This column from a Texas paper encapsulates the woolly thinking that prevents so many Americans from understanding the jihad threat in all its forms. “What were Republicans thinking by ‘Rumble at Romano’s’?,” by Bud Kennedy in the Star-Telegram, May 5 (thanks to James):
Sometimes I really miss President Bush.
Monday was one of those nights. A Republican club in Fort Worth chose up sides and debated whether American Muslims are (1) good religious conservatives or (2) “sleeper cells” hiding in wait to overthrow America and impose Islamic law.
Obviously it’s a false dichotomy. American Muslims aren’t all in the first category or the second. And then Kennedy takes the existence of Muslims who apparently fall into the first category as proof that there are no Muslims in America who fall into the second.
In front of Muslim Republican business owners and government officials, a spokeswoman for a Florida-based political advocacy group asked Republicans to stop the “Islamization” of the U.S. and protect religious freedom by refusing to allow observances of Islamic holidays.
Huh?
It’s impossible to tell from this caricature what was really said. It appears doubtful, in any case, that Kennedy has ever heard of the Muslim Brotherhood‘s self-described “grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”
Our Dallas neighbor, George W. Bush, used to have a blunt message for those like Dorrie O”Brien of Grand Prairie, who once picketed Six Flags over Muslim Family Day.
“Ours is a country based on tolerance,” Bush said in 2002. “We respect the faith and we welcome people of all faiths in America. And we”re not going to let the war on terror or terrorists cause us to change our values.”…
Good. Now: what to do about those who are not similarly tolerant and respectful, but would subjugate non-Muslims and destroy the Constitutional provisions of non-establishment of religions and the equality of rights of all people before the law?
Some remaining Republicans seem determined to chase away Muslim conservatives. And Hispanic conservatives. And also those gay and lesbian fiscal conservatives who might think commitment is a conservative idea.
At this rate, pretty soon there won’t be enough Republicans left for a radio talk show.
There were enough to fill a party room Monday night at Romano’s Macaroni Grill in far north Fort Worth, where the North Tarrant Republican Club gathered to see O”Brien, 61, and 30-year Tarrant County Medical Examiner Nizam Peerwani in the “Rumble at Romano’s.”
“I just found out that I am part of a sleeper cell and that I am going to declare jihad,” Peerwani said. “News to me.”
Great, Mr. Peerwani. But what about your coreligionists who do think this way? Should we ignore them for fear of being branded as “Islamophobic”?
O”Brien complained that some American Muslims don’t “assimilate.” (That always means they don’t act like the person complaining.)
“They don’t grow up singing Pop Goes the Weasel,” she said during a slide-show presentation from Act! for America (American Congress for Truth). “They don’t understand Anchors Aweigh or ‘to the shores of Tripoli.–
That reminded me of one of our own Marines.
Lance Cpl. Saeed Jafarkhani-Torshizi Jr. of North Richland Hills, a American of Iranian descent, died in a 2005 helicopter crash in Iraq.
“We just called him ‘J.R.” ” said family friend Jessica Ledbetter of Crowley.
He was 24. He wanted to come home and become a Fort Worth police officer.
“He wasn’t for anything he saw in the Middle East,” she said. “He was thankful to be an American.”
He might have made a pretty good Republican.
Sure. But unfortunately, he doesn’t prove there is no jihad against America.