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Mark Steyn: The war Bush is losing
The Spectator (U.K.) ^ | 08/24/2002 | Mark Steyn

Posted on 08/22/2002 7:40:34 AM PDT by Pokey78

Mark Steyn on America’s abject surrender to multi-cultural madness

The other day, the National Education Association — i.e., the teachers’ union —announced their plans for the anniversary of 11 September: an attractive series of lessons and projects augmented by public TV documentaries and sponsored by Johnson & Johnson. From the company’s point of view, the sponsorship makes perfect sense: many of us have already gone out and bought a couple of extra crates of Johnson’s Baby Lotion, Extra-Strength Tylenol, etc., to deal with the blinding headaches and intense rectal irritation brought on merely by reading the NEA’s advance literature. And, funnily enough, once you’ve chugged down a few dozen pills and the soothing Johnson & Johnson unguents are caressing one’s pores, the peculiar emphases of the union’s 9/11 curriculum seem to pass through painlessly.

The NEA warms up with a little light non-judgmentalism by advising teachers not to ‘suggest any group is responsible’ for the, ah, ‘tragic events’. Just because Osama bin Laden and al-Qa’eda boasted that they did it is no reason to jump to conclusions. ‘Blaming is especially difficult in terrorist situations because someone is at fault. In this country, we still believe that all people are innocent until solid, reliable evidence from our legal authorities proves otherwise’ — which presumably means we should wait till the trial and, given that what’s left of Osama is currently doing a good impression of a few specks of Johnson’s Baby Powder, that’s likely to be a long time coming.

Instead, the NEA thinks children should ‘explore the problems inherent in assigning blame to populations or nations of people by looking at contemporary examples of ethnic conflict, discrimination, and stereotyping at home and abroad’.

And by that you mean…?

‘Internment of Japanese Americans after Pearl Harbor and the backlash against Arab Americans during the Gulf war are obvious examples.’

Not that obvious: for one thing, the ‘backlash against Arab Americans during the Gulf war’ is entirely mythical. But you get the gist. Don’t blame anyone. But, if you have to, blame America.

This is more or less where we came in. Last 11 September, my neighbour Rachel went to school and was told by her teacher that, terrible as the unfolding events were, the Allies had killed far more people in Dresden. The interim pastor at my local Baptist church warned us not to attack Muslims, even though finding any Muslims to attack would have involved a good three-hour drive.

And so this 11 September, across the continent, millions of pupils, from kindergarten to high school, will be studying such central questions as whether the stereotyped images on 1942 War Bonds posters made German-Americans feel uncomfortable. Evidently, they made German-American Dwight D. Eisenhower so uncomfortable that he went off and liberated Europe. But I don’t suppose that’s what the NEA had in mind.

I don’t think the teachers’ union are ‘Hate America’ types. Very few Americans are. But, rather, they’re in thrall to something far craftier than straightforward anti-Americanism — a kind of enervating cult of tolerance in which you demonstrate your sensitivity to other cultures by being almost totally insensitive to your own. The NEA study suggestions have a bit of everything in them: your teacher might pluck out Roosevelt’s ‘Four Freedoms’; on the other hand, she might wind up at the discussion topic about whether it was irresponsible for the media to show video footage of Palestinians celebrating 11 September as this allegedly led to increased hostility toward Arabs. Real live Arab intolerance is not a problem except insofar as it risks inflaming yet more mythical American intolerance.

This stuff went away for a while last October, and some of us were foolish enough to think it might go away for good. That it didn’t has a lot to do with George W. Bush and the strategy that brought him to power. You’ll recall that he campaigned in 2000 as a ‘compassionate conservative’. On his first trip to New Hampshire, he declared, ‘I’m proud to be a compassionate conservative. And on this ground I will make my stand!’ Those of us who ventured on to the ground to stand alongside him found it pretty mushy and squelchy, but figured the bog of clichés was merely a wily tactic, a means of co-opting all the Democrats’ touchy-feely words and thereby neutralising their linguistic advantage. My distinguished colleague Barbara Amiel felt differently. As she put it two years ago, ‘Those of us who give a tinker’s farthing about ideas knew we were in merde up to the waist. Conservatism is by definition “compassionate”. It has a full understanding and tender spot for the human condition and the ways of our world. A need to qualify conservatism by rebranding it as a product now found in a sweet-smelling pink “compassionate” version is hideous and a concession to your enemies right at the beginning.’

I was wrong and Barbara was right. It didn’t seem important at the time, but it is now. I thought the clumsy multicultural pandering of the Bush campaign was a superb joke, but with hindsight it foreshadowed the rhetorical faintheartedness of the last year. Bush, we were told in 2000, would do the right thing, even if he talked a lot of guff. Many of us stuck to this line after 11 September: okay, the Muslim photo-ops where he’d drone ‘Islam is peace’ while surrounded by shifty representatives of groups that believe Jews are apes got a bit tedious, and so did the non-stop White House Ramadan-a-ding-dong, and the injunction to American schoolgirls to get Muslim pen-pals, but for all the Islamic outreach you could at least rely on the guy to take out the Taleban, and, when the moment comes, Saddam as well.

But words matter, too. You win wars not just by bombing but by argument. Churchill understood this; he characterised the enemy as evil, not only because they were but also because the British people needed to be convinced of the fact if they were to muster the will to see the war through. In Vietnam, the US lost the rhetorical ground to Jane Fonda and co., and wound up losing the war, too. This time round, the very name of the conflict was the first evasion. It’s not a ‘war on terror’, it’s a war on radical Islamism, a worldwide scourge operating on five continents. But you can’t say so. You can’t say whom we’re at war with, even though, for their part, the other side is admirably straightforward.

Just tune in to any Arab TV station for Friday prayers: ‘O God, destroy the Jews and their supporters. O God, destroy the Christians and their supporters and followers, shake the ground under them, instil fear in their hearts, and freeze the blood in their veins.’

That’s Sheikh Akram Abd-al-Razzaq al-Ruqayhi, some hotshot imam live from the Grand Mosque in Sanaa on 9 August on Yemeni state TV. It’s the local equivalent of ‘Thought for the Day’, and even more predictable. Here’s the same dude a week earlier: ‘O God, deal with Jews and their supporters and Christians and their supporters and lackeys,’ he prayed. ‘O God, count them one by one, kill them all, and don’t leave anyone.’

This isn’t some fringe crank sentiment, but what appears to be a standard formulation from the Middle Eastern equivalent of the Book of Common Prayer. Another state TV channel, another mosque, another imam, same script: ‘O God, deal with the occupier Jews for they are within your power,’ said Sheikh Anwar al-Badawi on 2 August live from the Umar Bin-Al-Khattab Mosque in Doha on Qatar Television. ‘O God, count them one by one, kill them, and don’t leave any one of them.’

Same sheikh a week later: ‘O God, destroy the usurper Jews and the vile Christians.’

Hmm. Perhaps we need to call in Bletchley Park. Must be some sort of code. As a matter of fact, you don’t even need to go to the Middle East to catch the death-to-Jews-and-Christians routine. I stayed in the heart of Paris a couple of months back, at the Plaza Athénée, and the eight Arab TV channels available in my room had more than enough foaming imams to go round.

The old-time commies at least used to go to a bit of effort to tell the Western leftie intellectuals what they wanted to hear. The Islamists, by contrast, cheerfully piss all over every cherished Western progressive shibboleth. Women? The Taleban didn’t just ‘marginalise’ women, they buried them under sackcloth. But Gloria Steinem still wouldn’t support the Afghan war, and Cornell professor Joan Jacobs Brumberg argues that the ‘beauty dictates’ of American consumer culture exert a far more severe toll on women. Gays? As The New Republic reported this week, the Palestinian Authority tortures homosexuals, makes them stand in sewage up to their necks with faeces-filled sacks on their heads. Yet Canadian MP Svend Robinson, Yasser’s favourite gay infidel, still makes his pilgrimages to Ramallah to pledge solidarity with the people’s ‘struggle’. Animals? CNN is showing videos all this week of al-Qa’eda members testing various hideous poison gases on dogs.

Radical Islamists aren’t tolerant of anybody: they kill Jews, Hindus, Christians, babies, schoolgirls, airline stewardesses, bond traders, journalists. They use snuff videos for recruitment: go on the Internet and a couple of clicks will get you to the decapitation of Daniel Pearl. You can’t negotiate with them because they have no demands — or at least no rational ones. By ‘Islam is peace’, they mean that once the whole world’s converted to Islam there will be peace, but not before. Other than that, they’ve got nothing they want to talk about. It takes up valuable time they’d rather spend killing us.

President Bush has won the first battle (Afghanistan) but he’s in danger of losing the war. The war isn’t with al-Qa’eda, or Saddam, or the House of Saud. They’re all a bunch of losers. True, insignificant loser states have caused their share of trouble. But that was because, from Vietnam to Grenada, they were used for proxy wars between the great opposing forces of communism and the free world. In a unipolar world, it’s clear that the real enemy in this war is ourselves, and our lemming-like rush to cultural suicide. By ‘our’, I don’t mean me or my neighbours or the American people. I don’t even mean the Democrats: American politics is more responsive and populist than Europe’s, and when war with Iraq starts Hillary will be cheerleading along with the rest of them. But against that are all the people who shape our culture, who teach our children, who run our colleges and churches, who make the TV shows we watch — and they haven’t got a clue. Bruce Springsteen’s inert, equivalist wallow of a 9/11 album, The Rising, is a classic example of how even a supposed ‘blue-collar’ icon can’t bring himself to want America to win. Oprah’s post-9/11 message is that it’s all about ‘who you love and how you love’. On my car radio, John McCain pops up on behalf of the Office of Civil Rights every ten minutes sternly reminding me not to beat up Muslims.

And, of course, let us not forget Britain’s great comic figure, Baroness Kennedy of the Shaws, QC, who thinks that it’s too easy to go on about ‘Islamic fundamentalists’. ‘What I think happens very readily,’ she said, ‘is that we as Western liberals too often are fundamentalist ourselves. We don’t look at our own fundamentalisms.’ And what exactly does Lady Kennedy mean by Western liberal fundamentalism? ‘One of the things that we are too ready to insist upon is that we are the tolerant people and that the intolerance is something that belongs to other countries like Islam. And I’m not sure that’s true.’

If I follow correctly, Lady Kennedy is suggesting that our tolerance of our own tolerance is making us intolerant of other people’s intolerance. To complain about Islamic fundamentalism is to ignore how offensive others must find our own Western fundamentalisms — votes, drivers’ licences for women, no incentives to mass murder from the pulpit of Westminster Cathedral.

George W. Bush had a rare opportunity after 11 September. He could have attempted to reverse the most toxic tide in the Western world: the sappy multiculturalism that insists all cultures are equally valid, even as they’re trying to kill us. He could have argued that Western self-loathing is a psychosis we can no longer afford. He could have told the teachers’ unions that there was more to the second world war than the internment of Japanese-Americans, and it’s time they started teaching it to our children. A couple of days after 11 September, I wrote in these pages, ‘Those Western nations who spent last week in Durban finessing and nuancing evil should understand now that what is at stake is whether the world’s future will belong to liberal democracy and the rule of law, or to darker forces.’ But a year later, after a brief hiccup, the Western elites have resumed finessing and nuancing evil all the more enthusiastically, and the ‘compassionate conservative’ shows no stomach for a fight at least as important as any on the battlefield. The Islamists are militarily weak but culturally secure. A year on, the West is just the opposite. There’s more than one way to lose a war.


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Editorial; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: marksteynlist
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To: Pokey78
Reread this Steyn piece to share it with Felicity Fahrquar. It reminded me of Tom Lehrer's "National Brotherhood Week," with the classic line, "Lena Horne and Sheriff Clarke are dancing cheek to cheek."

But the most apropos line was from Lehrer's introduction to that song. He said, "There are people in this world who do not love their fellow man, and I HATE people like that."

Congressman Billybob

Click for latest column: "The Truth of a Gravel Road."

Click for latest book: "to Restore Trust in America"

61 posted on 08/22/2002 10:51:29 AM PDT by Congressman Billybob
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To: Sabertooth
BTTT! Thanks for the ping!
62 posted on 08/22/2002 10:52:07 AM PDT by Gumlegs
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To: Miss Marple
It is not necessary to point out the defects of the other side, merely to promote ours as the best, which is what he has done.

If this were a game of football, your side would have already lost because of your refusal to think offensively on the basis that your cheerleaders are hotter than the other team's.

Those who want to hear the President ranting about the defects of Islam (evident to anyone with an IQ above turnip stage) are going to be waiting a long time. It is not his style nor in his nature; in the same way he campaigns by dwelling on the positive instead of going into a full-frontal attack on the democrats.

Well, you'll most likely never understand what I'm about to say, because to a Bushie's mindset it's only about something so petty as "keeping the Democrats out of power", but I'll give you the opportunity all the same...

Islam is not a religion. It is a power-mad collective based in self-nihilism that seeks to impose that same nihilism upon every form of life on this earth. To a Muslim, you are either one with him or you are outside of him... and thus must be made to conform. The very word "Islam" means "submission" and that's what Islam does best: if one does not submit willingly, then he will be made to submit by force.

It's all too easy for a Muslim to blow himself up inside a crowded pizza parlor, or to kill thousands by driving an airplane into the side of a building: they have no individuality to call their own. It can't be said that they really exist of their own free will. They live in submission, and they will die for sake of submission. And they do not acknowledge the value of your soul or any other's soul, because they have consciously disavowed themselves of the sanctity of their own souls.

Islam is the same thing that communism was during the Cold War, but far worse. Communism was imposed upon people who otherwise would not have wished it to be. Islam is something that a person is given a free and clear choice to embrace. He can choose against it - and perhaps be met with the alternatives of death or slavery - but his free will in the eyes of God would be intact. Or, he can choose to submit to another god, Allah, who is merely the old god of this earth with another name. He can choose the way to escape temporal pain, but in truth he is choosing against his own accountability before God by embracing the centralized collective of power, to the detriment of all others.

That, dear lady, is evil. And it's the same evil that we fought against in Nazism, and in "emperor-worship" of Imperial Japan. Those were "religions" that we readily made war against. How is it, then, that Islam must be treated any different? And yes, Nazism was a religious system as much as a political one. We crushed it. But that's nothing compared to what we did with Japan: we crushed it spiritually, so that never again could whole squadrons of kamikaze crash themselves... we did it for them as much as we did it for ourselves. We did Japan a favor in smashing their old religion after World War II... just as we would do the entire world a favor by calling Islam for what it is: an evil engine of destruction.

Islam is a cancer upon civilization. If America has been wounded by it, she - and her leaders - have none to blame but herself if she refuses to have the tumor excised.

Besides, there are plenty of people to carry on the war against the PC culture, and it is not the President's job to do this when there are so many more weighty things on his plate.

"I can't fight communism... there's more important things I have to do": things Ronald Regan would never have said.

Political correctness is in the same leage of evil as is Islam, Nazism, and every form of socialism. If Bush won't call it for what it is, he's morally blind, value-neutral or plain bloody wimpy.

63 posted on 08/22/2002 11:07:07 AM PDT by Darth Sidious
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To: Darth Sidious; Miss Marple
It is a power-mad collective based in self-nihilism that seeks to impose that same nihilism upon every form of life on this earth...

When I first read that I pictured a bunch of Borg saying you will be assimiliated...

I agree with you and Miss Marple. I think the President was trying to avoid two things... Jethro and Bubba in a pickup truck shooting every "muslim" they found. And the argument digenerating into a PC fight over multi-culturism on September 12th. Both instances would have derailed the war on terror in a heart beat.

But more importantly, this facade that Islam is a religion of peace has to be done away with before the American people will realize that this clash of civilization is to the death. That our enemy can't be characterized as the guy behaving badly. Those towers coming down was the first of many attacks if we do not fight back--with everything we have - now - until Islam voids the field in defeat and doesn't even think of attacking us again.

If one thinks Islam can live peacefully with other religions and other cultures haven't been paying attention. They have never done so in their history. They are not doing it now. We have seen just the beginning of their mode of fighting... They are Islam... and they are evil.

64 posted on 08/22/2002 11:21:05 AM PDT by carton253
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To: carton253
When I first read that I pictured a bunch of Borg saying you will be assimiliated...

Well, I had the same problem just writing it ;-)

65 posted on 08/22/2002 11:23:51 AM PDT by Darth Sidious
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To: Pokey78
Yup. Johnny Jihad appears to be winning if the Today show featuring a pro-Berzerkeley Taliban singer is any indication of current cultural trends. Mark Steyn is right; Bush may be winning the battle against Al Qaeda but he is losing the cultural war against the liberals and their political correctness here on the home front. Something to think about as the 911 anniversary draws closer.
66 posted on 08/22/2002 11:33:08 AM PDT by goldstategop
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To: Gritty
Bush has not let us down conservatism has, it is as superficial as possible. For years there have been voices warning us about Islam and its radicals, but conservatism meant blaming Clinton for everything developing little to counteract the Left's super weapon of Multi-culturalism and in general just trying to get a little face time on the stupidvision.
67 posted on 08/22/2002 11:33:44 AM PDT by junta
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To: Pokey78
I don’t think the teachers’ union are ‘Hate America’ types.

I know one thing, I hate the NEA!! and I do think they should be put into internment camps.

68 posted on 08/22/2002 11:43:34 AM PDT by Red Jones
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To: Pokey78; dennisw
"Very few Americans are. But, rather, they’re in thrall to something far craftier than straightforward anti-Americanism — a kind of enervating cult of tolerance in which you demonstrate your sensitivity to other cultures by being almost totally insensitive to your own."

Yes, but the lefty elites are crafting this stuff. I don't think it's mere insensitivity for many, but active hatred for "Americans" and displaced obsession or identification of the "other", distant enough to think they control them, at least in domestic discourse. They are filters, and planes into buildings, plus the internet, is making it hard for them to maintain authority. So they lash out - first was the "root causes" innuendo, which failed because the root causes people found came out of Saudi, not America, apparent to all. Next is the deflection to perceived American failures in the past, which is already part of their controlled discourse. WWII, for example. The only facts relevant to them are the internment camp and atomic bomb, which they perceive as "trumping" all the good deeds of America in that war. That's why they hype these facts, omit 99% of other information. If it doesn't further the project of maintaining an anti-American discourse, it is omitted, or red herrings and deflection are used to combat it.

"The old-time commies at least used to go to a bit of effort to tell the Western leftie intellectuals what they wanted to hear. The Islamists, by contrast, cheerfully piss all over every cherished Western progressive shibboleth. "

The important point is not that the Islamists say this, but that Western leftie intellectuals aren't listening, or are filtering the info. With the net, this is harder to do. I've noticed some leftie suppression campaigns lately about Memri.org and other groups who translate what Arabs say in Arabic...the attack is usually they are "Zionists."

At least we don't hear the "You're censoring me" thing from lefties anymore - translated: "I have nothing to say that doesn't sound stupid to any average Joe, so it's your fault."

69 posted on 08/22/2002 11:50:19 AM PDT by Shermy
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To: jpl; Miss Marple; Wright is right!
I wish more FReepers were aware of how FDR accomplished so many of his objectives during his years in office, especially maneuvering the U.S. into WW II, but the New Deal agenda, as well. He was very, very cagey about his real intentions all along. He accomplished what he wanted gradually. Common Tator has made a similar point several times. To accomplish objectives in the U.S., you need the center to go along with you. You won't get that if you don't talk "centerspeak".

I no longer am sure of how to post an article, but someone posted one on another forum, from JWR yesterday, I think, by a writer whose last name was Warren. It was a truly masterful description of what Bush intends to do in the ME, and his objectives are HUGE. It's as big as Reagan ending the Soviet Union. Wish someone would post it on FR. Bush intends to change the balance of power profoundly in the ME and for the longterm. You don't get there all at once, and you don't get there by driving off potential supporters with scary rhetoric. It's the "speak softly (big stick)" routine, and it WORKS.

Bush is attempting to encourage the tiny, infant impulses toward modernism and democracy in the ME. Yes, they are presently small and weak, but he is willing to start working in that direction, keep at it for the long haul, and trust that it will bear positive fruit in the future.

Regime change in Iraq is only the first step in a very long march. The NY Slimes clearly does not want Bush to have this HUGE potential PR victory, so they are doing everything they can to trick him into wimping out. He won't though.

70 posted on 08/22/2002 11:50:29 AM PDT by Irene Adler
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To: Darth Sidious
You know, your post is a perfect example of why the President doesn't use inflammatory rhetoric. Your continued attempts to convince people of your position by insulting them and mocking their beliefs is a guaranteed non-starter.

Radical Islam is evil. There is no doubt about it, and the President has said so. Regular Islam is just plain wrong, but it is NOT the President's job to missionize the Middle East. In fact, I believe government promoting a religion is prohibited by the Constitution.

As I said before, if you don't like the President's style and strategy, you are just going to have to learn to live with it. Just because you, or Mark Steyn, or any one of a hundred other gripers isn't pleased with his mmanner of addressing this issue does not mean he is going to change.

AND, just because you make denigrating comments to me does not mean I am going to change my position either. Simplistic and belligerent as usual, you fail to address the fact that not all Muslims are the same, that we wish to get them to turn from the temptation of the radicals, and that in the large scheme of things and the context of this war the direction that you wish the President to take would be highly destructive. It may come to the point that we fight all of Islam. I pray this doesn't happen, because we are outnumbered significantly, and in a context such as that would gain few allies. Are you willing to throw the Turks over the side because they are Islamic? How about the Indonesians? Pakistan? Ready to abandon Afghanistan because they are Muslim?

I want all those countries on OUR side, and I want the radicals discredited. Only when there is a chance of secularizing those countries and removing Sharia law is there a chance for those countries to open up to the west and change.

So, no, Reagan wouldn't have abandoned his fight against Communism; on the other hand, he was cordial to Gorbachev and didn't call him names, but worked with him as much as he could.

71 posted on 08/22/2002 12:19:04 PM PDT by Miss Marple
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To: WarrenC
President Reagan's efforts in fighting communism, are common knowledge today, but back in the 1980`s, only his most ardent supporters considered his rhetoric appropriate and acceptable. Most people found the anti-communist Reagan Doctrine, to be out of line and not in step with standard US foreign policy. Reagan stuck to his plan, stayed the course and America won the Cold War.

Like Reagan, President Bush is an optimistic, positive, and patriotic individual. He has defined America's war on terrorism, in much the same way Reagan defined America's efforts in winning the Cold War. Bush has spoken out time and again, indicating just who the enemy is, what challenges we face as a nation and how we will come out victorious in the end. Bush has accomplished this with the American spirit as his driving force.

Like Ronald Reagan, George W.Bush will stay the course and remain focused on the ultimate goal of winning the war on international terorism.

72 posted on 08/22/2002 1:25:48 PM PDT by Reagan Man
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To: Dog Gone
The fact is that Islam can co-exist peacefully with other religions.

While your statement may be true, it does not follow it is a univeral principle. They seem to be able to co-exist peacefully only when they are in the distinct minority and do not hold the reigns of political power.

Try as I might, I can't think of a single country where Muslims are in the majority that the other religions aren't actively persecuted or at least heavily restricted by law. However, I can think of many countries where other religions, especially Christianity, are in the majority where there is general religious freedom and tolerance, including for Muslims.

Those observations alone should be sending up huge red flags to those who advocate Muslins gain ascendency to the point of political power. When they do, it is usually curtains for the "others".

73 posted on 08/22/2002 1:30:56 PM PDT by Gritty
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To: Gritty
Are other religions actively persecuted or restricted in Turkey? If so, I'm not aware of it.

However, Turkey seems to be the main exception. Algeria might also qualify, although I'm not sure. It is notable, though, that in both countries the Islamic religious parties won control through elections in the past few years and the army immediately stepped in with a military coup to oust them.

There's something about Islam that wants to create a theocracy instead of a democracy, and that would be reason enough for us to oppose it. However, it gets worse, since they seem to want to create theocracies that would like to kill us.

74 posted on 08/22/2002 2:33:39 PM PDT by Dog Gone
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To: Dog Gone
Although Turkey is considered rather secular and enlightened and religious freedom is "guaranteed" by their Constitution, practice does not follow always follow form.

Turkey is rated as A-3 by the group, International Christian Concern.

A = Government sanctioned

Severity of Persecution against Christians:

3 = Numerous violations that include fines, discrimination in education, employment or the electorate process, insufficient legal representation, and restrictions on places of worship.

If you need more information on Turkish persecution, just dial up turkey+christian+persecution on Google and you'll get over 20,000 hits.

And just think,... Turkey is the best of them!

Don't you remember that hillarious line from the movie "Airplane" when the trolling airline captain asked the innocent little boy (after he asked him if he liked to hang around men's locker rooms), "Peter, have you ever wanted to visit a Turkish Prison?"?

75 posted on 08/22/2002 3:07:47 PM PDT by Gritty
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To: Miss Marple; Reagan Man
And those who pine for Reagan need to quit living in the past. A Ronald Reagan comes along once in a generation, if we are lucky. He was a unique person born of the times in which he matured. Appreciate what we have now, while being grateful that we had President Reagan when we did.

I am, and thanks for that reminder.

I appreciate your cogent comments regarding President Bush, his approach to the War on Terrorism and isolating radical Islam. I enjoy reading Mark Styne but although he is informative, thoughtful and often entertaining, he does misjudge George W. Bush - as so many others do.

These same nay-sayers would the very first to scream 'BUSH KNEW' and stand in the Senate pointing to newspapers with that headline should Saddam develop a nuke and some Islamic suicide bomber set it off in an American city anytime soon. President Bush isn't about to allow that to happen. Many of us realize that but some, like Mark Styne, believe that Bush hasn't convinced the American people. I disagree.

President Bush isn't holding a 70 % approval rating because no one agrees with him. As has been pointed out, close to 80% of the respondents in general polls know full well that Iraq is an enemy and support our eventual invasion of Iraq to remove Saddam Hussein and his WMD. The liberal media would have us believe differently. The drumbeat of opposition to invading Iraq is manufactured from the usual leftist suspects and a few nervous Republicans who are afraid of being on the wrong side should an invasion not succeed or should there be major loss of life on the U.S. side. They are mistaken and will likely join the rest of the American people in supporting the President once hostilities begin.

It's clear from the Wednesday (21st) Texas press briefing (with the Secretary of Defense at his side) that President Bush intends to ignore the nervous nellies and is planning to do what is best for American interests and security, which is an invasion of Iraq and an overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

We will succeed and the Middle East will never be the same again. Petty dictators and kings on shaky thrones are easily swayed from supporting radical Islamic fanatics once a despot like Saddam Hussein has been eliminated and they realize that (a) Bush is deadly serious (b) the American people (if not the media) are behind him and (c) supporting Islam and endless jihad will end in their certain death and destruction. That fact sobers people, both rulers and the 'Arab street'.

Thanks again for your observations. Nice to see something besides Bush-bashing and doom and gloom posts all the time.

76 posted on 08/22/2002 3:29:18 PM PDT by Jim Scott
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To: MeeknMing
Bush trusts us to get it...and most Americans do, in spite of the international Big media/press 24/7 DNC spin...we are now bringing into the light of day the real NEA and many are finally starting to pay attention.

My humble idea for 9-11, suitable for all grades: teach them the Bill of Rights, explain that we are endowed by our Creator, not the government, with these rights....and explain how other nations differ....how Johnny Jihad can't tell his friend about Jesus in Saudi Arabia or he may be jailed; how the Chinese "Cnn" reporter can't tell the world about the forced child labor or they could be jailed, etc., etc., etc..

If the children aren't grateful for living in the U.S. by the time the fifth amendment rolls around, the teacher needs to brush up on the subject.

77 posted on 08/22/2002 5:00:42 PM PDT by Ragtime Cowgirl
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To: Miss Marple
Funny... you insult others all the time if they don't fall into your narrow "Bush can do no wrong" mindset. Since first noticing you not I or anyone else has found an original thought coming from your keyboard... only petty propoganda from someone overwhelmed with a bandwagon mentality. If you can't take it, maybe you shouldn't dish it out yourself so very often.

Radical Islam is evil. There is no doubt about it, and the President has said so.

So the president is the final determining factor between what is "good" and what is "not good"? Good lord... you really DO believe he's God, don't you?

Regular Islam is just plain wrong, but it is NOT the President's job to missionize the Middle East. In fact, I believe government promoting a religion is prohibited by the Constitution.

We don't want to promote a religion. We just want to destroy the ones that are actively trying to destroy us.

As I said before, if you don't like the President's style and strategy, you are just going to have to learn to live with it. Just because you, or Mark Steyn, or any one of a hundred other gripers isn't pleased with his mmanner of addressing this issue does not mean he is going to change.

We're citizens. At least it's better than being a sycophant.

78 posted on 08/22/2002 5:49:50 PM PDT by Darth Sidious
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To: Pokey78
I thought the clumsy multicultural pandering of the Bush campaign was a superb joke, but with hindsight it foreshadowed the rhetorical faintheartedness of the last year

When the "Crusade on Terror" was rechristened the "War on Terror" I started to worry a lot.

79 posted on 08/22/2002 5:52:39 PM PDT by Madame Dufarge
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To: Pokey78
Brilliant article as usual for Steyn, but sure glad he's not in charge. For what, IMO, is a more sensible attitude, check out this article by Daniel Pipes, "If One Sees Islam as Irredeemably Evil, What Comes Next?", http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/732877/posts

caveat emptor

80 posted on 08/22/2002 7:25:18 PM PDT by caveat emptor
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