Posted on 11/21/2002 5:59:41 AM PST by Stand Watch Listen
Recently, a newspaper reporter called the Free Congress Foundation to inquire about our efforts against the Eid Stamp. The story has not been printed yet, but the interviewer appeared to believe that the Free Congress Foundation had made a huge commotion last year over the issuance of a tiny 34-cent stamp.
The U.S. Post Office decided to issue the stamp last year after an intensive lobbying campaign by the well-funded Islamic lobby in Washington and their allies within the Republican Party. The stamp's purpose is to honor the two primary festivals of the Islamic calendar. It was issued just before September 11th.
Since then, the Post Office has decided to reissue the Eid Stamp and the price has risen by three cents, an increase that has been applied to other postage stamps as well.
I will have to trust the basic fairness that should be expected of the journalist who called and spoke to Free Congress staff members to ensure this story receives the serious treatment that it deserves. As you and I both know, that does not always prove to be the case. But there is a serious story occurring that many in the establishment news media are unwilling to recognize. As a matter of fact, if more in the news media did their jobs right and reported the real story, then we would be talking about much more than the stamp.
The story is this: We are not at war with a gang of terrorists. Al Qaeda is not the Jesse James gang with Arabic surnames. It is not even that we are at war with Islam. Rather, Islam is at war against us.
The sooner Americans recognize this fact then the safer we will be as a nation.
I have had much good to say about President Bush in recent months. But one thing that concerned me before September 11th and concerns me even more now is his administration's constant promotion of Islam as a religion of peace and tolerance just like Judaism or Christianity.
It is neither. That is why my colleague, Bill Lind, and I decided to urge the leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives to have the stamp be withdrawn from circulation, overprinted with the image of the World Trade Towers, and then reissued. The effort went nowhere, but the case for doing so remains clear in my mind because symbols matter.
Would our country have issued a swastika flag stamp in 1941? Would our country have issued a hammer and sickle stamp in 1955?
The answer is no on both counts. Actually, a flag stamp issued by our government featuring Nazi Germany's swastika or the Soviet Union's hammer and sickle would have been unthinkable.
That is why we raised the issue of the Eid. We wanted to encourage debate about what Islam really stands for and why we have good reason not to honor the religion. As a nation, we still need to have that debate.
This is very hard for most Americans to understand, but it needs to be said over and over again.
Islam at its core is hostile to the West and the values that comprise the Judeo-Christian tradition, including the emphasis on tolerance and peace that many in the establishment are now so eager to promote as being the true values of Islam.
There are many Muslims who are peaceful, but the fact is that the core of the religion itself is not peaceful.
Free Congress Foundation has issued several monographs that make this very point including the one that I co-authored with Bill Lind: Why Islam is a Threat to America and the West. We use actual quotes from the Qur'an and other Islamic documents to demonstrate the hostility of the religion toward what it considers "unbelievers," which include Christians and Jews.
Here are some of those quotes from the Qur'an:
Sura 9:1-6: ...fight and slay the pagans wherever ye find them, and seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every strategem (of war).
Sura 9:29-31: Forbid those who believe not in God nor the last day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by God and His Apostle (Mohammed), nor acknowledge the religion of truth (Islam), (even if they are) of the people of the Book (Christians and Jews), until they pay the jizya (poll tax on non-Islamics) with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.
Sura 5:36-38: The punishment of those who wage war against God and his Apostle, and strive with might and main for mischief through the land is execution, or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides, or exile from the land.
Our adjunct scholar, Robert Spencer, has noted in the monographs he has written for Free Congress Foundation (An Introduction to the Qur'an; Women and Islam; An Islamic Primer; and Islam and the West) that the Judeo-Christian tradition as it has evolved does not sanction violence and intolerance in the manner that important Islamic texts do, including the Qur'an, which Muslims take to be the literal words of Allah himself. Spencer has said that many Muslims are not violent, but as long as those texts are to be taken literally by believers, then there will be violence committed by Islamics against non-believers.
That hostility against Christians and Jews is taking place in the world today, not just with 9/11 and Bali, but in the Sudan, in Nigeria, and on the West Bank. Our own State Department describes the area where the borders of Paraguay, Argentina, and Brazil intersect as a "focal point for Islamic extremism in Latin America."
All those nations are discovering how widespread among Muslims is the opinion expressed long ago by the ambassador to the United Nations from the Islamic Republic of Iran, Sa'id Raja'I-Khorassani: that the idea of universal human rights was "a Judeo-Christian invention," foreign to Islam.
President Bush and too many in our government have it wrong. Because Rev. Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson are willing to challenge popular misconceptions about what Islam is about, they should not be on the receiving end of verbal brickbats from Secretary of State Colin Powell. It should be the enemy that receives the opprobrium of the President and Secretary of State. Make no mistake: that enemy is Islam, and it is hard to believe that the United States government is honoring our foremost adversary in the world today with a stamp.
If we can't recognize the folly of that, then are we really prepared to face the future?
(Paul M. Weyrich is chairman and CEO of the Free Congress Foundation.)
Copyright 2002, Free Congress Foundation
President Bush and too many in our government have it wrong. Because Rev. Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson are willing to challenge popular misconceptions about what Islam is about, they should not be on the receiving end of verbal brickbats from Secretary of State Colin Powell.Colin Powell knows the leaders of the Islamic world very well, having worked with them in both peacetime and wartime. To take the odd views of Falwell and Robertson over his is just plain ignorant.
Our government is supposed to be religiously neutral. If we have Christmas and Haunakah stamps, then an Eid stamp makes sense as well. No one is forced to use it, and many Muslims who celebrate the holiday are loyal Americans.
This desire among some on the right to renounce known electoral allies is nuts. I believe it's an effort to "Christianize" the right. This would be the best thing ever to happen to the left, we'd be matching their folly.
-Eric
Loyalty cannot be measured without a test. When Islam has grown in numbers in the country to the place where they feel comfortable attempting impose Islamic law on Americans, and the Mullahs say the time is right, do you really believe these "loyal American Muslims," will stand against their religion and their religious leaders?"
Hank
If you had a little historical knowledge, you would scoff at the irony of your post. You pose the exact same questions the 19th century Know-Nothing Party asked about Catholics, namely would they owe primary allegiance to the Pope or to America. The same question has been asked about American Jews and our supposed loyalties to Israel, and Japanese Americans to Japan.
There will always be a few exceptions, but in every case, the overwhelming majority of folks who have come to the United States do so because they want to become Americans. Will a few Muslim Americans back the Mullahs against us? Yes. Do a few American Jews spy for Israel? Sure. But the overwhelming majority of all these groups are loyal Americans, and are at least as loyal to the nation as you are.
Just a small edit to your statement, to make it correct.
I presume you do have some historic knowledge, and know exactly what the Muslims have done and are doing now in England and Europe. To compare the history of Catholics and Jews to Muslims is a great insult to both Catholics and Jews.
The core beliefs of both Catholics and Jews are consistent with individual liberty and Western culture. The core beliefs of Islam are in direct contradiction of both individual liberty and all culture.
Hank
do you really believe these "loyal American Muslims," will stand against their religion and their religious leaders?"What some of the anti-Muslims forget is that many and probably most American Muslims move here to get away from "Sharia" government. They are our allies in the fight against the fanatics, not our enemies. President Bush knows them as people, not as a shadowy "them", the same is the case with Colin Powell. Even Netanyahu, once he sat down with them and talked, ended up having reasonably good relations with the Palestinians and excellent relations with the Jordanians.If you had a little historical knowledge, you would scoff at the irony of your post. You pose the exact same questions the 19th century Know-Nothing Party asked about Catholics, namely would they owe primary allegiance to the Pope or to America. The same question has been asked about American Jews and our supposed loyalties to Israel, and Japanese Americans to Japan.
There will always be a few exceptions, but in every case, the overwhelming majority of folks who have come to the United States do so because they want to become Americans. Will a few Muslim Americans back the Mullahs against us? Yes. Do a few American Jews spy for Israel? Sure. But the overwhelming majority of all these groups are loyal Americans, and are at least as loyal to the nation as you are.
A big part of the American ideal is judging people as individuals, not as members of groups. If we succumb to group-think, we are no better than Democrats, who thrive on such. As Andy points out, Catholics and Jews both faced this sort of prejudice in the early days of our nation. There's no reason to repeat it.
-Eric
...If you had a little historical knowledge... I presume you do have some historic knowledge, and know exactly what the Muslims have done and are doing now in England and Europe. To compare the history of Catholics and Jews to Muslims is a great insult to both Catholics and Jews.Explain Indonesia. Then explain Turkey. Jordan and Egypt are also very predominantly Islamic nations which are not governed by Sharia.The core beliefs of both Catholics and Jews are consistent with individual liberty and Western culture. The core beliefs of Islam are in direct contradiction of both individual liberty and all culture.
-Eric
What's so difficult to understand about this?
I also don't remember Catholics killing thousands of Americans yelling "For the Pope!" And Israel is our ally. (Yes, I know about the USS Liberty). As for the Japanese, after Pearl Harbor, I think such questions were quite justified.Yes, Israel is our ally. So are many of the Islamic nations. Jordan and Turkey even have close relations with Israel, Egypt has relations but less close.
Jonathan Pollard spied for Israel. Should American Jews not be fully trusted as a result? Of course not. The same holds true for Moslems.
Ten Americans were convicted of spying for Japan during World War II. None of them were of Japanese ancestry.
-Eric
In other words honoring the events that start wars.
Explain? You do not know?
Indonesia - Bali, they just canceled Christmas, support Bin Laden, and the women really enjoy freedom, huh?
Turkey - Not controled by Islam.
Jordan - Oh, yeah, there's freedom there, and great repect for Christians, Jews, the West and America.
Egypt - Continuous murder and persecution of Christians, just barely able, for the time being, to hold off being taken over completely by Islamists.
Where Islam dominates, the people are repressed and impovrished. The societies are backward and ignorant. It's no accident. Islam is a stupid retrograde religion. I feel nothing but profound sadness for all those who are enslaved by it, either as adherents, or as subjects of Islam's tyranical regimes. If you don't care for music, or art, or literature, or pork, or ham, or for women being treated as human beings, fine. I care for these things, the Muslims hate them. When given the opportunity, they destroy them. They will gladly destroy them here, and will, if everyone chooses to remain ignorant of their beliefs, motives, history, and intentions.
Hank
This is the problem wih the "debate" as it is now circumscribed by progressive pieties. So called "right wing" commentators are more likely than the left to cite tolerance and peace in the argument. In many ways the so-called "right" has internalized many of the myths of Leftism more fervently than the so-called left.
No lefty seriously belives in "peace" if their goals and aspirations are being frustrated. Nor do they believe in "tolerance" unless they find themselves in the minority; in which case they demand tolerance so they can shore up their power base in order to attack when they are stronger. That's just common sense.
Now hear this: Healthy civilizations do not believe that "tolerance" and "peace" are the highest human virtues. The degree to which a flacid, corrupt, weary Western christianity has imbibed that particular brand of kool-aid is exactly the degree to which Truth and Beauty has been driven out of society; even the aspiration to Truth and Beauty is savagely suppressed as a manifestation of "authoritarianism", "anti-egalitarianism" and "fascism".
Healthy, happy, and yes even holy, people fight like hell to prevail.
The materialistic, atomistic civilization which the West has embraced since the debacle of the twentieth century cannot survive. It is brittle, shallow and fails to address many human needs and desires. It is neither "peacful" nor "tolerant" in any meaningful way. Its remnant governments heap such twaddle onto the heads of its natives in order to keep them from taking the logical steps that any HEALTHY, living humans would take.
The purpose of the Homeland Security Department will be to protect the bureacratic managers in Washington from those few native-born Americans who wake up and finally realize that they do not have a Homeland.
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