CAIR accuses Bush of promoting Islamophobia

What a bunch of morons! Damn terrorist are responsible for people looking at Muslims/Islamic people with a different set of eyes.. :roll:
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Bush office is anti-Muslim, group says

July 17, 2007

By Audrey Hudson and Sara A. Carter - A Muslim civil rights group today blamed Bush administration policies for promoting "Islamophobia" and said the "war on terror" won't stop terrorists.

"The new perception is that the United States has entered a war with Islam itself," said Parvez Ahmed, chairman of the national board of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).

"Terrorism is a tactic. You cannot eradicate it by declaring a war against it. The war on terror is causing us infinitely more harm than the terrorists could have ever imagined."

Mr. Ahmed, who spoke at CAIR symposium at the National Press Club, said the war against terrorists is driven by an "irrational" fear that the Bush administration has inculcated in the American public. The chance of being killed in a terrorist attack, he said, is 1 in 80,000 over a lifetime.

"It is important to bear in mind that terrorists cannot destroy America," he said as a member of a panel discussing the symposium theme, "Attacking Islam: Implications for Social Cohesion and U.S. Relations with the Muslim World." The U.S., he said, is too powerful and too resourceful for terrorists to destroy.

The Bush Administration's policies in Iraq has driven a deep wedge between Muslim's and non-Muslim people in the United States, he said.

"Policies driven by fear will be naturally irrational. Thus in this state of irrationality the Bush administration often through their surrogates have resorted to fear-mongering. This has unleashed a vicious cycle, one in which fear leads to bad policies and bad policies lead to more fear.

"The popular discourse in America today remains mired in stereotypical denouncements about Islam. As a result Muslims and their faith remained misunderstood, feared and shunned."

David Keene, president of the American Conservative Union, said in turn that while Osama bin Laden and those who commit terrorism in the name of Islam may represent no one but themselves, "those who represent Islam have an obligation to themselves, and to the faith they profess, to condemn them lest [other Muslims] suffer for their crimes.

"If CAIR wants respect as representing the best of Islam to the West, it must shun the role of enabler by siding with the enemies of terror and intolerance wherever they are found," Mr. Keene said. "The Muslim who attacks Jews and Christians as pigs or Crusaders is as responsible for the breakdown in civility in the modern world as the Christian who implies that all Muslims harbor a desire to kill a Christian or a Jew."

Mr. Keene compared CAIR to the emergence of the Italian-American Anti-Defamation League of the 1970s, which he said became "particularly upset whenever anyone mentioned the existence of the 'Mafia,' which they took as implying that Italian-Americans were all Mafioso or criminals.

"If someone used the word in public, [the Italian-American Anti-Defamation League] was willing to stage demonstrations on the grounds that its usage was racist and that, anyhow, the Mafia didn't exist. People began to ignore the League because what its leaders were insisting on as true just didn't match up very well with the world we live in."

Mr. Keene said CAIR feeds negative perceptions of Islam with a similarly censorious and hypersensitive attitude toward American newspapers, magazines, and radio and television networks.

"We are meeting today at the National Press Club, which is in a way a living memorial to the freedom of the press that is so important a part of the American tradition. The platform on which we speak is open to all because we believe in the right even of those with whom we disagree to speak their minds. But some reporters have been barred by CAIR from covering this panel because by criticizing CAIR or its policies they have been condemned as anti-Muslim when they are, in fact, simply reporters doing their jobs," he said.

A reporter for The Washington Times was the only reporter asked to leave the room today. After she was escorted out, the doors to the session, which had remained open, were closed.

Mr. Keene said that CAIR has attacked as "anti-Muslim" a number of publications, including The Washington Times, the Dallas Morning News, the Tampa Tribune, the New Republic magazine, U.S. News & World Report, and the Weekly Reader, a popular newspaper for schoolchildren.

"My hope and belief was that this event was going to be an open discussion," he said in a brief interview after the symposium. "It was what I said in my speech. You don't restrict access because someone disagrees with you."

I love the comparison to the Italian-American Anti-Defamation League. That organization was started by Joseph Colombo, who was the boss of the Mafia family bearing his name. Does that mean that CAIR is a terrorist organization run by OBL??

Chances of being killed by terrorism is 1 in 80,000? That's actually worse than I thought. However, the odds must be worse....dividing 80,000 by the 30mil Americans is 375....and ten times that amount has already died from terrorism RECENTLY here.

And since when is terrorism a TACTIC? As though it's a justified means for rebellion. As if it's the same thing as diplomacy.

The truth is that by making these accusations, they make the war on terror worse, almost justifying terrorism.

Why is it that no Muslim groups will stand up to denounce the terrorism itself? Why is it that these groups and all of liberal America have such an issue with the American government, but no one puts any blame on the people flying planes into our buildings?

I strongly believe the reason why many Muslim communities in the US don't denounce terrorist acts is because although they may not agree with terrorist actions, they can sympathize, or maybe a better word would be understand the people who carry out these attacks. Now before you flame me and call me religiously intolerant or whatever, let me explain...

Islam is an extremely fundamentalist religion, which goes against most of what the United States stands for and what her peoples' values are. True Muslims live and die by the Koran and Mohammed's teachings; it's their "word of God". Although I haven't studied the Koran in depth, nor am I Muslim, from my basic understanding of the book, and from what I've been told by several Muslims, the Koran teaches a lot of stuff that is contrary to the way of life, or the perceived way of live, in not only this country, but in western society as a whole. The Koran is also open to a lot of interpretation, which is where this whole "sympathy" thing comes in.

Here's my "hypothesis". Ask true Muslims, especially those living here, what they think or perceive of the values held by the American and western people. I think many will tell you that they find our system flawed, and that we value "sinful" things, such as money, possessions, power etc...

Now transplant yourself halfway around the world, as a young man, where all you keep hearing about and seeing are these "western" people coming to your towns and villages and destroying them, killing your own, innocent people. Add to that stories your elders keep telling you of how flawed western society is, how sinful it is, how devilish westerners are, and how westerners are destroying the world and your own people. Then combine that with western television, that maybe you've caught a glimpse of once or twice, showing how westerners value stuff like money, and possessions above all else. You're a good Muslim; you follow the Koran, but you know there is something much bigger than you; your religion. You can see where I'm getting at and why many of these "younger" Muslims are recruited to carry out attacks... They are the ones who firmly believe that what they are doing is right and just.

Many Muslims, especially the more religious ones living in the US and in the "west", can UNDERSTAND why their people wish to attack and destroy western society. Many are first or second generation Americans, who even though are considered more "progressive" and "liberal" than those living back in the Middle East, still hold a lot of their traditions dear, and have a deep respect for their religion and follow it sincerely. While many of them have a different view of the Koran and don't condemn terrorist attacks, or support terrorists or terrorism, or have any direct link to them, they can understand and sympathize with why these young people are willing to risk their lives, and everything they have for the betterment of a society and religion. It is for this reason why I think they don't strongly denounce terrorism.

Most Muslims in the U.S. I think you'll find do not support terrorism and would not wish an attack on anyone. Most are hardworking Americans, trying to live the American dream.

What we need is to have Islamic religious leaders from the west educate people in the Middle East, about western society and how it's not all that bad and how the "propaganda" they are being told about the US and western society is not all true. We need them to show them the good and the bad, and focus more on the good than the bad. The unfortunate part is that I'm not so sure this can be accomplished or that many would be willing to volunteer for such an assignment....

Actually Clark, a survey done among American Muslims said that a majority of them do not condone terrorism...but that they understand why they did it. Your hypoth is accurate.

I actually meant to mention this survey in my previous post.

If I could say one thing to the liberal left about war/terrorism/American foreign policy, it would be that they need to understand that no matter what we did to our foreign policy and no matter what countries we pulled out of, Arab extremists will still want to kill us. These people will always want to kill us no matter what because they just hate Western Civilization. That's all.

They seem to think that if we pulled out of Iraq, or if we adjusted our foreign policy a little bit, that Al Qaeda would back down. Why do they no realise this? How can they not grasp this? They truly are victims of propagranda to believe such.

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Originally Posted by Novanglus

They seem to think that if we pulled out of Iraq, or if we adjusted our foreign policy a little bit, that Al Qaeda would back down. Why do they no realise this? How can they not grasp this? They truly are victims of propagranda to believe such.

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This is true. And the neoconservatives do not understand that the War on Terror is not a war that can be won by any amount of military force. In fact, military force is counter-productive. Western society generally embraces the idea that death is the worst thing that can happen to you, so we think killing people is the ultimate show of force. In the Middle East, they have no such notion; killing them only makes them stronger.

Adjusting our foreign policy a little bit won't do a thing. We need a complete overhaul. The War on Terror is a war of propaganda. We know we're the greatest country in the world; we need to make everyone else know it too. You can't force people you like you; you have to give people reasons to like you. The road to victory isn't bombing everyone; it's supporting grassroots democratic movements, such as the ones that used to exist in Iran before we invaded Iraq. Doing so would completely undermine the fundamentialist terrorist America-haters who currently control the Middle East in ways that no amount of military effort could.

(Kind of like how we're handling North Korea right now. And it's working.)

I agree that this war cannot be won with military might alone. However, we do need to bring the fight to them.

But as much as we lob missiles and bombs, we must also fight with books.

I thin that education is the biggest problem. Their religion is so FINAL to them. There is no room for open-mindedness. There is no room to even tolerate, much less accept, someone of another walk of faith. They literally teach hate in their schools.

We must look to, for lack of a better word, "invade" their education system and show people that it's ok to shake hands with a Christian or Jew. We must teach them that it's ok for women to get a job or to be afforded the same freedoms as men. We must show them that it should be acceptable to have freedoms that they truly or not afforded.

This is a war of ideas and ideals.

As for the misled liberal left, they side with Arabs in this case because they love to root for the underdog. Jews were the underdogs for a while...the sad victim of hate post-Holocaust. As their dominance came about, and the big bad capitalist West started going after the defenseless ever-9th century Arab world, the liberal left changed their jerseys.

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Originally Posted by adam613

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Originally Posted by Novanglus

They seem to think that if we pulled out of Iraq, or if we adjusted our foreign policy a little bit, that Al Qaeda would back down. Why do they no realise this? How can they not grasp this? They truly are victims of propagranda to believe such.

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This is true. And the neoconservatives do not understand that the War on Terror is not a war that can be won by any amount of military force. In fact, military force is counter-productive. Western society generally embraces the idea that death is the worst thing that can happen to you, so we think killing people is the ultimate show of force. In the Middle East, they have no such notion; killing them only makes them stronger.

Adjusting our foreign policy a little bit won't do a thing. We need a complete overhaul. The War on Terror is a war of propaganda. We know we're the greatest country in the world; we need to make everyone else know it too. You can't force people you like you; you have to give people reasons to like you. The road to victory isn't bombing everyone; it's supporting grassroots democratic movements, such as the ones that used to exist in Iran before we invaded Iraq. Doing so would completely undermine the fundamentialist terrorist America-haters who currently control the Middle East in ways that no amount of military effort could.

(Kind of like how we're handling North Korea right now. And it's working.)

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Incorrect, 1978, Iranian revolution. There is where Iran turned into a extremist country. Going into Iraq did not change the situation in Iran at all.

Guess what the war in Iraq is doing? Getting rid of a person who threatened our national security, and turning it into a democracy. This new democracy will be the starting force of a complete overhaul of the middle east. Sometimes you need to use force, as is the case with Iraq and Iran. If anyone spoke out against these 2 countries, they were killed, its a bit hard to spread a democracy when you have a ruler like that.

The North Korea situation is not 100% solved, if you remember, the "promised" to not obtain nuclear power in the Clinton deal, guess what? They did, you cannot trust this government, only time will tell if they keep their promise.

Your attacks on the right are way off base, and totally incorrect.

Bringing the fight to them was supposed to be what Afghanistan was about. If we'd finished the job and stopped there, there would be no question about our military might. That, in turn, would have made it much easier to, as you say, "invade their education system". (I really like that phrase).

I'd like to meet some of this "misguided liberal left" you refer to. I am surrounded by leftists in my daily life, and most of the people I've encountered who root for the Arabs are conservative Muslims. The left roots for the underdog in this country (like illegal immigrants), but the vast majority of criticism of the Bush Administration at this point is out of concern that the Iraq War is weakening America (a point of view which is being shared by an increasing number of Republicans). It hasn't always been this way, but that's where it is now...

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Originally Posted by adam613

Bringing the fight to them was supposed to be what Afghanistan was about. If we'd finished the job and stopped there, there would be no question about our military might. That, in turn, would have made it much easier to, as you say, "invade their education system". (I really like that phrase).

I'd like to meet some of this "misguided liberal left" you refer to. I am surrounded by leftists in my daily life, and most of the people I've encountered who root for the Arabs are conservative Muslims. The left roots for the underdog in this country (like illegal immigrants), but the vast majority of criticism of the Bush Administration at this point is out of concern that the Iraq War is weakening America (a point of view which is being shared by an increasing number of Republicans). It hasn't always been this way, but that's where it is now...

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Wait, what? I never used the phrase "invade their education system" or "Misguided liberal left"

Novanglus said that.

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Originally Posted by Phil D.

Novanglus said that.

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Ahh my bad, that was posted as I was writing so I didn't see it, thanks for pointing it out.

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Originally Posted by adam613

Bringing the fight to them was supposed to be what Afghanistan was about. If we'd finished the job and stopped there, there would be no question about our military might.

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There was never a "question" about our military might. for that part of the war, fighting was necessary. In afghanistan, we did have some more distinct enemies in a specific region that was training and planning terror attacks. Those are the people we should be fighting.

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Originally Posted by adam613

That, in turn, would have made it much easier to, as you say, "invade their education system". (I really like that phrase).

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I threw you that one. haha. As I said, it was for lack of a better word.

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Originally Posted by adam613

I'd like to meet some of this "misguided liberal left" you refer to. I am surrounded by leftists in my daily life, and most of the people I've encountered who root for the Arabs are conservative Muslims. The left roots for the underdog in this country (like illegal immigrants), but the vast majority of criticism of the Bush Administration at this point is out of concern that the Iraq War is weakening America (a point of view which is being shared by an increasing number of Republicans). It hasn't always been this way, but that's where it is now...

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I am referring moreso to people who look at 9/11 and blame US foreign policy, or anyone who uses the WMD argument pertaining to Iraq, as thought hat was the only reason we went in there (and don't say oil either). I call them misguided because they've been convinced to believe that the US has brought this on ourselves. Which we haven't. It merely has started as a general dislike for Western Civilization.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=3af_1184708307

Thoughts? I think he brings up some very valid points....