Just two months ago, the photo of little Aylan Kurdi's body washed up on a beach in Turkey shocked the world. Following the discovery of the 3-year-old Syrian refugees' body lying face down in the position in which toddlers often sleep, the American public compassionately offered a home to a few thousand more children just like Aylan. How quickly things have changed.
Following last week's terrorist attack in Paris, 31 U.S. governors [ http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/16/world/paris-attacks-syrian-refugees-backlash/ (30 Republicans, 1 Democrat] (at last count) have issued statements that they will not welcome Syrian refugees to settle in their states. Nevermind that governors are powerless to close state borders to anyone living in the country, their statements have come under fire from many, including evangelicals [ http://www.politico.com/story/2015/11/refugees-christians-215991 ] who usually support conservative political leaders.
Why? Perhaps it's because the Syrian refugee crisis parallels the details of Jesus' life a little too closely. Jesus and his parents were Middle Eastern refugees. The nativity scene, after all, depicts a Middle Eastern family who were looking for a place to stay, only to be told there was no room for them. Then, Matthew tells us that after his birth, Mary and Joseph fled with the baby Jesus to Egypt... as refugees fleeing from violence. The irony of Christians rejecting refugees right before we put up the Christmas decorations is hard to miss, even for those who often do miss the irony of their faith and political positions.
Second, Jesus offers a sobering description of the Last Judgment in Matthew 25 that directly speaks to the issue of welcoming the refugee. In Matthew 25:40 [ https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matthew+25%3A40&version=NIV ], Jesus declares, "The King will reply, 'Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.'"
In His depiction of the Last Judgment, Jesus, as the King, clearly states that how we treat who He calls "the least of these brothers and sisters of mine" is how we treat Him. Who are "the least of these?" While one could argue over the definition of "brothers and sisters," Jesus is known for having universalized the love of neighbor.
In verse 28, we learn that one category of "the least of these" is the "stranger." Matthew was originally written in Greek, and the Greek word that we translate as stranger is xenos, which can be translated into English as "foreigner, immigrant or stranger." In other words, when we don't welcome the foreigner, Jesus takes it personally.
We are wise, of course, to ask questions about public safety and the possibility of terrorists embedding themselves within refugee groups. The apprehension some feel is understandable, but there is another view for us to consider.
In addition to Jesus' warning about the Last Judgment, there are likely earthly consequences to not welcoming the stranger. Perhaps not welcoming refugees will create actually more terrorists who would seek to harm the United States, as turning away families in their time of need could prove to be a powerful recruiting tool for ISIS.
In their fear of terrorism, most of the governors in Middle America, with their purely political statements, have likely already reinforced an anti-Muslim perception of the United States. One could easily make an argument that these statements of rejection have already handed the terrorists a win.
If these governors are acting according to the wishes of their people, then it only took one terrorist attack in Western Europe to apparently change American opinion against welcoming Syrian refugees, many of whom are small children. The terrorists' most powerful weapon is, well, terror, and if these governors and their supporters fear an attack so intensely that they are willing to deny hospitality to refugee children, who could argue that the terrorists haven't already won? Not only have they taken human lives, they have now succeeded in taking away our humanity.
For Christians, including many conservative evangelicals, the fact that Jesus himself was a refugee and that we will be judged partially on our hospitality to the stranger, rejecting refugees should be troubling. No matter how many governors claim there is no room in the inn, both the life experience and the teaching of Jesus are simply too relevant to the current refugee crisis for Christians to ignore.
Man calls all Muslims terrorists during Va. meeting
Hate-speech closes public meeting (Photo: Screen shot of cell phone video sent from Munira Salim Abdalla)
[this YouTube of the video embedded here at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFcuVb6EMz8 (with comment "Go Get Em Buddy!")] There was a bigoted rant at a Spotsylvania mosque meeting. WUSA
Virginia Mosque Meeting Gets Ugly: ‘Every One of You Are Terrorists!’ (FULL VIDEO)
[ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0H6mNEq_EiM (with comments) (note: leaving this one here even though it's gone private, on the remote chance it might come back at some point; an apparent earlier version of the video report just above, included an additional white guy's threatening yelling)]
SPOTSYLVANIA, Va. (WUSA9) -- Fear and hatred of Muslims was on public display in Spotsylvania County at a meeting concerning the building of a new mosque.
At least two men went on bigoted rants, shouting down the speaker and calling all Muslims terrorists.
The local Islamic community has outgrown the building and is proposing to build a mosque nearby on property they own. But at Tuesday night's presentations, things turned ugly fast.
It was level of hostility that Samer Shalaby did not expect at the community meeting.
"It just kept getting worse and worse. People were pointing fingers and waiving arms," said Shalaby.
Shalaby is a civil engineer and business owner. He was making the presentation about a new mosque on behalf of his religious organization when he was shouted down and called a terrorist.
The woman taking the video, Munira Salim Abdalla, was on the front page of the Free-Lance Star.
Some of the people in the meeting were concerned the Mosque would take in refugees from Syria.
The main instigator at the meeting continued to shout at Shalaby.
A Sheriffs deputy broke up the meeting, after it was clear, the insults were not going to stop.
Shalaby is a trustee of the Islamic Center of Fredericksburg, an organization which has been there for nearly 30 years. He said parents are now afraid to send their children to Sunday school at the center because of the threats made at Tuesday night's meeting.
‘Terrorist, go back to your country,’ attacker yelled in assault of Sikh man
By Sarah Kaplan September 10, 2015
“Terrorist!” “Bin Laden!” “Go back to your country!” came the shouts from the other car.
Inderjit Singh Mukker, a father of two on his way to the grocery store in his Chicago suburb, pulled over when the vehicle behind kept tailgating him, according to the Sikh Coalition. The 53-year-old Sikh man, who wears a beard and turban, expected that the person in the other car would just drive past.
Instead, the Coalition says, the other driver got out and stormed toward him, reaching into Mukker’s car and repeatedly punching him in the face. Mukker lost consciousness and had to be taken to the hospital, where he received treatment for a fractured cheekbone, bruising and blood loss and six stitches for the lacerations on his face.
“No American should be afraid to practice their faith in our country,” he said. “I’m thankful for the swift response of authorities to apprehend the individual, but without this being fully investigated as a hate crime, we risk ignoring the horrific pattern of intolerance, abuse and violence that Sikhs and other minority communities in this country continue to face.”
According to Simran Jeet Singh, a senior religion fellow at the Coalition working on Mukker’s case, Sikh Americans have been increasingly victimized in hate crimes in the years since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
“For Sikh Americans, the unique markers of religious identity — the turban, the beard — these markers are associated with the markers of terrorism,” he said.
In other words, “People see a Sikh and construe them as the enemy.”
Worshipers asked Talavera to remove his boots out of respect, but he instead walked into the nearby women’s prayer room — dragging his feet with every step and screaming obscenities about the Islamic religion.
Muslims typically remove their shoes before praying to avoid tracking dirt from outside into the sanctuary’s symbolically clean space, and visitors are also asked to do so before entering mosques.
Witnesses called police, who arrived and asked Talavera what business he had at the mosque.
Talavera claimed he was there to worship, but officers were skeptical and arrested him on criminal trespassing charges.
Police seized his backpack, but they haven’t said what he was carrying inside it.
The president of San Antonio’s Council on American-Islamic Relations said vandalism and other crimes against Muslims have spiked recently in Texas.
Vandals hurled feces and a befouled Koran at the entryway to a mosque near Austin following last week’s Islamic State terrorist attacks in Paris.
Mosques elsewhere in the U.S. have also been targeted for threats or vandalism.
He also thanked community members who called to offer their support, especially a woman who invited the mosque’s members to celebrate Thanksgiving next week at her home.
Gun-Toting Islamophobic Group Protests Outside Texas Mosque
"We do want to show force. … It would be ridiculous to protest Islam without defending ourselves."
By Lydia O'Connor Posted: 11/22/2015 02:02 PM EST
In the latest anti-Islamic incident to take place following the Paris attacks, demonstrators in Irving, Texas, protested on the sidewalk outside a mosque with guns, Islamophobic signs and American flags.
The dozen or so demonstrators referring to themselves as the Bureau of American Islamic Relations, or BAIR, gathered outside the Islamic Center of Irving on Saturday. One sign read "Stop the Islamization of America" and another, with arrows pointing at armed protesters dressed in military clothes and face masks, said "The solution to Islamic terrorism," local outlets reported.
"We are here protesting Syrian refugees coming to America [ http://www.fox4news.com/news/52977915-story ], protesting the Islamization of America," BAIR spokesman David Wright told Fox 4 News. "I think the popular belief is people are scared. They're scared to say anything about it. They're scared to come out to a place like this and stand in front of a mosque and protest Islam."
Local police were on the scene and warned the mosque about the rally in advance, urging them to stay away from the group, The Dallas Morning News noted. The worshippers and students at the Islamic school rarely came within 100 feet of the rally.
The Islamic Center of Irving did not immediately return requests for comment on the protest but posted a statement on its website in the wake of the Paris attacks.
"Our condolences go out to the families and loved ones of the victims," the mosque wrote. "We also strongly condemn and denounce the attacks, as they have absolutely no basis in the religion on Islam [ http://irvingmasjid.org/ ]."
Dallas Mayor ‘More Fearful’ Of White Terrorists Than Syrian Refugees
The Huffington Post
He kind of has a point.
By Julia Craven Posted: 11/23/2015 06:51 PM EST
Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings (D) isn’t afraid of the Syrian refugees fleeing a civil war in the Middle East. He's more concerned about the white men who grab military-grade firearms and shoot up public venues.
“I am more fearful of large gatherings of white men that come into schools, theaters and shoot people up, but we don’t isolate young white men on this issue,” Rawlings told MSNBC [ http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc-news/watch/dallas-mayor-welcomes-refugees-571458115855 ] on Saturday, addressing the recent claims by a number of public figures that the U.S. needs to turn away refugees from war-torn Syria because some of them could be terrorists planning an attack.
Since the attacks in Paris, many Arabs and Muslims have been openly discriminated against [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/all-the-islamophobic-acts-in-us-canada-since-paris_564cee09e4b031745cef9dda ] in the U.S. Rawlings noted that Western hostility toward Middle Eastern refugees will only help the self-styled Islamic State, the militant organization that has claimed responsibility for the Paris attacks and that seeks to radicalize moderate Muslims and drive a wedge between societies.
“ISIS is no more Islamic than the Nazi senior staff was Christian, and we have got to differentiate between those,” he said.
"We want to get rid of ISIS. We all agree with that," Rawlings said. "ISIS wants us to be divided on this issue. ISIS wants us to demonize these refugees, wants us to alienate these children."
Conservatives' yearning for Islam is the love that dare not speak its name
We often forget that, in his classic text Orientalism, Edward Said writes as much about western desire for the Islamic world as disdain for it.’ Photograph: Nasser Nasser/AP
Jeff Sparrow Wednesday 18 November 2015 21.54 EST Last modified on Friday 20 November 2015 14.49 EST
This week, Sydney’s Daily Telegraph published a cover portraying the African-born Grand Mufti Ibrahim Abu Mohammed as a monkey: a predictable manifestation of the Islamophobia unleashed since the atrocities in Paris.
But there’s a complementary phenomenon that’s less obvious – a wave of conservative Islamophilia. Yes, Islamophilia.
We often forget that, in his classic text Orientalism, Edward Said writes as much about western desire for the Islamic world as disdain for it. The two responses depend on each other, he says, with the category “Orient” generated as a projection of Orientalist hopes and fears.
If the Islamophobe essentialises Muslims into a set of racialised characteristics – violence, fanaticism, asceticism, etc – the Islamophiliac performs the same operation, and then expresses a strange yearning for these supposed “Islamic” traits. There’s an obvious analogy with antisemitism, where “philosemitism” often accompanies out-and-out anti-Jewish bigotry [ http://mondoweiss.net/2015/03/confirms-christian-semitic ].
Islam, argued Grayson Clary [ http://thenewinquiry.com/essays/fear-of-a-muslim-planet/ ] in a fascinating March 2015 essay in the New Inquiry, “often figures in conservative dreamscapes as an object of esteem, envy, even sexual longing”. But the form of that esteem changes over time, according to the vagaries of international politics.
In an earlier phase of the “war on terror”, some American social conservatives openly expressed their admiration of the sexual mores they identified with Islam. In 2004, Pat Buchanan, Reagan’s former communication adviser and now a widely published paleoconservative commentator, explained that on questions of sexual morality [ http://www.antiwar.com/scheuer/?articleid=2599 ] “conservative Americans have more in common with devout Muslims than with liberal Democrats”.
This, Buchanan suggested, was the basis of an alliance against common foes.
“If conservatives reject the ‘equality’ preached by Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan, NARAL and the National Organization for Women, why seek to impose it on the Islamic world?” He wrote. “Why not stand beside Islam, and against Hollywood and Hillary?”
In 2007, conservative provocateur Dinesh D’Souza wrote an entire book extending that argument. In The Enemy at Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11 [ http://www.amazon.com/The-Enemy-At-Home-Responsibility/dp/0767915615 ], he contended that liberalism had provoked Osama bin Laden by offending his moral and cultural sensibilities.
“[T]he cultural left,” he argued, “has fostered a decadent American culture that angers and repulses traditional societies, especially those in the Islamic world that are being overwhelmed with this culture … This campaign has provoked a violent reaction from Muslims who believe that their most cherished beliefs and institutions are under assault.”
Like Buchanan, D’Souza pushed for a rapprochement with “Islam”, on the basis of a joint struggle against the left on issues such as homosexuality, promiscuity, pornography, atheism and the like.
“Conservatives,” he wrote, “must strive to convince traditional Muslims that there are two Americas, and that one of these has a lot in common with them.”
Not surprisingly, the D’Souza thesis did not catch on. Aside from anything else, the American right’s attitude to Islam [ http://www.theguardian.com/world/islam ] isn’t merely a matter of culture. It’s also (and more importantly) a mediated expression of the geopolitics of the Middle East, in which the label “Islam” identifies those forces opposed to America’s strategic interests.
When, in the late seventies, the US backed the resistance to the Soviet regime in Afghanistan, Carter’s National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski told the mujahedin [ http://edition.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0109/29/cp.00.html ], “your fight will prevail and you’ll have your homes and your mosques back again, because your cause is right and God is on your side”.
But, in the context of Iraq and Afghanistan, D’Souza’s form of Islamophilia is probably untenable as a significant political current.
Nonetheless, there are other versions on offer. In his article, Clary discusses the French novelist and provocateur Michel Houellebecq. Houllebecq’s often denounced, with good reason, as an Islamophobe – famously, he called Islam “the most stupid religion”.
But he’s also an Islamophile, as his most recent novel Submission (Soumission) [ http://www.amazon.com/Submission-A-Novel-Michel-Houellebecq/dp/0374271577 ] reveals. The novel depicts the Muslim Brotherhood, under the leadership of a certain Mohammed Ben Abbes, taking control of France and imposing sharia law.
On the surface, the narrative might sound like something Pauline Hanson might dream up – a boilerplate Islamophobic fantasy. Yet, as Adam Gopnik points out in his review for the New Yorker [ http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/01/26/next-thing ], Houllebecq presents Brotherhood rule in an unexpectedly rosy light:
The portrait of the Islamic regime is quite fond; [Houllebecq] likes the fundamentalists’ suavity and sureness. Ben Abbes’s reform of the educational system is wholesome, and his ambitions to rebuild France are almost a form of neo-Gaullism. (He succeeds in integrating Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Turkey into the European Union, creating a power bloc greater than the American one.) The reform of education, the reinforcement of the family, even the re-domestication of women are all held up for admiration.
The book’s real scorn is not for Islam but for liberal modernity, which gratefully submits to Islam (hence the novel’s title).
“Houellebecq despises contemporary consumer society,” Gopnik says, “and though he is not an enthusiast, merely a fatalist, about its possible Islamic replacement, he thinks that this is the apocalypse we’ve been asking for. What he truly hates is Enlightenment ideas and practices, and here his satire intersects with a fast-moving current of French reactionary thought ...”
In an earlier decade, the reactionary anti-liberalism of a French intellectual would generally be expressed through Catholicism. Today, however, the Catholic church – an institution in palpable decline – simply doesn’t present a sufficiently viable platform from which to rail against the culture of the modern age.
For a French reactionary, Islam represents on the one hand a symptom of contemporary decline – a religion associated with immigration, globalisation, the breakdown of national culture and so on. But it also possesses an anti-modern dynamism and confidence that the traditional church lacks – and because of that, it exerts a strange fascination for the right, simultaneously an object of loathing and envy.
We must immediately recognize that our enemy is not ‘violent extremism’. It is the radical Islamism that has declared jihad against the west. It will not be appeased by outreach or declarations of tolerance. It will not be deterred by targeted airstrikes with zero tolerance for civilian casualties, when the terrorists have such utter disregard for innocent life.
The kicker comes in that final line, which might be paraphrased like this: America should be more like Isis.
Cruz is not D’Souza, or even Houellebecq. He’s not going to argue, as D’Souza did, that conservatives should support conservative Muslims against the blasphemies of Dutch cartoonists. On the contrary, Cruz takes every opportunity to ridicule and insult Muslims. But his Islamophilia is the love that dare not speak its name and he cannot help a sneaking envy for Isis’s willingness, unlike the “pussified” US, to massacre civilians.
“It’s said,” writes Grayson Clary, “that ‘Africa’ is Europe’s name for its own worst impulses; ‘Islam’ might be the name traditionalists give their own unfinished ambitions.”
You can feel the same unspoken desire in so many of the conservative think-pieces that have appeared after the Paris murders. It’s not that the writers approve of Isis. Obviously, they don’t. They see it as a threat – but they’re also fascinated by its apparent success in overcoming the decadence of modernity.
Thus, they begin by asserting the Islamists’ hatred for liberalism and its manifestations, but quickly move on to bemoaning the developed world’s multiculturalism and political correctness and moral relativism and general spinelessness:
Why don’t westerners believe in anything any more?
Why won’t they stand up for their values and their traditions?
Why do they spurn traditional mores and sexual standards and religion?
Why aren’t they prepared to fight, to sacrifice themselves for their nation and their cause?
The conclusion generally hovers unasked in the air: why aren’t they less modern and more, well … Islamic?
Oceans of ink have flowed into articles pondering why young people sign up for murderous Islamist groups. Actually, the attraction the jihadis exert over radicalised youths probably isn’t that different from the sentiment oozing from the conservative press: a profound disaffection with liberal modernity.
The hideous cycle of terror and war will not be ended by western nations retreating into anti-modern authoritarianism, something that seems increasingly on the cards. That’s why we need less pontificating about freedom as an abstraction and much more discussion of the specific freedoms under assault in the here and now.
In particular, progressives cannot content themselves with propping up a liberalism that lacks a base of its own. We need rather to radicalise liberty, filling the seemingly lifeless shells of democracy, justice and freedom with a deeper, more meaningful content.
To put it another way, to defeat the craving for reaction, we must hold modernity to the promises it makes but so often fails to deliver.
This bird has two right wings. Basically, it ain't gonna fly.
This video is mainly addressed to people I would define as ultra right wing radical Christians in America. Some people tell me that Islam is worse, because at least the Christians aren't beheading people who don't respect their religion. The whole point of this video is "beware what you wish for". The reason certain Christians don't do such things is simply because they live in a secular society that won't allow such things, but they want that to change. They want the theocracy. They want people like me to be punished. They are the Taliban that is not allowed to act like the Taliban. This video is a cautionary comparison, and it is absolutely valid. Furthermore, far more Muslims have been killed by Christians, than the other way around, today and throughout history. It's just that we tend to label it differently.
I've often been told by Christians, "Hey, if you were in a Muslim country, making fun of religion, you'd be dead by now," (John Lennox has said stuff like this). Basically, that means "At least we Christians let you live." Um...thanks. Those are some mighty low standards you have there. I don't trust radicals on either side. I'm alive because the secular government won't allow you to kill me - not because there's a shortage of Christians who would be ready, willing, and able to do it. Of that, I have no doubt.
Have You Read ISIS's Statement of Responsibility for the Paris Terror Attacks? If Not, Then You Should
by Chauncey DeVega Monday, November 16, 2015
In order to defeat an enemy, one must first understand the enemy.
I wonder, how many people have actually read ISIS's statement of responsibility for last Friday's Paris terror attacks [ http://www.vox.com/2015/11/14/9734794/isis-claim-paris-statement ]? I would wager that the number of Americans (and Westerners, more generally) who have done so is rather low.
Emotions blind our reason. Fear sabotages critical thinking. We also live a politically polarized environment that is awash--even in these troubling times that should expose the lie--in American Exceptionalism. Of course, any corporate media personality or analyst who would dare to treat ISIS's statement in a serious way would be condemned as giving aid and comfort to terrorists.
One of the most important documents of the second half of the 20th century is Osama bin Laden's letter explaining the September 11, 2001 attacks [ http://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/nov/24/theobserver ] and how they relate to Al Qaeda's broader struggle against America and the West. History will decide if ISIS's statement of purpose on the Paris attacks will be as equally significant. And like the latter, Osama bin Laden's letter has also not been read by most of the American people.
I have no use for religion. I believe that it damages the mind and imperils critical thinking. Religion as too often practiced by too many people is mumbo jumbo foolishness. Religion, is however, one of the most powerful forms of human livestock management ever invented.
We have some smart folks with a range of expertise who frequent the site. Some questions for them/us.
How would you analyze ISIS's statement of purpose? What are their long, medium, and short term tactical and strategic goals? This type of writing is part of a specific genre. As such, it will use certain conventions of style and writing to communicate its connotative and denotative meaning(s). I wonder how those who are "plugged into" violent political Islam will read the statement as opposed to those who are not part of that cult? Are there any directives in this statement that ISIS operatives could perhaps be looking for?
In the Name of Allah, the Most Merciful, the Most Beneficent
Allah (ta'ala) said, They thought that their fortresses would protect them from Allah but Allah came upon them from where they had not expected, and He cast terror into their hearts so they destroyed their houses by their own hands and the hands of the believers. So take warning, O people of vision [Al-Hashr:2].
In a blessed battle whose causes of success were enabled by Allah, a group of believers from the soldiers of the Caliphate (may Allah strengthen and support it) set out targeting the capital of prostitution and vice, the lead carrier of the cross in Europe — Paris. This group of believers were youth who divorced the worldly life and advanced towards their enemy hoping to be killed for Allah's sake, doing so in support of His religion, His Prophet (blessing and peace be upon him), and His allies. They did so in spite of His enemies. Thus, they were truthful with Allah — we consider them so — and Allah granted victory upon their hands and cast terror into the hearts of the crusaders in their very own homeland.
And so eight brothers equipped with explosive belts and assault rifles attacked precisely chosen targets in the center of the capital of France. These targets included the Stade de France stadium during a soccer match — between the teams of Germany and France, both of which are crusader nations — attended by the imbecile of France (Francois Hollande). The targets included the Bataclan theatre for exhibitions, where hundreds of pagans gathered for a concert of prostitution and vice. There were also simultaneous attacks on other targets in the tenth, eleventh, and eighteenth districts, and elsewhere. Paris was thereby shaken beneath the crusaders' feet, who were constricted by its streets. The result of the attacks was the deaths of no less than two hundred crusaders and the wounding of even more. All praise, grace, and favor belong to Allah.
Allah blessed our brothers and granted them what they desired. They detonated their explosive belts in the masses of the disbelievers after finishing all their ammunition. We ask Allah to accept them amongst the martyrs and to allow us to follow them.
Let France and all nations following its path know that they will continue to be at the top of the target list for the Islamic State and that the scent of death will not leave their nostrils as long as they partake in the crusader campaign, as long as they dare to curse our Prophet (blessings and peace be upon him), and as long as they boast about their war against Islam in France and their strikes against Muslims in the lands of the Caliphate with their jets, which were of no avail to them in the filthy streets and alleys of Paris. Indeed, this is just the beginning. It is also a warning for any who wish to take heed.
Allah is the greatest.
(And to Allah belongs all honor, and to His Messenger, and to the believers, but the hypocrites do not know) [Al-Munafiqun: 8].
10 Stories You Must Read If You Want To Understand ISIS Attacks in Paris claimed by the Islamic State group killed at least 129 people on Friday, bringing more attention to how the militant organization operates. A selection of some of the best work from years of coverage on the Islamic State group. 11/19/2015 Edited: 11/22/2015 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/isis-paris-attack-explainer_564cf073e4b00b7997f90b2f [with embedded video report, and comments]
A week later I'm back with another post-Paris piece. You can see the headline above: "We Are All Muslims Now."
The world's first reaction to the Paris shootings was horror, sorrow and defiance. In the days after, attention shifted to the military and police response.
I'd like to suggest something else: understanding and connection. If there is to be peace on the planet, we all must try to understand what Islam means and what it doesn't, what it is and isn't, what is holy in its name and what is evil.
I don't mean that all people, of whatever faith, must become experts in one of the world's most practiced religions. And I'm certainly not the person to give instruction in any faith.
But ignorance allows fear to grow. In the absence of knowledge of the Quran's message of peace, acceptance, community and charity, fear fills the void in politics and elsewhere. If self-described Islamic State militants kill time and again in the name of Islam -- if they declare a "caliphate" in the ancient tradition -- it takes a sense of history and proportion to know that they're lying.
We can't abdicate the responsibility for this education to the politicians.
President Barack Obama, unfortunately, is not the perfect messenger for this project. Too many yahoos in the American electorate think that he is a "secret Muslim."
Advocacy groups based in Washington and elsewhere aren't necessarily the right vehicle, either. They can't be faulted for spending so much time cataloging the growing list of discrimination against and attacks on American Muslims. But the broader, more positive mission gets lost sometimes, as does the need and the patience to keep fiercely and repeatedly denouncing those perpetrating the violence.
A smart and gregarious politician such as Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota can do his part, but as energetic as he is, he is nearly alone in official Washington as part of the conversation.
In the absence of countervailing arguments, presidential candidates such as Jeb Bush and Donald Trump can plumb the depths of religious fright, suggesting, in Bush's case, that only Syrian refugees who are Christians should be admitted to the U.S.
Journalists at HuffPost and the rest of the media, of course, must do our part.
But ultimately it lies with all thinking people to look past their fears and learn about the Muslim community -- both at home and abroad. To recognize and join with the vast majority of Muslims who reject the blood-curdling actions of the extremist group also known as Daesh. And to tell their fellow Americans that the values we hold dear not only require but will reward the embrace of our common humanity.
I'll leave you with a story from long ago, when I was a young man just out of college traveling the world on a fellowship.
In Jerusalem I met a burly man in his 50s, with a square jaw, a knit cap on his head and a carpeted wooden frame on his back -- a contraption that made it easier to carry chests and other heavy items.
As late as the 1970s in Jerusalem, or so I was told, there were other men like him: Turkish "furniture movers," descendants of the Ottoman Empire that once ruled Palestine, who made a living transporting items from place to place in the narrow streets of the Old City.
It was a sunny spring day in 1971 when I met him. I was leaning against one of the old Ottoman walls of the city. I was alone and must have looked hungry.
He approached without saying a word. He reached into his pocket and brought out a small paper bag. Inside was a hard-boiled egg and a piece of newsprint folded over many times. Inside the latter was a small pile of salt.
He handed the small package to me. I nodded in thanks. He nodded and moved away.
Then he took a small carpet from his backpack, unfurled it on the grass, kneeled on it and prayed in the direction of Mecca.
I could think of the gunmen in Paris, or I could think of him. I now choose the latter.
CNN Guest: We Should Bomb Even Hospitals, Universities To Fight ISIS Americans, he added, shouldn't care about seeing non-American civilians killed. 11/23/2015 It seems CNN will let just about anyone air their warmongering views on the network. On Saturday, former CIA intelligence officer turned blogger Michael Scheuer said the U.S. should bomb even hospitals and universities in Islamic State territory to combat the extremist group, saying this would constitute going "all in" in the fight against terrorism. "'All in' to me, I wrote this week, would be to take out every piece of infrastructure -- hospitals, universities, irrigation systems -- that make it impossible for the Islamic State to raise money, to provide electricity, sanitation and potable water," Scheuer responded. "Do exactly what we did to the Germans." When CNN host Michael Smerconish asked Scheuer if the American people would tolerate seeing footage of the "so-called civilian death count" that would result, Scheuer doubled down. “They should,” the blogger responded. “What’s the difference? They aren’t Americans.” [...] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/cnn-bombing-innocent-civilians_5653279ce4b0879a5b0b8df4 [with embedded videos, and comments]
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note: this is part 4 of a 5-part post; part 3 is the post to which this is a reply, and part 5 follows as a reply to this post -- the following listing of "see also" links is the same in all 5 parts
"You know, he himself came, his grandparents, came from Germany, Donald Trump's. So, maybe it's time for him to go back to Germany and advocate his pro-Nazi policies over there."
Hamadi's [sic - Hamdani's] son Mohammad Salman Hamdani was a first responder in the attacks -- and a Muslim-American. She said that Trump and other presidential candidates [ http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/27/politics/ben-carson-muslim-president-sharia-law/ ] who've made comments against Muslims don't deserve to be elected.
"If you are running for a presidential position, you are taking an oath to defend the Constitution," she said. "But here you are, you will violate the Constitution. So you don't deserve, you're not eligible to be a president of any country."
Watch more of her remarks in the video above, courtesy of "MSNBC Live with Thomas Roberts."
By Jeremy Diamond, CNN Updated 10:00 PM ET, Mon December 7, 2015 | Video Source: CNN
VIDEO
Story highlights Trump expanded on his policy proposal announced earlier in the day
"We have to do it," Trump said
Mount Pleasant, South Carolina (CNN) Donald Trump acknowledged Monday during a raucous South Carolina rally that his call for barring all Muslim foreigners from entering the United States is "probably not politically correct."
But he had three words for his critics: "I don't care."
And if his South Carolina rally -- with its whoops and cheers -- was any indication, that support will stick.
Six of eight Trump supporters at the rally who spoke with CNN said they supported the Muslim travel ban, which has drawn swift criticism from other Republican and Democratic presidential contenders alike who slammed the proposal as contrary to American values of religious tolerance. And the two supporters at the rally who disagreed said they were still likely to vote for Trump.
"I think that we should definitely disallow any Muslims from coming in. Any of them. The reason is simple: we can't identify what their attitude is," said 75-year-old Charlie Marzka of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
Marzka explained that he believes Islam "allows for the killing of people" and said he thinks Muslim culture "is absolutely contrary to our culture."
In his Muslim travel ban pitch to rally-goers, Trump cited an online poll of Muslims commissioned by the controversial Center for Security Policy, a group that has been accused of peddling conspiracy theories about what it calls the "Global Jihad Movement."
That poll claimed that one-quarter of Muslims living in the United States believe jihadist violence against Americans is justified.
But Trump explained Monday on Fox News that his proposal would not apply to Muslim Americans and Muslims already living legally in the United States.
"It does not apply to people living in the country, except we have to be vigilant," Trump said on Fox News moments before he took the stage in South Carolina.
Trump introduced the proposal to ban Muslims from entering the U.S. to supporters here by remarking on the San Bernardino terror attack last week that killed 14 people.
And he warned supporters that without his controversial proposals -- which in addition to banning Muslim immigrants includes surveilling and potentially shutting down mosques -- the U.S. could face another deadly attack on the scale of 9/11.
"We're gonna have to figure it out, we can't live like this. It's going to get worse and worse, we're going to have more World Trade Centers. It's going to get worse and worse, folks. We can be politically correct and we can be stupid but it's going to be worse and worse," Trump added.
The controversial proposal comes as Trump's poll numbers have continued to rise with the latest national CNN/ORC poll showing Trump leading the field of Republican presidential contenders by 20 points with 36% of support.
Hoyt Wood, a 68-year-old military veteran who attended Trump's South Carolina rally, said, "Islam is not a religion."
"It's a violent blood cult. OK? That's what Islam is ... all they know is violence, that's all they know. It's not a peace-loving religion," he said, before specifying that "not all of them" are violent people.
Several Trump supporters said they agreed with Trump's proposal to ban all Muslim immigration because they said it was hard to tell where Muslims' allegiances lie.
"We can't look at a Muslim and tell if they're a terrorist or friendly," 55-year-old Susan Kemmelin said.
While Trump said his call for a ban on Muslim immigration would not affect Muslims already living in the U.S., he spoke at length about Muslims residing in America and suggested many are not trustworthy, prompting some Trump supporters to chant "send 'em home."
But one protester's voice -- one of five protester interruptions on Monday night -- broke through the cheers.
"This is racist bulls--t," he chanted.
But even the Trump supporters who disagreed Monday night with Trump's call to ban Muslim immigrants said they would likely still be supporting the candidate when the state's primary rolls around right after Iowa and New Hampshire's first-in-the-nation contests.
One was Tim Newman, a 51-year-old Marine Corps veteran who lost a leg while serving with the State Department in Iraq.
"I spent four-and-a-half years in Iraq before I got hurt and there's a lot of great Muslim people on the planet," Newman said, adding that he fought for the religious freedoms the U.S. Constitution guarantees.
But still, he's sticking with Trump.
Hopefully Trump, who prides himself on his negotiating talent, will push "a hugely radical idea" and then settle "for what the country will allow him to do," Newman said.
"Somewhere along the way there's going to be a meeting of the minds, and the answer's going to be somewhere in the middle of this," he said.
Well, "barring all Muslim foreigners from entering the United States is" obviously paranoid xenophobic and fearmongering bigoted pretentious bullshit rhetoric as any individual could ever hope to sputter .. i was going to suggest if you want America to be seen as the Putinized of the West then vote for Trump .. now will just simply say if you want the USA to be the laughing stock of the world, vote for Trump .. the dangerously ego-maniacal guy obviously doesn't seriously give a shit about anyone but himself .. sad to see he is fooling so many.
need a Kleenex? there is nothing as sad as a constant passive/aggressive innuendo monger who plays the victim when people respond in a more direct fashion than your posts about what others think, and that everyone but you thinks in lock-step with each other. http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=118993204
28 Veterans of US Intelligence Fight Back Against CIA Claims That the Bush Torture Program Was Useful and Necessary
27.9.15
Anti-torture protestors outside the White House in May 2009, after President Obama's first 100 days in office.Remember back in December, when the executive summary of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report about the CIA’s post-9/11 torture program was published, with its devastating revelations that the use of torture “was not an effective means of acquiring intelligence or gaining cooperation from detainees,” that the CIA’s justification for its use of torture techniques “rested on inaccurate claims of their effectiveness,” that its interrogations “were brutal and far worse than the CIA represented to policymakers and others”? (See my articles here and here).
We all do, of course, and to anyone who has not been fooled by the black propaganda of the torture apologists, it is depressing — if not unpredictable — that, in response, a book has just been published, entitled, Rebuttal: The CIA Responds to the Senate Intelligence Committee’s Study of Its Detention and Interrogation Program, published by the US Naval Institute Press, which attempts to claim that the Senate report is biased.
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