US Conservatives dispute Bush’s portrayal of Islam

The Indian Express ^ | 12/9/02 | Dana Milbank

[1bigdictator]

US Conservatives dispute Bush’s portrayal of Islam

Dana Milbank

Washington, December 8 PRESIDENT Bush finds himself in a rare disagreement with Conservatives in his party over his efforts to portray Islam as a peaceful religion that is not responsible for anti-American terrorism. In a score of speeches since the September 11, 2001, attacks, Bush has called for tolerance of Muslims, describing Islam as ‘‘a faith based upon peace and love and compassion’’ and a religion committed to ‘‘morality and learning and tolerance.’’

But a large number of foreign policy hawks — some of them with advisory roles in the Bush administration — have joined religious conservatives in taking issue with Bush’s characterisations. While most of them understand the political rationale for Bush’s statements — there’s no benefit in antagonising Muslim allies such as Pakistan and Indonesia — they say the claim is dishonest and destined to fail. For Bush and for the country, the outcome of the argument is crucial.

The administration, and moderate governments in Arab and Muslim nations, are struggling to prevent the war on terrorism from becoming what Osama bin Laden wants: a war of civilisation between the Judeo-Christian West and a resentful and impoverished Muslim world. Calling Islam a peaceful religion ‘‘is an increasingly hard argument to make,’’ said Kenneth Adelman, a former Reagan official who serves on the Bush Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board.

‘‘The more you examine the religion, the more militaristic it seems. After all, its founder, Mohammed, was a warrior, not a peace advocate like Jesus.’’ Another member of the Pentagon advisory board, Eliot Cohen of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, wrote an article on the Wall Street Journal editorial page arguing that the enemy of the US is not terrorism ‘‘but militant Islam.’’ ‘‘The enemy has an ideology, and an hour spent surfing the Web will give the average citizen at least the kind of insights that he or she might have found during World Wars I and II by reading Mein Kampf or the writings of Lenin, Stalin or Mao.’’

Cohen acknowledges it is impolitic and ‘‘deeply uncomfortable’’ for the administration to say such things. ‘‘Nobody would like to think that a major world religion has a deeply aggressive and dangerous strain in it — a strain often excused or misrepresented in the name of good feelings. But uttering uncomfortable and unpleasant truths is one of the things that defines leadership,’’ he said.

At the same time, social conservatives are resisting Bush’s efforts to portray Islam in a favorable light. ‘‘Islam is at war against us,’’ Paul Weyrich, an activist who is influential in the White House, wrote recently.

‘‘I have had much good to say about President Bush in recent months. But one thing that concerned me before September 11 and concerns me even more now is his administration’s constant promotion of Islam as a religion of peace and tolerance just like Judaism or Christianity. It is neither.’’ — LATWP

[Jael]

Jumping through hopes agin Luis? It doesn't look good for you.

You pointed out her spelling, and then called her a kool aid drinker. You have to stand up and face the truth.

Now, as to the rest of your post, it doesn't deserve an answer. You have lied and I have better things to do with my time.

[Luis Gonzalez]

"This debate seems to be a tempest in a teapot. The 10-25% of Muslims who are militant and wish to subjugate non-Muslim peoples and culture need to reform their ideology and accept modernity and global diversity or they need to die. The other Muslims are non-combatants in this war on Islamic terror. I just wish this 75% of Muslims would actively criticize their more extreme brothers and sisters for the trail of death and destruction militant Islam is leaving around the globe."

You thought this debate made you do weird stuff?

I am actually quoting Pat Buchanan to prove my point!

The part of your post underlined is the basic gist of this issue, and while I don't believe the number to be as high as 25%, I won't quibble over that because the premise of your post is the same point that I am trying to make.

That, plus the fact that people are using too broad a brush when they say things like "Islam is the enemy". I object to that on several levels actually.

I object to it because it demands that I make a generalization that I know beyond a shadow of a doubt to be untrue. That generalization asks me to upon people who have been my friends for many years as enemies, based on the actions of known-murderers.

I object to it because believing it would force me to believe that hundreds of millions of people who have never done anything to harm anyone, are evil, and are my enemies.

As far as the outcry from Muslims in the aftermath of 9/11, try looking here, at what the media would not give coverage to.

Meanwhile, I will try and listen to the words of Oscar Aria:

"It is essential that justice be done, and it is equally vital that justice not be confused with revenge, for the two are wholly different."

[Luis Gonzalez]

You can't answer, and try as you may, you can't dig yourself out of the hole you've dug.

Laughable!

[Luis Gonzalez]

"I answered your question in regard to the Jews. They do believe that the Messiah will be the Son of God."

There you are!

As I said, you call Jews the anti-Christ!

"They say that Jesus Christ is not the Son of God come in the flesh."

76 posted on 12/15/2002 5:10 PM EST by Jael

And by your own words, the Jews do not believe Jesus to be the Son of God, because they are still waiting for the Son of God.

"Oh no. The Bible says that anyone who denies that Jesus is who he is, is an antichrist."

"Read it and weep, there is no getting around the fact that Islam rejects Jesus Christ for who he is."

"That makes them a liar and an antichrist."

99 posted on 12/16/2002 1:21 AM EST by Jael

Your own words say that anyone who denies that JESUS is who He is, is the anti-Christ, and your own words again, clearly state that Jews do not believe Jesus to be the son of God.

"Allah had no son, by Mohammed's admission."

116 posted on 12/16/2002 1:39 AM EST by Jael

Jews do not believe that God had a Son either, you yourself said as much.

I see that you are down to grade school debating tactics, and I have no desire to be here when you start holding your breath until you turn purple, so I'll go talk to others who are not quite so.........provincial in their thinking.

[Luis Gonzalez]

"Are you stupid or on drugs?"

I guess this signals an end to the adult segment of this debate.

"Your girl friend brought up AMERICAN BLACKS."

Get this straight, I have a wife, I have no girlfriends.

When you are willing to condemn the whole based on the action of the few--no one here is drawing any distinctions between guilty Muslims and non-guilty Muslims, all are guilty based on their religious beliefs--the logical conclusion to that line of thought is then that the few are also responsible for the actions of the many.

In other words, you find all Islam guilty of terror by association, and as such, then all blacks are guilty of crimes committed by some blacks in Africa (not all Muslims BTW) by association as well.

That's the problem with the whole "Islam is the enemy" groupthink...people are found guilty of crimes they have never perpetrated.

[Luis Gonzalez]

"If American blacks specifically targeted another minority for genocide..."

There is overwhelming proof that the vast majority of Muslims DO NOT TARGET OTHERS FOR GENOCIDE, there would have been millions dead had that been the case.

A segment of Islamic thought (Wahhabism being the leading exponent) preaches hatred.

If all Muslims were indeed followers of Wahhabism, we would be actively fighting even our own citizens.

Those attempting to obfuscate the issue, and trying to expand what should be a failrly simple fight, into Armageddon, are every bit as evil as bin Laden and his ilk.

[Jael]

Why are you so hostile? No matter what you believe about the Jews, they are blessed by God. And your quoting the Koran to try and prove that Jehovah is Allah the moon good just proves what you DON'T know.

[Luis Gonzalez]

I'm hostile?

Are you embarking on another set of lies about me now?

You make broad generalizations that do not hold up. You make statements that are little more than parroting the words of others who are not right.

You misreprsent the words of the Koran to justify the general hysteria in the nation, and you lie about what I say in here.

You and the rest of the people carrying the "Islam is the enemy" banner are doing real damage to the cause of finding, and punishing those responsible for the attacks on the US. You are playing right into the hands of those to whom making this an Islam vs. Christendom issue is the ultimate goal.

The attacks on the US were designed to goad the US government into striking out against Muslims, something that would unite the Muslim world, and in fact create a global war of truly frightening proportions.

When you say "Islam is the enemy" among others you make enemies out of 53 million Russians, countless millions of asians, and millions of native-born Americans who have done NOTHING to harm anyone.

You want an enemy? Narrow the scope, the enemy is still today the same that it was on 9/11.

The enemies are Muslim fundamentalist terrorists, the clerics who preach hate, and the governments who sponsor them.

Period.

"No matter what you believe about the Jews..."

What I believe about the Jews?

What YOU believe about the Jews, and the inconsistency of your line of thought. Those are after all, your words I posted.

Your argument falls apart when held up to the light.

I'll tell you everything you need to know on my thoughts about Jews: my children are Jews, I am married to a Jew.

She, and most every Jewish person we socialize with, including her family, agree that feeding the hysteria will do nothing more than harm everyone and obfuscate the true mission.

Find and punish everyone responsible for the attacks on America.

[Luis Gonzalez]

Luke 19:27 But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay [them] before me.

If ten percent of Christians decided to take the Bible literally, and decided to enforce the word of God above, would you then call all Christians evil?

[Jael]

When you say "Islam is the enemy"

When you deny the truth about Islam, when you lie about other posters, you have fallen off the list of people to listen to about ANYTHING.

I have never called for an all out war on Islam. I am simply posting from the Koran regarding what Islam teaches.

It teaches hate. It preaches war. It is not about peace.

Further, it lies about God. It lies about Jesus Christ.

And you ignore EVERYTHING posted from Islamic sources to go off on some hysterical rant.

Get a grip Luis. You have lost your credibility.

[Angelus Errare]

I actually think that 25% is a pretty reasonable figure if you start out from the point that al-Qaeda gets roughly 10-13% support in most Muslim countries, some more (Pakistan, Bangladesh), some less (Turkey, Jordan). Also, somewhere between 98-87% of Saudis support bin Laden and his cause according to most Arab opinion polls.

Of course, there is a rather wide gap between how many Muslims support bin Laden and how many are willing to take up arms to support his cause. Among the Chechens, the number is quite high, while contrastly very few Kuwaitis seem to think that the whole holy war thing is worth losing their air-conditioned yachts along the Persian Gulf.

Additionally, I think that another reason that so many Muslims support bin Laden is that he possesses what I refer to as the "Magneto factor," after the fictional villain in Marvel Comics. Without fleshing out the character, let me just say that one of the reasons that he commands so much support in the fictional world of Marvel is that he is able to tap into deep-rooted fears and hopes within the Muslim population and then focus the emotions such statements arouse into acquiring support or at least tacit approval for his political agenda.

If you listen to all of his videotapes, he clearly tries to paint himself as a kind of an "invisible superpower," a guy who's going to stand up for Muslims worldwide whatever their cause because their own governments are either too corrupt or too despotic to do so. And to a kid living in the slums of Cairo or Islamabad, I'd imagine that that kind of rhetoric sounds pretty damn appealing. It was one of the tactics used by the communists to gain support in Africa during the 1960s and 1970s. More to the point, bin Laden, regardless of his religious credentials, guarantees instant paradise to anybody who kills Americans in his name. This is one of the reasons why I consider whether an individual is a "member" or a "sympathizer" of al-Qaeda to be rather meaningless - it makes no difference when they're pointing the barrel of a gun at you.

Additionally, I think that the other reason that al-Qaeda is such a major threat is that it was basically allowed to grow relatively unhindered between 1993 (when they killed our troops in Somalia) to 2001. You'd be really amazed what you can do in that amount of time, and the Clinton administration bears a great deal of responsibility for not reacting to the threat before al-Qaeda had a chance to establish this kind of elaborate infrastructure rather than leaving it to the Bush administration to deal with afterwards.

[Angelus Errare]

"You have lost your credibility."

And this is coming from someone who has refused to even attempt to justify the theological implications of her statements about Islam being a religion of an antichrist to Judaism?

People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw rocks ...

[Jael]

Luis, it's pretty evil of you to use God's word decietfully. If you had bothered to read that, you would see that the passage in question is not God telling people to slay someone.

Luke 19:11  ¶And as they heard these things, he added and spake a parable, because he was nigh to Jerusalem, and because they thought that the kingdom of God should immediately appear.


12  He said therefore, A certain nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom, and to return.

[Jael]

Jews do not believe that God had a Son either, you yourself said as much.

You are lying again Luis.

[Angelus Errare]

You're saying that Jews _do_ believe that God had a Son?

Funny, I seem to have missed that part of Orthodox Judaism ...

[Jael]

Hey, I never say anything bad about any Jew. That is just Luis's spin. He likes playing the those types of cards.

I believe what the Bible says about this. The Jews worship Jehovah. They do not worship Allah the moon god.

Genesis 12:1  ¶Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee:

2  And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:

3  And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.

That blessing only comes through Isaac's line, not the line of the servant's child.

[Angelus Errare]

"There is no need for anyone to apologize for Milosevic to Americans because he never took any action against America that would need to have him and his supporters apologize for it."

To be fair, there seem to be some people out there who are still convinced that Putin staged the 1999 apartment bombings in Moscow to justify a war in Chechnya (and am I the only one who finds this incredibly funny given some of the claims that have been leveled at Bush post-9/11?), despite the fact that Khattab and his buddies had invaded Dagestan prior to that.

Putin has never done _anything_ to take action against the US, yet he still has detractors and supporters (I fall into the latter category) here on FR. The same, I hold, is true for Slobo.

"Which is why I post here."

Indeed. And I _do_ appreciate your posts, make no mistake. The ones on Dr. Aziz's extra-curricular activities tends to make me believe that he was released more due to the pressure of the Pakistani religious parties than on his genuine guilt or innocence.

"Not front page, but prominently published in editorial pages like the NY Post and National Review."

I don't get the Post and haven't seen articles to that effect (I'm not saying that they don't exist, merely that _I_ haven't seen them). I have seen them in the National Review since I started reading it (I've only been involved in online conversatism since mid-April of this year), but not all that often, much to my disappointment.

"I read that editorial as well. I and other freepers posted about such things here over a year ago."

Indeed. Like I said, you're something of a treasure trove when it comes to the Balkans. But I really don't think that most Americans (or even most Muslims who get their news via Western sources) have a real grasp of the true situation in the Balkans. Otherwise current events in Macedonia (which was basically invaded _from_ Kosovo) and the fact that these mysterious "paramilitary training camps" (rather like the mythical area "between Pakistan and Afghanistan") where European al-Qaeda recruits receive training post-December 2001 are located in Albania.

BTW, have you seen Abu Hamza's "Caught on Tape" video stash of al-Qaeda storm troopers training and fighting in Bosnia and Kosovo?

"PS: I always thought I was a Scotsman."

Now is that a statement of fact or a subtle quip on your nom de cyber?

[Jael]

Proverbs 30:4  Who hath ascended up into heaven, or descended? who hath gathered the wind in his fists? who hath bound the waters in a garment? who hath established all the ends of the earth? what is his name, and what is his son's name, if thou canst tell?

[Angelus Errare]

No, but your logic is rather inconsistent in regards to your belief that Judaism is an "acceptable" religion whereas Islam is the religion of "an antichrist."

You cited 1 John 2:22, 1 John 4:3, and 2 John 1:7 as your "proof texts." I simply pointed out that I interpreted them as referring to Gnosticism, an early Christian heresy established by Simon Magus that posed a serious threat to the early Church. The Gnostics believed that Jesus was not human at all but rather a pure spirit and that the material world was innately evil, as was the God of the Old Testament.

I then pointed out that Jews don't believe that the Messiah has come in the flesh or accept the divinity of Jesus. By applying the same standard that you use against Islam (ignoring the alleged Qur'anic calls to violence just for the moment) to Judaism, this would seem to indicate that Judaism (at least the post-30 AD variety) is also a religion of the/an antichrist.

It strikes that your logic and exegesis, if applied consistently, leave you in a rather sticky mess because you, like myself and Luis, support Israel. So it is not at all unreasonable to ask you to explain why Judaism is not a religion of an antichrist and Islam is with Scriptural criteria to back up your claims or for you to denounce Judaism with the same invectives that you hurl against Islam.

Either Judaism believes that Jesus is the Christ and came in the flesh or it does not. And to quote you in #76:

"It isn't hate to expose what a huge group of people believe. It's common sense."

Is it unfair to ask that you exercise this common sense in regard to Judaism?