I like retired Army General Wes Clark, might like him more if he had been a Marine, nevertheless, his latest NYT OP-Ed shows him still holding to the belief that a US military presence in Iraq is necessary to ‘affect‘ the outcome.
As one prominent Kuwaiti academic explained to me, in the Muslim world the best way to deal with your enemies has always been to assimilate them – you never succeed in killing them all, and by trying to do so you just make more enemies. Instead, you must woo them to rejoin society and the government. Military pressure should be used in a calibrated way, to help in the wooing.
Wooing via bombing will probably not be much of a campaign slogan for the December 15 elections in Iraq. However, I think Clark has hit upon the very crux of the problem – Iraqi’s don’t want us affecting an outcome, we have meddled enough.
It is an ironic coincidence that “ProAmerican” posted his nasty little screed on Dec. 7th. It was exactly one year ago to the day that Secretary-General Kofi Annan told those attending the UN conference on the emergence of Isamophobia that when “the world is compelled to coin a new term to take account of increasingly widespread bigotry, that is a sad and troubling development. Such is the case with “Islamophobia’.”
Islamophobia is a neologism used to refer to an irrational fear or prejudice towards Muslims and the religion of Islam. Bigotry is the product of narrow mindedness and ignorance. Bigotry spawns hate crimes and religious wars. Bigotry is not an American value.
“ProAmercian”maligns the great majority of Muslims who are moderates and liberals by lumping them together with the minority who are fundamentalist extremists. His purpose is to incite hatred and promote religious animosity. His rant reveals that he too is a fundamentalist extremist filled with irrational hatred. His angry raving libels all Americans, and denigrates all Christians.
His question, about whether one has read about the war that has lasted 3,000 years, reveals an abysmal ignorance. Islam and Christianity could not possibly have been at war with each other for 3,000 years. Christianity is a little more than 2,000 years old, and Islam began between 610 and 632 C.E., when the Holy Qur’an was revealed to the Prophet Muhammad.
Ideologically, Christians and Muslims have very little to fight about. The two religions share many beliefs in common, including belief in the Holy Bible. The six beliefs shared by all Muslims are these:
1. Belief in one and only one God
2. Belief in all the prophets and messengers
3. Belief in the books sent by God:
The Scriptures to Abraham
The Torah sent to Moses
The Psalms sent to David
The Gospel sent to Jesus
The Qur’an sent to Muhammad
4. Belief in Angels
5. Belief in the Day of Judgement
6. Belief in predestination
Perhaps “ProAmerican” should open his Bible to Matthew and read chapters 5 to 7. He needs a refresher on what Jesus said about peacemakers in his Sermon on the Mount.
Sadly, I’d have to say that “ProAmerican”, like many of our countryment doesn’t know much about either Muslim history or the Koran.
Sawing heads off is really bad PR for Muslim hearts and minds and for the most part works against their best interests.
Photographing electrode tortured and dead individuals under a high sign is equally bad. A few bad apples? There are a few bad apples in the top levels of the White House and Pentagon that have ordered this behavior. They are foolishly working against America’s best ideals and America’s long term interests.
Estimates of the total number of Muslims range from 0.7 to 1.2 billion on earth and 1.1 to 7 million in the U.S. There are 210 million people in the USA. This is about 21% of all people on earth following Islam. So, the totally reprehensible idea of killing lots of muslims to win is clearly not going to be a particularly viable option in the long term. It would only serve to dehumanize ourselves in the eyes of the world and with 1/5 of those eyes reading the Koran, you do the math.
In Iraq, I fear for poor reasons we have kicked the dog and awoken the lion. Sometimes, it is best to speak calmly and slowly back out of the cage.
Have you viewed the most recent videos of Muslims be-heading Americans? Have you read about a war that has lasted 3,000 years of Christians vs. Muslims? Do you not realize that Muslims read a book that condones “mutilating, beheading, destroying” anyone who is not Muslim , a follower of allah? You can’t get a people who slowly slice a man’s head off and kick his head around like a soccer ball to re-join society.