to this attack and believe it would go a long way towards bringing us together as a nation. You can not argue this point, so you have to pretend I'm saying something which I'm not. Then again, intellectual honesty never was your strong suit.

If you think my idea smacks of 'loyalty oaths', you're simply wrong. You are only using that loaded and unrelated phrase to attack an idea that is wholly voluntary. The impetus for such an event would have to spring directly from the Muslim community. I hope someone out there picks up on it.

[Antoninus]

No one is proposing "loyalty oaths," Straw Man Orphan.

He knows it. In typical fashion, he's just trying to change the course and focus of an argument he knows he can't win.

[hcmama]

In the aftermath, we are treated to platitudinous and largely unnecessary calls for Americans to exercise 'restraint' and not take out our anger against other Americans who happen to be of the same religious extraction as the maniacs who perpetrated this act.

Just to put thing in perspective, there are not wholesale reprisals taking place against Arab-Americans. As a matter of fact, FNC reported this morning that the FBI is investigating a whopping 40, I repeat: 40, suspected hate crimes against Americans of Arab ancestry. Forty idiots do not a hate campaign make.

It made me sick to see the explosion of wailing on FR here recently decrying some alleged pogrom that was taking place against Arabs in this country. With 6,000 of our fellow citizens currently blown to pieces by Muslim extremists, it showed a jarring lack of priorities, at the very least.

As you stated so eloquently in your article, under these circumstances, the amount of restraint that has been shown should be the real story.

[hcmama]

Storm Orphan has to spread his idiocy on as many threads as possible, as he is due for one of his regularly scheduled three day banishments from FR.

[HENRYADAMS]

There is confusion between social thought and political thinking. Social thought is based upon one's emotions e.g. Moslems are warm, fuzzy, have proper relations with their families and are kind to their animals. This is true. Political thinking is based upon the fact that Islamic individuals in the name of Islam attacked us.

The proper political response would be expulsion. Let those who oppose mass expulsions state the means of discrimination between those who will not attack us and those who are already in place and waiting for the opportunity to bomb, burn and destroy. The test by which one may discriminate between the two classes must be stated BEFORE THE EVENT! Once the infallible test is stated we can all be loving, kind to our pets.