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It's 'Gang Up on Franklin Graham' Time Again: Pentagon Sticking to Its Guns....
AgapePress ^ | April 16, 2003 | Fred Jackson and Jody Brown

Posted on 04/16/2003 11:19:30 AM PDT by Remedy

U.S. military officials are refusing to give in to demands from some Muslims who say Franklin Graham shouldn't be allowed to speak at a Pentagon Good Friday service.

The Washington Times reports three Muslim employees at the Pentagon registered complaints when they learned that Graham was scheduled to speak there this Friday. Apparently they felt the well-known evangelist disqualified himself because he has stated publicly that Islam is a "very evil and wicked religion."

But Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Ryan Yantis says he is not aware of any plans to un-invite anyone. As he puts it: "One religion, regardless of the religion, does not have the veto right over another religion."

Yantis also notes that separate Muslim services are scheduled at the Pentagon the same day because Friday is the Islamic sabbath.

Graham's characterization of Islam being an "evil and wicked" religion came shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. At the time, he noted that no Muslim clerics had gone to the World Trade Center to offer prayers or to apologize to the nation in the name of Islam.

Anti-Graham Bandwagon
The Council on American Islamic Relations has also demanded that Graham's international relief organization, Samaritan's Purse, not be allowed to do charitable relief work in Iraq. That criticism comes despite the fact, as World magazine's Mindy Belz points out, that Graham's group has been reaching out to Muslims for years in countries such as Bosnia, Afghanistan, Sudan, and Uzbekistan.

And Belz notes that some religion news outlets were among the first to suggest that Graham, because of his post-9/11 comments, is unfit to serve in Iraq. She says both Religion News Service and Beliefnet have questioned the evangelist's motives, the latter stating in a piece by its editor-in-chief and co-founder that President Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell should step in and prevent Graham from doing charity work in that nation.

But a spokesman for the U.S. Agency for International Development, in response to questions from the press, stated: "What private charitable organizations choose to do without U.S. government funding is ultimately their decision." As Belz notes in her World column, that amounted to a quick lesson for reporters on First Amendment rights.

A spokesman for Samaritan's Purse tells World there is irony in the controversy. Ken Isaacs says the relief agency has "excellent solid relationships on the ground because we love people without condition, and they respect us for that. The platform of our witness is built on the quality of our work."


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: franklingraham; goodfriday; muslimamericans; pentagon
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To: xm177e2
it is a question of whether it is wise to have him speak there. No matter who speaks at the W.H. at any given time, someone is going to think that choice was unwise.
121 posted on 04/17/2003 9:19:41 AM PDT by RAT Patrol (Congress can give one American a dollar only by first taking it away from another American. -W.W.)
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To: kegler4
"You really don't want to go here."

Actually, I do. Let's examine the facts of this red herring you misguidedly raise.

"When the two religions (Islam and Christianity) met in the Mediterranean area, each claiming to be the recipient of God's final revelation, conflict was inevitable. The conflict, in fact, was almost continuous: the first Arab-Islamic invasions took Islam by conquest to the then Christian lands of Syria, Palestine, Egypt, and North Africa, and, for a while, to Southern Europe; the Tatars took it into Russia and Eastern Europe; and the Turks took it into the Balkans. To each advance came a Christian rejoinder: the Reconquista in Spain, the Crusades in the Levant, the throwing off of what the Russians call the Tatar yoke in the history of their country, and, finally, the great European counterattack into the lands of Islam..."

To sum it up, Islam started a bloody jihadic takeover of Christian lands, from the Middle-East through Western Europe, and the Christians then fought back and defended themselves, their beliefs, and their lands.

Your straw man falls on its face, and turns to the dust found in the words of a deceiver.

I'll ask you again, have you ever read about or seen a Christian with C-4 platique and ball bearings taped to his chest? Please answer the question, and cease with your lame attempts to muddy the issue.

122 posted on 04/17/2003 9:33:09 AM PDT by Gargantua
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To: xm177e2
" It makes us look bad."

Speak for yourself. I look great, and so does America. That's why these evil religion followers hate us.

;-/

123 posted on 04/17/2003 9:37:48 AM PDT by Gargantua
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To: xm177e2

It's stupid; we're going to need Muslim allies to rebuild Iraq.

New Petition: Transform Iraq into beacon Albert Yelda, an Assyrian Christian with influence over more than 1.5 million Iraqi Christians, including Assyrians and Chaldeans. Yelda, cofounder of the Iraqi National Congress, split off from the Moslem-dominated group in 1999 to form the Iraqi National Coalition. He has been part of the Iraqi opposition since 1973, while living in Iraq.

The Bush administration must understand the need for a government not controlled by any one religion, like elsewhere in the Middle East. To promote and groom only Shi'ite groups, such as the "supreme council of Islamic revolution in Iraq," Iraqi communists and "ex" Baath party members to key positions in the post-Saddam government is a mistake. Members of such groups are today in Washington D.C. Pro-democracy figures of the Iraqi opposition must not be ignored.

USATODAY.com - Ex-Iraq officers discuss ousting Saddam Albert Yelda, co-founder of the Iraqi National Coalition, said the meeting would be the largest gathering ever of exiled Iraqi officers. He said they hope to unify those in exile and still inside Iraq in "establishing a democratic regime where the Iraqis, Assyrians, Christians, Muslims, Arabs, Kurds and Turkomans can live peacefully and equally."

124 posted on 04/17/2003 10:03:49 AM PDT by Remedy
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To: xm177e2
It is not a question of whether he should be allowed by law to speak at this event at the Pentagon, it is a question of whether it is wise to have him speak there.

Is this truly all it is to you?

Do you or do you not support disinviting Rev. Graham?

And if you do support disinviting him, on what exactly do you base your opinion?

125 posted on 04/17/2003 11:13:42 AM PDT by k2blader (Pity people paralyzed in paradigms of political perfection.)
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To: kegler4
Please cut and paste us some examples, I'd love to see
what your sources are.
126 posted on 04/17/2003 11:37:29 AM PDT by Dawgmeister
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To: k2blader
I've already answered your questions! It is STUPID to have Franklin Graham as an official speaker for our defense establishment, when he has not yet apologized for calling Islam an "Evil Religion." That is inflammatory, extremely inflammatory, and Muslims around the world will see our Pentagon as being run by Muslim-haters. It is stupid for that reason. We want to project an image of being friends with Muslims, we can't afford to have Graham speak at the Pentagon now, during the most critical phase of the battle for Iraqi hearts and minds. THIS is the time when we need full support to create democratic institutions in Iraq. If the Iraqi people get mad at us for a bunch of reasons, we lose. This is stupid, it undermines our foreign policy for ABSOLUTELY NO BENEFIT.
127 posted on 04/17/2003 2:47:23 PM PDT by xm177e2 (Stalinists, Maoists, Ba'athists, Pacifists: Why are they always on the same side?)
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To: RAT Patrol
No matter who speaks at the W.H. at any given time, someone is going to think that choice was unwise.

So what. The question isn't whether "someone" thinks the choice was unwise, but whether 1 billion people think we're waging a war on their religion.

128 posted on 04/17/2003 2:49:02 PM PDT by xm177e2 (Stalinists, Maoists, Ba'athists, Pacifists: Why are they always on the same side?)
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To: xm177e2
I already know you *feel* it is "stupid."

My point was, if you support disinviting Rev. Graham, then it most certainly *is* a question of whether he should be allowed to speak at this event at the Pentagon.
129 posted on 04/17/2003 2:56:30 PM PDT by k2blader (Pity people paralyzed in paradigms of political perfection.)
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To: xm177e2
This might interest you: Pentagon Open to all Religious Leaders -- Including Franklin Graham
130 posted on 04/17/2003 3:02:59 PM PDT by RAT Patrol (Congress can give one American a dollar only by first taking it away from another American. -W.W.)
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