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Arabia
The Question Should Be: Why We Hate Them?
2004-06-24
Bryant C. Mitchell, Arab News
After the disaster of Sept. 11, the common man in the Western world awoke from his spiritual slumber and was told that they needed to find the answer to what they were told was a fundamentally important rhetorical question: Why do they hate us? As a result, a frantic search began to find out any and all information they could about Islam and the Muslims. The underlying premise in the framing of this question is that “they” — Muslims — possess some innate abhorrence for things Western and thereby modern. The Western religious scholars long ignored by their slumbering populace rushed to the forefront to provide an array of answers. They included, but were not limited to the following:
• Islam is an inherently anti-modern religion;
It's a religion where "innovation" is a sin, punishable by death...
• Islam is a demonic religion as was its founder;
I don't subscribe to the description as "demonic," though I believe some here do. "Barbaric" or "savage" more usually spring to mind. Being captured by Muslims is something like being captured by Hurons or Powhattans was 300 or 400 years ago...
• Islam is an inherently violent religion based on the conquest and subjugation of non-Muslims.
Pretty hard to argue with that one, isn't it?
Let’s examine the facts.
I thought we just did? Y'mean there's more? Are they paying you by the word?
Here is what some prominent American opinion-makers and leaders have said about Islam:
“We should invade (Muslim) countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.”
— Columnist Ann Coulter, National Review Online, Sept. 13, 2001.
I remember when she said that. It was the day after the 9-11 attacks, and she was writing about Barbara Olson. Here's what else she had to say:
"Barbara Olson kept her cool. In the hysteria and terror of hijackers herding passengers to the rear of the plane, she retrieved her cell phone and called her husband, Ted, the solicitor general of the United States. She informed him that he had better call the FBI — the plane had been hijacked. According to reports, Barbara was still on the phone with Ted when her plane plunged in a fiery explosion directly into the Pentagon. Barbara risked having her neck slit to warn the country of a terrorist attack. She was a patriot to the very end."
You disagree with that, Clem?

“Just turn (the sheriff) loose and have him arrest every Muslim that crosses the state line.”
— Rep. C. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), chairman of the House Subcommittee on Terrorism and Homeland Security and Senate candidate, to Georgia law officers, November 2001.
Of course, he didn't hold that position when he said that. He wasn't elected until a year later.

“Islam is a religion in which God requires you to send your son to die for him. Christianity is a faith where God sent his Son to die for you.”
— Attorney General John Ashcroft, interview on Cal Thomas radio, November 2001.
Seems to be a true statement, doesn't it?

“(Islam) is a very evil and wicked religion; wicked, violent and not of the same God (as Christianity).”
— Rev. Franklin Graham, head of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, November 2001.
Graham, I believe, subsequently apologized for that statement. Islam's God commands an entirely different behavior from his adherents — it'd be pretty hard to mistake him for the Christian or Jewish God.

“Islam is Evil, Christ is King.”
— Allegedly written in marker by law enforcement agents on a Muslim prayer calendar in the home of a Muslim being investigated by police in Dearborn, Michigan, July 2002.
An alleged scrawl by an apparent nutcase. Kinda pales next to
"I am against America until this life ends, until the Day of Judgment;
I am against America even if the stone liquefies
My hatred of America, if part of it was contained in the universe, it would collapse.
She is the root of all evils, and wickedness on earth. Who else implanted the tyrants in our land, who else nurtured oppression? Oh Muslim Ummah don’t take the Jews and Christians as allies."
Got anything else?

“Who put our oil under their sand?”
— A banner of the Orange County Peace Coalition (OCPC), a broad-based group of diverse individuals and organizations. OCPC is a multiethnic, multireligious, multipolitical organization composed of over 20 volunteer groups united for peace. They indicate they have come together because national leaders are propelling the United States into a war that will destabilize the world and threaten our civil liberties.
The statement could be taken several different ways: literally, or mockingly — of the government. I suspect it was the latter, since it was a "Peace Coalition."

“We are going to correct a mistake that God made?”
— Army Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin, a senior intelligence chief who made church speeches casting the fight against terrorism in religious terms. The three-star general is deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence.
That's a remark he made in his private capacity as a religious figure. I agree with him in my private capacity. In my public capacity I'm a computer programmer and I keep my opinions to myself unless asked, and then usually answer non-committally. If somebody gives me money to give a lecture, I'd probably probably expound my observations on the similarties between the Learned Elders of Islam and the Council of Boskone.
What the above passages clearly demonstrate is that a more pertinent question to ask is why do we hate them. What’s going on here? What’s going on isn’t rocket science. Simply put, Muslims do not inherently hate the so-called “West or modernity”. What they dislike, some more adamantly than others, isn’t the quest, but the quest’s baggage.
They want to get there without driving, huh? That's kinda the lazy way to do things, isn't it?
Now I will briefly examine two important articles of this baggage to get a sense of the source of the difference in perspective. They are:
    Western economic philosophy is based on the basic that the ends justify the means. As a result, the pursuit of economic gain should not be constrained by moral or religious ideology. Islam, on the other hand, prohibits businesses that promote the sale of intoxicants, pork products, art that depict human images, gambling, interest, pornography, and prostitution, all of which are legal in one form or another in Western societies.
    Most non-Muslims have no prohibitions against guzzling the occasional intoxicant, chomping bacon and eggs, ham sandwiches, and Carolina barbecue (which is considered a tasty after-dinner treat in Texas). Porn, like booze and pigmeat, is considered a matter of personal taste. All of those fall into the category of doing what you damned well please, and all of those are things that no one's forced to indulge in (with the occasional exception of porn in the email, which can usually be dealt with by rudimentary spam filtering.) Nobody's forced to get drunk, eat chorizo, or watch the Hottest Sluts on the Net™. Prostitution is something that's been on the decline in the West for the past 50 years, a combination of sexual freedom and the whores pricing themselves out of the market. The while, Iran and Pakistan continue to indulge in the practice and the Soddies when they travel manage to keep battalions of hookers in business.
    Western democracy is based on the premise that all laws are subject to change and reinterpretation. For example, the US Constitution is viewed as a living document that is subject to change by expression of two-thirds of the Will of the People. In contrast, an Islamic constitution is based on the Qur’anic law that can’t be changed given its origin. As result, the Western political system is reactive in nature.
    And the Islamic system is stagnant, by definition.
    Laws [are] instituted first and questioned regarding their constitutionality after the fact. In Islamic tradition, every effort is made to ensure that laws passed through the Qur’anic screen before they are put into effect. Finally, many of the purported freedoms that the West so zealously wants imparted to Muslims are not freedoms at all, they are forms of enslavement. Fortunately for the Muslims this basic knowledge has been infused deep within the moral genetic code. Unfortunately for the West, its most recent invasion into the Muslim market-space is reactivating that code with some very predictable consequences given the force and viciousness of the incursion.
    He's confusing cultural norms with religion, I'd say...
    — Bryant C. Mitchell who converted to Islam at the age of 35 teaches management and entrepreneurship courses at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore.

    If the Saudis had any intention of eliminating terrorism, the first thing they would do is to stop printing articles that justify it.
    These are the headlines in today’s edition:
    "Half-Baked Cakes Not Worth Eating
    Dr. Mohammad T. Al-Rasheed, Arab News
    Messrs Bush and Cheney can keep insisting that Saddam’s Iraq had “connections” to Al-Qaeda in the face of all evidence to the contrary. It is their right if they have no problem with twisting facts to suit political ends. Now they are telling us that Saddam had “contacts” with the terror group. Fine. But, pray tell, who in the world did not have “contacts” with Al-Qaeda at one time or another?"

    "Don’t Call Them Terrorists: What We See in Iraq Is Continuation of a European Struggle
    Karma Nabulsi, The Guardian
    OXFORD, 24 June 2004 — The United States and Britain claim to be handing sovereignty to Iraq next week. In fact, the occupying power cannot legally transfer sovereignty on June 30 for one simple reason: It does not possess it. Sovereignty is vested in the Iraqi people, and always has been: Before Saddam Hussein, after him, under the martial law of the American Proconsul Paul Bremer today."

    "Bush and Cheney Moving Dissonance to New Heights
    Joel Cooper, Newsday
    PRINCETON, 24 June 2004 — George W. Bush and Dick Cheney seem to be men who do not change their minds easily."

    "Freed Saudi Describes the Horror That Is Abu Ghraib
    Obaid Al-Suhaimi, Asharq Al-Awsat
    JEDDAH, 24 June 2004 — A Saudi just freed from Iraq’s infamous Abu Ghraib prison said he had seen prisoners tortured and others die from lack of medical treatment or from shelling of the facility."
Posted by:Anonymous4617

#2  er, Fred, you wouldn't happen to have the link handy for Hottest Sluts on the Net™? Saves one-handed googling...

:-)~
Posted by: Frank G   2004-06-24 10:39:00 PM  

#1  Point of note -- what this guy hasn't quite touched on is that we're STILL DIAMETRICALLY OPPOSED. The very "permanent law" + "economic protectionist bans" are diametrical to our cultural-legal and economic views, so what whence the argument that it's not about inherent culture?
Posted by: Edward Yee   2004-06-24 9:42:09 PM  

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