Earlier this week a mosque was vandalized here in Nashville. The walls and windows were spray painted with slogans such as "Muslims go home" and crosses were spray painted on the building. Also a threatening and hate filled note was left behind.
I condemn and deplore this act of hate just as I would the burning of a cross in the yard of a black family or the painting of a swastika on a synagogue.
I want our intelligence community being vigilant in tracking down terrorist. I recognize there is a greater threat of a terrorist being a Muslim than there is he being a Methodist. I support common sense profiling. I support people learning about Islam. I recognize that some youth have been radicalized by the teachings of some Muslim clerics.
At the same time, we must be mindful that the religion of Islam is not the enemy. There are nations of the world where Muslims and Hindus, Muslims and Buddhist, and Muslims and Christians live together in peace. The nation of Turkey is a democratic, tolerant, Muslim nation. Our allies and the countries we are defending and supporting in Afghanistan and Iraq are Muslim nations. It was Afghans that we armed that defeated Communist Russia and greatly contributed to the end of the communist era. They were Muslims. In the complicated Bosnian war, the US intervened stopping the slaughter of Muslims by the Christians.
Muslims are not our enemy; our enemy are Muslim. We are not at war with Islam. We need to be careful to avoid creating a climate that makes it OK to vandalize Mosques.
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I agree that we should not vandalize Mosques. However, I would like to point out how a number of issues are present within Islam that have historically triggered wars.
ReplyDeleteWe are not at war against Islam. However, Islam is at war against the modern national government, including that of the United States.
Well said. If anything, the enemy is religious intolerance. Islam is not at war against the modern national government, including that of the United States. Instead religiously intolerant factions of Islam are at war against the modern national government, just as there are religiously intolerant factions of just about every other religion. To me, scrawling on the walls of a mosque or synagogue is part and parcel of the same religious intolerance as seen by militant Islamists.
ReplyDeleteI agree. And it is my hope that people like you will use whatever influence you might have to speak out against extremist terrorists of all cultures and religions. After all one of the most horrible fore runners to the WTC attack was committed by Timothy McVeigh, a white presumably Christian man, and right now because of slackness in standards there are many openly neo Nazi soldiers serving in the army. They are no less a danger to us than a radicalized Muslim.
ReplyDeleteKeep The Faith My Brothers And Sisters!
Yes, yes! People of all religions must speak out against intolerance wherever it occurs--particularly when it occurs within one's own religion.
ReplyDelete"and right now because of slackness in standards there are many openly neo Nazi soldiers serving in the army."
ReplyDeleteI find that comment offensive and stupid. There are NO neo Nazi soldiers serving OPENLY in the Army. Soldiers are subject to strict standards of behavior and any display of "neo nazism" would be dealt with severely. McVeigh was no longer serving when he committed his heinous act.
You might want to familiarize yourself with the current oath taken by officers in the Army (the oath for enlisted people is very similar):
"I, _____ (SSAN), having been appointed an officer in the Army of the United States, as indicated above in the grade of _____ do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservations or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office upon which I am about to enter; So help me God." (DA Form 71, 1 August 1959, for officers.)
There is however, an obvious double standard in the military which led to the massacre at Ft. Hood.
I don't condone the desecration of the mosque, but I do have a big problem with a religion that subjugates women as Islam does, even when practised in the most moderate way. I also have difficulty being expected to be tolerant of a religion that is completely intolerant of all other religions.
Turtledove,
ReplyDeleteI find your willfull blindness offensive and stupid.
http://www.alternet.org/story/38680/?page=entire
"Now, with the country at war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the military under increasingly intense pressure to maintain enlistment numbers, weeding out extremists is less of a priority. "Recruiters are knowingly allowing neo-Nazis and white supremacists to join the armed forces, and commanders don't remove them from the military even after we positively identify them as extremists or gang members," said Department of Defense investigator Barfield."
Hmm. Sounds pretty fucking open to me. You're right there is a double standard. Any Muslim soldier is automatically suspect, but certainly no White soldier would or could ever do anything like that.
Read a little and then come back when you've woken up son.
In early February, Directors of the CIA, FBI and National Intelligence declared that an attack by Al Qaeda in the next 3 to 6 months “is certain!” Leon Panetta, CIA Director announced, “The biggest threat is not so much that we face an attack like 9/11. It is that Al Qaeda is adapting its methods in ways that oftentimes make it difficult to detect.”
ReplyDeletePanetta’s statement does not take into account the ability to identify any terrorist whose goal it is to give up their life for a cause. Only when you are observing measurable emerging aggression can you identify a terrorist before they effect their violence.
The Center for Aggression Management discovered 15 years ago that there were two kinds of aggression: adrenaline-driven Primal Aggression and intent-driven Cognitive Aggression. The Primal Aggressor, in the extreme, is “red-faced and ready to explode,” the Cognitive Aggressor (the terrorist) is not. When a person, regardless of the culture, gender, education or position, rises to the level where their goal is to give up their life for a cause, their body looses animation and we see the “thousand-yard stare.” But it is more than this, the whole body and behavior looses animation and this is how we can identify them. The problem is that security and law enforcement are still looking for the Primal Aggressor (red-faced and ready to explode). Of course they are finding it difficult to detect these terrorist; a terrorist is a Cognitive Aggression; they are looking for the wrong person!
As our Government analyzes what went wrong regarding Abdulmatallab’s entrance into the United States, you can be assured that Al Qaeda is also analyzing how their plans went wrong. Who do you think will figure it out first . . . ?
You can read more at http://blog.AggressionManagement.com