Tag Archives: Islam

International news

Good vs. evil ‘has nothing to do with religion’

Great day in the morning! Could it be that the Trump administration finally is awakening to the reality of what this “global war on terrorism” is all about?

Donald J. Trump stood before a large room full of Muslim heads of state, potentates, kings and crown princes and spoke for 35 minutes without uttering the words “radical Islamic terrorism.”

Instead, he framed the fight against international terror in much the same language used by his two immediate predecessors — Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Barack H. Obama — as a war of “good vs. evil.”

Then up stepped Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to say that the conflict between our side and the other side “has nothing to do with religion.”

Really! He said that. He echoed the long-awaited and much-belated message the president delivered.

I hope hell hasn’t frozen over. I hope Earth will continue to spin on its axis. I trust the sun will rise in the east tomorrow morning — and beyond.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/334474-tillerson-in-saudi-arabia-this-is-a-fight-of-good-against-evil

“And I think the context of all of this where the President begins his journey here at the home of the Muslim faith under the leadership of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosque – this great faith, the Muslims – then to travel to the home of Judaism and then to the great leader of Christianity, that the President is clearly indicating that this fight of good against evil has nothing to do with religion,” Tillerson said in a press conference after the president’s speech.

Trump and his team have sounded alarmingly bellicose ever since the billionaire business mogul entered politics by running for the presidency. He once pledged to ban “all Muslims” from entering the United States. While running for office, Trump said “Islam hates America.” Once elected, he sought to impose a travel ban on refugees fleeing certain Muslim countries; that effort is tied up in the federal court system that has ruled it unconstitutional.

Today, the president sounded quite different as it regards this war against terror.

The religious perversion that has overcome the monsters who purport to be Muslim too often gets lost in the United States. Too many Americans have taken the bait that “Islam” is the enemy. It is no such thing. The enemy are those who commit these heinous acts around the world — mostly against Muslims — in the name of a great religion.

President Bush made that point immediately after 9/11. President Obama continued to recite that mantra, often to criticism that he was a “Muslim terrorist sympathizer.”

I doubt we’ll hear any such fecal matter coming from those who continue to support Donald John Trump. Nor should we ever have heard it.

International news

Well stated, Mr. President

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I am a man of my word who once declared I would speak well of Donald J. Trump when the moment presented itself.

Today is that day.

I just listened to the president’s speech to a gathering of Muslim heads of state and was impressed with what he did not say during his remarks: “radical Islamic terrorism.”

The president today delivered — by far! — his most nuanced, sophisticated foreign-policy speech as it regards our nation’s fight against international terrorism. For that I applaud him.

He spoke to an Arab summit meeting in Saudi Arabia, the country that is home to Islam’s two holiest shrines. He spoke of Islam as a “great faith.” He also repeated a mantra first delivered by President George W. Bush in the aftermath of 9/11 and repeated by President Barack Obama during his two terms in office: It was that we are not at war with a faith, but we are at war with “criminals” who have perverted it.

“We are not here to lecture — we are not here to tell other people how to live, what to do, who to be, or how to worship. Instead, we are here to offer partnership — based on shared interests and values,” Trump said.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/21/trump-islam-terrorism-238643

The speech signals a remarkable about-face for a president who as a candidate and also earlier in his still-brief tenure in office would sail off into unscripted riffs about our war against terror. None of that occurred today. He spoke like the leader of the world’s most powerful nation.

Now … does this wipe away his problems at home? No. He still has the “Russia thing” with which to contend and a special prosecutor is going to look deeply into whether crimes were committed during Trump’s campaign for the presidency.

Today, though, marked a serious change in tone from someone who is leading our nation in its on-going fight against international terror.

Well stated, Mr. President.

International news, political news, religious news

Melania goes scarf-less? Heaven forbid!

Melania Trump has arrived with her husband, the president of the United States, in Saudi Arabia.

She and her husband, Donald Trump, strode down the stairway from Air Force One and greeted the Saudi king.

Oh, but wait! Her head was uncovered. She wasn’t wearing a scarf, per Muslim custom. Where’s the outrage? The recrimination? The howls of disrespect?

There wasn’t any. Nor should there be.

Hey, let’s hold on! Michelle Obama did the same thing when she and her husband, also the president of the United States, went to the Middle East a couple of years ago. Her head was uncovered, too. Oh, but the conservative media went semi-nuts.

So did at least one notable Republican politician. His name? Donald John Trump! That, truth be told, is what makes this an issue worthy of a brief blog post.

Being of a more tolerant strain as it regards religion, I am not bothered in the least that non-Muslim female dignitaries don’t cover their heads when they travel to Muslim-majority nations. They aren’t “dishonoring” their hosts.

Let’s stay focused on the aim of these visits, which has nothing to do with making fashion statements.

International news, religious news

Get ready for Trump speech on (gulp!) — Islam!

Donald J. Trump is getting ready to climb headfirst into the belly of the beast.

He is planning a speech on Islam. The venue? Saudi Arabia, where two of Islam’s holiest cites are located.

Politico offers a list of do’s and don’ts for the president to follow.

Here it is: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/05/18/donald-trump-islam-speech-215150

As we know, the president isn’t known for his nuanced approach to foreign policy. He doesn’t seem to have a foreign policy. He doesn’t think strategically. He doesn’t look at the big picture. He speaks in the moment and seems to react to the last person who has his undivided attention.

I feel compelled, though, to remind everyone that he will be speaking to an audience full of people with lengthy memories. I’m quite certain they’re going to remember what candidates Donald Trump said about Muslims way back when, how he intended to impose a blanket ban on “all Muslims” entering the United States “until we figure out what the hell we’re doing.”

He’s backed off of that. He’s tried to impose executive orders banning Muslims from certain countries, only to have the federal judiciary strike them down. Why? They discriminate against people of certain religions, which the U.S. Constitution forbids.

As Politico reports: According to the president’s national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, “The speech is intended to unite the broader Muslim world against common enemies of all civilization and to demonstrate America’s commitment to our Muslim partners.”

Be very careful, Mr. President.

International news, national news

No, ISIS … POTUS is no ‘idiot’

It’s one thing for Americans to disparage their own president, even to call him unflattering names.

When a foreign power does it — let alone a mortal enemy of the United States and the rest of the civilized world — well, that’s quite another matter.

The Islamic State has issued some kind of scathing statement in which it refers to Donald John Trump as an “idiot.” The ISIS statement says, in part: “… There is no more evidence than the fact that you are being run by an idiot who does not know what Syria or Iraq or Islam is,”

ISIS has it wrong

An “idiot” does not parlay a stake in a business handed down to him by his father into a multibillion-dollar real estate enterprise. An “idiot” doesn’t produce a successful reality TV show, nor does an “idiot” run a successful beauty pageant.

There. That’s about as close as I’m going to come to saying something positive about the current president of the United States.

He is naïve, ignorant about the complexities of the government he runs; he is morally unfit to hold the office he occupies; he speaks clumsily; he bereft of core governing principles.

An idiot?

No. Far from it.

What is troubling to this American is to hear such a description coming from a terrorist organization that beheads prisoners, kills innocent victims, hides behind children, sends suicide bombers to terrorize others — all in the name of Islam. These are religious perverts who have no right to speak for true-blue adherents to a great religion.

Perverting that religion sounds, if you’ll pardon the use of the term, like the action of a group of idiots.

Put another way, Trump well might be an SOB, but he’s our SOB.

International news

Now, Mr. President, what did you know … and when?

This just in: Michael Flynn has quit as national security adviser for Donald J. Trump.

Flynn resigned over questions relating to alleged conversations he had with Russian government officials prior to Trump becoming president of the United States. Reports have swirled that Flynn had talked about possible loosening of sanctions that the Obama administration had imposed to punish the Russians for their alleged role in interfering with the U.S. presidential election.

The Logan Act, anyone? It bars unauthorized personnel from negotiating with a foreign government. Flynn well might have broken federal law.

Now comes the question, to borrow an inquiry made famous in another serious matter: What did the president know and when did he know it?

Did the president know about Flynn’s conversations as they were occurring? Did he sanction them? Did the president hush it up?

The former acting U.S. attorney general, Sally Yates, wrote a report that suggested Flynn might have been “compromised” by his meetings with Russian officials. Yates then was fired over her refusal to enforce Trump’s ban on refugees from certain countries. Did the president know about these meetings in real time?

Trump now must find a new national security adviser. He has a long list of qualified, competent, knowledgeable individuals who can give him proper counsel regarding national security concerns.

Flynn, a retired Army lieutenant general, is known to be a brilliant military tactician and strategist. He also possesses intense feelings about Islam and has called that great religion a “cancer” on the world. I’ve heard two previous presidents — Barack Obama and George W. Bush — say we aren’t “at war with Islam.”

Gen. Flynn, though, got into trouble because of his relationships with Russian government higher-ups. There’s likely to be more to come in this regard.

I’m among those who want to know about what the big man in the Oval Office knew about these discussions — and when he knew it.

International news, military news, national news, political news

Get rid of Flynn as national security adviser

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flynn

President George W. Bush was quite adamant when we went to war in 2001 against radical Islamic terrorists that we were not going to war against Islam.

President Barack Obama has echoed that mantra ever since.

So, who does the president-elect bring in as national security adviser, the guy who’ll advise him on how to fight groups such as al-Qaeda and the Islamic State? A retired Army three-star general who calls Islam a “cancer” and says Americans’ fear of Islam is “rational.”

Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, moreover, apparently has ties with multiple foreign governments.

Flynn is now the target of groups asking Donald J. Trump to rescind Flynn’s appointment as national security adviser. They cite concerns over Flynn’s statements about Islam, Iran and whether his views would jeopardize a hoped-for peaceful settlement of the ongoing dispute between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/michael-flynn-trump-appointment-advocacy-groups-232208

I don’t expect the president-elect to heed their call.

Indeed, Flynn is a noted hothead. He’s a brilliant military tactician. He also has the kind of personality that would clash immediately and often with the likes of retired Marine Corps Gen. James Mattis, who is Trump’s pick to be the secretary of defense; I will add that Gen. Mattis is a well-chronicled hothead himself, someone known to speak his mind freely.

The issue, though, is Flynn and whether he’s a good fit to become national security adviser.

The advocacy groups asking Trump to rethink his appointment believe he is a terrible fit.

I happen to agree.

The national security adviser is a staff position and, thus, is not subject to Senate confirmation. Gen. Flynn’s status rests solely with the president he would serve.

Get rid of him, Mr. President-elect.

national news, political news, religious news

Christian, Muslim, Jew … so what?

paladino-1-e1467138490245-300x198

Carl Paladino is a partisan hack who runs Republican nominee Donald J. Trump’s presidential campaign in New York state.

He’s also spouting idiocy about the religious affiliation of the president of the United States, who he has labeled this week as a Muslim.

Barack Obama has said repeatedly that he is a devout Christian. I believe the president. I do not believe the idiotic rant of Paladino.

http://www.mediaite.com/online/trump-advisor-carl-paladino-theres-no-doubt-that-obama-is-a-muslim/

OK, then. Now, let’s look at something in the U.S. Constitution.

If you’re a real, true-blue, dyed-in-the-wool conservative, you believe in what’s called a “strict constructionist” view of the Constitution. You choose to interpret as little as possible in the document, much like one might do with, say, the Holy Bible.

So, let’s open our copy of the Constitution and turn to Article VI. It covers several areas of government, such as debt, laws and treaties, the oath officeholders take to support the Constitution.

And, oh yes, it has a clause at the end of it pertaining to “no religious test.”

It states: ” … but no religious test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”

Do you know what I take away from that passage in Article VI? It means to me that an officeholder or a candidate for public office can worship any religion he or she chooses. It doesn’t matter what faith they worship.

Article VI lays it out there with crystal clarity.

That’s in a perfect world. I realize we don’t live in a world of perfection. It is soiled a good bit by those who choose to ignore constitutional tenets that fail to meet their world view.

Carl Paladino chooses, therefore, to declare in public that President Barack Obama is a Muslim, as if that’s supposed to label him as someone evil, sinister … anti-American.

I’ll make an admission: I am not as faithful to my own interpretation of the Constitution. Some constitutional tenets I take literally; I choose to interpret other tenets a bit more broadly. If you’re honest with yourself, you might be wiling to admit to doing the same thing yourself.

The “no religious test” clause of Article VI is one that — in my view — should be understood clearly and without equivocation. The framers knew exactly what they were doing when they expressly prohibited a “religious test.” They wanted to create a secular government run without specific religious influences.

My optimism runs eternal. Therefore, I’ll keep hoping for as long as I’m walking on this good Earth that one day we can apply that constitutional principle cleanly and without fear and suspicion.

national news, political news

Oh, yes, and then there’s the Golden Rule

Golden-Rule-1

“Do to others what you want them to do to you. This is the meaning of the law of Moses and the teaching of the prophets.”

Matthew 7:12

Ah, yes. You’ve that said before, yes?

The New Testament of the Bible attributes that admonition to none other than Jesus of Nazareth.

I am extremely nervous melding Scripture with contemporary American politics. But the Golden Rule seems somehow appropriate to mention in this context.

Ted Cruz last night stood before the Republican National Convention and delivered a stem winder of a speech that said almost everything he was expected to say … except for this: “I hereby endorse Donald J. Trump for president of the United States.”

He didn’t go there. And why do you suppose he declined to take that step?

Because of what he described as the “slander” and “defamation” of this wife and father. Trump tweeted that unflattering picture of Heidi Cruz during the primary campaign. Then he implied that Sen. Cruz’s father might have been complicit in President Kennedy’s assassination. Sen. Cruz told the Texas convention delegates this morning that he couldn’t endorse someone who had treated two of his loved ones with such cruelty.

“I am not in the habit of supporting those who attack and slander my wife and my father,” he said.

It’s fair to ask: How do you suppose Donald Trump would react if someone had said anything like that about his father and his wife?

The Golden Rule can be found in many religious contexts, be it Judaism, Hinduism and Islam … in addition to Christianity.

Trump has said he is a “religious person.” Well, someone who knows and follows the teachings provided in the Holy Bible might be aware of what Matthew’s Gospel tells us about how to treat others.

The Golden Rule seems always to take a beating during the heat of a fierce political battle. Politicians say things about their opponents that they never would tolerate from others and none of this is unique to the current campaign.

Trump’s way of tossing out insults and innuendo as weapons against his foes — and against their family members — puts the Golden Rule into sharper-than-usual focus during this election cycle.

I know that critics of this blog will respond with rejoinders about how politicians dating back to the beginning of the Republic have said far worse than what Trump has uttered.

Fine. Bring it on.

However, at this very moment my particular focus is on a major political party’s nominee for the presidency of the United States of America. This man has failed to abide by the Golden Rule.

International news

Newt calls for Muslim ‘test’

newt

Newt Gingrich must be making a last-ditch pitch to become Donald J. Trump’s running mate.

Or … he’s feeling frisky now that he appears to be out of the running to join the Republican presidential ticket led by the presumptive nominee.

Whatever the case, the former U.S. House speaker has gone ballistic — and flown off the rails — in the wake of the terrible attack yesterday in Nice, France, in which someone plowed his truck through crowds of people in an apparent terrorist attack.

Eighty-four people are dead. Yes, it is a horrible, despicable act. The group responsible for it must be punished with extreme prejudice.

What is Newt’s response? He wants to apply a “test” to every single Muslim living in the United States of America. If they pass the test, they’re welcome to stay. If they fail, out they go. Deported. Sent to their country of origin.

The basis for Newt’s test is whether these Muslims believe in Sharia law, which he said is “incompatible” with western civilization. Oh, and he wants to “monitor” mosques to see if they’re being used to recruit jihadists.

Holy moly, Mr. Speaker.

My third thought about Newt’s post-Nice rant is that he’s trying to show off his own anti-Muslim credentials to Trump.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/gingrich-calls-for-muslim-test-says-trump-veep-is-probably-pence/ar-BBumw4I?li=BBnb7Kz

A few questions come to mind.

One concerns the logistics involved. How do we identify every single Muslim currently in this country? How do we pay for this endeavor? How does the country enlist enough security agents to fan out across more than 3.6 million square miles of American real estate to search for these individuals?

How do we devise this test? How do we establish whether its results prove beyond a doubt that someone is a Sharia-believer?

Has the ex-speaker decided that U.S. citizens who also are Muslim also should be tested in this manner? If so, well, then we have another fairly significant issue to ponder: the U.S. Constitution. That silly ol’ First Amendment says something about religious freedom and guarantees every American the right to worship as they please without government interference.

Moreover, I recall President Bush saying right after the 9/11 attacks that we weren’t going to war against Islam, which his successor, President Obama, has reiterated. Our enemies are the radical Islamists who have perverted a religious faith for political gain.

Of course Americans ought to be outraged over what has happened in Nice. Someone said last night that this attack that occurred while France was celebrating Bastille Day appears to be the costliest attack in terms of lives lost ever committed by a single terrorist. French police shot the driver of the truck to death and then apparently discovered his vehicle contained other munitions, suggesting he was operating as part of an organization.

Is it the Islamic State? Or al-Qaeda? Or some other group?

French intelligence officials are pretty good at rooting out bad guys. And they’ll have plenty of help from U.S., British, German, Israeli and other international law enforcement agencies as they seek to combat this latest attack.

As for Newt Gingrich’s proposal to go after every living Muslim in the U.S. of A., let’s not allow fear and panic to overtake us.