Tag Archives: Muslims

national news

Shooting ignites knee-jerk reaction

Here come the knee-jerk activists.

Someone twists off, goes on a shooting spree, kills four U.S. Marines and, oh yes, he happens to be Muslim.

How do some of us react: Curtail immigration from Muslim countries. Why, shoot, let’s just ban them altogether.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/chattanooga-shooter-came-from-middle-class-muslim-family/2015/07/16/815c39c2-2c04-11e5-bd33-395c05608059_story.html

Mohammad Abdulazeez grew up in Chattanooga, Tenn., the son of a conservative Muslim couple who came here when the young man was infant. He now is accused of killing four people in a shooting rampage.

What fueled the gunman’s anger? Was he determined to carry out a jihad against the “infidels”?

Who in the world knows what triggered the outburst?

I do believe, though, that we must not react to this tragedy as if it somehow fits some still-unknown pattern.

Abdulazeez might embody all the things many Americans fear the most: a mass attack on Americans by people who are intent on killing all of us.

Then again, he might just be a disturbed young man who had a beef with someone and then snapped.

Those things happen with people of all faiths, ethnic origins or socio-economic backgrounds.

national news

Terrorism occurred in Charleston

I want to weigh in on the discussion of whether the Charleston, S.C., massacre was an act of terrorism.

Here goes: I believe it qualifies.

Dylann Roof is accused of murdering nine people after he spent an hour studying the Bible with them. He reached into a pocket, or something, pulled out a gun and started shooting.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/06/the-killings-in-charleston-werent-terrorism-119233.html?hp=m1#.VYY_CVLbKt8

The victims never saw it coming. An act of terror? By my definition of the word, yes.

Yet we’re not calling it that. It’s a “hate crime.” Muslims who opened fire in Texas before they were killed were “terrorists.” A young white man in Charleston does the same thing and he’s called a “racist,” a “lunatic,” or a “mass murderer.”

You want mass murder? The 9/11 attacks certainly qualify. They, too, were carried out by terrorists.

I am growing weary of these word games.

The Charleston shooter was a terrorist, who committed a hate crime, who killed many people at once and thus, qualifies as a mass murderer.

Why not lump all these descriptions together?

We can stop playing semantic games with the language.

national news, religious news

Free speech does have its limits

3 Comments

Garland police officers responded as they should have when two gunmen opened fire at a “contest” to draw the Islamic prophet Muhammad.

They shot the men dead.

http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnews.com/2015/05/be-thankful-innocent-people-didnt-die-but-dont-tell-me-the-garland-conference-was-about-free-speech.html/

Now the debate has ensued. Were the provocateurs — the folks who sponsored a contest they knew would provoke that kind of response from Muslims — merely exercising their rights of “free speech”?

My answer? No.

They knew that illustrating the prophet is offensive to Muslims. Indeed, the group that sponsored the “contest,” an outfit called the American Freedom Defense Initiative, has been identified as an extremist anti-Muslim group.

So, do you think these folks knew what to expect when they staged this event? My guess is that they knew.

The shooters were described as Islamists. One of them, Elton Simpson, allegedly wrote a good-bye note to his friends and family before he started shooting. He knew he’d meet his end in Garland.

As Jim Mitchell of the Dallas Morning News writes in his blog: “Islamic extremism is a global curse. Cartoon contests in Garland aren’t going make a bit of difference in combating it. But insensitive contests like the one yesterday will provoke lone wolves and insult an entire religion. And I ask, to what purpose? This wasn’t discourse; it was a opportunity to draw offensive cartoons for the sake of drawing offensive cartoons. My idea of defensible free expression has a higher and more noble purpose.”

It’s widely established and known around the world that Muslims don’t react well when Muhammad is depicted in cartoons or illustrated simply for the sake of producing a worldly image. Do non-Muslims agree with this religious tenet? No. But it’s not non-Muslims’ place to judge how those who worship a certain religion are supposed to believe.

We should be grateful that the FBI had tipped off the Garland Police Department.

Its officers responded correctly.

political news

Rep. White: profile in cowardice

Texas state Rep. Molly White has conducted a shameful demonstration of cowardice.

The Belton Republican posted a message on her Facebook page for all Muslims gathering in Austin for Texas Muslim Capital Day to “pledge allegiance” to the United States and to renounce Islamic terrorism. The message provoked a strong counter protest against what otherwise have been another seemingly quiet demonstration of solidarity by one of the state’s many constituent groups.

And then she wasn’t even in the State Capitol to stand and speak for herself about why she chose to ignite the hateful counter demonstrations.

http://www.texastribune.org/2015/01/29/rep-staff-ask-muslim-visitors-pledge-allegiance/

The counter protests revealed a quite ugly side of human nature. I won’t suggest for a minute it’s reserved for Texans only. Those who shouted epithets at their fellow Texans — the Muslims who were seeking only to have an audience with legislators — demonstrated pure hate.

Let’s understand something about people of all faiths.

No one faith is “evil.” It can be perverted, twisted and molded into something not recognizable by the authors of the holy book its followers read. That holds true for those who read the Old Testament, the New Testament or the Quran.

What the counter protesters revealed was pure ignorance by shouting down the Muslims gathered at the State Capitol. Their sole intent, as I understood it, was to assemble peaceably — a right that the Constitution of the United States grants them as citizens of this great country.

And where was the provocateur? She was back home in Belton.

What a disgrace.

International news, political news

Wow! Ted Cruz praises Michelle Obama!

Times like these call for special attention.

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-TEA Party Nation, has actually said something complimentary about the first lady of the United States of America.

Cruz wrote on his Facebook page that Michelle Obama has stood up for the rights of women around the world by declining to wear a scarf covering her head while visiting Saudi Arabia.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/28/ted-cruz-michelle-obama_n_6564768.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000013

You go, Ted!

He wrote: “Kudos to First Lady Michelle Obama for standing up for women worldwide and refusing to wear a Sharia-mandated head-scarf in Saudi Arabia. Nicely done.”

Cruz, who’s actually from Texas (of course) isn’t likely to say nice things — ever — about the first lady or her husband. He’s entertaining a possible — if not probable — run for the presidency in 2016. He’s no doubt storing up plenty of negative things to say about the past eight years of Barack Obama’s presidency.

Just for grins and giggles, though, I am curious to know the reason Michelle Obama didn’t wear the scarf in a country where Islamic tradition plays such a huge role in people’s lives. My own hunch is that the Sharia mandate is for Muslim women and since Michelle Obama is not a Muslim, she and other women in the presidential party were exempt from the rule.

Still, it’s good to hear Sen. Cruz acknowledge the guts it took for the first lady to do such a thing in Saudi Arabia. Imagine what he and other critics on the right would have said had she shown up with her hair covered.

 

 

national news

'No-go zones' myth builds

Fox News got itself into some trouble recently when it reported something about European countries establishing “no-go zones” where Muslims reportedly don’t allow non-Muslims to enter.

The story turned out to be false. The media have piled on, chortling and laughing out loud at Fox for its insistence on these zones, particularly in Paris. The mayor of Paris threatened to sue Fox over its false reporting. Good luck with that, Mme. Mayor.

Fox News anchors apologized repeatedly for the mistake.

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/01/paris-mayor-to-sue-fox-over-no-go-zone-comments/384656/

But some on the right have wondered out loud why Fox is getting hammered. The Amarillo Globe-News questioned in an Opinion page comment today whether other media would have been beaten up as badly as Fox has been. The commentary suggested much of the criticism is unfair, but noted that the criticism the network has received has been justified “to an extent.”

I have a possible answer as to why the piling on has occurred.

Fox News has done a very good job of demonizing other media outlets for transgressions real and sometimes imagined. Its talking heads quite often disparage other media’s coverage of issues on the basis of a perceived bias.

Listen to some of the network’s talk shows and you get the clear and distinct impression that their side is correct and the so-called “mainstream media” is wrong.

I must add that Fox News is as mainstream as other media, given its prominence among the broadcast and cable networks that are on the air these days.

The piling on over its mistaken reporting about the no-go zones and the coverage of its repeated on-air apology for messing up is a consequence of its own making.

Payback can be harsh.

International news, national news, political news

Affleck vs. Maher on Islam

Almost never do I take anything that Bill Maher says seriously.

He’s a comedian who, for my taste, isn’t all that funny. He’s morphing into some sort of political commentator of late. Now he’s taking on Islam, calling it a “Mafia-like” organization.

OK. So we’ve heard from him on that.

Enter another entertainer. Ben Affleck, an actor of some acclaim, has challenged Maher’s assertion that Islam is what he says it is. I don’t usually listen to actors’ views on politics and religion, either.

However …

In this case, Affleck makes the more salient point.

http://thinkprogress.org/world/2014/10/04/3576082/batman-stands-up-for-muslims/

Affleck took part in a testy exchange on “Real Time” in which he tried to take down Maher’s assertion about Islam. Affleck criticized Maher’s “gross” and “racist” portrayal of Islam. He said Islam should not be judged based on the conduct of sociopathic murderers, such as the Islamic State — which has hijacked the Islamic name, for crying out loud, while committing utterly unspeakable acts of barbarism. New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof sided with Affleck, contending that Maher’s description of Islam and Muslims is “incomplete.”

Maher used terms like “vast numbers of Muslims” wanting non-believers of their religion to die. Vast numbers? How many is that? And what percentage do those numbers comprise among the 1.5 billion or so practicing Muslims around the world?

I simply am not going to condemn a religion on the basis of what crazed fanatics do in that religion’s name.

Nor should a second-rate comedian such as Bill Maher.