Hell, the reason for the invasion had nothing to do with public opinion. The reason for the invasion was that Cheney, Wolfowitz, & co. rushed us into it, like it or not. They would have gone ahead with it even it was as unpopular at first as it is now. What gives me a sickly feeling is the thought that they saw a chance to manipulate America’s righteous rage from the 9/11 attack into justifying the Iraq invasion partly because of a generalized, indiscriminate vendetta against Arabs, any Arabs will do, egged on by talk show hosts.
I think what you are seeing is an expression of fear and/or worry. Growing up we have watched a seemingly endless stream of fanatics blowing themselves up and indiscriminately anyone they can take with them. We have watched the ante get raised over and over with the capper (so far) being four simultaneously hijacked planes, two skyscrapers knocked down and a hole in the Pentagon. We watch as the regimes who tolerate and encourage this seek nuclear capabilities. It really just is a matter of time till the stuff proliferates into a terrorists hands.
Add all of that up and you get a sense of, “We better get them before Manhattan is a smoking crater.” After 9/11 the feeling that some things were just too horrible even for terrorists to contemplate (nukes, bio attacks, etc.) is gone. It happens that those who aim their clearly stated hatred and desire to kill Americans happen to be Muslims.
Again, I do not feel that there is a general hatred for Muslims in the US. I think it amounts to, “We’ve had enough of these nutcases (terrorists) and want to see them dealt with once and for all.”
Sadly separating the handful of terrorists out of the millions of Muslims who just want to be left alone is difficult to impossible and many innocent people get caught up in it. I think there is a spectrum of people in the US willing to tolerate varying amounts of how many innocents get swept up in order to get the real bad guys but that does not equate to rascism against Muslims in general. A subtle but important distinction.
NOTE: I am making no comment one way or another here on the right or wrong of any of this. I am merely trying to point out the psychology as I see it.
If there’s really so much anti-Muslim sentiment in the US, why don’t you constantly hear about mosques being vandalized, Muslims being attacked, Muslim-owned businesses being robbed or burned down, and things like that? If there were truly said sentiment, such incidents would be happening all the time, and being reported on all the time. There are surely enough angry, poor youth in America’s cities to partake of Muslim-bashing if the occasion arose. Yet Muslims live peacefully in many American communities.
My uncle, who lives in Jackson Heights, NY, told me about how a group of Pakistani Muslims had set up a demonstration on a street corner and were protesting the US and Israel, and openly supporting Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. Right there in the middle of a Jewish neighborhood.
Now tell me: if a group of Jews did the same thing in a Muslim neighborhod, they would probably be beheaded, or at the very least beaten up.
This country has more tolerance than you’d think.
That’s as silly or sillier than the OP. When exactly was the last time anyone was beheaded in the US by anyone, much less by a Muslim? Your hypothetical is ludicrous.
I probably should’ve just posted this poll instead of waiting for someone to find it linked in the Frown face, but oh how I love leaving easter eggs! It’s from CAIR, and that’s too bad, so take it as you will.
Just because you personally don’t hear it in the news doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. The mosque in Northern Virginia near me has been vandalized repeatedly, vandalized every September (except this year, when an ad hoc committee from various church organizations made an all-night vigil patrol outside the mosque this September 11). If the mosque near me has been repeatedly vandalized and it didn’t make the national news (heck, it hardly made the local news), how many more mosques have been vandalized that you never heard about?
I hate stereotypes—they reinforce prejudice and bigotry, which is bad. I always look for people who defy stereotypes and think for themselves as individuals.
Quite an interesting wiki encyclopedia article about CAIR, you brought us, Necro Romancer. Thanks.
I’ve heard a lot of similar stories and especially right after 9/11, when Muslims in the USA told me that they could not send their children t school, could not even risk their children to play outside and were locked up in their own homes for months. This not only in the USA. I heard of Muslims in England who were in the same situation.
Who says all these bad sentiments towards Muslims, and especially “Arabs” and women wearing hidjab, just faded out and just disappeared? I do not believe this.and I think it is dishonest for other posters to dismiss the concerns of the OP “because there is no racism involved” in the minds of people who (still) support a criminal like Bush. In my opinion it forms a substantial part of the reason why so many simply do not want to hear about the lies the war on Iraq is sold to them.
And to give you an example of how people can hide this, and maybe even don’t know about their deeper sentiments until something makes it come to the surface:
Members of the SDMB I came across showed most of the time to have a fairly balanced (be it not always rightly informed) attitude regarding Islam, Muslims and mostly even regarding Arabs ( as in Arabs living in the ME).
Yet only a few weeks ago members posted the greatest rubbish on the BBQ, implying that whenever some Muslims comit a crime all Muslims should become vocal in condemning explicitely crimes that are condemned by the mere fact that they are crimes. Which of course holds an implied apology for the actions comitted by Muslims, which implies that you apologise for having the nerve to be Muslim.
In addition it was clearly said that I neede to obey that command or else I was to be taken as supporting the criminals.
So what does this say about the underlying sentiments of people who in other conversations come across as able to stay calm and “normal” ?
In my view those who are not directly affected with these underlying sentiments, can not judge about the perceptions and feelings of those who do.
Salaam. A
It is leftist fringe thinking like the OP that steals credibility from that side of the equation…just as a racist diatribe would steal credibility from the right.
There is very little difference in painting “most americans” with that sort of brush and in making a racist comment about "most (insert minority here).
Well, then we have a different reading of the OP.
I don’t see there written "most of… “.
I see " a large chunk of…”
And this meaning to point at “a large chunk of” (what is the correct meaning of “chunk”? I read it as “partition”) those who support Bush and his cruiminal war.
As I said: Those who are not directly affected, can not judge about the perception and feeling of those who are.
The OP adds a question: Is he wrong or not in perceiving things the way he does and describes.
Salaam. A
This may be OT and I did not read the Pit thread mentioned but what was just written seems to be reaching pretty far to get to its righteous indignation.
I believe Muslims should be vocal in condeming crimes that are supposedly commited in the first place in the name of Muslims. That Middle East governments fan the flames of their populace to point the population’s anger somewhere else other than at those in power seems fairly obvious. But the recruitment of those people is done in the name of Islam. It is a “holy” war. Death to the infidels and the Great Satan and all that.
So, who is going to tell them they are wrong and expect them to listen? Christians? Of course not. If there is to be any effect on terrorists who are considering suicide attacks because it is “God’s will” the message needs to come from the Muslim community itself. If other Muslims strongly and vocally condemn that whatever it is the terrorists are on about it most assuredly is NOT in the name of Islam and representative of Muslims in general.
The point is not to apologize to non-Muslims but to send a message to other Muslims that the vast majority do not buy into the perversion terrorists make of the Koran and their religion.
You must have no idea how insulting this comes across. May I point it out to you that Muslims are not by definition terorists or inclined to become one just because they are Muslims? = Muslims know that terrorism or whatever name you choose to give to the targettiong of innocent people to reach whatever one’s goal might be, is not a command of Al Qur’an or Islam.
As this is not the subject of this thread and since I made a lot of posts lately regarding the issue, I shall give you a link to the latest. Which has also a link to the thread I was talking about.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=5352414#post5352414
Post #56
Salaam. A
I think you missed what I was saying as I most definitely was not implying that Muslim = Terrorist.
I’ll re-post the part you took exception to with emphasis…
“The point is not to apologize to non-Muslims but to send a message to other Muslims that the VAST MAJORITY do NOT buy into the perversion terrorists make of the Koran and their religion.”
I am not sure what is unclear there and how you think I was implying Muslim = Terrorist from that. I say “vast majority” instead of “all” because clearly there are some who do not seem to get what you said. Hence my point about their perverting their religion.
Sorry if this constitutes a hijack but I think it needed responding to here.
You repeat your statement that Muslims need to keep repeating to their fellow Muslims that terrorism is not something inherent to Islamic teachings.
This implies that you insinuate that Muslims have in general no clue about their religion and automatically will become terrorists if not repeatedly hearing (or reading) from other Muslims that murder is against the teachings of Islam.
Which is the insult I say you are maybe not aware of.
I said: Muslims know that killing is not something you are instructed to do by our religion. What is for you so diffucult to understand about this?
The people who instigate others to commit acts that go against every core teaching of our religion really “get” it quite well what they are doing. They lure people not all that well informed about the religion to believe that it is even an obligaton to kill innocents.
That has nothing to do with “not getting” the teachings of Islam. It is deliberately acting against the teachings of Islam, well knowing it is against the teachings of Islam. That is not “perverting” Islam. That is knowing it very well and in addition knowing extremely well what can be used to score points in the minds of the frustrated young people.
Hence they take what can be used if brought up in the convenient way with adding a convenient invented context. It is a very well thought and very well calculated move from their side.
I can agree with you that those who get brainwashed by these criminals and then become their footsoldiers are the misguided ones.
But do you really think these people are going to be influenced by what other Muslims say about it? They take Muslims who say they are wrong as their first and biggest enemies.
You truly must believe that if the Pope, or a bishop, or a priest, or a common Catholic declares that murder goes against the teachings of the Catholic church, no Catholic ever shall commit a murder.
Salaam. A
I think you are taking an overly sensitive reading of what I wrote as I agree completely that most Muslims “get it” as part and parcel of their faith that what the terrorists do is contrary to the most basic tenets of their religion.
I disagree that Muslims speaking out loudly and condeming terrorists (those that wrap their actions in Muslim teachings) as a perversion of their faith at every opportunity is a useless act. It may be that terrorists see Muslims who would do that as enemy #1 which only makes sense. They are already brainwashed and the criminals who feed them this stuff naturally want to put a wall there to stop any doubt from creeping into their minds so they will remain tractable. All very deliberate. Making Muslims who speak against them enemy #1 to me indicates that their primary fear of their brainwashing being undone would come from other members of the faith.
It is for precisely that reason that Muslims as a group should condem these actions at every opportunity loudly and vociferously. Maybe it will make a crack in a wavering would-be terrorist. It would certainly make it harder for evil men who seek to distort Islamic teachings jobs much harder if new recruits have had it hammered home as an article of faith that what they are now being asked to believe/do is contrary to everything they have been raised to know. It becomes harder for a few to convince someone to reverse their stance if they have seen 99.999% of Muslims against what they are being told by the brainwashers. As it stands right now young Muslim children seems to be getting rather the opposite message: ‘Uprising Cards’ All the Rage in Nablus, AP , NABLUS, WEST BANK
Thursday, Dec 25, 2003
Will that stop all terrorists? Certainly not and definitely not overnight but I think in time a constant and loud message that these acts of terrorism are NOT what Islamic faith teaches (coming from other members of the faith) we would see a decline in the numbers of young people willing to turn to acts of terror and that can only be a good thing.
And no, I do not believe that people will stop committing murder because the Pope says it is bad but there is a fundamental difference here. Most murderers know what they are doing is wrong. They do not go out and kill at the behest of their priest or minister or the Pope. They do not do the deed thinking they are righteous in the eyes of God. They are not made into martyrs by anyone. The odd people who do commit murder thinking those things are clinically psychotic. Muslim terrorist I do not believe are psychotic…just misguided.
No, I only try to clarify how your post shall come across when Muslims read it.
And sorry, but I have made already enough posts about this issue and gave you a link for in case you want to know how I see this. It is up to you to decide to read them or not.
Most certainly I am not going to turn this into an Israel/Palestine debate. In fact: I do not particpate in such threads and up to now I do not intend to change that.
Salaam. A