Free Republic

President Barack Obama is right that the U.S. and the West, in general, are "not at war with Islam." As he has said, 99.9% of Muslims want exactly what the rest of us desire – peace, justice and happiness. But the air is thick with misunderstandings and lies. Recently a Muslim woman was banned from wearing a headscarf called a hijab in a Quebec courtroom. Far from hiding a woman's face, the hijab is a tasteful symbol of a traditional respect for modesty, not a mask. Many non-Muslims in the West have no idea how huge a contribution was made...

Maryam Salem, a fifth grader at a private Islamic school in Bridgeview in September 2001, knew something was very, very wrong. A plane crashed in New York. Police surrounded the Universal School campus next to Maryam’s family’s mosque. Word got out that the hijackers who turned four airplanes into missiles were waging holy war in the name of Islam. People in big cars started driving around the Universal School honking and waving American flags. “Ignorant people,” Salem said. “There were Muslims who died that day. I had nothing to do with it. I was 10.” Salem was too young to...

The murders on Saturday of five NATO soldiers by a Taliban suicide bomber who enlisted as an Afghan National Army soldier marked the latest in a rising toll of coalition troop deaths at the hands of Afghan security forces they are attempting to train. Since January, 13 troops with the International Security Assistance Force have been killed when Afghan police, soldiers or security guards — or insurgents who infiltrated their ranks — attacked coalition forces. These types of killings have accounted for the deaths of at least 38 coalition personnel since 2009, according to a Stars and Stripes review, constituting...

Indonesian Muslim protesters hold a banner during a protest against the military attack on Libya by the United States in Jakarta, Indonesia, Friday, April 1, 2011. (AP Photo/Achmad Ibrahim) (Achmad Ibrahim)