Posted on 11/24/2002 7:38:43 PM PST by Keyes For President
"From the mountains of Afghanistan to the valleys of Bosnia to the plains of Africa to the forests of Asia and around the world we are on the ground working with our Muslim partners to expand to the circle of peace, the circle of prosperity, the circle of freedom." Secretary of State Colin Powell, in pronouncing these glorious phrases (we hope he did not actually break precedent and write them himself) sounded like a Fourth of July orator invoking the rock-bound cliffs of Maine and the sunny shores of California.
Secretary Powell is apparently unaware that there are forests in Africa and plains in Asia, but the myopia is pardonable when you are running circles around the rest of the world. What the secretary would prefer not to bring up is the fact that in both Africa and Asia Muslims, many of them funded by "pro-Western" governments and oil sheiks, are engaged in a genocidal massacre of Christians. Presumably the genocide in Nigeria and the Sudan is not the partnership Secretary Powell envisions, presumably the Islamic terrorism in Indonesia and the Philippines is somewhat outside the circle. In Bosnia, where the United States supported an Islamic that wanted to impose Islamic law on a Christian majority, one of our Muslim partners was none other than Osama bin Laden.
Not content with repeating the palpable absurdities that are the staple of the multiculturalist left--a critic of the administration would use harsher language--Powell went on to describe plans to bring more Muslims into the United States and to excoriate those who sing "the siren song of the bigots, extremists who cloak themselves in false spirituality in an attempt to divide and to weaken us." Whether he was talking about Osama bin Laden or Pat Robertson (guilty recently of hinting that Islam may not be entirely a religion of peace), was not entirely clear upon the first reading of the AP report of Powell's address to a group of Muslim leaders. But if by "bigots and extremists," Powell means Muslims who claim religious support for terrorism against Christians, then he should have named the man who introduced this belief into Islamic thought: Muhammad himself.
We all know that the Bush administration is caught between a rock and a hard place. They are going to war against a country full of Muslims (Iraq), supporting what may be Bibi Netanyahu's quest for a final solution of the Palestinian problem, while still wanting to make nice with oil-rich states we pretend to believe are "moderate." There is nothing moderate, from the Christian point of view, about Saudi Arabia, which forbids Christian symbols and preaching the gospel and funds anti-Christian Islamic movements around the globe. Saudi Arabia spawned Osama bin Laden--and the Saudi millionaires who continue, according to reports, to support him.
Pat Robertson has the issue right. He knows that Islam, despite the existence of millions of "bad" Muslims who reject some of the fundamental tenets of their faith, is a religion of war not peace, that any country with a sizable population of even bad Muslims contains a ticking time bomb, ready to go off in hard times when confused people begin looking for their spiritual roots. When Christians find their roots, they find the Prince of Peace. When Muslims rediscover theirs, it is Muhammad the terrorist.
I wish no ill to Muslims, either as human beings or as adherents of a religion I reject. I would like to leave Muslims alone, in exchange for being left alone. I do not support, at this point, the planned invasion of Iraq, and I agree with the many patriotic Israelis who realize that Sharon and Netanyahu, egged on by their supporters in the United States, may well bring about the total destruction of Israel. I cannot, however, swallow the lie that Islam, as a religion, is compatible with our Western way of life or that global terrorism is not a legitimate expression of authentic Islam.
So long as America's political leaders continue to treat the people as children, so long as they continue to misrepresent the most basic facts of the life-and-death struggle confronting America and the West, our foreign policy will be confused and dangerous, and our control of our own borders and destiny will become more tenuous with every passing day.
Telling fairy tales about a nonexistent partnership with terrorists in order to justify the importation of more Muslims may seem, to State Department staffers and gofers, like a brilliant move. In the short run it might bump President Bush from being, at the moment, the most popular Republican in the century-and-a-half history of his party to being the most popular Republican who will ever live. But in telling their little white lies, they are playing with fire, as many a parent has learned after lying to his children. When the time comes to ask the American people to defend their borders and their interest from a global jihad, these lies will inevitably come back to haunt them.
P.S. Our Muslim Partners Expand the Circle
Nigeria is in "the forests of Africa," where Colin Powell says our Muslim partners are "expanding the circle of peace." The past few days, however, our Muslim partners in Kaduna (a large town in northern Nigeria), have not been listening to Secretary Powell's speeches: They were too busy killing Christians and burning their churches.
The trouble started when a newspaperman, knowing the Prophet's eye for beauty, suggested that Mohammed himself would have approved of the Miss World Contest. To protest this affront, Muslims (no, not radical Islamicists, but Muslims) first burned down the newspaper and then went on a killing spree that left more than 100 people dead and 500 injured. Some of the victims--all or mostly Christians, so far as we can tell--had been stabbed first and then set on fire. According to the AP story, "hordes of young men, shouting "Allahu Akhbar," or "God is great," ignited makeshift street barricades made of tires and garbage, sending plumes of black smoke rising above the city." Although it is now that Muslims started the riot and destroyed at least four churches, a later AP story, published in the Washington Post, preferred to give the impression that Christians were to blame for the violence: "In neighborhoods dominated by minority Christians...youths smashed windows and set fires in mosques used by the ethnic Hausa and Fulani Muslims who dominate Kaduna."
Kaduna, though the majority of the population is Muslim, has a sizeable Christian minority. Of course, Christian and pagan Nigerians have fought back against the Muslims' violence, but what Western reporters like to call a civil war or ethnic conflict in northern Nigeria is nothing less than an ongoing genocide. The next time Colin Powell is chatting it up with our Muslim partners, he might ask them about the millions and millions of dollars they have poured into Africa for the sole purpose of exterminating Christianity--and, of course Christians--on that continent.
On the same day Nigerian Muslims were crying "down with beauty," another peaceful Muslim was taken into custody in Indonesia on the charge of plotting the terror-bombing in Bali that claimed 200 victims, and still another peaceful Muslim (Palestinian, this time) tried to blow up a busload of schoolchildren, and still another Palestinian Muslim in nearby Lebanon murdered an American Christian whose sole crime was preaching the Christian gospel of peace.
This has not been an unusual week. Every day around the globe committed Muslims are murdering and massacring Christians, and yet American politicians go on pretending that these criminals are merely a handful of extremists. Only this September, Antony Sullivan--longtime whitewasher of Islamic aggression--called upon President Bush to remove "Sudan from the list of terrorist-sponsoring states, though Dr. Sullivan knows full well that the Sudanese regime has refused to end the orgy of terrorism and violence directed at is own Christian population.
In repeating the mantra that "Islam is a religion of peace," our leaders are acting like children who protect themselves from the bogeymen by pulling the covers up over their heads--except in this case, the bogeymen are real.
Falling away is, to some degree, to be found in becoming hate-filled, as in holding blood lust toward Moslems.
Playing hate games, as some on this thread are want to do, plays right into the hands of blind rage and perhaps genocide someday. We don't want to go there, and hopefully, neither will/do several of the folks posting to this thread. But we will not submit to totalitarian Islamism and the Islamicists probably know that, thus we are their perfect enemy to be at war with in order to spread their brand of hate and ideological fanaticism. [Remember Marvin's main axiom of war: Crush the enemy and disarm the survivors.]
And I don't retract a word of it as written to my friend, Luis Gonzalez regarding the direction of this thread by some peoples' measure.
And you a good, obedient Moslem.
599 articles in Google confirming that he was raised a Catholic.
"Jews worship our God. They are part of our civilization."
You deny that McVeigh was a Christian because he didn't consider Christ as his Savior. Now you are including Jews in with the Christians. I guess this Islam vs. Christianity thing of yours is starting to fall apart at the seams Mr. Chan.
Now, when Islam comes to invade, will they spare the atheists? Will they walk by the agnostics? Will they pardon American Buddhists?
"Irrelevant."
Irrelevant? Hardly...
Your claim is that this is an Islam vs. Christianity war...why did they kill their own in those buildings Mr. Chan? They could have blown up several large churches and not killed a single church...but they didn't.
"But," says Michel, "I think he was just covering his bases."
I am not interested in what Mr. Michel thought of McVeigh's actions, that's irrelevant as he can't possibly know what McVeigh was thinking, could he? An any simpleton understands that he will arrive at conclusions that support his claim, not destroy it.
The only thing that we do know is that McVeigh accepted the last rites, and prayed. Sounds Christian to me.
"Therefore, by a preponderance of evidence, I win the argument and your claim is rendered null."
You remind me of another poster, one that went by the name of bigsigh...he would always declare victory right before starting his retreat.
This "evidence" you claim, is the writer's opinions, backed by very little beyond opinions and second-hand information. What people "think" of another's actions isn't considered to be facts by any stretch of the imagination Mr. Chan.
Documented facts: Tim McVeigh was raised a Catholic, he died a Catholic.
Can you refute those facts Mr. Chan?
Oh...one more thing Mr. Chan...when Islam comes to wage war on our soil, would they spare the lives of the Tim McVeighs of the world? Or would he have been an American, and part of Christendom in their eyes?
The fight is America vs. terrorists.
The answer may have as much to do with semantics as with theology, but semantics are important.
In essence, the religion of Islam began in 610 A.D. when a man named Mohammed became convinced that the polytheism practiced by the Arabian tribes was wrong, and that only one god should be worshiped. Mohammed believed the angel Gabriel revealed this to him, and preached the message widely, teaching his followers the "revelations" from Gabriel that were collected and preserved as the Qur'an.
"Allah" is a poetic form of the Arabic al illah, meaning "the god." Mohammed took an incipient belief in a supreme god and promoted Allah as the only god.
Mohammed and his followers identified Allah as the god of the Old Testament, consider Abraham to be their spiritual ancestor, and revere the biblical prophets.
Muslims also consider Jesus to be a miracle-working prophet who was born of a virgin. They consider it heresy, however, to claim that Jesus is the Son of God, and reject all notions of the Trinity.
Islamic arguments against Christianity typically assert that Christians worship three gods and thus show infidelity to the one god.
The core of Islamic faith is expressed in the shahadah, sometimes translated as "There is no god but Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet." Some English-speaking Muslims translate "There is no god but God."
Jews and Christians have more commonality in belief, and clearly refer to the same deity when we say "God." Christians believe, however, that God's self-revelation does not stop with the Old Testament but is fulfilled in the New Testament.
Whether one prefers to say that Muslims, Jews and Christians believe in different gods, as opposed to differing views of the same god, is largely a matter of semantics. From a Christian perspective, anyone who does not accept the full revelation of God through the saving work of Christ and the sustaining presence of the Holy Spirit has only a partial understanding of God.
Thus, Christians might argue that Muslims or Jews worship "a different god" because we believe their concept of God is incomplete. It is perhaps more appropriate, however, to think of Muslims and Jews as worshiping the same god, though not in His fullness.
Why does it matter? Our terminology can impact the effectiveness of our witness to any who do not accept Christ. It is essential that we keep channels of communication open by showing respect for people of other faiths, even if we believe their view of God is inadequate. Explaining Christ as the saving fulfillment and ultimate revelation of the same god is a natural and effective means of sharing our faith with Muslims and Jews. Insisting that they worship a different god altogether is bound to be counter-productive.
It is possible to be tactful in our speech without compromising our witness.
One thing is settled in my mind: there will be no human at that feast who arrived through some means other than what Jesus accomplished on a tree more than two-thousand years ago ... and that split of time reaches back as far if not further than it reaches forward.
This is all true and well said.
There are many peaceful Muslims who are ensnared by their false religion. But Islam is not a religion of peace, it is a false religion, a cult of violence. The ideology of Islam is opposed to the ideology of the West and the aim of true Islam is to force their ways on all and take away the liberties and freedoms we have, freedom of religion being at the top of the list.
BUMP.
Islam is at the root of the problem.
Including the Saudis who financed the terrorists.
If that's a fact, then absolutely.
This is a cover-up?
BTW, there is a vast difference between some members of the House of Saud aiding the terrorists, and the Saudi government aiding the terrorists.
There would have to also be significant proof that the money was given to the terrorists with full (or even partial) knowledge of their intent. Then, I would give the Saudi government an opportunity to try, and convict the culprit.
If we believe that people are innocent until proven guilty, it applies here as well.
You are one sick puppy, and excellent reminder of why gun ownership is a Good Thing. I've got some Muslim friends, a Pakistani family, who are US citizens, and a Turkish family who are in the process of becoming US citizens. I am inclined to take the Pakistanis to the range and burn a couple of hundred rounds through a Mini-14, a pump shotgun, and a couple of Glocks by way of instruction.
No need to teach the Turks, however, they've done their military service, and their military tradition involves 5,000 of them holding off 100,000 + Red Chinese for three days in Korea, or don't they teach that in schools any more?
In his letter, McVeigh said he was an agnostic but that he would "improvise, adapt and overcome", if it turned out there was an afterlife. "If I'm going to hell," he wrote, "I'm gonna have a lot of company."
If you have an honest bone in your body, your next comment will be a retraction.
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