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The insightful European analyst Wolfgang Bruno offers the President some much-needed advice:
Dear Mr. Bush: I was one of the Europeans who supported your re-election the past fall. In my view, a good leader needs at least two basic qualities: The courage to do the right thing, and the wisdom to understand what the right thing is. John Kerry didn’t have an ounce of either and would have been a disaster as president. I still believe, or at least hope, that you possess the spine necessary to do the job. But I’m not equally convinced you fully understand the nature of your enemy. For you, a devout Christian, religion is something inherently positive. Perhaps that makes you misjudge Islam. Perhaps you view it as a religion currently beset by many problems and aggressive groups, but still one that can offer comfort and moral guidance to millions of people. That is a fundamental mistake. Islam is not an addition to the American diversity rainbow. In fact, it wants to scrap the diversity rainbow and replace it with an Islamic cave. Ataturk’s Turkey has tried for generations to enforce Western-style democracy and secularism, and the experiment is failing. You should listen more to the likes of Ibn Warraq, Ali Sina and Robert Spencer, and less to Bernard Lewis.The most important military task in the immediate future is preventing the mullahs in Iran from getting nuclear weapons. This has to be done at all cost, even if it means armed strikes against Iranian nuke facilities. Such a move will meet stiff international opposition, but it is of critical importance. The downside is that we may risk ordinary Iranians rallying behind otherwise disliked leaders. A strike against Iran should be combined with steps to weaken the foundations of the Islamic Republic, and encourage the people to overthrow their oppressors. Ironically, the election of hardliner Ahmadinejad for president just made this easier. Rafsanjani is more cunning and could have fooled both Europeans and Iranians for a few more years. Ahmadinejad is a brute who will kill off the illusion of "reform" and the deceptive "good cop - bad cop" game his predecessor Khatami kept alive for eight years. The time is now right for toppling the mullahs.
However, in the ideological battle against Islam, little has happened in the four years since 9/11. We are treading water, and as the London bombings showed, we don't have time to do that. If anything, it has become even more difficult to openly criticize Islam in infidel nations. The Islamic world, supported by Saudi petrodollars, is working tirelessly to subvert our freedom of speech. It is understandable that a person as powerful as the US President cannot and should not say everything, even when it’s true. But you should quietly start preparing people and open their eyes to what we are facing. If the traditional media hesitate to deal in a straightforward manner with Islamic issues, then we have to bypass them and bring the message directly to the people. Concentrate on the Western nations first, and Europe in particular.Many Americans are tired of watching the back of a continent that always seems to get itself into more trouble. Given the bad press President Bush receives in European media, any open efforts on your behalf could anyway prove to be counterproductive. If done in more subtle ways, it is not as impossible as some people think. The referendums about the proposed EU constitution in France and Holland demonstrated that there are now two powerful and sometimes contradictory currents at work in Europe: Anti-Americanism, partly a reflection of Socialist instincts, but also carefully nurtured by the elites as glue in their Euro-federalist project. The other is increasing disillusionment with European political leaders. Instead of a Europe united against the USA, the elites are creating a Europe united in common opposition to their neo-feudalist leaders and the oligarchs in Brussels. Americans can play these two impulses against each other. There are many Europeans who are more negative towards their own leaders than the USA. Hook up with some of them. Encourage them as a counterweight to the biased Eurabian media. This is also important for what we might label as “civilization awareness”. Multiculturalism and anti-Americanism have greatly weakened the sense of belonging to a shared Western civilization. It needs to be rebuilt, by establishing ties between Americans and groups of Europeans ordinary Americans can relate to.
Show Europeans that their elites are indeed selling them out. Buy the copyrights to Bat Ye’or’s book Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis. Translate it into as many European languages as possible, and make sure that many websites have it available for free online, both in the full version and in a summarized version. Since American media are hardly much better when it comes to writing about Islam, many Americans would benefit from this, too. Europe still has a window of opportunity to act, but it is closing fast. A decade from now, the combined forces of neo-feudalism, resurgent nationalism and right-wing extremism, Marxism, and Islam could be too strong for level-headed Europeans to withstand. Either Europe’s home-grown totalitarian impulses will fuse with Islam, completing Europe’s transformation into Eurabia, or they will compete for the spoils, tearing the continent apart. Europe will burn again, for the third time in a century.
Give stipends and all the library resources needed to people such as Ali Sina and Ibn Warraq, to write about Islam. You should also encourage websites by ex-Muslims, and the best websites by non-Muslims. Make a selection of the best critical books written about Islam. The books in their full length should be made available on the Internet in major languages They can also be downloaded and reprinted in countries where the reach of the Internet is still limited. Start with supporting those who are already in the business. Give them grants to do their work on a semi-professional basis, and help increase their reach. The websites could be in English or bilingual, catering to both national and international audiences. Jihad Watch and Faith Freedom International should be used as the cyberspace version of Radio Free Europe, and the cornerstones in a global network of similar websites.
I am not saying that the Internet alone will do the trick. But it is the least censored medium and still largely outside the control of the politically correct elites. It can and should be spearheading the efforts. The entire operation could be done quietly and unofficially without spending too much money. Freedom of speech is the lifeblood of Western civilization. It doesn’t matter if we capture Al-Qaeda operatives in Iraq and Afghanistan if Islam strangles our freedom at home. Likewise, we can’t win a fight against Islam unless people are made aware of the true nature of Islamic teachings. This part of the struggle has been neglected so far. It is my hope that you, Mr. Bush, can help in dealing with this during your second term. Much depends upon it.
Posted by Robert at July 11, 2005 1:55 PM
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Thanks Bruno for the good advice to POTUS. Hopefully he will heed some of this advice especially your plan to fight the war on the ideological front. For too long now the Bush administration has been harping on the need to do this but to my knowledge, absolutely nothing has been done to date. This would be my biggest criticism of him in his handling of the WOT. The funding of websites critical of Islamists is an innovative yet practical ideal. It could and would(in my opinion) work. I'd extend this idea further and create and fund a satelite TV channel whose sole purpose would be of exposing who the enemy is, what they're aims are, examples of their atrocities perpetrated throughout Islams history, and the rest. We all know there is enough damaging "evidence" to make it a 24/7 channel. Some would call it propaganda and to some extent it would be, but that is exactly what is needed at this point in time if we are to make a significant impact on the ideological front.
Posted by: William The Crusader![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/nav-commenters.gif)
at July 11, 2005 2:57 PM
A translation project could be undertaken at once. There would have to be strict, ATA (American Translators Association) control. Not a job for the nice Iranian down the street who wishes to translate Bat Ye'or into Farsi -- no, someone who has been translating into Farsi as a full-time occupation for 30 years is needed. And so on.
Some suggestions:
1) ALL four books on Dhimmitude by Bat Ye'or, translated and then published at heavily-subsidized prices (taxpayers' money as well-spent on that spent in Cold War days on the Congress for Cultural Freedom, and Encounter Magazine) to be translated first into every major and some minor European languages: French, Russian, Italian, German, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Finnish, Hungarian, Polish, Czech, Serbo-Croatian, Russian.
And then, to help innoculate the Far East, into Chinese, Japanese, Korean.
2) The two books by Robert Spencer on Islam.
3) The books "Leaving Islam" (ed. Ibn Warraq) and "Why I Am Not a Muslim" by Ibn Warraq, again in all the languages above, but also in Urdu, Farsi, Arabic, even possibly Tamazight.
4) The forthcoming anthology "The Legacy of Jihad" (Andrew Bostom), translated first into the main European languages, then into the smaller languages.
5) These, once translated, should all be published in attractive, small-format (where possible), and heavily subsidized editions. The CIA used to do this with some Russian emigre books (Editions de la Seine, etc.). In Brussels they used to put out the Noviy Zavet, New Testament, in editions that could be, and were, smuggled into Russia. There is no reason why the Western world, and the non-Western world, should not be fully informed, or have the ability to be fully informed, of what Islam is all about.
6) Create texts that discuss specific aspects of Islam not as ra religion but as a Total Regulation of LIfe.
Topics might include, for each book or booklet:
Islam and Artistic Expression
Islam and Scientific Inquiry
The History of Islamic Civlization
So Your Daughter (Sister, Brother) is Thinking of Converting -- the testimonies of those who have been there, done that, and came out eventually (no need to ask those who remained in)
There are a thousand things that could be done, and are not being done. Thousands of people sit in the Pentagon. A thousand are said to work under Feith alone. What do they do all day?
Perhaps this word "religion" will prevent the government from doing what it should do. Pressure should be brought to bear to force it to act. But if that does not work, then private foundations, and individual donors, simply have to understand the unprecedented nature of the problem, and the attendant inhibitions, and do what they can do -- forget about that alumni office that keeps asking for money. This ir that school will mean little if Europe, or still worse, America is islamized. This takes precedence over everything else.
And those radio and television shows, beamed at Muslim audiences, but almost entirely employing Muslim staffs have to be supplemented by, or replaced by, those who are both "Muslim-for-identification-purposes-only" Muslims, and those who are defectors, and speak fluently the relevant languages.
None of this is being done now -- at least not with government support.
This must change. We are not obligated to keep up the farce, to pretend that things are other than they are. We need not keep telling ourselves it is "only a handful" or it "has nothing to do with Islam." 1350 years of history, the Qur'an, Hadith, and Sira, tell us otherwise. We can't keep ignoring this.
Posted by: Hugh at July 11, 2005 3:33 PM
Hugh, Hugh, (sound of throat clearing) Robert has four (4) books out on Islam.
4, not 2, not 3, but 4 counting the new one, out early next month and available on amazon here:
It's his best one yet.
Rebecca
Posted by: Rebecca JW at July 11, 2005 4:15 PM
Beloved Jihad Watch staffers (Hugh and Rebecca):
Actually, I have five books on Islam.
The four listed here:
Plus the forthcoming PIG, to which Rebecca linked above.
Some of them, of course, are more minor than others.
Thanks for your interest.
Cordially
Robert
at July 11, 2005 4:21 PM
Sorry, the information about the four books and where to order them went by so fast, I couldn't write it all down. Could you repeat that?
Posted by: Hugh at July 11, 2005 4:45 PM
In addition to Hugh's suggestions, I would suggest that someone write a VERY SHORT booklet that has the bare bones of criticism of Islam.
It could be titled "Is There a Problem of Islam?"
This very short booklet should have the following information:
1) A one-page introduction that invites the reader to think outside the box and wrap his/her mind around the possibility that the problem of terrorism is rooted in a problem of Islam itself.
2) a one-page summary of the history and literary structure of the Koran.
3) a one-page summary of the importance of the Koran to Muslims -- psychologically, theologically, culturally, politically.
4) a one-page summary of modern history that illustrates how the modern West has dismantled its former theocracy based upon holy texts, while modern Islam has not dismantled its theocratic apparatus on many levels.
5) a one-page explanation of the Islamic Umma and how it functions as a trans-national super-brotherhood.
6) a one-page explanation of jihad (distinguishing between "inner" jihad and physically violent jihad, and how the former psychologically supports the latter).
7) a one-page discussion of the issue of "moderate" Muslims vs. "extremist" Muslims, and how
a) the former seem to be the ones insufficiently demonstrating their roots in traditional Islam while the latter consistently root their declarations and actions on texts and practice of traditional Islam
b) the former seem to be insufficiently and ineffectually condemning, ostracizing and neutralizing the latter.
8) a list of suras in the Koran that illustrate:
a) the theological imperative for physically violent jihad
b) the psychological connection between "inner jihad" and physically violent jihad
c) various assaults on modern Western human rights -- including treatment of women, misogynistic sentiments, treatment of non-Muslims, treatment of other religions, anti-Semitism, etc.
9) a one-page summary of the history and literary structure of the Hadiths and Sunna.
10) a list of passages from the Hadiths and Sunna that illustrate the same things as noted above in 8a, b and c.
11) a one-page summary of the Sharia, including its character as totalitarian puritanism, and its nature as the expression of a return to authentic Islamic fundamentals.
12) a two-page summary of Islamic history, including
a) the Sunni-Shia split,
b) the historical & cultural constant of imperialistic conquest, and
c) the crucial motivating factor of eschatology in everything Muslims do.
13) a listing of all Islamic terrorist acts perpetrated since 1950 (beginning with the bombings in France by Algerian Muslims in the 50s) up to the present day -- just including the bare minimum data: date, how many killed & injured, location, damage to property, group responsible, group's claim for motivation.
This booklet need be no longer than 20-30 pages long, including references and internet links at the end.
at July 11, 2005 5:20 PM
posted with wolfgang and repeated here:
Sorry, Wolfgang, but it is, sadly, too late. Geopolitics aside, imploding native european birthrates and a tidal wave of unassimilated muslim and third world immigration (enthusiastically embraced by euro elites and media) make europe's fate a mathematical certainty. European caucasians are as doomed to extinction as the dinosaur. The eventual disappearance of ethnic europeans from their own soil is as voluntary as it is certain. Nothing can be done to change it. At least nothing politically correct (or even practical in execution).
I am an American airline pilot and stay regularly in the major metropolitan centers of europe. Two things I experience as an American in europe cause dismay.
First, I feel the hate and disdain. Of course, on a personal level we get along politely but on a geopolitical and cultural level, europeans truly despise Americans. Identified as an American, I become the brunt of anti-American humor in in an obscure pub in Dublin,Ireland! (St Patty's day is not the same for me any more!) Go figure. I guess it is less risky to insult Americans than it is to take that chance with an islamofascist (Rushdi and Van Gogh found that out the hard way). I have given up trying to understand the modern european mindset and now must admit a perverse satisfaction in knowing those who hold my country in such contempt are themselves doomed by their own inexplicable embrace of cultural suicide.
The second thing I find dismaying and baffling is european failure to notice what is happening under their noses. Whether it is London, Brussels, Hamburg, Manchester, Birmingham, Frankfurt, Oslo, Stockholm, Paris or Geneva, the cultural and political effects of the low birthrates of ethnic europeans and uncontrolled third world immigration are stunning. To me, as an American of european ancestry, it is sad to behold (in spite of my status as the "enemy"). Furthermore, the popular media as viewed from my hotel rooms, celebrate this destructive new "diversity". It is madness and nothing my president does can restore sanity. He is the leader of the free world, not a psychiatrist.
Posted by: THw6kds at July 11, 2005 5:24 PM
Excellent post, THw6kds. I would only add that there are millions of Americans who, out of a perverse disease I choose to call PC Leftism, share the European anti-Americanism.
at July 11, 2005 6:00 PM
Oh, dear.
Going back in order here is: The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0895260131/qid=1121112809/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/002-5691182-9068808?v=glance&s=books&n=507846
Here is The Myth of Islamic Tolerance: How Islamic Law Treats Non-Muslims
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1591022495/qid=1121112809/sr=8-2/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i2_xgl14/002-5691182-9068808?v=glance&s=books&n=507846
Here is Onward Muslim Soldiers
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0895261006/qid=1121120158/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/002-5691182-9068808?v=glance&s=books&n=507846
Here is Islam Unveiled: Disturbing Questions About the World's Fastest Growing Faith
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1893554589/qid=1121120232/sr=8-2/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i2_xgl14/002-5691182-9068808?v=glance&s=books&n=507846
Here is Inside Islam: A Guide for Catholics
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0965922855/qid=1121120313/sr=8-2/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i2_xgl14/002-5691182-9068808?v=glance&s=books&n=507846
That's five. FIVE
Sorry Robert, er, uh, Mr. Spencer.
- Rebecca
at July 11, 2005 6:20 PM
From the Barnabus fund
MUSLIM COUNCIL OF BRITAIN ASKS FOR QUR’AN TO BE EXEMPT FROM
RELIGIOUS HATRED LAW
Muslim leaders in the UK have raised with a Home Office Minister the possibility of the Islamic scriptures being exempted from the proposed new law banning incitement to religious hatred, which is being debated and voted on in the British Parliament today.
These scriptures include both the Qur’an and the hadiths (“ahadith” in Arabic) which are traditions recording the words and deeds of Muhammad and his first followers. The Racial and Religious Hatred bill is being debated and voted on in the House of Commons today. This is the third reading of the bill, and if passed today will move forward to be debated in the House of Lords.
The delegation made suggestions to the minister to that it may be preferable to totally exempt the holy text, which will include the Qur’an and the hadiths from the remit of the Act.
.....
The Minister assured the Muslim community that there was nothing in the bill that would prevent scholars from delivering their sermons or from reciting from the Qu’ran and ahadith. The Minister reiterated that what the bill would do is criminalise incitement to religious hatred against individuals.
Meanwhile muslims are celebrating and are bold enough to say this, as this muslim preacher in London
"We don't need to fight. We are taking over!" he said. "We are here to bring civilization to the West. England does not belong to the English people, it belongs to God."
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0711/p01s04-woeu.html
The Blair government is responding to muslim requests, in exactly the manner as expected after a punishment attack. It, if not the people of Britain, has learnt the lesson.
at July 11, 2005 7:00 PM
DP111,
"It [the Blair government], if not the people of Britain, has learnt the lesson."
Blair is not acting as a valiant or foolish maverick alone: he is swimming with the dominant irrational PC tide.
If there is a silent majority of sane, rational people in Britain (and Europe and the USA) unaffected by the dominant PC atmosphere, they are still being too silent, and too passive.
Posted by: metaxy at July 11, 2005 7:32 PM
Islam preaches peace and tolerance. There is absolutely nothing wrong with Islam. Yet the Muslim Council of Great Britain wishes to have an exemption made for the Qur'an and Hadith under the proposed law banning incitement to religious hatred. Surely such an exemption would be entirely unnecessary, given the real message of Qur'an and Hadith. So what's the fuss by the Muslim Council of Great Britain? Do they something we don't know?
Posted by: Hugh at July 11, 2005 8:48 PM
Being a web designer/developer, I agree that the power of the internet can be used to get teh message out and ultamitely springboard into other media opportunities.
One item I am clearly in search of is a simple, consise guide to fighting the Jihadists in any way possible (short of me joining the military and going to Iraq.)
I challenge you JW viwers, to develop a guide for teh average person like myself to help combat the spread of Islam and the evils it brings.
Robert, if a consise guide is created, would you mind posting here at JW?
I know the first to appear on this list would be to LISTEN and LEARN about Islam.
Any thoughts folks?
Posted by: Joe at July 11, 2005 9:16 PM
Surely you jest, they jest, the world jests? The Muslim Council of Great Britain wants an exemption for the Qur'an so that it will be exempt from the proposed law banning incitement to religious hatred?
Would any other group have the bloody nerve to ask for an exemption? On what possible grounds could this be granted? Let me guess -- "This is our holy text, it is undeniably correct, other books speak hatred, the Qur'an speaks truth! Therefore since it is the truth it can't be construed as being hatred!"
This is all coming too fast. I can't read fast enough, write my thoughts fast enough, watch unfolding events fast enough to understand what's really happening here. I'm beginning to feel the chill.
Posted by: Jen at July 11, 2005 9:19 PM
Jugoslavia. Every time I write the word my computer seizes up. But not this time. Not yet.
Joe, if you want to do something with me and anyone else who isn't afraid of the word Jugoslavia, join me at http://nodhimmitude.blogspot.com/
Some of us have done some graphics and editorial work here in the past eight months, and some of us continue to do so but need help with it.
Jugoslavia.
Posted by: sonofwalker at July 11, 2005 9:25 PM
sonofwalker,
I'm a bit confused about the message system at your site. What is the email address that's requested in step 3?
Posted by: PRCS at July 11, 2005 10:35 PM
I've read the comments from our friends above, and though I might not really be the Right-wing religious bigot some think I am, I recalled something I think is appropriate for the times:
The King James Bible (1611)
Our father which art in heauen, hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdome come. Thy will be done, in earth, as it is in heauen.
Giue vs this day our daily bread.
And forgiue vs our debts, as we forgiue our debters.
And lead vs not into temptation, but deliuer vs from euill: For thine is the kingdome, and the power, and the glory, for euer, Amen.
***
God help us.
But I'm not a guy big on religion. Hey, help yourself. Go out fighting if you're any kind of man at all, (I say to myself.) Yeah, go out fighting the evil bastards who want to wreck the world we make and sustain by our work. I'm not getting down on my knees for this. Forget it.
I know I love Pepsi and I know my enemies love death. I don't know if this story is true:
During the israeli War of Independence, the Israeli's had one plane brought in by an English deserter who didn't have any aerial bombs. The Israelis, not having bombs either, loaded a soda vending machine into the plane, and when it was in the air, pushed the machine out. When it hit the ground, all the bottle exploded, scared the Arabs into Jordan from where they've been sneaking back in the night ever since to kill babies and children.
Give me this day my daily Pepsi. I don't care about forgiveness. We can deal with that sometime later. I trespass on the ground of fascism. I spit.
But my god, my savage god, my god.
Posted by: sonofwalker at July 11, 2005 10:50 PM
The cheeky bastards asked for exemption for the Quran, but is that only for Muslims to read it or anybody?
at July 12, 2005 7:49 AM
metaxy, jen, sonofwalker
You think this is coming too fast? Why? Jihadi terrorism is not motiveless. Its purpose is to intimidate and make the infidels respond in the correct way. They are the sticks, in the carrot and stick approach applied to the proverbial donkey , to coerce our societies to make islam pre-eminent. So it is no surprise to me that muslim organisations are demanding this and that, in the wake of the London attacks.
I have been writing on LGF and here since 9/11, that 9/11 was very succesful, as it raised the profile of islam in the US and the world. In addition GWB went about propagating the RoP mantra and visiting mosques. So again the same mantra is applied by Tony Blair and the idiot dimwits of our leadership, who realy have no clue of the motives of these attacks (This includes MSM papers such as the DT). They are responding in the exact way, as the proverbial donkey, that the jihadists wished and hoped for.
Fast? How about this.
A defiant Islam rises among young Britons
In Dalston market in north-east London on Thursday, "Abdullah," a Muslim watch-mender and evangelist, was in a pugnacious mood.
"We don't need to fight. We are taking over!" he said. "We are here to bring civilization to the West. England does not belong to the English people, it belongs to God."
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0711/p01s04-woeu.html
Thanks to View from the right for the link
Fair enough. What the muslim did not mention is what he really believes, that England belongs to allah and as such, it is ceded to muslims.
-------------------------------------------
Many are the times in the last 4 years I have asked, where is the Churchill who will speak the truth about the nature of the enemy we are dealing with. I now think that it is not a Churchill that we need but an Oliver Cromwell, the Lord High Protector.
at July 12, 2005 7:53 AM
Contempt and defiance from Muslim accused of murdering film-maker By David Rennie in Amsterdam
He offered no defence, instructing his lawyer to tell the court that he acknowledged only Islamic law.
Posted by: DP111 at July 12, 2005 8:33 AM
Wolfgang:
I appreciate your respect and support for the USA in these trying times. Yet you underestimate what Pres. Bush probably knows and understands about Islam--or has learned during his years in office. Also, I continue to hold that the President is right in waging a war on terror rather than on Islam or Muslims per se.
If Bush is the Evangelical he is made out to be, he probably thinks it a pity that his Jewish friends don't recognize the Messiah; that his Mormon friends feel they have to add Scriptures; that his Roman Catholic friends invoke Mary and the saints in their prayers; and that his Muslim friends are something like Mormons or Unitarians--only with roots that go back to the 7th rather than 18th and 19th centuries and ancestral cultures that are quite violent. However, as President of the United States, Bush has to represent people with whom he disagrees. After all, he presides over rather than rules his country. There may be a lot of things he believes that he thinks are best left to himself for the time being.
Further, as an experienced politician and with lots of information on lots of people at his fingertips, he doubtlessly thinks that there are Muslims and then there are Muslims. Sure, OBL is a devout Muslim; but so is Amb. Khalilzad, who has given years of faithful service to the US government. Yes, Zarqawi is a Muslim who invokes his religion right and left in waging terror, but there are too many Iraqis who oppose the terrorists and cheered for the coalition for them to be all Christians, Yazidis, Mandaeans, or Jews. He sees as well how Lebanon's Sunnites and Druze broke with the Shi'ites to stand with the various Christian groups against Syrian domination. He's probably well aware that some of our own domestic successes against terror happened because Muslim citizens and immigrants went to the authorities.
Further, US law tends to focus on discovering, stopping, and punishing the wrongdoing of individuals rather than on group responsibility. It also believes strongly that power needs to exercise restraint. In this time of crisis, the President needs to consider very carefully both the responsibilities of his office and the various things that make the USA and the countries with which it is comfortable the countries they are.
DP111--While I think that the Puritans and Cromwell have gotten a lot of bad press that they didn't deserve, I beg you to remember that Oliver Cromwell was the guy who was for a little bit of theological "wiggle room", accommodating Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and Baptists in his New Model Army rather than imposing the strict Presbyterianism that the Scots and most of the English parliament would have liked. Also, he generally refrained from going after the Ranters and Levellers until they got out of line first. Maybe the military dictatorship Cromwell imposed on the British Isles was mild enough to let us say God has been more than merciful to the Anglo-Saxons; yet, at the same time, if we don't have to go so far, we shouldn't.
Posted by: Kepha at July 12, 2005 10:30 AM
DP111, it is quite obvious that if a Churchill came along today to speak about islam threatening the civilized world, not only wouldn't he be understood by his compatriots, they'd throw him in jail for hate-speech. We have the politicians we deserve, so in order to have a new Churchill, we must deserve him first. Guess we don't.
at July 12, 2005 11:21 AM
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