The Sophian

Lovely sounding, politically correct essay. You present, however, the same grossly exaggerated distortions re "attacks" on Muslims. And you ignore the scrutiny that accompanied Romney's Mormon membership. More importantly, the debate is not about the average Muslim living in the US. Obama is not Muslim, but the issue of a Muslim president remains. Islam is not just another religion. It is a way of life. And it is a way of life inconsistent with the history and culture of our nation. It is not just understandable but prudent for this debate to continue.

It must have been difficult to write your article and miss two small, hardly significant, facts.

1. The probability is that at some point in his time at a Moslem school (in a disciplined environment that no-one at Smith could begin to understand much less appreciate) it is quite likely that, as a student enrolled in mengaji classes he could not have avoided, and probably quite enthusiastically, recited the Shahada which, in the elegant Moslem manner, makes you a Moslem.

In the US you may change your faith with the same frequency as you change your underwear, and with less reason....such as opportunism. Unfortunately, in almost all of the Moslem world they view this as apostasy and the penalty is death. The shrinking moderate population may well disagree but best they be quiet in their disagreement. A billion people wanting to kill you might make negotiation difficult.

2. The alternative is worse. He uses the christian conversion as a mask, permitted under the Moslem faith.

3. Of course there is a third, and the only remaining option. He is a complete fraud and a secular socialist who who will do or say anything to be President, fronting for a grouup of pompous pseudo-intellectual progressives who just want power. At that point we're back to the apostasy issue and the prophet (pbuh) was quite clear on that.

Of course this strange whining about bigotry means little. Long before our time one of the most put upon groups in the US was the German community. Something to do with Hessians and later reinforced by WWI. In spite of this a German speaker from a German speaking family became our top Commander for SHAEF in WWII and then our President. You probably are now saying, well it's different for Arabs. Then why did General John P. Abizaid get the job he did?

First, as a conservative who will vote for McCain I don't believe Obama is a Muslim. The people who think he is a Muslim are fringe kooks. You should oppose Obama because he is a closet radical who is wrong on all the issues, not because you think he is a Muslim.

Second, Muslims do deserve greater scrutiny for their doctrine of antagonism toward America. When Muslims make their pilgrimmage to Mecca, part of their ritual is to stone the pillars of Mina, which represent Satan. For several years after Sep 11, and perhaps longer, "America" has been written on those pillars. When Islam identifies America as Satan in its holiest rituals and makes hatred of America part of its doctrine, we Americans certainly should challenge that view and look with suspicion upon those who adhere to this faith.

Furthermore, identifying America as Satan on the Hajj implicitly endorses the Sep 11 attacks. Such a sentiment deserves our contempt. It's worth pointing out that Muslims around the world celebrated the Sep 11 attacks and reveled in the death of those three thousand. Muslims within sight of the burning WTC celebrated. Muslims in Germany fired off home-made rockets. Muslims in Egypt congratulated each other and even wrote a hit song celebrating the attacks. Saudis sacrificed goats and feasted. Muslim kids the world over wore Bin Laden T-shirts. Such glee about the deaths of Americans at the hands of Muslims deserves our condemnation and disgust.

Islam divides the world into believers and unbelievers, the House of Peace and the House of War. America is in the House of War, which Muslims believe inevitably will be conquered by Islam. The current Islamic wave of terror, which is supported by the majority of the Muslim community, is part of that jihad to bring the world under a Muslim religious empire, the Caliphate. Their prophet Mohammed endorsed this worldwide war on non-Muslims with his last words, urging Muslims to fight every man until all the world submits to Islam.

It is absurd to paint the current popular negative perception of Islam and Muslims as anything but a product of bloody Muslim intolerance. Muslims have been bombing innocent victims into bloody chunks from New York to Bali. Since the Sep 11 attacks, Muslim terrorists have killed ten thousand in terror attacks and wounded ninety thousand. Where ever Muslims settle in any numbers, they make war on their non-Muslim neighbors and hosts, often in the most gruesome manner while proudly displaying it in jihadi snuff films.

In the US, 80% of all mosques have been radicalized by Saudi Wahhabi preachers and petrodollars. These mosques sport hate literature which preach all manner of crude bigotry against non-Muslims. Islam refers to Christians and Jews as apes and pigs. The Wahhabi literature tells kids they can lie and hurt non-Muslims. It demands adults not vote, as participation in democracy is blasphemy since it places man-made laws above the will of Allah as written in the Koran. That interpretation makes Islam undemocratic and un-American.

Furthermore, Islam maintains a doctrine of lying to non-Muslims called taqiyya. When Islam foments such hatred of non-Muslims and approves of lying about it, that provokes legitimate suspicion.

However, Muslims can allay these concerns by rejecting taqiyya, giving up their supremacist doctrine, their jihad, their intolerance of others, and their hatred of America. It wouldn't hurt to take loud public positions against Islamic terror, either, and support the authorities in breaking up Muslim terror cells, which all originate in mosques.

With the rise of Islamic extremism and violence, it is irrational to take a chance of electing a president who is moslem, even if one moslem soldier died in Iraq. The fact is there is a war of civilizations occuring, that western democracy and capitalism are being resisted by autocratic and thought controlled governments and cultures. Islam takes credit for inventing the zero, and even computer logic due to its invention. With Barak Obama we have the equivalent of a zero, someone defensively and aggressively hiding his past from view, implying that he is hiding something. An absent father yields a tremendous influence on a formative mind and Obama may not even know that he is a moslem, but probably is. His behavior exhibits characteristics of Islam, his rigidity on doctrine, inflexibility, attraction to extremists and having the arrogance to think an inexperienced one term Senator, in his first year in the senate running for President of the United States. Not to mention his connections to terrorists and his Harvard studies paid for by a member of the Black Panthers. Americans would be insane to elect this person President but these are irrational times, as exhibited by the euphoria of support for this know-nothing, untested, inexperienced fraud of a candidate. He is almost a religion himself with such fervent supporters who know nothing about him, his beliefs, philosophy, background or source of 300 million dollars in unregulated contributions to his campaign, probably arab money. These are desperate times and apparently Obama rejoices in this fact, that it can be considered Allah's will that brought him this far. Obama is a fanatic and a fraud and deserves nothing but ridicule and spite.

Where do you people get these facts? I understand people lie, but I seriously doubt all people of Islam are lying and I've been to several Mosques and helped with several Inter-Faith dialogs and these statements are far from the norm. This is the type of fear that made segregation possible in the US. I am ashamed to say I am an American when my countrymen fail to uphold a basic level of trust and instead opt for an irrational fear based on conspiracy and exaggeration.

If Obama gets elected, he can give thanks to political correctness that has caused a lobotomy in critical thought and critical challenge. I don't think such and such isn't a basis for electing a trojan horse for Islam into America. Better safe than sorry people when the federal government is handed over to Islam. A religion that has religious doctrine rationalizing the use of lying as a tactic against an enemy, the infidel, says it all, and anyone too blind to understand this is a danger to himself.

ElliesBF, I get my facts by reading. I recommend you do some. When Islam takes belligerent and intolerant positions, it is right to challenge those. You have to ignore quite a number of Islamic suicide jets, train bombings, beheadings, stabbings, and shootings to accuse their American targets of doing the fear-mongering.

I challenge you to point out which one of the points I made in my letter is irrational, a product of a conspiracy, or an exaggeration. Your rebuttal is not only uninformed, but willfully blind to reality.

ElliesBF,

It is an indisputable fact that most of the terrorist acts perpetrated are authored by Muslims. There is no worldwide campaign of suicide jets, train bombings, disco shootings, beheadings, and snuff videos being perpetrated by another religion, let alone Christians nor Hindus. This campaign of Islamic terror is popular among a large segment of Muslims, 40% in England, for example.

A couple years ago in Washington, DC a local Muslim lawyer tried to organize a demonstration against terror. He was condemned by local Muslim organizations. As he put it, most of the Muslim clerics supported the terrorists goal of turning America into a Sharia state while remaining lukewarm about their violent methods. Only fifty Muslims showed up.

Later, five thousand Muslims showed up to demonstrate against Israel in the Lebanon war in Lafayette Park, across from the White House. I was there. It was actually a pro-Hezbollah rally. That's the same Hezbollah which proclaims its advantage to be it loves death while its enemies love life. I saw thousands of Muslims of all kinds cheering Hezbollah, a terror organization, and applauding the most vitriolic condemnation of America.

When only 50 Muslims show up to rally against terror and 5000 rally for terror, it leads me to believe that Muslims favor terror by a hundred to one.

Your denial of this widespread support for Islamic terror by Muslims is the true abandonment of critical reasoning for muddle-minded political correctness. The Muslim prediliction for violence to propagate their religion must be confronted forthrightly rather than ignored. Ultimately, to reform their religion, Muslims will have to focus on the Mecca half of the Koran and tear out the Medina half of the Koran which urges them to put non-Muslims to the sword. They will also need to abandon the hyper-violent example of Mohammed as their moral exemplar.

Why would a person with a "given name" (Berry) change it?
To Barrack Ohbama??
Tell me this guy is not Musilim!
Feel free to emial me!

Gerate Essssay,
Fo shiznat
You rule the vorld

On a serious note, excellent and well-written essay. You make solid points, regarding the stereotypes surrounding Islam and Muslims. Good job!

Wow, I really wish John McCain or Mike Huckabee would've won the election! We'd be ALOT better off without Barack Hussane Obama. [Sorry, idk how to spell his middle name.] I'm 14, and I know more about this country and what's best for this country than people 3X my age!