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How Would YOU Like to Be a Muslim in America Today?
FrontPageMagazine.com ^ | Friday, February 21, 2003 | Robert Spencer

Posted on 02/21/2003 3:23:49 AM PST by JohnHuang2

How Would YOU Like to Be a Muslim in America Today?
By Robert Spencer
FrontPageMagazine.com | February 21, 2003


 “How would you like to be a Muslim in America today?”

Chris Core of WMAL Radio in Washington, DC, asked me this question last Friday. In the on-air free-for-all (which also featured Hussam Ayloush of the Council on American Islamic Relations) the question got lost in the shuffle, but I have to congratulate Core. With this one question, he summed up for free a point that CAIR has just launched a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign to make: Muslims in the United States are a disadvantaged, misunderstood minority, deeply threatened by what it calls the “rising tide of anti-Muslim rhetoric in the United States.”

And not just rhetoric. The FBI reported 481 hate crimes against Muslims in 2001 — up from just 28 in 2000. Of these 481 incidents, 66 were classified as simple assault and 27 as aggravated assault. 296 were termed “intimidation.” No murders were reported, although a Sikh was mistaken for a Muslim and killed shortly after 9/11.

There is no doubt that if all these people were attacked simply for being Muslim, these incidents — even if they consisted of nothing more than some idiot yelling an ethnic slur — are inexcusable. What’s more, they’re un-American. For all the imperfections inherent in any system constructed and maintained by fallible human beings, the United States has a record of justice that should be the envy of the world, and even France. We believe in the due process of law and the right to a fair trial. Rogue police are dismissed and vilified. Lynchings have been eradicated. The morality of the death penalty causes protracted national agonizing.

Thank God that relatively few Muslims in America (CAIR puts their number at seven million; the State Department at just over four million) have been on the receiving end of hate crimes of any kind. Judging by the FBI’s statistics, Muslims in the United States have generally experienced the generosity and keen sense of justice that characterizes Americans at their best. There must be some reason why immigrants from Muslim countries are still streaming into the U.S.

So how would I like to be a Muslim in America today? Well, what are my alternatives? A few representative incidents:

If I were a Muslim living in Iraqi Kurdistan, I may have relatives or friends among the 500,000 to one million people murdered by Saddam Hussein in Operation Al-Anfal, “The Spoils of War,” named after the eighth sura of the Qur’an. If I were a Shi’ite Muslim in our friend and ally Saudi Arabia, I wouldn’t be able to build a mosque and would suffer numerous restrictions on my freedom to practice my religion.

In Iran, the Muslim scholar Hashem Aghajari was sentenced to death for “insulting Islam” after questioning the Shi’ite Iranian regime’s hard-line interpretation of the religion. The sentence has now been lifted under international pressure, but Aghajari is not alone. An Iranian Muslim cleric, Hojjatoleslam Hasan Yousefi Eshkevari, also seems to have received a death sentence (the details, understandably enough, are not easy to get out of Tehran) on charges of “corruption on earth” and “war with God.” Eshkevari’s sentence was also reduced after an outcry, although he lost his clerical status. Fatemeh Govara’i, a journalist, was sentenced to six months in jail and fifty lashes for a newspaper interview the government didn’t like. And the list goes on and on.

In Egypt, Amnesty International reports widespread tortures and detentions without trial. Nor is this secular state much more hospitable to freedom of thought than Saudi Arabia or Iran: Islamic hardliners attempted a third-party divorce (hisba) — an arcane but recognized maneuver under Islamic law — to separate feminist writer Nawal El-Saadawi from her husband because of elements in her writings that they considered heretical.

Even in Jordan, a relative beacon of sane government and human rights in the Islamic world, the State Security Court this week sentenced three journalists to prison terms for blaspheming the Prophet Muhammad. Their crime? Publishing an account of the Prophet’s marriages and sex life based on Sahih Bukhari, a collection of traditions about Muhammad that Muslims generally consider to be the most reliable such collection in existence — except, evidently, when it’s blasphemous.

All in all, if I had a choice between being a Muslim in America or in any of these countries or other nations with Muslim majorities, I would choose the land of the free and the home of the brave. On the basis of freedom and justice, to say nothing of living standards, there’s just no comparison.

Not only that. If I really were a Muslim in America today, I would invite the FBI into my mosque. I would do everything I could to help root terrorists out of mosques. I would put up with the inconveniences this would cause me because of my “commitment to our nation’s safety and prosperity.”

Those words come from CAIR’s first full-page New York Times ad designed to promote a better image of Islam. It would be nice if this airbrushed, squeaky clean, Brady Bunch version of Islam were the only version in the world today. But it doesn’t even tally with the words and deeds of CAIR officials. CAIR’s concern for America’s safety didn’t stop its Executive Director, Nihad Awad, from declaring his support for the terrorist group Hamas. It didn’t stop Siraj Wahaj of CAIR’s advisory board from testifying on behalf of terrorist Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman. Wahaj even invited Rahman to his mosque to give a speech, despite the fact that the blind sheikh’s religion doesn’t quite square with CAIR’s Rotarian Islam: “Jihad and killing,” the now-imprisoned Sheikh has declared, “is the head of Islam. If you take it out, you cut off the head of Islam.”

Despite the fact that huge numbers of Muslims worldwide subscribe to Sheikh Omar’s version of Islam rather than that of CAIR’s ads, and that it is absolutely undeniable that many of these radicals have entered the United States and have already been found operating in mosques, CAIR has called on the FBI to stop counting mosques as part of anti-terrorism investigations. Where does CAIR, with its commitment to our nation’s safety and all, expect the FBI to find Muslim terrorists? At the malt shop?

How would I like to be a Muslim in America today? Because CAIR is in this country, it is free — free to publish its ads, to smear honest inquiries into the roots of terrorism as “incitement,” and to continue to pursue special victim status for American Muslims. But we may hope that American Muslims will ask themselves Chris Core’s question and answer it honestly. And that doing this will lead them to repudiate CAIR, with its shadowy ties to terror and irresponsible attempts to tar anti-terrorism efforts as discrimination.

After all, if the terrorists have their way, America will ultimately cease to be a refuge for immigrant CAIR members and other Muslims who are fed up with the tyranny of their homelands.



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Friday, February 21, 2003

Quote of the Day by Republic

1 posted on 02/21/2003 3:23:49 AM PST by JohnHuang2
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To: JohnHuang2
"ARE THEY FOR US OR AGAINST US?" (Updated Daily.)

SEPTEMBER 11, 2001: "ATTACK ON AMERICA!" (A Comprehensive Online 9-11 Site)

2 posted on 02/21/2003 3:48:44 AM PST by Cindy
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To: JohnHuang2
I am taking a class right now and we are discussing the Muslim religion. Of course some geek started whining about how awful it's been for Muslims in American after 911.

I will be using this article to make her look foolish.

Thanks for the (unintended but nonetheless appreciated) assist.
3 posted on 02/21/2003 3:54:20 AM PST by dpa5923 (More than a man, less than a god.)
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To: dpa5923
Quite welcome. That's what FR is for.
4 posted on 02/21/2003 3:55:38 AM PST by JohnHuang2
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To: JohnHuang2
I wouldn't like it, I'd go back to my Islamic paradise ---which according to the Koran I should do anyway because it wouldn't be right to life among the infidels.
5 posted on 02/21/2003 3:58:35 AM PST by FITZ
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To: dpa5923
There must be some reason why immigrants from Muslim countries are still streaming into the U.S.

So they can kill us from within.....

6 posted on 02/21/2003 4:00:24 AM PST by cardinal4 (Get the UN out of the US and get the US out of the UN!!)
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To: JohnHuang2
I couldn't be a Muslim today - here or anywhere else. Not dumb or gullible enough.
7 posted on 02/21/2003 4:01:42 AM PST by mgc1122
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To: JohnHuang2
“How would you like to be a Muslim in America today?”


That's like asking "How would like to be a NAZI in America today" in the 1940's, or how would you like to be a communist in America in the 1950's".

Not all Muslims are bad people as individuals. Its just their cultic beliefs that stink. Mohammad was an arch villian, Islam is replete with a long, dismal history of oppression of non-Islamic faiths which is rooted in the Koran and Haddiths. Unlike other, more progressive religions which have become more tolerant of each other in the 20th century, Islam continues to oppress non-Muslims wherever Muslims constitute a significant segment of the population. There treatment of women is abyssmal. There lack of any interest in productive modern technology, except for purposes of mass destruction, is manifest everywhere. If anything, Islam has become more aggressive and more intolerant as time marches on.

Lead by the Wahhabist Saudis with their piles of petro-dollars, fundamentalist Islam is on the march everywhere.

Pesonally, I don't believe this individual, nor any other should be faced with the conundrum of what to do as a Muslim in America. If I had my way, every mosque would be shut, and every Muslim would be given a one-way ticket to Mecca. Let the Saudis care for their own, while we cleanse this nest of vipers from our midst.
8 posted on 02/21/2003 4:03:48 AM PST by ZULU (You)
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To: JohnHuang2
“How would you like to be a Muslim in America today?”
No thanks! And I wouldn't want to be one yesterday either. And if there's another terrorist attack in the U.S. sponsored bt the "Religion of Peace", I REALLY wouldn't want to be one.
9 posted on 02/21/2003 4:07:50 AM PST by Far Right Of Left
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To: Far Right Of Left
I wouldn't want to be a Muslim ANYDAY!!
10 posted on 02/21/2003 4:11:07 AM PST by Ann Archy
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To: JohnHuang2
There is no problem with any nationality in America today if you are American first and foremost.
If America does not come first you dont belong here because after all we all America is different than the rest of the world and to survive we must keep out identity and to do that the place we left must be secondary to America and we must conform to American rules. Is that asking to much? It must be required to be an American,love it or leave it!
11 posted on 02/21/2003 4:14:12 AM PST by gunnedah
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To: JohnHuang2
"...if all these people were attacked simply for being Muslim, these incidents — even if they consisted of nothing more than some idiot yelling an ethnic slur — are inexcusable. ..."

This is the Muslim approach to receiving a trespass. The Christian approach emphasizes forgiveness and excusing those who repent.

12 posted on 02/21/2003 4:18:13 AM PST by Cvengr
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To: JohnHuang2
And not just rhetoric. The FBI reported 481 hate crimes against Muslims in 2001 — up from just 28 in 2000. Of these 481 incidents, 66 were classified as simple assault and 27 as aggravated assault. 296 were termed “intimidation.” No murders were reported, although a Sikh was mistaken for a Muslim and killed shortly after 9/11.
Interesting.....it may not have been a so-called "hate crime" but Waqar Hassan Choudhry is no less dead. If one steals money I suppose it doesn't count. The most spectacular anti-Moslem attack around here involved a drunken yahoo driving his Mustang into the front door of a mosque at 80mph, apparently immune to the irony of aiming a vehicle at an occupied building.

The fact that Muslims are treated better in the United States than anywhere else in the world speaks well of us, not badly of them. The same can be said about most Jews, Scientologists, Jehovah's Witnesses, Chinese people, and entrepreneurs. It's certainly no justification for treating them differently than anyone else.

-Eric

13 posted on 02/21/2003 4:18:57 AM PST by E Rocc (Ask the Carthaginians if war ever solves anything)
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To: JohnHuang2
"How Would YOU Like to Be a Muslim in America Today?"

It would be a helluva lot safer than being a Christian in some Muslim-dominated third-world cesspool.


14 posted on 02/21/2003 4:59:38 AM PST by Joe Brower (http://www.joebrower.com/)
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To: JohnHuang2
If I really were a Muslim in America today, I would invite the FBI into my mosque. I would do everything I could to help root terrorists out of mosques.

I think an apt comparison here is between the Muslims of today and the Japanese of the 1940s. Today the Muslims complain about ill treatment (probably with justification), while the Japanese of the 1940s under far worse treatment went to great lengths to prove their "Americanism".

This should not be necessary but human nature being what it is, it becomes necessary. If Muslims want Americans to see that they are as American as them they should volunteer for the armed services in large numbers, they should speak out against terrorism more openly, and they should seek to educate the rest of us about how Islam can be compatible with a wide open democracy.

15 posted on 02/21/2003 5:11:48 AM PST by Straight Vermonter (I don't believe in hyphenating Americans)
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To: ZULU
Pesonally, I don't believe this individual, nor any other should be faced with the conundrum of what to do as a Muslim in America. If I had my way, every mosque would be shut, and every Muslim would be given a one-way ticket to Mecca. Let the Saudis care for their own, while we cleanse this nest of vipers from our midst.

Frankly I think you've got this one right.

16 posted on 02/21/2003 5:15:00 AM PST by Anticommie
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To: JohnHuang2
How would you like to be one of the non leadership elite muslim in Iraq or Iran or Saudi Arabia or Lebanon or the Sudan or a hundred other muslim dominated countries and cultures

How would you like to be a woman or child in these countries and cultures

Worst of All HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE A CHRISTIAN OR A JEW IN A MUSLIM DOMINATED COUNTRY OR CULTURE...

Muslims in America especially muslim women have the freedom to do what ever they want with great protection from the recriminations of islam...

Muslims find their greatest freedoms and opportunites in America because American was founded and designed by Christians for Christians...

So naturally they will and try to tear her institutions down...as do the liberals and all who hate Christ and His people..

Its in The Book
17 posted on 02/21/2003 5:29:15 AM PST by joesnuffy
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Comment #18 Removed by Moderator

To: cardinal4
Actually, I know quite a few Muslims and they are more scared of the extremists that we are.
19 posted on 02/21/2003 6:29:23 AM PST by AppyPappy (Caesar si viveret, ad remum dareris.)
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To: dpa5923
"I am taking a class right now and we are discussing the Muslim religion."

Perhaps your class might enjoy taking the
following Multiple Choice test:

1. In 1972 at the Munich Olympics, athletes were kidnapped and massacred
by:
a. Olga Corbitt
b. Sitting Bull
c. Arnold Schwartzeneger
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of
17 and 40

2. In 1979, the U.S. embassy in Iran was taken over by:
a. Lost Norwegians
b. Elvis
c. A tour bus full of 80-year-old women
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of
17 and 40

3. During the 1980's a number of Americans were
kidnapped in Lebanon by:
a. John Dillinger
b. The King of Sweden
c. The Boy Scouts
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of
17 and 40

4. In 1983, the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut was
blown up by:
a. A pizza delivery boy
b. Pee Wee Herman
c. Geraldo Rivera
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of
17 and 40

5. In 1985 the cruise ship Achille Lauro was hijacked
and a 70 year old American passenger was murdered
and thrown overboard by:
a. The Smurfs
b. Davy Jones
c. The Little Mermaid
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of
17 and 40

6. In 1985 TWA flight 847 was hijacked at Athens,
and a U.S. Navy diver was murdered by:
a. Captain Kid
b. Charles Lindberg
c. Mother Teresa
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of
17 and 40

7. In 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 was bombed by:
a. Scooby Doo
b. The Tooth Fairy
c. Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of
17 and 40

8. In 1993 the World Trade Center was bombed the first
time by:
a. Richard Simmons
b. Grandma Moses
c. Michael Jordan
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of
17 and 40

9. In 1998, the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania
were bombed by:
a. Mr. Rogers
b. Hillary, to distract attention from Wild Bill' s
women problems
c. The World Wrestling Federation
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of
17 and 40

10. On 9/11/01, four airliners were hijacked and
destroyed and thousands of people were killed by:
a. Bugs Bunny, Wiley E. Coyote, Daffy Duck and Elmer Fudd
b. The Supreme Court of Florida
c. Mr. Bean
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of
17 and 40

11. In 2002 the United States fought a war in
Afghanistan against:
a. Enron
b. The Lutheran Church
c. The NFL
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of
17 and 40

12. In 2002 reporter Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and
murdered by:
a. Bonny and Clyde
b. Captain Kangaroo
c. Billy Graham
d. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of
17 and 40
20 posted on 02/21/2003 6:35:15 AM PST by TheRightGuy
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