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Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald considers Dean Esmay's invocation of loyal Muslim soldiers in the U.S. Military:
Dean Esmay has recently made much of "Muslim soldiers" in the American army.Let's talk about those soldiers. Let's start with the one who threw the grenades at sleeping officers, killing two of them, because they were fighting Muslims and he was loyal to the Ummah. There is that Marine who deserted, and then was found, and had that press conference pledging his undying loyalty (ending "Semper Fi"), and then escaped again, and is now somewhere in Lebanon, a deserter and possibly a traitor. There are reports, not confirmed, of a sailor whose communications with others on land purported to volunteer to relay information about the movements of his ship and his shipmates, about which more remains to be known. One wonders if there are other such cases that have not yet come to light -- whether in the American or European militaries, or in the American and European police and security forces. And one wonders how much thought is being given to this in NATO -- especially if demographic trends continue without any effective attempt to halt and reverse them.
Then there are the handful -- does Esmay know how many there are? -- of Muslims who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan as soldiers, and who fought perfectly acceptably. Well, how many, exactly? Leave aside the Iraqis who lived in America and had their own reasons -- having nothing to do with the protection of Infidels -- for removing Saddam Hussein. For that matter, the same is true for Afghanis living in America who wanted to overthrow the Taliban. Tell us how many Muslim-Americans have served honorably in proportion to that population (here it would be best for Muslims if the inflated figures they use for "Muslims in America" were not used -- it would put things in an even starker light).Now, ordinarily when immigrants fight for the United States, the whole immigrant community celebrates them. Their pictures are put in store windows, or on the glass-fronts of barber shops, and so on. Think of World War I and World War II. The Greek, Hungarian, Jewish, Italian, Irish, German names, and the pictures of the soldiers, and the local pride, the stories about them in immigrant newspapers (published in Hungarian, German, Italian, and so on), as a demonstration of loyalty, and no doubt, as well, in the clear hope that this would demonstrate that they were "real" Americans who had earned their citizenship.
Perhaps the most astonishing example of this is the 442nd Regiment -- consisting entirely of Japanese-Americans. While some of them were put into camps in California, Japanese-American soldiers were determined to prove themselves. Did they? Indeed they did. Everyone knows that that regiment fought all the way up Italy. In fact, the last time I was at Fort Jackson, I visited the museum there and saw bound copies of Stars and Stripes from the Second World War. I opened one at random and found an article about the medals awarded in that most decorated of all regiments during World War II, and the feats of derring-do of those who served in that regiment. Think of what that must have meant, and still means.
Now look at the handful of those Muslim soldiers. Celebrated? Do you have CAIR or any Muslim group celebrating any of these soldiers? Suggesting that they should be emulated? Is anyone suggesting that Muslims should be in the forefront of those in the American military fighting what are regarded as threats to the United States, in the Middle East, or Pakistan or Afghanistan? Any hint that those soldiers would find themselves heroes in Muslim communities, with they and their families made much of by fellow Muslims, just the way those in the 442nd Regiment were? Are their pictures in shop windows? Do Arabic or Urdu-language newspapers have articles celebrating them in their American uniforms, in the American military? Is there any hope that they will come home, those few, richly bemedalled, with feats similar to those perhaps of the members of the 442nd, in order to put paid to all kinds of worries and doubts?
No. There has been none of that.
Why not? Dean Esmay should spend the summer reading, and not merely reading but digesting, the Qur'an and the Hadith (a few hundred, in al-Bukhari and Muslim, will do). He should also take care to comprehend how Muslims interpret, or fail to interpret, the Qur'an. Without studying abrogation, without understanding the real meaning of a phrase (including something as seemingly innocuous as "strive in the path of Allah," which is not innocuous at all), and without studying how, over 1350 years, Muslims took those phrases, and what they made of them, one cannot fully understand Islam. See Bostom's Legacy of Jihad for a sampling of what Western scholars of Islam from a dozen countries, who had spent their entire lives immersed in the study of Islam and Jihad-conquest, made of the doctrine of Jihad and its undeniable sources. Undeniable, that is, except to those who have "really nice Muslim friends" who are "as loyal as they come" (or other missing-the-point credulity for which the rest of us should not be expected to pay, or to risk our lives, so that Mr. Esmay can feel good about himself, and his own self-congratulatory sense of fair play and the American way that overlooks so much of consequence.
The invocation by some of their “really nice Muslim friends” in what should be sober discussions of Islam is just one more example of that blend of ignorance, mental laziness (which in part explains the failure to correct such ignorance), and a deep desire not to discover anything disturbing that might tend to trouble a serene world-view (which is the other part that explains). Non-Muslim apologists for Islam, relying heavily on anecdotal evidence about a colleague or a neighbor who is perfectly affable and friendly and exhibits none of those features which some ascribe to those who take their Islam seriously, are as silly as those Harvard graduates who listened to Fritzi Hanfstaengl, their fellow classmate, explain away Hitler and Nazism, or who might have taken Oskar Schindler for a typical member of the Nazi Party. Or those who, in reaching conclusions about Stalin, the Red Army, and the antisemitism of the "Doctors's Plot" (delo vrachej), might have been relieved by the assurances of Ilya Ehrenburg, or two decades later, might have thought that that nice Andrey Sakharov was a typical Soviet weapons scientist.
And so that nice roommate of your son, the one whose father is a zamindar in Pakistan, or a rich Kuwaiti with a flat in London he has invited you to stay in for a few weeks as his guest -- well, isn't it on that basis that too many form their opinions about Islam? Confusing personal charm and favors of a very few with this belief-system as it has been received, and is being received, by nearly a billion people?
Of course, many in Washington, whose duty it is both to instruct and protect us, have been receivers of just such largesse for many decades. That is certainly one of the reasons why Islam has not been understood, why Saudi Arabia is routinely depicted as our "staunch ally," and why no intelligent energy policy was ever constructed to replace the faith in the kindness of those Saudi strangers.
It is maddening to see people again and again refusing to read the texts or the scholars of Islam -- those who wrote before 1960 or so. That was when the inhibitions and self-censorship began, and the oil money began to have an effect on academic centers, departments, and individual professors, everywhere. Instead, non-Muslims rely on those Muslims in the West, who are highly educated and often adept at knowing exactly how to present a case (taqiyya-and-tu-quoque) to those who collaborate in their own fooling.
Those who managed to unlock those mind-forged manacles and who tell us about them -- Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Anwar Shaikh, Ali Sina, Azam Kamguian, and tens of thousands of others (and who knows how many hundreds of thousands long to be able to openly declare their apostasy) -- would no doubt agree with the lapidary formulation of Ibn Warraq that "there are moderate Muslims. Islam itself is not moderate." Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who by all accounts (which have just reached me), did not give an inch at Harvard yesterday when Muslim questioners offered the usual tu-quoque-and-taqiyya blend at question time, is herself perfectly sympathetic to the nostalgia of "cultural" Muslims -- indeed, she shares some of it herself. But she has no time -- she made that clear -- for those people who always seem slightly off, the ones who are Westerners but became Muslims and who seem determined to hold on to their own private Islam rather than admit that just perhaps, Rumi and mystical love poetry and the Five Pillars are not the half of it.
Nor does she have much inward patience (outwardly she was, I am told, the soul of courtesy) with those Muslims who, either out of ignorance or out of a deliberate mental choice to ignore much of what Islam teaches, or who simply don't want such matters discussed by Ayaan Hirsi Ali and others in front of Infidels (it would hurt, you see, the "image" of Islam) claim in public, whether they believe it or not, that Islam is entirely inoffensive. They make their unwary Infidel listeners forget, for a minute, a week, or a decade, what really is preached and repeated in the sermons (khutaba), in the press, on the airwaves, in those conversations filled with allusions to Allah and to the life of Muhammad -- for Islamic societies are suffused with such references and allusions.
It is silly to judge Islam on the basis of a colleague in a computer company, who may indeed be unobservant, or lax in his own belief (or may not -- you don't know), but who may insist that "his" Islam is the real one, not the Islam of the hundreds of millions who listen to Al-Qaradawi, to Sheikh Tantawi or whoever is presently the Sheikh al-Azhar, to the late Sheikh Bin Baz and his successors and followers in Saudi Arabia, or of those who still remember fondly, and miss terribly, the late Ayatollah Khomeini -- whose Islam, one can be sure, is a lot more representative than what someone living in an Infidel society, dependent on Infidel good will for everything, is likely to reveal. Why should he? Were you a Muslim, would you?
Those who by dint of great effort unlocked those mind-forged manacles have to have their say. They know perfectly well they are not representative of a vast movement, but perhaps someday they will be. They have no reason to mislead about what those texts tell Believers to believe, and what ordinary Muslims have, over many centuries, taken those texts, believed to be immutable, to mean. Furthermore, there is more than just the texts. There are, arising from them, a host of attitudes, toward Infidels and women, that do not bode well. Even those who seldom or never attend a mosque will be affected by such attitudes, and by what pervades or suffuses Muslim societies -- what might be called that set of Islamic allusions and references that form what might be called the "atmospherics" of Islamic societies, whether in Dar al-Islam or in Dar al-Harb. Some may not need to become apostates.
No doubt there are "Muslim-for-identification-purposes-only" Muslims who, for all kinds of reasons -- filial piety or fear being two -- choose not to declare themselves as have Ibn Warraq, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Ali Sina, and many others.
We know what real Believers think of them, even if the fierceness of their hatred has to be muted among Infidels. Instead of demanding physical punishment, they behave, whenever confronted with Ibn Warraq or Ayaan Hirsi Ali, as if these people know nothing about Islam.
Yes, they insist -- what does Ayaan Hirsi Ali know about Islam? What does Ibn Warraq know? What does Ali Sina know? What do tens of thousands of intelligent apostates know about Islam? The minute they leave Islam, every single Qur'anic verse they learned in madrasas (which both Ibn Warraq and Ayaan Hirsi Ali attended), every single Hadith they grew up with, magically disappears from their heads. One minute before they declare their apostasy, they know all about Islam. The minute they declare that apostasy, they cease to know a thing about Islam.
Magic.
Posted by Robert at May 10, 2006 2:55 PM
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O.T. - but just take a look at this nonsense:
Europe is underselling diplomatic expertise to AmericaDocility and name-calling are soft options that fail to bring to bear Europe's vast experience of the most pressing security problems: religiously fuelled separatism and terrorism, insurgency, post-conflict civil society building and regional integration. Just think how the looming catastrophe in Iraq might have been mitigated had these skills, which the Europeans possess in abundance [yes, he really said that], been available to the US. ...
By moving the issue to the United Nations Security Council without an agreed framework of what is likely to happen there, the Europeans have empowered the administration's most belligerent elements, who have been gunning for Iran for years. ...
So, let the Europeans strip away the US illusions over Iran. ...
... some form of re-established European Union funding is the factor that prevents the Palestinian territories from collapsing into a terrorist-ridden failed state and allows Hamas to mature, the Europeans should expect a substantial reciprocal policy move from Washington. ...
Jonathan Clarke is a former British diplomat and now a scholar at the Cato Institute.
Europe is underselling diplomatic expertise to America
Posted by: Yojimbo![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/nav-commenters.gif)
at May 10, 2006 3:29 PM
How do you sort them out? Unless the mohammedons aren't sent to the front line, how do you know if they will be loyal and trustworthy? Or how do we know they won't hijack a stealth bomber here in the states....ok, that one was from 24, but it could happen.
Posted by: freewoman at May 10, 2006 3:53 PM
Sorry, I wouldn't trust one as far as I could throw him.
Posted by: Carolyn2 at May 10, 2006 4:18 PM
How do you sort them out?
Posted by: freewoman
I don't think you can so keep them out.
Not just out of the military out of the US as well.
I know it won't happen, since 'islam is a religion of peace hijacked by a few extremists', but an Ape Pig can dream can't he?
"Imagine a world without islam"
Mr. Ape Pig
at May 10, 2006 4:21 PM
Free Woman said;
"How do we know they won hijack a stealth bomber here in the states....ok, that one was from 24, but it could happen."
Free Woman, I know that you've heard the saying "Art imitates life." You're not far off the mark here. Right now the Armed Forces are worried about gang bangers that are serving in the ranks now sending weapons back to the various home cities, to their gangmembers. Now from my personal experience, most Black Muslims wouldn't think about enlisting, but a few do. Like the one soldier that tosted a live grenade into the officers tent in Iraq. Now we've got to worry about immigrants that actually lived in the Middle East that are serving. And as we all know Muslims are allowed to lie if it furthers Islam. Any oath that they swear to our country is rendered null-and-void by the teachings of the koran and hadith. That is including the oath that all immigrants take when they are naturalized. The up side is that if they do betray their oath to the United States, they can be charged with treason. The down side is that a true Muslim/jihadist lives to die for Islam. Once again, our government needs to stop enlisting Middle Easterners until further notice. If not, then we'll be destroyed from within our own Armed Services.
Posted by: Ironman Hondo at May 10, 2006 4:30 PM
It's a real shame that Mr Fitzgerald can't take a moment for those Muslim soldiers who do fight for freedom. Instead, their loyalty is question. It is too much of an intellectual exercise for Mr Fitzgerald to even attempt to distinguish (in a fair manner). But as usual, I am not suprised.
As far as the remarks of "Ape Pig" and freewoman, you spit in the face of all soldiers when you make a remark like that. I know three Muslims in Iraq, who fight bravely, to say they don't belong there is insane. American Muslim soldiers have also died fighting.
As an American and a Muslim, I have the same rights to defend my country as anyone else, unless I am disloyal. Should Muslim soldiers be screened and even monitored? Yes. But to say they don't belong in the military, period, is insane and idiotic.
You do not have greater rights than I do.
At least these decent Muslim soldiers (the loyal ones) have the decency to put on a uniform and fight for freedom. Do you? They deserve your respect...
at May 10, 2006 4:36 PM
I love how the US accepts people who are not US citizens to enlist in the army if they are from the third world but it wont accept canadians in the army. I enquired two years ago about joining and I was emailed back that only naturalized citizens are allowed to join. Yet you see everyday people who are not american on the news in the army.
Posted by: pissedoffcanadian at May 10, 2006 4:38 PM
How quick you all are to judge the contribution that some Muslim soldiers have made:
http://www.apaam.org/VOA-SuicideBomber.htm
I wonder after reading this, what you would say to Cptn Humayun Khan's family? Would you offer condolences? Would you say he made no worthy contribution?
I am sure, none of you would have the COURAGE to do so. It is much easier to hide behind a PC.
Posted by: Haidon at May 10, 2006 4:40 PM
The poster above has missed my point or points. I was not questioning the "loyalty" of those who describe themselves as "Muslims" (this can cover a lot of ground, including those who are merely "cultural" or "Muslim-for-identification-purposes-only" Muslims) and have served without incident in the American military.
I was pointing out:
1) the numbers of Muslims serving in proportion to the entire Muslim population is very small. If one takes away from considerations members of the Nation of Islam, the numbers dwindle further. Why?
2) the examples of Muslim soldiers exhibiting what might be called disloyalty (killing of officers not out of personal spite, but rather out of a declared desire to defend "Islam"), in proportion to the total number of Muslims serving, is very high. Why?
3) there are Muslims serving loyallly. But what is made of them by Muslim communities? Anything? I asked why CAIR and other groups do not hold dinners in their honor, do not celebrate them? Why do some of their families report being harassed, or not wishing to advertise the fact of a child serving in the American military? What are they afraid of? And why?
4) for the purposes of comparison, find out for yourself how Lebanese Christians serving in the American military did, and how they were made much of by Lebanese-American groups during World War II. They, those Arabic-speaking Christians, had no trouble identifying with America. Why?
Posted by: Hugh at May 10, 2006 4:46 PM
Haidon you bring up a good point. But the issue here is of trust. Many muslims and liberals have done a diservice to muslims who want to be loyal. If you really believe what you say go out and get that trust back. When liberals say dont invade Iraq because it will make moderate muslims turn to terrorism the picture they paint of moderate muslims are that they are unstable and that they have loyalties elsewhere. When Muslims talk as if they are a monolithic group with grievances that are commited against any muslim then it is natural for us to see them as a monolithic group. Get out speak out and your point will be listened to by many.
Posted by: pissedoffcanadian at May 10, 2006 4:48 PM
Hamas Terrorists Arrested in Jordan
23:46 May 10, '06 / 12 Iyar 5766
(IsraelNN.com) Over 20 Hamas terrorists were arrested in Jordan for allegedly smuggling weapons allegedly planned for use in attacks in the Hashemite Kingdom.
Since the April 18th discovery of a weapons cache in Jordan, authorities arrested 20 Hamas members. The weapons confiscated included Kalashnikov AK-47 assault rifles and LAW rockets.
at May 10, 2006 4:54 PM
Mr. Haldon , from my great grandfather down to my son, the men in my family have served their country. I was a military wife years ago. We have always been a VERY patriotic family.
Now, when a religion (cult of islam) forces you to be loyal to the hive, it does make one wonder. I'm sure there are muslims in the military that may be loyal, but when you have a couple of bad apples, it does make you question the barrel full.
There have been plenty of what we thought were good citizens and loved the U.S. and they turned to jihad against us.
If you have a way to sort them out, please tell us. Until they prove themselves loyal, how are we to not assume they are loyal to the koran? Just take our chances?
This is a war with their cult. And we all know you can't serve two masters.
Posted by: freewoman at May 10, 2006 4:55 PM
Haidon said
Should Muslim soldiers be screened and even monitored? Yes.
How would you "screen" Muslim soldiers? Given that we are talking about internal beliefs, which are unknown and unknowable, and which are subject to change at any time.
Posted by: special_guest at May 10, 2006 5:00 PM
Mr Fitzgerald
You are, in effect, questioning the loyalty of Muslim soldiers. You essentially decry those loyal Muslims, as not being real Muslims. Afterall the only real Muslims are those who want Americans dead. You are making the case for effectively barring Muslim soldiers without overtly saying so, particularly through your comparisons with Lebanese Christians.
We all know why CAIR and other organisations do not celebrate these soldiers.
How to monitor Muslim soldiers? There should be a robust screening process in the recruitment process. Muslim soldiers may have to be put through the ringer to test their loyalty. Because there will only be a limited amount of Muslims attempting to join, full background checks should be carrried out (similar to those encountered by special agent candidates in the FBI).
But mere questioning will not yield proper results, as true Islamists will engage in deciet. Only extensive background checks will yield reliable information. This is a much more narrowly tailored method as opposed to banning all Muslim soldiers, which is what is being advocated by some posters here.
TH
Posted by: Haidon at May 10, 2006 5:19 PM
Mr. Ape Pig says "Imagine a world without islam"
I'm afraid I cannot imagien such a horrible situation, this is like being asked to live without a soul. Never forget that Jesus was a prophet of Islam too and therefore virtually no christianity either. Mr AP...perhaps you should think a bit before making such devastating statements.
As to muslim soldiers...never forget that your administration is using your tax dollars to train & arm muslim soldiers in Iraq...yes these are $ that could be used to build hospitals or provide health services for your childrens (or even pay off some of your gargantuan $9 Trillion national debt).
So to my mind, the question doesn't really arise, if it's good enough for your admin...it's good enough for you....after all you voted them in and that's what democracy is all about...get behind your president....and support your friendly local muslim soldier.
Posted by: Naseem at May 10, 2006 5:26 PM
Folks,
I think Haidon raises some very valid points. I hope we can debate them with a respectful dialogue.
Posted by: Cornelius at May 10, 2006 5:31 PM
"But to say they don't belong in the military, period, is insane and idiotic."
-- from a posting above
The same poster thinks it not only "insane" but also "idiotic" to suggest a policy of preventing Muslims from joining the military. But I never suggested such a thing. It is he who writes"should Muslim soldiers be screened and even monitored? Yes." I agree with him completely. What does he quarrel with?
And does he deny that the American, the British, the French, and other Infidel forces will have to worry a good deal about security risks from Muslims who might, for example, join deliberately as sleepers, or who might join while still adhering to a rather mild, unobservant, possibly idiosyncratic (say, Ahmadiyaa) brand of Islam, and then, while in the military, have a change of heart, and become much more devout, with all that that implies for loyalty given to an Infidel nation-state when, for devout Muslims, loyalty must be given solely to Islam and to the umma al=islamiyyah? Do you deny that Islam teaches such an unidivided loyalty? Just because you do not feel it, is no reason to attempt to convince others, including those who might, precisely because of your unrepresentative example, be misled into thinking there is no such requirement for such loyalty?
What do you think NATO officers should right now be worrying about? Do you worry about Muslim pilots in top-of-the-line jets? No worries? Nothing, just as long as there is no outward and visible sign of militancy? Do you think it would be wise, and would you recommend to your Infidel fellow officers, that they too not be worried about such things? Why? In France, if you were a French general, would you be worrying right now about Muslim officers rising in the ranks? If you were an American liaison with the French generals, would you worry about their force de frappe -- not right now, but in ten years, or twenty? What would a sensible person, entrusted with the defense of this country, or of the Infidels of the Western world, wish to consider -- and what is beneath consideration?
When you suggest that Muslims in the military should be "monitored" -- what degree of monitoring do you think appropriate?
And what do you make of the problem, not of the initial detection of Muslim militancy, but of the Muslim "moderate" who gives no cause for alarm when he enters the service, but later on something happens -- oh, perhaps he's passed upf for a promotion, perhaps he has a sudden blinding realization that he really must fight for Islam and that those he has been fighting beside are, in the end, Infidels and the enemy --do you think that is completely implausible? What do you make of all the cases of Muslims charged and convicted of acts of terrorism, or the preparation or planning for such acts, who gave no signs, not to their co-workers, not to anyone, of such feelings?
Take Mike Hawash, the Intel engineer with the American wife, the Little-League-perfect children, the $360,000 a year salary. Take his devout supporter, right up to the end, that Intel Vice-President who swore up and down the land that Mike Hawash was innocent, that he couldn't possibly have done what he was charged with doing, that he had played with Mike Hawash, that he knew Mike Hawash inside and out, and there could not possibly be aproblem with Mike Hawash, and he kept insisting on that right up until the day that Mike Hawash pled guilty? Do you want other examples of people whom, if we are to believe all their parents and siblings and uncles and aunts, gave absolutely no sign of any fanaticism at all, who seemed so light-hearted? Do you worry about this -- if not so much in the infantry, at a SAC base, or in a jet? No? Not at all?
As for that comment -- "At least these decent Muslim soldiers (the loyal ones) have the decency to put on a uniform and fight for freedom. Do you? They deserve your respect..."
How should I begin to answer this? Shall I allude to a family member who won the Medal of Honor in World War II? Would that give me points for reflected bravery? Should I list a host of other close relatives in that war and other wars, including the one in Iraq? Why? To satisfy you in some crass one-upsmanship about who is "really loyal"? What if I just got off the boat from Bolivia, and no one in my family had served? Does that not entitle me to offer an argument, and a worry?
You accuse me of not "respecting" (I refuse to use that "disrespecting" formation that too many unthinkingly accept) Muslims in the army. Why? Did I say I didn't "respect" them? In fact, given one of my points - how very few Muslims are in the American military, and how little support they get from Muslim groups or communities, it could be argued that I was praising them, praising you for that matter (have you been hailed as a model by CAIR recently? By any Muslim group? Do you feel as though they think you are doing just right -- or are you an individual who decided on your own to join the military, who has somehow reconciled the loyalty demanded to Islam and the umman with, at least currently, with loyalty to the American military because it might be argued that now we are attempting to help those in Iraq and Afghanistan. But would you feel exactly the same if it was clear that the American policy was no longer one of "helping" people in the Muslim world but rather one of dividing, demoralizing, and weakening the camp of Islam? Tell me exactly how you would feel, and what you would do, then?
And tell me, if you care, how Muslim communities or groups have made much of you, and urged Muslims to demonstrate similar loyalty to this country, under any and all circumstances or, if that hasn't been the case, your own guess as to why it hasn't.
Posted by: Hugh at May 10, 2006 5:32 PM
Mmmm Naseem, I think Jesus came WAY before mo. And he didn't mention anything about mo, unless of course you count Revelations. The beast.
At least with Christianity, you don't LOSE your soul. Or your humanity. Christianity teaches you to care for ALL human beings. Not just one segment of the population.
In every one of muslims horrific earthquakes or tsunamis , which group of people came to the muslims aid? Was it the Christians (civilized world) or was it muslims?
If your allah is so great, he sure doesn't do you right.
Posted by: freewoman at May 10, 2006 5:37 PM
Again, I notice that "Haidon" offers us an example of a Muslim soldier who died in Iraq. What does this prove? Nothing. It proves that a Muslim, presumably an American citizen, was in the military and died in Iraq. What does this single example, or a half-dozen more, prove about the tenets of Islam? What does it prove about the likelihood -- security risks are always a matter of probabilities and not certainties -- that a Muslim soldier, sailor, airman might, for reasons we can hardly begin to guess (perhaps a fit of depression, perhaps the loss of a girlfriend, perhaps offense taken at a crude higher-ranking officer, perhaps the propoaganda he picks up at a mosque in Bahrain on shore leave -- who knows?), become much more religious, and undetected, become a threat?
Where we differ is in the amount of attention we think should be paid to this threat, now and in the future. You wish to err on the side of Pollyanna, possibly affected by your own loyalty to this country which you assume, or hope, or would like to think, is widespread among Muslims here (and in other Infidel countries), or if not widespread, at least the exceptions to the general rule can be easily identified, and you appear to believe that continued monitoring can do the rest.
I don't. I don't think Pollyanna should be running the CIA or the Pentagon. I want people unafraid to offend even you -- if it means making this country, and others in the military, at lower risk.
It is a problem, but it is not a problem caused by Infidels. If you are fair, you will locate the problem in the texts of Islam. They are not something to ignore. Your own private Islam, or your desire to ignore a good deal of what is contained in those texts, simply is not something Infidels should be asked to rely on, not when their lives are at stake.
Sorry. No can do. Not I, and not hundreds of millions of other Infidels, in this country, and abroad.
Posted by: Hugh at May 10, 2006 5:42 PM
Freewoman Assalamau Laikum to you,
Muslims get the brunt of tsumamis and earthquakes when Allah requires more prayer.
He also sends in the infedel to help...truly Allah looks after his own in mysterious ways.
I never understood this until my hubby was so badly hurt (and steadily getting worse). Allah SWT has opened my eyes to power to be marvelled at.
Posted by: Naseem at May 10, 2006 5:48 PM
(Honoring Hugh's request in another thread to minimize responses to Naseem:)
Naseem (Haidon, you are welcome to answer this as well)
There is no record of Abraham, Moses, Isaac, Jesus or even Ismail ever reciting the Shehada. So how is it claimed that they are Muslim?
Was Mohammed an Ahmadiya? (I can't wait for Mohideen, Muslimguy or even Haidon to weigh in on this)
Posted by: Infidel Pride at May 10, 2006 5:53 PM
pissedoffcanadian said: "I love how the US accepts people who are not US citizens to enlist in the army if they are from the third world but it wont accept canadians in the army. I enquired two years ago about joining and I was emailed back that only naturalized citizens are allowed to join."
I do not believe this to be correct policy and someone must have misinformed you. I have served with many Canadians, South Africans, Brits, Japanese, and many others in the armed forces of the US. Some worked for me and some I worked for. Most of them enlisted in the United States at their local recruiting office.
Posted by: Caratacus at May 10, 2006 5:54 PM
Naseem, it sounds to me as if your allah has an ego problem.
Explain to me why it's ok to kill innocent people and children.
Posted by: freewoman at May 10, 2006 5:58 PM
pissedoffcanadian,
I must clarify my comment. Citizenship is not required but you must be a lawfully admitted permanent resident of the US to enlist in the army or air force. The navy and marines do not have this requirement but pretty much adhere to it anyway. To be an officer you must be a US citizen. The applicable directive can be found here:
http://www.dtic.mil/whs/directives/corres/pdf/i130426_092005/i130426p.pdf
I hope this helps out and good luck in your quest. BTW, The Canadian army is doing a hell of a job in Afghanistan.
Posted by: Caratacus at May 10, 2006 6:06 PM
Caratacus I sent emails to two different recruiters one for the army one for the navy. For the navy I had to be a natural born citizen even. If the recruiters online won't give me the information then where do I go. I do know natives are alowed to join the army as status natives are automatically joint citizens if their tribe exists in both countries.
Posted by: pissedoffcanadian at May 10, 2006 6:09 PM
Naseem you make me laugh. Your trolling is pretty lame. Why not make a contribution rather than just saying things like :-
"He also sends in the infedel to help...truly Allah looks after his own in mysterious ways."
It's just designed to annoy, you know it and most of the people here know it too. Why not enlighten us all if you believe islam is truly the way to go. Your arguments are just childish like most arguments I have heard in favour of islam. You notice that you have not been kicked from the forum, so why not take the opportunity to give us an opinion rather than silly outbursts like the one above. If, as you say, allah looks after his own in mysterious ways by getting the infidels to give aid to earthquake victims, why have you not then asked yourself what made allah so angry at "his own" as to send an earthquake to his own in the first place.
Posted by: DaveMate at May 10, 2006 6:16 PM
You are, in effect, questioning the loyalty of Muslim soldiers. You essentially decry those loyal Muslims, as not being real Muslims. Afterall the only real Muslims are those who want Americans dead. You are making the case for effectively barring Muslim soldiers without overtly saying so, particularly through your comparisons with Lebanese Christians.We all know why CAIR and other organisations do not celebrate these soldiers.
Haidon
The comparison with Lebanese Christians was there to contrast the attitudes of Muslims with others from identical regions. Usually, when they are not slamming Islamophobia, advocacy groups tend to accuse us of targetting Arabs, or people of Mid-Eastern origin. When one points out the spotless records of the Copts, Maronites, or other Mid-Eastern Infidels in the US army, it serves to blow the latter argument out of the water. Then the question remains about Muslims.
With any religious group, be it Christian, Jewish, Sikh, Buddhist, Hindu, there are no religious edicts requiring one to be specifically loyal to any particular country. One could be a Jew without being required to demonstrate loyalty towards Israel. One could be a Hindu, but is not required to have a loyalty towards India if one is non-Indian. Which is why there is no conflict between service in the US Armed Forces, vs practice of ones religion.
And why doesn't the organization that accuses as many Americans as possible of Islamophobia celebrate those Muslims who do serve loyally? Doesn't that enhance the taqiyya value?
Because there will only be a limited amount of Muslims attempting to join, full background checks should be carrried out (similar to those encountered by special agent candidates in the FBI).What does that tell you? It simply makes the case that out of the Muslim population in the US, few will join, and of those who do, there is a good number that may have motives very different from that of your average enlistee. After all, why is this not a problem with Jews, Buddhists, Shintos, Confucians, Hindus or any other religious group in the US?
But mere questioning will not yield proper results, as true Islamists will engage in deciet. Only extensive background checks will yield reliable information. This is a much more narrowly tailored method as opposed to banning all Muslim soldiers, which is what is being advocated by some posters here.Why is it the job of the infidels to go out of their way to be fair to Muslims? Just going by statistical trends, when a whole group of people tend to go a certain way, is it not common sense to deal with that fact accordingly, and then weed out any exceptions? In other words, make the rare loyal Muslim prove himself. I agree that it is unfortunate, but if I was unfortunate enough to have been born a Muslim and trapped in Islam, I'd blame the totalitarian nature of my 'religion' for that predicament I'd be in, rather than the people who are only doing what is the sane thing to do to ensure their survival.
at May 10, 2006 6:35 PM
On a lighter note, from Hugh:
What if I just got off the boat from Bolivia, and no one in my family had served?That would be a real sight to behold, given that Bolivia is a land-locked country.
at May 10, 2006 6:37 PM
Haidon said
How to monitor Muslim soldiers? There should be a robust screening process in the recruitment process.
Isn't that a tautology? We will screen them by screening them?
Muslim soldiers may have to be put through the ringer to test their loyalty.
Hmm, I still don't get it.
Because there will only be a limited amount of Muslims attempting to join, full background checks should be carrried out (similar to those encountered by special agent candidates in the FBI).
There's something concrete: a background check. But what would this background check look for? What if they were a good student, very pious and devout, and they attended mosque regularly? That is the background of the student who drove an SUV through the campus trying to run people over, and also the student who blew himself up with a shrapnel bomb after trying to get into a football game. What if they started attending mosque daily, and started trying to get their sisters to wear a burqa and stay home from school, and were protesting against U.S. involvement in the Middle East, etc. Is there a point that we can say that someone is getting "too" religious, getting a little "too" devout? On the other side, the 9/11 hijackers were going to strip clubs before they carried out their attack. I've gotten a security clearance, they look for criminal history or outstanding warrants or membership in Communist organizations. They don't try to define when someone is "too" religious, whatever that means.
You allude to loyalty tests. Given the admissibility of taquiyya, is it reliable to merely ask them "Are you loyal?"? Having them swear loyalty to the U.S. has the same problem, since loyalty to Allah will always trump loyalty to a government made by mere humans, and infidel humans to boot.
You suggest trying to weed out the "radical" Muslims from the "moderate" Muslims. I just don't see how that can work, I don't know where you would draw the line for acceptable beliefs, and I don't know how you could test what another persons' beliefs were in reference to that line.
Posted by: special_guest at May 10, 2006 6:50 PM
"...that blend of ignorance, mental laziness (which in part explains the failure to correct such ignorance), and a deep desire not to discover anything disturbing that might tend to trouble a serene world-view (which is the other part that explains)."
Ignorance, mental laziness, and desire not to discover anything disturbing are all relatively passive postures. There is also an active posture behind such an attitude epitomized by Esmay. Can you think of what that might be?
at May 10, 2006 7:02 PM
Special guest
Well I guess that's the end of the inquiry then! There is no easy way, so lets just exclude Muslims from the military. In other words, you as a non-Muslim, have greater rights than me. You do not have that right to tell me I can't fight for my country. You are presupposing that you are better than me, without even knowing me. That is dangerous. You cannot stand in judgment of all Muslims. That does not mean you should not be sceptical of Muslims, or view them with suspicion. Muslims cannot be banned outright from joinging the military, fullstop. Not even Israel bans all Muslims.
We can employ narrowly tailored methods to screen and monitor them. I agree loyalty tests are a problem. We can attach severe penalties to those who appear to infringe their responses to loyalty tests. We can monitor phone calls, emails other correspondence. The use of inta-military intelligence would be ueseful.
But pre-recruitment screeing is the key. If FBI/CIA background checks are employed (and they are very robust trust me), this will weed out potential bad apples.
Asalamu aleykum Naseem, please take your Da,wa elsewhere.
Mr Fitgerald,
Your example of a changing of circumstances and national policy towards Muslim countries is fascinating. If however, the US engages in a policy of destabilising, demoralising and destroying Muslim nations particularly if this means harming civilians, most Muslims even "loyal" ones, would likely be troubled. I have no easy answer to your query.
You have asked a host of other queries which I will also try and respond to shortly.
at May 10, 2006 7:04 PM
Having retired out of the military and having served alongside both American and non American muslims I would offer this: It is possible to hide your religious affiliation in the military. It is listed on your dog tags and in your records but you could always lie or attempt to hide it. If your goal was to infiltrate the military and at some point use a weapon against your “buddies” this is also relatively easy to do. It would be especially easy if you did not plan to survive your attack. Dependent on your military occupational specialty the opportunity to do massive amounts of damage would be limited. True, an F-16 pilot gone bad could do more damage than say a mail clerk but there are safeguards built into the system. Background checks do stop some undesirables from joining but many get through and are filtered out later. The military is as diverse as the civilian world, the same sorts of crimes happen, rape, murder etc. That said, the best of our nation join not the worst. The “bad apples” are rare in comparison to the same population dynamics in the civilian world (IMHO).
I don’t discount a muslim could join, volunteer for combat (especially easy if he speaks arabic) and get deployed quickly. One thing to remember is the same individual would find it much easier to conduct an operation outside of the military and possibly at less risk to self. Are non muslims suspicious of the muslims soldiers? Maybe, I always was but such concerns quickly vanish when they prove themselves capable. I think we all have a natural tendency to distrust the ability of the FNG but normally because his/her ability is an unknown not the motivation. Soldiers develop heightened instincts and routinely search out the bad apples. I never personally met a muslim or any other soldier I would say was disloyal to our military. I have heard stories about Iragi and Afghans who infiltrated units supported by the US but can offer no proof and as any one who ever served will tell you, stories tend to get stretched way out of proportion. I suspect such cases are rare.
As an ex soldier I have deep concerns as to how you balance the American vision that all people are basically good, hard working people out to better themselves and their individual status and the need to limit who gets the chance. I am a firm believer in winning hearts and minds because I have seen it work and I have seen what happens when it does not. At some point the muslims will have to pick a side or fall. If the moderate muslims are really out there somewhere, they have to fight against the radicals or be destroyed by them along side us infidels. Unless thousands of radical muslims could infiltrate and conduct a coordinated attack they would be little more than an inconvenience to our forces. The machine is designed to survive and crush anyone who crosses it. It is possible the low numbers of attacks inside the military is simply a matter of ease. Infidels are every where so why join? It is equally possible the environment changes them. After meeting and serving with our military the hostility gives way to reality. Ideology is hard to fight but visual proof is surrounding our troops. No one who has seen them working, protecting, fighting, and dying can question his or her motivation. Do not worry about our troops they will police themselves. Sorry for the long post but I couldn’t let this one go.
Posted by: Ronin at May 10, 2006 7:05 PM
Haidon and other Muslims like him just have to suck it up and accept the responsibility that comes with subscribing to and supporting a belief system that has caused so much distrust in the first place. The most rational and mature and decent way to accept that responsibility is to say:
"Yes, I agree: innumerable and unpredictably identifiable brothers of mine in this same faith of which I am an enthusiastic and willing member have been committing atrocities in various places around the globe and will likely continue to commit atrocities in places we cannot readily predict resulting in untold mass murders and mass casualties of innocent people -- and so I understand your suspicion and I am fully prepared to accept your suggestions for rational limitations, including profiling at airports and other public places, as well as a rationally discriminatory vetting process for Muslims to participate in such high-security-sensitive positions as workers in munitions plants, nuclear installations, militarily related industrial facilities, and military services in general."
Instead, we get the Haidon types grumbling and griping and complaining. Enough already.
Posted by: Television at May 10, 2006 7:10 PM
If there was just one islolated case of a muslim soldier betraying his colleagues, then it could be reagrded as just that - an isolated case. The trouble is that such cases keep coming up with regularity.
A muslim recruit in the British army went AWOL on grounds that he did not wish to fight against his muslim brothers in Iraq.
Now suspicion of the loyalty of those few muslims who do serve loyally the in defence forces, is grossly unfair. But the broader picture is that such a suspicions if present, lowers the morale of the particular regiment or unit in which there are muslims.
It may never be said by ordinary soldiers because of fear of being accused of racism by the higer command, but it will nevertheless, affect the cohesion, and hence, the effectiveness of the unit. In the final analysis, the fighting effectivess and morale of the army, should be the criteria one judges this situation - whether muslims should serve in Infidel armies or not.
Posted by: DP111 at May 10, 2006 7:23 PM
Infidel Pride
Again, you are presuming that you have a greater entitlement to rights than I do, because you are non-Muslim and I am Muslim.
Why is it the job of the infidels to go out of their way to be fair to Muslims? Just going by statistical trends, when a whole group of people tend to go a certain way, is it not common sense to deal with that fact accordingly, and then weed out any exceptions? In other words, make the rare loyal Muslim prove himself.
Who are you to say that most Muslims arent loyal? What gives you the providence to say that? You ask Why is it the job of the "Infidels" to go out of their way to be fair to Muslims?
I'll tell you why, because this is my country, and I would fight and die for it. I question your loyalty. I question your dedication to the principles of universal human rights espoused by the founding fathers. I agree that civil liberties can be suspended during war time (and of course we are in a war with islamists, but we must do so carefully. There are millions of Muslims in America, to condemn all, because of the dictates of administratibe efficacy is criminal.
You are not better than me, nor do you have greater rights than me.
at May 10, 2006 7:25 PM
Television
I'm so sorry for offending you. Please forgive me for being a little upset at the fact that you and others wish to diminish the humanity of ALL Muslims (not just terrorists), all beacuse you are too intellectually lazy to discern.
I'm being so unreasonable, defending myself and other Muslims who are loyal to our country. You want us to sit back as say "Yessum, sir", while you try and denigrate all of us. Again, none of you are in the position to judge Muslim soldiers or their loyalty. Most are decent and loyal, and I know some, who have greater courage than most of you.
at May 10, 2006 7:30 PM
Well, Mr. Haidon, when a crime is comitted, say an honor killing, and people stand around and cheer in the death of an innocent victim, we assume that those standing cheering are condoning the behavior. If more muslims stood up and SINCERELY said sharia is wrong, jihad is wrong, keeping women covered is wrong, killing Jews and infidels is wrong, and saying bin laden is a crackpot, maybe we wouldn't be so distrustful.
Guilt by association. If you hang with criminals, people are going to assume you are one also.
Posted by: freewoman at May 10, 2006 7:33 PM
Television,
Are you really being fair here? Haidon has specifically and unequivocally acknowledged that Muslim military recruits demand greater security scrutinization than non-Muslims. This is an extraordinary admission for a Muslim.
Haidon,
You seem to be attenuated to the concerns of non-Muslims in ways that are quite unusual for a Muslim. To what do you attribute this seemingly anomalous attitude of yours? Are you a convert? Are there Quranic verses that trouble your conscience? Do you believe the life of your Prophet, as reflected in the Ahadith, to be a fitting moral example for humanity?
Thanks for your time.
Posted by: Cornelius at May 10, 2006 7:34 PM
I live in a part of the country where I have read of and heard first hand accounts of some pretty bizarre Christian practices. Snake handling is tops on the list. The false phenomenon of "speaking in tongues" is another. In my many, many years on this planet, I have learned that people who are deeply devout do not listen to "reason." I once knew a family who believed that if they bought health insurance that it would be a sign of not having faith in God. All of the "logical arguments" went unheard, until a very near fatal accident caused them to re-evaluate some of the scriptures they were reading. They also found a new church and enrolled in the company's health care program. The point of all this is that discussing the finer points a baby killing religion with Naseem and others is like discussing economics with a sign post. Y'all are wasting valuable bits and bytes.
Posted by: Pelayo at May 10, 2006 7:39 PM
What is being forgotten is the value (perhaps theoretical, I'm not sure) that loyal Muslims bring to the army, that cannot be provided by Arab-Christians.
Some may have a fundamental understanding of Islamic theology, the Arabic language, and insight on how Muslims think. Having loyal Muslims, in theory, can provide a strategic advantage to our armed forces.
Posted by: Haidon at May 10, 2006 7:39 PM
Freewoman
You wrote:
Well, Mr. Haidon, when a crime is comitted, say an honor killing, and people stand around and cheer in the death of an innocent victim, we assume that those standing cheering are condoning the behavior. If more muslims stood up and SINCERELY said sharia is wrong, jihad is wrong, keeping women covered is wrong, killing Jews and infidels is wrong, and saying bin laden is a crackpot, maybe we wouldn't be so distrustful.
Guilt by association. If you hang with criminals, people are going to assume you are one also.
Fair enough. Moderates don't do enough. That is fair criticism. But Loyal Muslim soldiers who fight with the US are making that statement by virtue of their actions!
Posted by: Haidon at May 10, 2006 7:42 PM
But Loyal Muslim soldiers who fight with the US are making that statement by virtue of their actions!Posted by: Haidon at May 10, 2006 07:42 PM
I agree 100%. I wish more would join we could use the help.
Although I am admittedly islomaphobic I have to defend your right to pratice islam. I would hate to see another country (especially mine) governed under sharia but if the locals let it happen so be it. It is the use of force to convert or kill non muslims and muslims deemed non muslim by a crazed imam I have a problem with.
at May 10, 2006 8:01 PM
Not to add too much to the rhetorical muck as offered by Naseem, I would have to say that if he/she is an Ahimdiyya that this person is not playing with a full deck.
The first myth that the Ahimdiyaa subscirbe to is that Jesus was a muslim, survived the crucifiction, and subsequently moved to India.
The other little-known-fact is that the founder of Ahimdiyaa smoked such enough opium to delude himself into believing that he was the heir apparent to Mohhammed and was the incarnation of, Jesus, Krishna, and we can't leave out Mary.
Posted by: IslamIsTheEnemy at May 10, 2006 8:04 PM
Again, you are presuming that you have a greater entitlement to rights than I do, because you are non-Muslim and I am Muslim.Haidon
You are welcome to characterize it that way, but I don't assume anything about having more rights than anyone else. It isn't a right to serve in the US military, or anywhere else. Nor for that matter is there a right to be entitled to any job; while anti-discrimination laws exist, employers do have the discretion to not hire people they may assume to be security risks. As you concede, it is plain common sense to screen those who may be a security risk, vs. those who don't. Having read Ronin's account above, I am willing to accept that there are enough safeguards in the system to prevent Muslims from doing any real damage (although I will admit that I am uneasy about even one soldier being put at risk due to such an open policy.) However, I do not believe that political correctness should force the military to admit Muslims into their ranks, especially given that the screening that you so enthusiastically advocate is next to impossible to implement (particularly when dealing with Muslim soldiers who may join as moderates, and then, while stationed in Qatar, may go on a hajj and suddenly undergo an Islamic transformation).
I'll tell you why, because this is my country, and I would fight and die for it. I question your loyalty. I question your dedication to the principles of universal human rights espoused by the founding fathers. I agree that civil liberties can be suspended during war time (and of course we are in a war with islamists, but we must do so carefully. There are millions of Muslims in America, to condemn all, because of the dictates of administratibe efficacy is criminal.As Ali Sina once said, there's our handicap. Let's say we play a game of chess. Under the rules of engagement, you cannot take my Queen, or any of my pawns, but you can take my bishops, knights or rooks. I, on the other hand, am at liberty to take any of your pieces, at any time. Want to hazard a guess on who'd win?
You know as well as I do that Muslims have a completely different view of universal human rights from what's generally accepted worldwide. And what the heck are "islamists"? Either you are Muslim, or you aren't. We are in a war with Islam, and you want to identify which Muslims are our enemies and which ones aren't? Why shouldn't it be up to those that aren't to prove themselves? An easy way would be to apostasize, and become anything else - Christian, Athiest, Jew, Zoroastrian, Buddhist, Scientologist, Rasfarantian, et al. It isn't like giving up ones race, language or skin color - giving up ones religion, once one is convinced of its fallacy, should be easy (how difficult was it for you to apostasize from Christianity?) I wouldn't, for instance, suggest that an Ibn Warraq be prevented from serving.
I'm all for religious freedom. Having studied the 1400 year old history of Islam, I'm not willing to concede that Islam is a religion. The Islam that you and few others practice is fine, but in your case, even you have to admit that it has more to do with your pre-Islamic upbringing than anything you read in the Quran. In fact, you have had to override several parts of the Quran in order to be what you are. I'm all for Muslims being respected in the same manner that Infidels are. However, that respect is something that has to be earned, not demanded.
Posted by: Infidel Pride at May 10, 2006 8:09 PM
Infidel Pride, I also agree with you. I strongly feel islam is a cult but as long as we have laws protecting it as a religion we have to obey those laws. Do I think we should limit/control it’s growth, access and closely monitor it and its adherents, absolutely. I don’t think a muslim in the military is anymore likely to discredit himself than anyone else is. We have dealt with infiltrators and traitors in our military for as long as we have had one. I also agree losing one solder is too many but if I could not justify defending the cost of our rights and freedoms I have wasted a large portion of my adult life. The truth will destroy islam we all know it can’t stand scrutiny. I have said many times I think all muslims are one verse away from being raving lunatics but …. If we are too weak to take the steps to allow us to bring it under control than we deserve our fate. I have friends still in the box and I am scared to death they may fall but I know why they are there. I hope somehow that they will win. Islam must change or the world will pay a terrible price. If we as a people can not make and enforce laws to stop not just islam but any cult from taking over then our laws are meaningless. I am not defending islam I am defending our call to send the humble masses. How do we get them to assimilate and peacefully except our values? I have no idea but showing and demonstrating a better way of life should be among the first steps.
Posted by: Ronin at May 10, 2006 8:31 PM
Well said, Infidel Pride.
I'm leaning toward no Muslims in the military,
myself. Then, there is no worry except for spies.
at May 10, 2006 8:37 PM
Ronin
Having read your first description about what it takes to get into the military, and the safeguards that exist, I feel a lot better, and thank you for that indepth inside look.
I don't believe that we should alter ourselves because of Islam, but I also think that it would be suicidal of us to let the armies of Islam use our weaknesses against us, knowing that they can't defeat us in an overt military confrontation. I agree with what you say about defending our values, but there are times we need to put them on the backburner while confronting those who would destroy us. Because if they succeed and we are destroyed, there won't be any values left to defend.
Posted by: Infidel Pride at May 10, 2006 8:38 PM
poetess who is next? How about no trailer trash,non American born, left handed Babtists? You can't defend freedom without demonstrating to the world it works.
Posted by: Ronin at May 10, 2006 8:41 PM
Infidel Pride, again I agree but where to draw the line? It starts with us, we were smart enough to make it illegal to scream fire in a crowded theater but allow people to preach the violent overthrow of our nation and it’s people. Madness!
Posted by: Ronin at May 10, 2006 8:45 PM
It's clear that an over-riding loyalty to their own chosen People, the Ummah, is more common among modern Muslims and is taken far more seriously than it is, or even can be, by the Jewish, Christian, Hindu or other faiths.
Their traditions have softened.
Islam's have not.
And have even become a kind of spiritual numbness, and superior abstraction from their own cruelties.
Something scab-like which has grown 'naturally' from the Koran's darker suras. The "shadow of swords" smothering their idea of paradise.
The creed has a lot of questions (Sura 9:29-30, et al) which now require defense analysts to honestly challenge.
Muslims who pass a healthy security clearance could serve in c.o. [conscientious objector] type positions in the military -until the matter is decided about Ultimate loyalty.
Let's hear what they think their faith demands that they do in this world.
It should be instructive.
And may answer all.
Posted by: profitsbeard at May 10, 2006 8:46 PM
I hire(pay tax) for soldiers to protect me, my family, friends and fellow citizens. Why would I spend my hard earned money on someone who may or may not have the seed of our destruction in their heart, planted there by a false prophet and his primitive, megalomanic beliefs? Who may or may not turn on his buddies and kill them in cold blood for his god.
Please give me a good reason why I should take this chance.
Posted by: the poetess at May 10, 2006 8:57 PM
profitsbeard you are right islam has not changed and may never but muslims come in all flavors and one solution will not work for all. Islam might not change but we can beat it into submission if we have too. A lot of our problems would go away if they recognized their religion has given nothing to this planet except death. We are still a young nation and have accomplished more than anyone could have predicted. I am not as well spoken or as educated as most of the posters but my point is simple. One ideology has to be dominant, freedom or slavery, islam or us. I don't think we can peacefully coexist, at least not anymore. As much as I understand the “kill them all, let God sort them out” mentality I some times run into I can’t justify killing 1.2 billion people. I do think we should aggressively counter the ideology and outlaw the practices we find offensive to our values. Like High likes to remind us, it is madness to feed them, stop the handouts, payments, etc, monitor the mosques, enforce immigration laws. We have things we should be doing and are not, Madness.
Posted by: Ronin at May 10, 2006 9:13 PM
poetess I was one of those soldiers. The only reason I can give you is being different is what we (the USA) is about. We give and protect peoples freedoms even when painful. People join and leave cults. People commit horrible acts, some make amends some never do. It is not my place to pass judgement (yet, I still plan to beat allah in hell) judgement is God’s job. We can beat this threat without changing who we are. Reality is we could completely decimate every nation on this planet but killing it has always been easier than building. That is one of the reason islam has thrived, they took the path of least resistance.
Posted by: Ronin at May 10, 2006 9:20 PM
All,
After many years as a Ranger qualified infantry officer with multiple deployments to the Middle East, I've got to make the following observation: In all my years, I have only known of a couple Muslim soldiers in Battalion level Infantry or Armor units (and those were Black American convert types). I have known more in Service Support type units. Muslims just don't join Combat Arms units in any real numbers. That makes the incident in the 101st extremely disturbing. The Muslim SGT was probably the only Muslim in the Battalion, if not the Brigade.
Frankly, I'm not concerned about the very few Muslim soldiers/sailors/marines in the US military (particularly small numbers in units which truly fight). My bigger concern is our immigration policies and failure to confront the truth of the Koran and Hadiths. The PR victory for CAIR is not worth keeping out a tiny number of Muslim soldiers. We need to focus on information to Americans about the violence in the Koran and Hadith, not focus on the handful of combat soldiers who may be Muslim.
Additionally, why in the Heck aren't Muslims enlisting in massive numbers? Think: Japanese volunteered in droves after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Massive numbers were willing to risk all to prove loyalty to the US. CAIR does nothing to encourage enlistment or retention, or honor Muslim military members. Muslims are not under any pressure to show loyalty.
Muslims I have served with (and against), from countries like Kuwait, Saudi, Egypt, etc. were cowards. They generally didn't make good soldiers: undisciplined and dishonorable. Yes, there are exceptions. However, what I saw was a people who could ONLY commit suicide-murder operations. Those operations are cowardly, as there is no risk involved. Pregnant women can commit suicide-murder. I'd like to see Muslims stand up and fight like men. "Risking" their life by fighting man to man.
Posted by: hello123 at May 10, 2006 9:20 PM
Hello123, I have discussed the myth of the islamic warrior a few times. I am glad to see someone has the same (low) opinion.
Posted by: Ronin at May 10, 2006 9:41 PM
Dear Ronin, Being different is not what this country is "about." This country is about E Pluribus Unum, out of many, One, and that One is a group of different individuals with loyalty to the U.S. Constitution, an acceptance of the Ten Commandments as an ethical code and an understanding that each person, though not necessarily equal in mind, body or spirit, has equality in the courts of Law.
God may be the ultimate judge but on earth I must judge what is good for my life and security. And having Muslims whose loyalty is to their own nation first and not the U.S. doesn't make sense. You are obviously not like most and have undergone some change in belief.
I understand that our army is not that attractive for many Muslims and that they may be cowardly but, I'll say it again. Even though the numbers may not be great, there is still a danger. Why should I take the chance that the seed in them won't grow and they will harm our nation? Why?
Posted by: the poetess at May 10, 2006 9:52 PM
Haidon wrote that: "Most [Muslims] are decent and loyal..." and agreed that Muslims participating in non-Muslim armies should be "screened and even monitored".
Fine. "Most" Muslims would make good and harmless soldiers in non-Muslim armies. Now kindly tell us which of the Muslims left over from that "most" will not fit that description, and might well pose grave risks to us non-Muslims.
For non-Muslim societies to have to pay increased costs just to screen and monitor Muslims because an indeterminable number of them may well pose security risks and mass-murder their fellow non-Muslim soldiers (as well as non-Muslim civilians) is insane.
For the onus to be on us to figure out which is which is also intolerable. It should not have to be our job. And when such a job is forced upon us by the lame ineffectuality of supposedly good Muslims to police their own monsters, don't whine when we feel it necessary to take stringent, more effective measures.
His emotional coda -- "Please forgive me for being a little upset at the fact that you and others wish to diminish the humanity of ALL Muslims (not just terrorists)" -- is not only irrelevant, it's inaccurate. To rationally delimit the behaviors of a group because an indeterminable (that's the key word) number of them may well pose a grave risk is not to "diminish" the humanity of all of them. What does diminish the humanity of all of them is the ongoing inhumane and vicious activities of an increasing number of their members -- a number that cannot be adequately predicted in size, location, or time of activity. What also diminishes the humanity of all of them is the passive enabling of these inhumane & vicious activities and aspirations by a much larger family around them, nourishing that dangerous fanaticism.
Only when the supposed majority of "good and decent" Muslims start to significantly and successfully rein in their bad apples will we Infidels (at least those of us who are awake) rationally conclude it's safe to treat the sum of them as safe fellows of the Family of Man.
at May 10, 2006 10:12 PM
With any religious group, be it Christian, Jewish, Sikh, Buddhist, Hindu, there are no religious edicts requiring one to be specifically loyal to any particular country (Infidel Pride -above)
I don't know ifthere are any relevant sacred texts but it is true that Indira Gandhi was blown away by her own Sikh bodyguard a few months after the assault on the Golden Temple in Amritsar. She had kept them on to demonstrate that she did not doubt their loyalty. Having said that, her son Rajiv was done in by a suicide bomber of the Hindu variety and of course Mahatma also died at the hands of a co-religionist.
Posted by: wallyUK at May 10, 2006 10:24 PM
poetess, that seed might grow into a radical muslim and it might grow into a real moderate muslim. It might grow and change one into a real leader, the one person who rallies the others and finally stands up and stops the crazed muslims. I'm not suggesting surrender nor am I willing to kill 1/5 of the planet. We have to change them and make them once more into something more human than the ones thriving on the mindless violence that dominates them. When the truth about islam is excepted they can only pick one of two choices: Kill in the name of allah or denounce him and rejoin humanity. The more who wake up the less we have to fight. We need the ones who can overcome the madness as allies. Muslims are not all powerful they can be defeated. Don't think for one second I don't have your back, I expect most are way to far-gone to change. That doesn't mean we don't have to try and stop more from joining and discrediting the rest. Muslims are cowards who blindly follow the leader. A real leader might help them change. Until that miracle happens, we watch them for the slightest act of sedition, we deal with them with the full force of the law and stop aid to their countries. We claim we are for individual freedom, let us enforce it. Any nation, which practices sharia, enslaves its people; they shouldn’t be rewarded for it. Any muslim who acts against our nation gets a trip to gitmo or worse. Lock them up and separate them from the rest of the prisoners
Posted by: Ronin at May 10, 2006 10:28 PM
Haidon said
Well I guess that's the end of the inquiry then! There is no easy way, so lets just exclude Muslims from the military.
Well, okay, or you could just answer my question. To summarize, you said "Let's just screen out the radical Muslims", I asked how we could screen them, and you sarcastically gave up. I don't require that you have the answer of how to differentiate between "radicals" and "moderates", but I do want to point out that it is not so easy. If it were, we would.
I think it is reasonable to ask Muslims how to reliably differentiate between "radicals" and "moderates". You are the experts. If you can't, you can't expect us to. I don't see any fracture within the Muslim world to try to distinguish between "radicals" and "moderates". There are a few "moderate" spokespersons, but they offer bland and general statements ("we are against all violence against all innocent people"), but have no response to the specific Qur'anic justification that the jihadists give. These "moderates" have no standing in the Muslim community, and are often in danger of being declared blasphemers. The jihadists rule the madrasses, they rule among the religious leaders, and they rule politically.
You talk about how I'm better than you, you have the right to fight in the military. But gays have traditionally had no right to be in the military. Women still have no right to be in a combat unit in the military. Blacks were not allowed until WWII. And none of those groups have the history that Muslims do of fighting against their own fellow soldiers. Gay soldiers don't fight straight soldiers because they are straight, women don't shoot men because they are men, but Muslims do shoot non-Muslims because they are non-Muslims. Maybe you don't like that fact, but that does change it.
BTW, there was also the Muslim chaplain at Guantanamo Bay who was found with maps and other classified documents that could have assisted the detainees.
Posted by: special_guest at May 10, 2006 10:43 PM
During World War II the British government rounded up and interned all those who had come from Germany, including a large number of Jewish refugees. They were all treated equally as security risks, even though some were Nazi sympathizers and others victims of Nazis. There was not the time, not the money, not the ability, it was felt, to distinguish one from the other. It may have been a wrong decision. In the United States, refugees, Jewish and non-Jewish, who came from Germany and other countries in Europe as refugees from Hitlerism or Fascism, were enrolled in the army. The atom bomb was created by, inter alia, two Italian refugees from fascism and the racial laws, Enrico Fermi and Cesare Segre, by others from Nazi-occupied Poland (e.g. Stanislaus Ulam, brother of the well-known student of Soviet Russia, the late Adam Ulam), by others from Nazi-occupied Hungary (e.g., Leo Szilard, Edward Teller), and others from Germany itself (Lise Meitner's contribution was made not directly on American soil however).
In retrospect, it was a mistake for the British government not to take full advantage of those who would have been important contirbutors, in everything from code-breaking to weapons development. The Americans took a chance, and were right. But the English were not morally wrong to do as they did; they were under far more immediate and earlier threat (in the war since September 1939, not December 1941).
Later on, other refugees from Stalin and from the Red Army helped with American intelligence and propaganda efforts, and there were no Aldrich Ameses in the bunch.
Is the American government now using the real "refugees from islam" -- both the non-Muslims who have fled Arab and Muslim lands, and those former Muslims who, in jettisoning Islam as apostates, are the very best at analyzing, and countering, the propaganda efforts being made by Hizb ut-Tahrir and other groups all over the Bilad al-kufr, the Land of Infidelity or Lands of the Infidels.
Posted by: Hugh at May 10, 2006 10:49 PM
I can see this is an issue we can’t solve in one night. I think we should agree to disagree. The few muslims I have met in the military were not “true” muslims as they didn’t want to kill infidels and spread islam by force. I met the more traditional ones and had a completely different method of dealing with them. I don’t like to be put in the position to defend any muslim and that is not my intent. I simply wanted to reassure everyone that crazed muslim infiltrators will not and can not overwhelm our military. The few who do join can be value far beyond their service. We need spokesmen in their communities. Spokesmen who have seen the damage “true muslims” caused and who can not be intimidated by radical nut jobs. Most of the muslims killed in Iraq are killed by muslims, I suspect most islamic countries follow that same model. My fear is not they will stop killing, it is that they will stop killing each other and form up against us. I have had my say, time for bed, even us retires work. Night all.
Posted by: Ronin at May 10, 2006 10:55 PM
When Thomas J. Haidon, former student at Birzeit University, and a "revert" to Islam, writes "should Muslim soldiers be screened and even monitored? Yes" then one must ask him to explain.
He, after all, has been a Muslim for some years. He has attended mosques. He has heard Muslims speaking behind the backs of Infidels -- speaking to him, or at least not hiding from him certain things. And his conclusion is not that everything is hunky-dory. Not at all. His conclusion is that "Muslim soldiers" should not only be "screened" initially but "even monitored" once they have been allowed into the armed services? He adds in a later posting that his view that Muslims should not be kept out of the military "does not mean you should not be sceptical of Muslims, or view them with suspicion." That, to me, is a way of saying that yes, you should be "skeptical of Muslims" and should "view them with suspicion."
In yet another posting, the tireless Haidon has asked someone else "Who are you to say that most Muslims arent loyal?"
Judging by what Haidon himself, after his experience as a "revert" to Islam, willingly concedes that in his considered view
1) "Muslim soldiers" should be "screened"
2) "Muslim soldiers" should be "monitored"
3) "you should...be skeptical of Muslims"
4) "you should...view them [Muslims] with suspicion."
Well, that's quite a series of admissions, and so one must answer the question Thomas J. Haidon of New Zealand (where American patriots eager to serve in the armed forces are usually to be found, while the rest of us, draft-dodgers and cowards all, like to stay right here at home) poses.
"Who is to say that Muslims aren't loyal?" asks Haidon, a man who has been privy to many behind-the-Infidels-back discussions.
He is. He has.
Posted by: Hugh at May 10, 2006 10:59 PM
"I'm not suggesting surrender nor am I willing to kill 1/5 of the planet..."
-- from a posting above
Surely these are not the only two possibilities. Surely sensibly limiting the Muslim presence behind what they themelves are taught are enemy lines (even if not all see it that way), deep within Dar al-Harb, is one thing that could be done without either "surrender" or loss of life. Diminishing the accident-of-geology revenues, and thinking of ways to creatively soak or use them up, not least by directing poor Muslims to take their requests for money not to Infidels but to the rich Muslims, is neither "surrender" nor does it involve any war-making, much less killing. Allowing the divisions that naturally exist within Islam -- ethnic, sectarian, and even now economic -- to manifest themselves, ant be exploited on behalf of Infidels (even if the very nicest Muslims will not approve of such tactics -- ask Fouad Ajami what he thinks of pullng out of Iraq so that the sectarian and ethnic divisions can be exploited, and he, good as he is, will be horrified, and do all he can to prevent what others, thinking only of Infidels, will regard merely as commonsensical).
There is no need for the big battalions. There is a need for intelligence and cunning. If the Muslim world were put back merely into the situation of 1970, relative to the non-Muslim world, that is before the trillions in OPEC wealth, and the millions of Muslims migrants were permitted without any thought to settle in Western Europe and to a much lesser extent in North America, that would be a manageable situation -- one in which this endless hostlity would exist, just as Jihad to spread Islam will always exist, but without the necessary wherewithal to proceed. And in the meantime, Infidels could, and should, educate themselves, or be educated, about what is not a deep and hieratic mystery. After all, a billion Muslims more or less know what those texts tell them. Ask Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Ibn Warra, and another ten thousand highly articulate apostates. They can't be fooled. They grew up in Muslim households. They heard the same passages from the Qur'an, the same Hadith. They felt the same attitudes of bristling hostility, in most cases, toward non-Mulims, the sense of Muslim superiority. We don't have to remain permanently in the dark about all this. It is a question of intellect and will.
Posted by: Hugh at May 10, 2006 11:11 PM
Haidon writes: "I simply wanted to reassure everyone that crazed muslim infiltrators will not and can not overwhelm our military."
How can such an apparently intelligent writer write such hyperbolic obfuscation as this? It is not the danger of our military being "overwhelmed" by Muslims that is our rational concern: it is the likely prospect of too many incidents -- attempted, aborted, and successful -- of sabotage and mass-murder, against fellow soldiers as well as civilians. Our military could sustain 100 different incidents of successful sabotage and mass-murder and never be "overwhelmed"; does that mean we should facilitate the prospects for their likelihood?
Posted by: Television at May 10, 2006 11:13 PM
Correction: I quoted Ronin, not Haidon. Everything else I wrote stands.
Posted by: Television at May 10, 2006 11:14 PM
If you would like a glimpse of how Britain treated Germans INSIDE BRITAIN, during the war, I suggest you rent the film: "THE LIFE AND DEATH OF COLONEL BLIMP," {that might be THE LIFE AND TIMES OF COLONEL BLIMP, I think it might be the latter, but you get the idea} starring a very young, and very beguilling Deborah Kerr. It was made during the war, and in the final portions of the film, you can see some of the precautions that Britain took to guard herself.
It's of the MRS. MINIVER, and WHITE CLIFFS OF DOVER genre. It portrays the relationship between Britain and German, Great Britain and Germany, from The Great War, through the middle years of the Second World War.
It's very interesting in how it throws light on how the British made sense of the behavior of the Germans, "the boche."
As for islam:
It's very important to bear in mind the distinction between the muslim, and islam. I mean by that, the individual who has a conscience, who has competing claims being made upon him, and his soul, and compared thereto, the great creed, the vast totalitarian shadow, islam, which has no conscience, no underlying humanity to be appealed to, to be coaxed or cajoled into conformity with the modern world.
Islam is as immune to human appeal, as a dinner fork is to the taste of food.
That's part of the problem attending this whole debate. We in the West, have embraced the idea that to excoriate islam, or even to criticize islam, is somehow to cast aspersions on all muslims, and the character of all muslims. And discussion, let alone lively debate, gets immediately crushed.
Posted by: Dan
at May 10, 2006 11:16 PM
Ronin, "we can take a horse to water, but we can't make him drink."
Infidels can't change the koran, the sunnah, the mohammedan beliefs. Any change to islam must come from the Muslims themselves. Until then, by their own admission and sacred laws, Muslims have declared war on us until judgement day. How can a declared enemy be my protector? How can he?
Posted by: the poetess at May 10, 2006 11:23 PM
"That's part of the problem attending this whole debate. We in the West, have embraced the idea that to excoriate islam, or even to criticize islam, is somehow to cast aspersions on all muslims, and the character of all muslims. And discussion, let alone lively debate, gets immediately crushed."
-- from a posting above
Not if one makes that distinction clear, without being eagerly over-generous in insisting that "most" or a "great many" Muslims are fine fellows who wouldn't ever hurt themselves, or allow anyone else to hurt, Infidel fellow citizens. There is no evidence for that sentimental assertion, and there is evidence for the grim opposite.
If one stops to knock down, relentlessly, every example of misstatement, every bit of taqiyya or kitman, every tu-quoque argument presented, and keeps on going, that necessary discussion will not be "crushed."
Posted by: Hugh at May 10, 2006 11:24 PM
Hugh,
What are you buying time for? Especially why are you putting off a showdown when military, economic and cultural supremacy still abides in the West. If the West is slowly being weakened by the poisionous rip tides of relativism, multi-culturalism and political correctness, then there is no guarantee that the time your plan would purchase would be used to heighten the advantages of the West. In fact, playing a long game, might only lead to our demise, delayed to be sure by your plan, but only delayed, not put off.
You say, "We'll kill off their petrodollar proceeds, and they will no longer be a threat to the West." How do you know that? They haven't the military means to even take on Germany right now, but look at how much our thoughts are upon them. They don't need military and technological might to prevail over the West, all they need is our Democrat weakness, our luxus, our material affluence, and that material affluence grows hour to hour, day by day, month by month, year by year. If that's the case, why not hit them now, hit them in a manner that a thousand years hence, men will still speak of it with dread, and hit them in a way that will surely make them see that islam is false, Mohammed nothing more than some desert thug, and that Allah is not the Almighty. And that Judgement has come due upon islam.
This feroicous display of firepower need not be nuclear, but if the affair is a mortal one, and that ultimately there shall only be the West, or islam standing after all is said and done, then why are you looking to avoid the struggle that must occur.
You speak at great length about the enduring menace of islam, how it has proven impervous to reform. Well if it is as bad as you portray, why not make an end of it here and now.
The logic of your position leads naturally to the conclusion of immediate and massive war upon all aspects of islam that will not accept western values.
If we and islam are destined for a showdown, then common sense, ordinary prudence and military science dictate that the West choose the manner, the place, the scale, the pace, the duration and the magnitude of that struggle.
Now, you don't want to suggest such a thing, because you might think that such a statement would only further marginalize you in the simmering discussion about the nature and essence of islam.
But sooner or later, you're going to have to offer a plan more involved than the attempt to create a huge earthly prison for islam, and its adherents.
Not to mention, DON'T YOU THINK THAT CHINA, growing, looking for allies against the United States, would naturally look to the over one billion muslims that you were trying to effectively quarantine from the rest of the earth.
Your suggestion fails to appreciate how our ultimate enemy, China, will maneuver after your policies took hold.
Posted by: Dan at May 10, 2006 11:43 PM
And no, China is NOT going to be prevailed upon to participate in our war on terror, in our sanctions against the mullahs in Tehran, nor in your proposal, to make of islam one vast prison, where they can all fall out amongst themselves in the biggest "CAGE MATCH" in human history.
Posted by: Dan at May 10, 2006 11:47 PM
Hugh said "there is a need for intelligence and cunning." Absolutely. Really that is what we need most. The Muslim mind can't stretch beyond the box of islam(If it does, the mind is not islam anymore).
We can't defeat the enemy until we know who he is, says my old Chinese friend Sung Tzu and it's true.
Posted by: the poetess at May 10, 2006 11:50 PM
Meanwhile, a prime time American television drama called "Bones" (yet another forensic crime drama) has this plot: while investigating the suicide of a Desert Storm veteran, the examiner uncovers evidence that his last mission, which involved a heroic defeat of an "insurgent" hideout, was really a slaughter of an innocent, unarmed Muslim family by American soldiers, with a consequent planting of false evidence of weapons in the hands of the dead Muslims, and then a cover-up.
This is just one example of the multitudes of pathological fantasies our popular culture is indulging in (from Ridley Scott's Crusades movie up to Spielberg's Munich, not to mention innumerable American television dramas that one way or another insinuate that our suspicion of Muslims is paranoid and unwarranted) while refusing (with the sole exception of Flight 93) to dramatize the real dangers and barbarities we face.
Posted by: Television at May 10, 2006 11:55 PM
U.S. Navy Sailor on the U.S.S Benfold Hassan Abujihaad passed plans of the movements of a U.S. Navy Battle Group in the Straits of Hormuz to Al Qaeda Webmaster Babar Ahmad.Ex U.S. Army John Allen Muhammad the D.C. sniper.Washington National Guardsman Ryan Anderson(convert) attempted to pass intelligence to Al-Qaeda.This is the tip of an iceberg.
Posted by: RED at May 10, 2006 11:58 PM
Ronin and Hello123,
As a disabled Desert Shield/Storm vet (a C-141 Flight Engineer)I find your observations about the cowardice of muslim soldiers to be very much in line with what was seen in Desert Storm. No Iraqi pilots would even engage our fighters-after the first one or two Migs were easily blasted out of the sky in the initial engagements, they would all turn tail and run to Iran or Syria.
Really, when one considers that these "soldiers" come from a culture where it is acceptable, and even condoned, to use women and children as shields, how could anyone possibly expect them to show any sort of courage?
I also would like to let you know that America is waking up to just how evil islam is. Slowly, not nearly quickly enough for my liking, she IS awakening. I spend my days spreading the word to a network of my friends, family and other contacts. Sending them articles found here at jihad watch and other places that show the reality of islam that our main stream media refuses to show. I am sure that there are many others like me who come to jihad watch and are spreading the word. A recent poll by a liberal newspaper found that 80% of Americans had a negative opinion of islam. I think that is amazing, because the main stream/lefist/socialist media is working madly, day and night to bring about the opposite result!
And regarding your comments about deserving what we get if we allow sharia law in the USA...
If it were up to me right now, I would bomb every mosque in the country into oblivion, outlaw islam this very second and deport every muslim who refused to apostatize. But then I happen to be an extremely independent, intelligent, dog n gun luvin', wild boar huntin' tomboy of a wild-woman who would have the most to lose from the implementation of sharia law in the USA.
Muslims do not have any RIGHT to serve in our military, it is a privilege - and our military has every right to exclude anyone and everyone who could be a security risk for any reason.
Now women are only excluded from combat units, but when I came in women couldn't even be transport pilots! Did that stop me from serving my country? No, I served where I could (aircraft maintainance at first, then Flt. Engr. when they opened up transport aircrew to women), even though I would have dearly loved to be an A-10 pilot or a helo door gunner or a C-130 gunner.
at May 11, 2006 12:17 AM
Dear Ronin, Being different is not what this country is "about." This country is about E Pluribus Unum, out of many, One, and that One is a group of different individuals with loyalty to the U.S. Constitution, an acceptance of the Ten Commandments Posted by Poetess
Really now, acceptance of the ten commandments?
Born and raised in this wonderful country called the United States of America. A retired officer (in special operations yet), in my 7th decade of life, a combat veteran, masters degree and war college under my belt.. I can recall nothing at all in our founding documents or law which stipulate "acceptance of the ten commandments". By the way there are 613 of them, all enumerated in the book of Laws (Leviticus) and redundantly in part in Deuteronomy. 603 of them are Commandments (or Statutes if you wish) that no Christian or Reformed Jew can live with. So why cull out just 10 of the 613?
Posted by: Nariz at May 11, 2006 12:21 AM
As ever, excellent, insightful and honest piece, Mr. Fitzgerald.
Now on to a few words from moi, and this isn't going to be pretty or Politically Correct.
Ok, just to quickly address an issue that comes up over and over and over on these forums -- how we are so unfair to Muslims, especially so-called "moderate" Muslims (I just call them liars or cultural or casual), or, in the case of a few reactions to this article, how we are so unfair to Muslims that serve in the U.S. Military:
I'll make no bones about it, we are at war with Islam. I do not want Muslims in the military and though some people will not go so far to say it, I will: Muslims have no business being in the United States Military anymore than known Nazi or Communist sympathizers might. Or foreigners for that matter, and when I hear stories that non-citizens are serving in the U.S. Armed Forces, I get a little crazy.
Excuse me, but I'm going to offend a lot of Muslims in the coming days, weeks, months and years, because as far as I'm concerned, the Jihad has never stopped. I learn. I have learned from the terror! Ok? I GOT THE MESSAGE.
But the message backfired. I'm not scared. I'm PISSED OFF!
War. It's on.
And let's talk about getting offended. I've been getting my sensibilities offended ceasily ever since 9/11 and I have to say, if I offend any sensitive Muslims, I am not going to shed a single tear. And to make matters even clearer, it is not just Muslims that are a threat to this country, but also the 20+ MILLION illegals that are here. Did you know that 1 million babies were born to Hispanics in this country just last year. Want to take a guess at how many of t
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