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The Ground-zero mosque, continued

Lets take a step back and think this through for a moment. How would the muslims feel if someone is to build a church next to the dome of rock commemorate the crusades? Won't that be senseless and offensive? Sure, the cruisaders does not represent all Christians and their atrocities was committed many centuries ago. But its not right for a church to be build there, isn't it?
 
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No lets not get taken in by idiot comparisons - So called ground Zero is not the Al-Aqsa. And lets not take any silly backward step - this is the US and Us Muslioms, citizens with full rights of citizenship aqnd protection and equality before the law, we are talking about.
 
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No lets not get taken in by idiot comparisons - So called ground Zero is not the Al-Aqsa. And lets not take any silly backward step - this is the US and Us Muslioms, citizens with full rights of citizenship aqnd protection and equality before the law, we are talking about.
So now you are demanding that non-muslims places the same religious reverence to muslims artifacts as well as or even over ours? What if we were to call Al-Aqsa as 'so called' holy?
 
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Gambit - you have exhausted anger, You have exhausted rhetoric, Now, come towards the light, come towards what you know is right, your conscience. Think about the America you know you and every other sane person wants:

August 20, 2010, 9:00 pm

Real Americans, Please Stand Up
By DICK CAVETT


All this talk about the mosque reminds me of two things I heard growing up in Nebraska.

I had a 6th grade teacher who referred to American Indians as “sneaky redskins” and our enemies in the Pacific as “dirty Japs.” This abated somewhat after I asked one day in class, “Mrs. G., do you think our parents would like to know that you teach race prejudice?” She faded three shades.

The rest of that year was difficult.

As a war kid, I also heard an uncle of mine endorse a sentiment attributed to our Admiral “Bull” Halsey: “If I met a pregnant Japanese woman, I’d kick her in the belly.”

These are not proud moments in my heritage. But now, I’m genuinely ashamed of us. How sad this whole mosque business is. It doesn’t take much, it seems, to lift the lid and let our home-grown racism and bigotry overflow. We have collectively taken a pratfall on a moral whoopee cushion.

Surely, few of the opponents of the Islamic cultural center would feel comfortable at the “International Burn a Koran Day” planned by a southern church-supported group (on a newscast, I think I might have even glimpsed a banner reading, “Bring the Whole Family,” but maybe I was hallucinating). This all must have gone over big on Al Jazeera news.

I like to think I’m not easily shocked, but here I am, seeing the emotions of the masses running like a freight train over the right to freedom of religion — never mind the right of eminent domain and private property.

A heyday is being had by a posse of the cheesiest Republican politicos (Lazio, Palin, quick-change artist John McCain and, of course, the self-anointed St. Joan of 9/11, R. Giuliani). Balanced, of course by plenty of cheesy Democrats. And of course Rush L. dependably pollutes the atmosphere with his particular brand of airborne sludge.

Sad to see Mr. Reid’s venerable knees buckle upon seeing the vilification heaped on Obama, and the resulting polls. (Not to suggest that this alone would cause the sudden 180-degree turn of a man of integrity facing re-election fears.)

I got invigorating jolts from the president’s splendid speech — almost as good as Mayor Bloomberg’s
— but I was dismayed, after the worst had poured out their passionate intensity, to see him shed a few vertebrae the next day and step back.

What other churches might be objectionable because of the horrific acts of some of its members? Maybe we shouldn’t have Christian churches in the South wherever the Ku Klux Klan operated because years ago proclaimed white Christians lynched blacks. How close to Hickam Field, at Pearl Harbor, should a Shinto shrine be allowed? I wonder how many of our young people — notorious, we are told, for their ignorance of American history — would be surprised that Japanese-Americans had lives and livelihoods destroyed when they were rounded up during World War II? Should all World War II service memorials, therefore, be moved away from the sites of these internment camps? Where does one draw the line?

I just can’t believe that so many are willing to ignore the simple fact that nearly all Muslims were adamantly opposed to the actions and events that took place on 9/11, and denounced them strongly, saying that the Islamic religion in no way condones it.

Our goal in at least one of our Middle East wars is to rebuild a government in our own image — with democracy for all. Instead, we are rebuilding ourselves in the image of those who detest us. I hate to see my country — and it’s a hell of a good one — endorse what we purport to hate, besmirching what distinguishes us from countries where persecution rules.

I’ve tried real hard to understand the objectors’ position. No one is untouched by what happened on 9/11. I don’t claim to be capable of imagining the anguish, grief and anger of the people who lost their friends and loved ones that day. It really does the heart good to see that so many of them have denounced the outcry against the project. A fact too little reported.

And it seems to have escaped wide notice that a goodly number of Muslims died at the towers that day. (I don’t mean the crazies in the planes.) What are their families to think of being told to beat it?

“Insulting to the dead” is a favorite phrase thrown about by opponents of the center. How about the insult to the dead American soldiers who fought at Iwo Jima and Normandy, defending American citizens abiding by the law on their own private property and exercising their freedom of religion?


Too bad that legions oppose this. A woman tells the news guy on the street, “I have absolutely no prejudice against the Muslim people. My cousin is married to one. I just don’t see why they have to be here.” A man complains that his opposition to the mosque is “painting me like I hate the whole Arab world.” (Perhaps he dislikes them all as individuals?)

I remain amazed and really, sincerely, want to understand this. What can it be that is faulty in so many people’s thought processes, their ethics, their education, their experience of life, their understanding of their country, their what-have-you that blinds them to the fact that you can’t simultaneously maintain that you have nothing against members of any religion but are willing to penalize members of this one? Can you help me with this?

Set aside for the moment that we are handing such a lethal propaganda grenade to our detractors around the world.

You can’t eat this particular cake and have it, too. The true calamity, of course, is that behavior of this kind allows the enemy to win
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Note: An earlier version of this article mentioned Dunkirk instead of Normandy; that has been corrected.



August 25, 2010, 8:30 pm
Building a Nation of Know-Nothings
By TIMOTHY EGAN

Timothy Egan on American politics and life, as seen from the West.
Tags:
Fox News, lies, president obama, Republican Party, Rush Limbaugh


Having shed much of his dignity, core convictions and reputation for straight talk, Senator John McCain won his primary on Tuesday against the flat-earth wing of his party. Now McCain can go search for his lost character, which was last on display late in his 2008 campaign for president.

Remember the moment: a woman with matted hair and a shaky voice rose to express her doubts about Barack Obama. “I have read about him,” she said, “and he’s not — he’s an Arab.”

McCain was quick to knock down the lie. “No, ma’am,” he said, “he’s a decent family man, a citizen.”

That ill-informed woman — her head stuffed with fabrications that could be disproved by a pre-schooler — now makes up a representative third or more of the Republican party. It’s not just that 46 percent of Republicans believe the lie that Obama is a Muslim, or that 27 percent in the party doubt that the president of the United States is a citizen. But fully half of them believe falsely that the big bailout of banks and insurance companies under TARP was enacted by Obama, and not by President Bush.

Take a look at Tuesday night’s box score in the baseball game between New York and Toronto. The Yankees won, 11-5. Now look at the weather summary, showing a high of 71 for New York. The score and temperature are not subject to debate.

Yet a president’s birthday or whether he was even in the White House on the day TARP was passed are apparently open questions. A growing segment of the party poised to take control of Congress has bought into denial of the basic truths of Barack Obama’s life. What’s more, this astonishing level of willful ignorance has come about largely by design, and has been aided by a press afraid to call out the primary architects of the lies.

The Democrats may deserve to lose in November. They have been terrible at trying to explain who they stand for and the larger goal of their governance. But if they lose, it should be because their policies are unpopular or ill-conceived — not because millions of people believe a lie.

In the much-discussed Pew poll reporting the spike in ignorance, those who believe Obama to be Muslim say they got their information from the media. But no reputable news agency — that is, fact-based, one that corrects its errors quickly — has spread such inaccuracies.


Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images

Rush LimbaughSo where is this “media?” Two sources, and they are — no surprise here — the usual suspects. The first, of course, is Rush Limbaugh, who claims the largest radio audience in the land among the microphone demagogues, and his word is Biblical among Republicans. A few quick examples of the Limbaugh method:

“Tomorrow is Obama’s birthday — not that we’ve seen any proof of that,” he said on Aug. 3. “They tell us Aug. 4 is the birthday; we haven’t seen any proof of that.”

Of course, there is proof as clear as that baseball box score. Look here, FactCheck.org, for starters, one of many places posting Obama’s Hawaiian birth certificate.

On the Muslim deception, Limbaugh has sprinkled lie dust all over the place. “Obama says he’s a Christian, but where’s the evidence?” he said on Aug. 19. He has repeatedly called the president “imam Obama,” and said, “I’m just throwing things out there, folks, because people are questioning his Christianity.”

You see how he works. He drops in suggestions, hints, notes that “people are questioning” things. The design is to make Obama un-American. Then he says it’s a tweak, a provocation. He says this as a preemptive way to keep the press from calling him out. And it works; long profiles of Limbaugh have largely gone easy on him.

Once Limbaugh has planted a lie, a prominent politician can pick it up, with little nuance. So, over the weekend, Kim Lehman, one of Iowa’s two Republican National Committee members, went public with doubts on Obama’s Christianity. Of course, she was not condemned by party leaders.

It’s curious, also, that any felon, drug addict, or recovering hedonist can loudly proclaim a sudden embrace of Jesus and be welcomed without doubt by leaders of the religious right. But a thoughtful Christian like Obama is still distrusted.

“I am a devout Christian,” Obama told Christianity Today in 2008. “I believe in the redemptive death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.” That’s not enough, apparently, for Rev. Franklin Graham, the partisan son of the great evangelical leader, who said last week that Obama was “born a Muslim because of the religious seed passed on from his father.”

Actually, he was born from two non-practicing parents, and his Kenyan father was absent for all of his upbringing. Obama came to his Christianity like millions of people, through searching and questioning.

Finally, there is Fox News, whose parent company has given $1 million to Republican causes this year but still masquerades as a legitimate source of news. Their chat and opinion programs spread innuendo daily. The founder of Politifact, another nonpartisan referee to the daily rumble, said two of the site’s five most popular items on its Truth-o-meter are corrections of Glenn Beck.

Beck tosses off enough half-truths in a month to keep Politifact working overtime. Of late, he has gone after Michelle Obama, whose vacation in Spain was “just for her and approximately 40 of her friends.” Limbaugh had a similar line, saying the First Lady “is taking 40 of her best friends and leasing 60 rooms at a five-star hotel — paid for by you.”

The White House said Michelle Obama and her daughter Sasha were accompanied by just a few friends — and they paid their own costs. But, wink, wink, the damage is done. He’s Muslim and foreign. She’s living the luxe life on your dime. They don’t even have to mention race. The code words do it for them
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Climate-change denial is a special category all its own. Once on the fringe, dismissal of scientific consensus is now an article of faith among leading Republicans, again taking their cue from Limbaugh and Fox.

It would be nice to dismiss the stupid things that Americans believe as harmless, the price of having such a large, messy democracy. Plenty of hate-filled partisans swore that Abraham Lincoln was a Catholic and Franklin Roosevelt was a Jew. So what if one-in-five believe the sun revolves around the earth, or aren’t sure from which country the United States gained its independence?

But false belief in weapons of mass-destruction led the United States to a trillion-dollar war. And trust in rising home value as a truism as reliable as a sunrise was a major contributor to the catastrophic collapse of the economy. At its worst extreme, a culture of misinformation can produce something like Iran, which is run by a Holocaust denier.

It’s one thing to forget the past, with predictable consequences, as the favorite aphorism goes. But what about those who refuse to comprehend the present?


Note: In an earlier version of this piece, a statistic for the percentage of Republicans who believe the president is Muslim was given wrong; it has been corrected.
 
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Ignoring recent anti-Muslim incidents, right-wing media dismiss nationwide trend of "Islamophobia"

Jonah Goldberg: "There isn't an anti-Muslim climate." In an August 26 column, titled, "The Islamophobia myth," Jonah Goldberg addressed a recent attack on a Muslim cab driver in New York City and wrote: "It's unavoidable that many will cite this as proof of the national wave of 'Islamophobia,' touted by Time magazine and other media outlets. We'll have to wait for the facts, but even if the allegations prove true, one assault doesn't a national trend make." Goldberg further asserted, "There isn't an anti-Muslim climate."

NY Post: "Certainly, there is no cresting wave of bigotry about to roll over Muslims in America." In an August 26 editorial, the New York Post also addressed the attack and stated, "o far there is scant evidence of broad, anti-Islamic attacks." The Post later added: "Certainly, there is no cresting wave of bigotry about to roll over Muslims in America: There are now slightly more than 100 such attacks each year -- this in a nation of 310-plus million people."
However, mosques throughout U.S. have recently suffered vandalism

Vandalism at California mosque reportedly investigated as a hate crime; vandalism made reference to "Temple for the God of terrorism at Ground Zero." An August 25 Fresno Bee article reported that "[v]andalism to a Madera Islamic center and signs found on the property are being investigated as a hate crime." The article stated that a brick was thrown through a window and that signs reading, "No Temple for the God of terrorism at Ground Zero. ANB"; "Wake up America, the Enemy is here. ANB"; and "American Nationalist Brotherhood" were found at the mosque.

AP: "Foes of proposed mosques have deployed dogs to intimidate Muslims holding prayer." On August 8, The Associated Press reported on incidents of anti-Muslim vandalism in Tennessee and California, noting that "[f]oes of proposed mosques have deployed dogs to intimidate Muslims holding prayer services and spray painted 'Not Welcome' on a construction sign, then later ripped it apart." The AP further reported:

The 13-story, $100 million Islamic center that could soon rise two blocks from the site of the Sept. 11 attacks would dwarf the proposals elsewhere, yet the smaller projects in local communities are stoking a sharper kind of fear and anger than has showed up in New York.

In the Nashville suburb of Murfreesboro, opponents of a new Islamic center say they believe the mosque will be more than a place of prayer. They are afraid the 15-acre site that was once farmland will be turned into a terrorist training ground for Muslim militants bent on overthrowing the U.S. government.

"They are not a religion. They are a political, militaristic group," said Bob Shelton, a 76-year-old retiree who lives in the area.

Shelton was among several hundred demonstrators recently who wore "Vote for Jesus" T-shirts and carried signs that said: "No Sharia law for USA!," referring to the Islamic code of law. Others took their opposition further, spray painting the sign announcing the "Future site of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro" and tearing it up.

In Temecula, Calif., opponents brought dogs to protest a proposed 25,000-square-foot mosque that would sit on four acres next to a Baptist church. Opponents worry it will turn the town into haven for Islamic extremists, but mosque leaders say they are peaceful and just need more room to serve members.

Anti-Islam graffiti found at Texas mosque, and is reportedly thought to be related to Park51 protests. According to a local WFAA News 8 report, vandals spray-painted "tick-figure graffiti ... depicting Uncle Sam sexually assaulting Allah" on the parking lot of a mosque in Arlington, Texas. The report also noted that a playground behind the mosque was set on fire, and quoted the mosque's president, Jamal Qaddura, as saying that "whoever did this might also have tried to burn the mosque itself by pulling apart old gas lines." Qaddura also said "that he believes the damage may be linked to resentment over a planned Islamic community center near Ground Zero in Manhattan."

Islamic Center of Northeast Florida was firebombed. Jacksonville, Florida's, First Coast News reported that on May 10, a man attempted to firebomb the Islamic Center of Northeast Florida "shortly before evening prayers." The Florida Times-Union later reported that "[a]uthorities found remnants of a crude pipe bomb in the explosion" and that "at the time of the blast about 60 people were inside." The article quoted FBI Special Agent-in-Charge Jim Casey as discussing the potential destruction and death the blast could have caused were it not for "the strength of the mosque building." The article also reported that "law enforcement officials" were surprised that "they had not gotten nearly as many calls as they expected" regarding the identity of the bomber after they released security video of the man.

[/COLOR]In wake of Park51 controversy, protests of local mosques have occurred nationwide

Staten Island, NY: "Muslim groups have encountered unexpectedly intense opposition to their plans for opening mosques in Lower Manhattan, in Brooklyn and most recently in an empty convent on Staten Island." A June 10 New York Times article reported on opposition to a proposed mosque in Staten Island, New York, that "have focused overwhelmingly on more intangible and volatile issues: fear of terrorism, distrust of Islam and a linkage of the two in opponents' minds." From The New York Times article:

Some opponents have cited traffic and parking concerns. But the objections have focused overwhelmingly on more intangible and volatile issues: fear of terrorism, distrust of Islam and a linkage of the two in opponents' minds.

''Wouldn't you agree that every terrorist, past and present, has come out of a mosque?'' asked one woman who stood up Wednesday night during a civic association meeting on Staten Island to address representatives of a group that wants to convert a Roman Catholic convent into a mosque in the Midland Beach neighborhood.

''No,'' began Ayman Hammous, president of the Staten Island branch of the group, the Muslim American Society -- though the rest of his answer was drowned out by catcalls and boos from among the 400 people who packed the gymnasium of a community center.

[...]

''We are newcomers, and newcomers in America have always had to prove their loyalty,'' said Mahdi Bray, the society's executive director. ''It's an old story. You have to have thick skin.''

That admonition was tested on Wednesday, as irate residents took turns at the microphone, demanding answers from the three Muslim men who had accepted the get-acquainted invitation of the civic association.

''I was on the phone this morning with the F.B.I., and all I want to know from you is why MAS is on the terrorist watch list,'' said Joan Moriello, using the acronym for the Muslim American Society. Her question produced a loud, angry noise from the audience.

Mr. Hammous, a physical therapist who lives on Staten Island, exchanged a puzzled look with two other Muslim men who had joined him on the podium, both officers of the society's Brooklyn branch, which operates a mosque in Bensonhurst and faces opposition to opening another in Sheepshead Bay.

''Your information is incorrect, madam,'' he replied. ''We are not on any watch list.'' The other men, Mohamed Sadeia and Abdel Hafid Djamil, shook their heads in agreement.

The State Department maintains a terrorist watch list for foreign organizations, and the Justice Department has identified domestic groups it considers unindicted co-conspirators in various terror-related prosecutions. The American Muslim Society is on neither of those lists.

Murfreesboro, TN: Mosque opponents are afraid the mosque "will be turned into a terrorist training ground." An August 8 AP article reported on the protests surrounding a proposed Islamic center in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, by noting that "opponents of a new Islamic center say they believe the mosque will be more than a place of prayer. They are afraid the 15-acre site that was once farmland will be turned into a terrorist training ground for Muslim militants bent on overthrowing the U.S. government." From the AP:

In the Nashville suburb of Murfreesboro, opponents of a new Islamic center say they believe the mosque will be more than a place of prayer. They are afraid the 15-acre site that was once farmland will be turned into a terrorist training ground for Muslim militants bent on overthrowing the U.S. government.

"They are not a religion. They are a political, militaristic group," said Bob Shelton, a 76-year-old retiree who lives in the area.

Shelton was among several hundred demonstrators recently who wore "Vote for Jesus" T-shirts and carried signs that said: "No Sharia law for USA!," referring to the Islamic code of law. Others took their opposition further, spray painting the sign announcing the "Future site of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro" and tearing it up.

Temecula, CA: "Foes of proposed mosques have deployed dogs to intimidate Muslims holding prayer services and spray painted 'Not Welcome' on a construction sign." The AP also reported, "In Temecula, Calif., opponents brought dogs to protest a proposed 25,000-square-foot mosque that would sit on four acres next to a Baptist church. Opponents worry it will turn the town into haven for Islamic extremists, but mosque leaders say they are peaceful and just need more room to serve members." An August 19 Christian Science Monitor article further reported:

Protesters with bullhorns have shown up during afternoon prayers at the Islamic Center of Temecula Valley in California.

The Muslim group there hopes to erect a 24,000 square foot mosque and Islamic center on some vacant land it owns.

The protesters were mainly concerned about Islam, carrying such signs as "No Allah Law Here."

The mosque has also been criticized by Bill Rench, pastor of Calvary Baptist Church, which would be the mosque's neighbor. Mr. Rench has told the Monitor in the past, "We don't want to do anything that encourages Islam."

But the imam of the mosque, who has the support of a local interfaith council, has tried to mend fences with Rench, offering to explain Islam. "I would like to have a meeting with the pastor," Imam Mahmoud Harmoush told the Monitor earlier.

So far, mosque officials say that effort has not been successful.

Officials hope to complete the mosque at the end of next year.

Florence, KY: "Stop the Mosque," and "the takeover of our country." The Courier-Journal (Louisville, Kentucky) reported in an August 16 article that a planned mosque in Florence, Kentucky, has drawn protests. From the article:

Florence city officials say they have gotten several calls about the proposed worship center and a flier is being distributed in the city's neighborhoods.

There is also a website run by a Boone County resident that posts anti-Islamic messages and encourages people to "Stop the Mosque."

[...]

"Cayton Road is in your neighborhood," the flier states. "Everyone needs to contact Florence City Council to have this stopped. Americans need to stop the takeover of our country."

Protesters at Connecticut mosque reportedly chanted "hate-filled slogans." An August 9 New Haven Register article reported that "Connecticut Muslim leaders are urging public officials and police to assure they can worship without being harassed after members of a Dallas-based group showed up outside a Bridgeport mosque Friday chanting what have been described as hate-filled slogans." The article further reported:

The organization involved in the Bridgeport incident, Operation Save America, is primarily an anti-abortion group that was once known as Operation Rescue.

But members of the group stood outside the mosque as worshippers prepared for the upcoming observance of Ramadan, according to Mongi Dhaouadi, executive director of Connecticut office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, and chanted hate-filled slogans. Dhaouadi said the protesters said things like, "Islam is a lie" and "Jesus hates Muslims."
 
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The pictures above speak volumes about what animates the opposers - we had argued earlier that the US government, or at least a segment of the US government (Dept of Justice) is expectionally hostile to US Muslims and that attitudes in society reflect this - we argued that while the US government says that it wages war on terrorists, it conveys the message or perception, both internally and externally, that the US government, in order to protect "Americans" (not US Muslims) wages war on Islam and on Muslims because Islam is terrorism and Muslims are terrorists.

Ofcourse that this issue has now gone beyond national and is now a global issue, is a tragedy for the US, for US interests, for US Muslims, for all Americans.

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A major newsweekly withg international readership is now posing the same question -- The debate is emotive to say the least, but the issues involved are not.

We had argued that US Muslims will confront many many such challeneges, and that it is imperative that they do so, to safe guard the liberties and rights of All Americans - Opposers have offered "sensitivities" as their argument, as once the forebearers of the same argument questioned whether Blacks could be trusted to be decent enough to not move into white neighborhoods, who questioned whether Jews (Christ Killers) ought to have the same social status as other Americans and on and on - this argument failed the test of reason, but opposers attacked the Imam of the Masjid and his wife in the hope that if they could rake up enough much, sopme of it could be made to stick, failing that their desperation has led them to attack the developer and question how an American success can also be a Muslim (the developer started professional life as a waiter), to make along story short, opposers have attacked every facet of the American Muslim experience to some how seperate US and Muslim experiences - will they succeed? My bet is no they will not, they may win some battles, but they lost the war, the minute they exceeded the bounds of decency - not all the FOX news of the world can challenege that and hope to succeed.
 
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The pictures above speak volumes about what animates the opposers -
Look at it this way...That those pictures may signal future American public response and sentiment to all those decades of muslims, in their own countries, burning US flags and calling for 'Death to America'. Over there, the muslim governments encourages such anti-US demonstrations. Here, the US government need not do anything. Clinton and Bloomberg could not ease the American public anger. Just as the muslims have every legal right to build this triumphalist structure, American citizens have every legal right to public protest.
 
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Gambit, are seriously so ill informed about the muslim world that you think for "decades" muslim had pentup anti-American feelings. Have you forgotten the Cold war era and the bonhomie of the US with the Mujahideen and the Saudis?

Please get your info from somewhere other than Fox News.

What I can see is that people who are in those pictures above have become what Bin Laden wanted to become.Their words and actions are victory to Bin Laden. Many thought that the US society was confident in itself and probably still is to reject the OBL's ideology but as you say a section is certainly making him proud and embracing it ferevently.
 
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Gambit, are seriously so ill informed about the muslim world that you think for "decades" muslim had pentup anti-American feelings. Have you forgotten the Cold war era and the bonhomie of the US with the Mujahideen and the Saudis?

Please get your info from somewhere other than Fox News.

What I can see is that people who are in those pictures above have become what Bin Laden wanted to become.Their words and actions are victory to Bin Laden. Many thought that the US society was confident in itself and probably still is to reject the OBL's ideology but as you say a section is certainly making him proud and embracing it ferevently.
I get my 'info' from being over in the ME many times. Am old enough to remember when cable TV did not exist and when the 24hr news era came to be, Fox News did not exist. And we do not forget Lockerbie.

Dark Elegy | About Dark Elegy
When on December 21, 1988, my first born son, Alexander, age 21, was brutally murdered aboard Pan Am 103 in the stormy night skies over the Scottish village of Lockerbie, my most meaningful life's work began. I had been working as a sculptor for many years, but this began a whole new phase in my creative life. Initially I portrayed myself, not only at that moment of hearing the heartbreaking news, but also in varying positions of grief, rage and hopelessness. Soon other mothers and widows asked to participate; each one having lost loved ones on this fateful flight.

There are 76 larger than life size pieces, each portraying a mother or wife at that moment when they first heard the awful news of the death of their loved one to that terrorist act. At present these figures are displayed to form a circle of approximately 65 feet in diameter, but they can be site-specific and be arranged in many different configurations.

What makes this memorial so unique, even more so than the sheer number of pieces or the personal and individual loss each mother portrays, is the fact that it was created by one of those affected rather than by an outsider portraying someone else's tragedy. I am one of the depicted figures.
You should visit that memorial. I have. Very emotional for many people. The statues' physical poses expressed very well the pain those mothers felt when they learned of the news of their loved ones' deaths.
 
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@gambit

I don't understand where the Lockerbie bombings are coming here.


Do you honestly think that muslims as whole had any role or even "happiness" over Lockerbie bombings?? Any muslim would condemn the Lockerbie bombings which had nothing but an obvious politcal angle. Killing of innocents muslim or non-muslim can never be justified in Islamic theology. And a perpetrator is liable to strict even capital punishment.

And by conflating the Lockerbie bombings with muslims in general; what makes you and those people who blame all Americans for the death of half a million Iraqi children due to sanctions in the 90s and the deaths of thousands more Iraqi people in a war on FALSE pretences? What about those who blame America for the killing thousands of Palestinians using American made helicopter gunships, fighter jets and tanks? Or the support of Arab dictator regimes from Saudi Arabia, Egypt Jordan e.t.c. means that all Americans support them.

There are many muslims, I for one who know that this is wrong. That conflating wrongs done by someAmericans like torturing prisoners in Iraq does not mean that all Americans condone it and most likely they are all disgusted by it.
 
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@gambit

I don't understand where the Lockerbie bombings are coming here.


Do you honestly think that muslims as whole had any role or even "happiness" over Lockerbie bombings?? Any muslim would condemn the Lockerbie bombings which had nothing but an obvious politcal angle. Killing of innocents muslim or non-muslim can never be justified in Islamic theology. And a perpetrator is liable to strict even capital punishment.

And by conflating the Lockerbie bombings with muslims in general; what makes you and those people who blame all Americans for the death of half a million Iraqi children due to sanctions in the 90s and the deaths of thousands more Iraqi people in a war on FALSE pretences? What about those who blame America for the killing thousands of Palestinians using American made helicopter gunships, fighter jets and tanks? Or the support of Arab dictator regimes from Saudi Arabia, Egypt Jordan e.t.c. means that all Americans support them.

There are many muslims, I for one who know that this is wrong. That conflating wrongs done by someAmericans like torturing prisoners in Iraq does not mean that all Americans condone it and most likely they are all disgusted by it.
Muslims have no problems conflating US with Israel. Every time a muslim call out 'Death to Israel' the 'Death to America' is immediately followed. So muslims everywhere, even in the US, already associated US citizens to US weapons exported to Israel and the various ME despots. Speaking of which, why do those despots continue to rule anyway? If the Iranians can overthrow the Shah, surely Iraqis or Syrians can overthrow their despots, right?

Whenever there is a 'Death to America' rally in the ME, the local government either was behind it or condoned it from whoever organized it. What is 'America' anyway? Is it the White House? The fast food franchise? Microsoft? The four faces of past Presidents carved into a mountainside? Or is it everything about a country that can never be explained but must be represented by a symbol? So if I burn a Pakistani flag and call out 'Death to Pakistan', what do you think I was targeting?

There is a cultural reckoning on the way via that 'Clash of Civilizations' idea and book so many pooh-poohed a while back. Shoot at a soldier and he will respond in kind. For long enough Americans have been receiving potshots from the ME, either directly or indirectly via Israel. Now take a look at the Muhammad cartoons that began in Europe, the threat of a Quran burning here by a Christian minister, and the overwhelming opposition by Americans nationwide to this mosque and tell yourself that this cultural reckoning is not coming.

Dismiss Glen Beck and the Fox News crowd as nothing more than bunch of ignorant rednecks? For every one of these ignorant redneck that crowded the Capital Mall yesterday that numbered thousands, there is at least one hundred across the country that shares Beck's sentiment that America needs to refocus on its Christian past, and tens of thousands more that shares the same sentiment to varying degrees. And remind yourself that this country of ignorant rednecks created much of the conveniences the 'civilized' world takes for granted.
 
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