Why has Israel not yet taken action to destroy Iran’s nuclear installations?

Perhaps because it has to deal with a more immediately urgent threat nearer home.

According to this report and commentary, Iran’s proxies – Syria, Hizbullah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza – are poised to launch another war against Israel:

Defense minister Ehud Barak’s snap nomination of OC Southern Command Maj. Gen. Yoav Galant as Israel’s 20th chief of staff was necessary  … to pull the high command together in view of the preparations to attack Israel gathering momentum …

The general expectation of a US-Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear sites has therefore faded into the background of the threatening stance currently adopted by Tehran’s allies, Syria, Hizballah and the Palestinian Hamas and Islamic Jihad. …

Jerusalem is extremely concerned by the placing of four hostile military forces on the highest level of war preparedness in the last few days and are asking why. …

Syrian prime minister Naji al-Otari and Abbas Zaki, one of Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ closest aides, have spoken of a “very imminent” Middle East war …

There is no telling in the Middle East when an isolated incident may not deteriorate rapidly into a major conflict when the climate is as tense as it is at present. It came dangerously close on Aug. 3, when a Lebanese army sniper shot dead an Israeli colonel precipitating a heavy exchange of fire.

Lebanon is on tenterhooks over the nine Hizballah leaders the international court inquiring into the 2005 Hariri assassination plans to summon as suspected perpetrators of the crime. Hizballah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah has given the Beirut government due notice that if his top people are surrendered to the tribunal, he will plunge the country in a civil conflict.

Hizballah, backed by Damascus, recently began accusing Israel of engineering the murder, so providing themselves with a neat pretext for going to war and avoiding facing the music.

Thursday, Aug. 19, all Syrian homeland defenses and emergency services were placed on the highest war readiness for an outbreak of hostilities without further notice. …

We don’t doubt that all this is true. But our own view – admittedly from a distance – is that a devastating blow to Iran itself would stop the cat’s paw forces dead.

What else might be staying Israel’s hand against Iran? Bullying threats and orders from anti-Israel HQ, the White House?

Yes, we suspect that’s the answer. If we ‘re right, the danger of a widespread conflagration will intensify, and the pointless charade of “peace talks” between Israel and the Palestinian Authority’s powerless Abu Abbas, due to start September 2 on Obama’s insistence, can make not a jot of difference.

The term “Islamist” is an invention by non-Muslims who want to differentiate between what they insist is the ”the vast majority of peace-loving law-abiding Muslims” from the “radicals”, or “extremists”, or “Islamofascists” for whom they think “Islamist” is a politer word. Islamists are, in the eyes of the well-meaning tolerant non-Muslims who coined the term, a minority with whom the vast majority of “moderate” Muslims do not agree and of whom they do not approve. Even though few of them actually express disapproval, the well-meaning, respectful, tolerant non-Muslims assume it to be strongly felt, and wish the wider public would believe and appreciate this.

For convenience, let’s call the well-meaning, respectful, tolerant non-Muslims who advance this view the Defense. The Defense hopes to persuade non-Muslim public opinion that the law and values of Islam are compatible with the laws and values of what is generally called the West.

The question then arises, what do “moderate” Muslims believe that is different from what the Islamists believe? For both moderates and Islamists the Koran is the holy word of Allah. The holy word of Allah cannot be changed. So what does the Defense say to that? It is, the Defense argues, a matter of interpretation. (For a thoughtful and wide-ranging discussion of this idea in connection with the Ground Zero mosque dispute, see an article by Ron Radosh at PajamasMedia. We usually find much to agree with in his writing, but in this article we find much to criticize. Rather than do so, because we think a point-by-point exegesis would be boring for us and our readers, we’ve chosen to make our own statement on the issue.)

What interpretation can be put on commandments to beat wives (sura 4.32), amputate limbs (eg sura 5.38), treat women unequally (eg sura 4.11), kill apostates (eg 4.89) – to take just a few instances of Allah’s writ? They are laid down in the Koran, from which Sharia derives. It is hard to read them and think of an interpretation that cancels, contradicts, or even merely softens their meaning. Even by the most liberal definitions imaginable by the most elastic of legal minds – one that could find, for instance, gradations of meaning in the word “is” – the words of the commandments cannot be made to mean their opposites. But some have tried to make them less apodictic, and the Defense depends on the possibility.

The Defense maintains that if the Koran is interpreted as meaning in many essential instances something different from what it says, it can be made compatible with American Constitutional Law. But wouldn’t that require deeply radical change, even complete reversal? And if such a radical change were to be made (by whom?), how, or to what extent, would it still be Sharia? Wouldn’t such a profound alteration mean, in effect, the obliteration of Islam?  And if so, how likely is it that it will be accepted by (at least a large enough part of) Islam?

One point often made by the Defense that needs to be answered: The Bible also orders cruel punishments, including, for instance, stoning adulterers. True, but there is no country on earth that declares Biblical law to be its constitution, or makes the commandments of Jehovah, or God the Father, or Jesus Christ, the law of the land, even though some laws agree with some of the ten commandments. Israel decidedly rejected the idea of basing its state laws on Jewish religious law (though for political expediency governments have made some concessions to the religious political parties, causing more nuisance than oppression – such as that marriage must be by religious rite).

But every state in which Islam is the religion of the majority – even including Iraq when it was ruled by the ostensibly secular socialist Ba’athists – has Sharia as the basis of its law. Turkey was an exception that is now changing under an Islamist government to conform with the rest.

Islam wants the world to be Muslim. It declares that every Muslim must help achieve its goal. It prescribes violence as the chief if not exclusive means. Clearly by this alone Islam has set itself up as the enemy of all non-Muslims. In pursuit of its supreme goal and in obedience to the word of Allah, millions of Muslims, including the 19 who perpetrated the crimes of 9/11 in the name of Islam, have dedicated themselves to waging war on the rest of the world, and more will do so in the years to come.

They need to be stopped; by peaceful means if possible, by force whenever necessary. If “reinterpretation” of Islam’s holy writ is a way that can work peacefully, it should be pursued. But can it be done? Our answer is – almost certainly not.

These days there cannot  be many states, if any, with governments free from corruption, but some are more corrupt than others. Afghanistan looks to be among the worst. Its make-believe democratic institutions, president and parliament, and the police and the military, are oiled with corruption. Bribery and extortion characterize the politics of the country. A thousand busy Americans driven by noble intentions will not easily succeed in purifying the soul of the nation or changing the Afghan way. Even John Kerry, whose noble intentions are on display though his own soul has been tainted by fibs about his military adventures, has failed to persuade President Karzai – the fellow who literally wears a mantle of power – to play nice. And though Secretary of State Hillary Clinton calls Karzai to inform him loftily of her “displeasure”, he continues to do it his way. This so disheartens the well-intentioned folk pursuing the counter-corruption endeavor that they are thinking of abandoning it.

This is from the Washington Post:

A close adviser to President Hamid Karzai, arrested last month on charges of soliciting a bribe, was also under investigation for allegedly providing luxury vehicles and cash to presidential allies and over telephone contacts with Taliban insurgents, according to Afghan officials familiar with the case.

The Afghan officials also said that it had been Karzai himself who intervened to win the quick release of the aide, Mohammad Zia Salehi, even after the arrest had been personally approved by the country’s attorney general. The new account suggests that the corruption case against Salehi was wider than previously known and that Karzai acted directly to secure his aide’s release. …

The intervention by Karzai came after the Afghan investigators had begun to pursue corruption cases against the aide and possibly other Karzai allies inside the presidential palace. A commission formed by Karzai after his aide was released concluded that Afghan agents who had carried out the investigation with support from U.S.-backed law enforcement units had violated Salehi’s human rights and were operating outside the constitution.

The back-and-forth revolves around the work of two American-backed Afghan task forces, one known as the Major Crimes Task Force and the other called the Sensitive Investigative Unit. It has created perhaps the most serious crisis this year in relations between Afghanistan and the United States. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called Karzai to express her displeasure with any decision that undermines anti-corruption enforcement, and Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) flew to Kabul this week with a warning to Karzai that his actions put at risk U.S. funding and congressional support for the war. …

Salehi is a Pashtun from Wardak province who heads the administration of Afghanistan’s National Security Council. Salehi has played a key role in support of Karzai’s efforts to win reconciliation with Taliban insurgents and end the war in Afghanistan. The current and former Afghan officials said he had spoken regularly by cellphone with Taliban representatives and had arranged meetings between the Karzai administration and members of the Taliban …

The Afghan officials said that the investigation had determined that Salehi had also been involved with making cash payments from a palace fund to pay off Karzai’s political supporters, and distributed gifts such as armored Land Cruisers and luxury Lexuses.

“He was one of the most trusted staff members in the palace to do special things,” said one Afghan official with direct knowledge of the case. …

One of the special things he did was to accept a bribe not to investigate bribery:

Wiretapped conversations had also produced evidence that Salehi had accepted gifts, including a car provided to his son, in return for playing a role in opposing a corruption investigation aimed at New Ansari, the nation’s largest money-transfer business, which was raided by investigators in January. “The talk on the intercepts was pretty clear that this car was intended to get Salehi to interfere with the investigation,” said a senior U.S. official who worked with Afghan anti-corruption teams. The American official said the evidence had been presented to Afghanistan’s attorney general, Mohammad Ishaq Aloko, who signed an arrest warrant for Salehi and instructed the Major Crimes Task Force, an Afghan police unit mentored by the FBI, to execute the arrest. …

On July 25 … Salehi was taken to a counternarcotics detention center in Kabul.

By 6 p.m. the same day, however, police with the Major Crimes Task Force received a second letter from Aloko, the attorney general, ordering Salehi’s release.

An Afghan official with direct knowledge of the case said that Aloko had come under “enormous pressure” from Karzai to set Salehi free. A second Afghan official with direct knowledge of the events said that Aloko “received an order from the president” that Salehi be released. …

According to the Afghan officials, corruption investigators now say they fear for the safety of their families and do not believe it is possible to convict those close to the president. They do not expect Salehi to be indicted. Some believe the two elite task forces will be disbanded.

That would be a blow to General Petraeus. Apparently he’s pinned his hopes on them, believing that the country could be “restored” to stability if only the corruption could be got rid of.

Gen. David H. Petraeus the new American commander, has made clear that he sees the effort as central to restoring stability to the country.

So the story of Salehi is not encouraging to those who still believe there is something to be won in Afghanistan. To others it bears a message of despair.

The last US combat brigade has left Iraq. From now on American military personnel will be there only to “advise and assist” the Iraqi government – when there is an Iraqi government to advise and assist. Five months ago parliamentary elections were held, but which party or coalition of parties should govern, and which party leader should be prime minister, are still in dispute. Prospects for agreement are not growing brighter.

Still, the US mission of pacifying and democratizing the country is regarded as almost accomplished.

Not that the country is entirely pacified any more than it is truly democratized. Though everyone agrees that “the surge” succeeded, the terrorists do not consider themselves defeated. Only two days ago a suicide bomber killed 61 Iraqi Army recruits with nail-packed explosives.

So what will happen there? Will Iraq yet turn into a peaceful united democracy?

Or will it be torn and shattered by civil war as some Israeli observers foresee?

At least two civil conflicts are at boiling point – Sunni-Shiite strife and hostilities between the two Muslim factions and the Kurds of the North – and Iran’s followers stand ready to seize Iraq’s oil-rich South potentially sparking yet another world conflagration.

The political vacuum in Baghdad created by Nouri al-Maliki’s refusal to step down or join a unity government is unsustainable and the cause of a rising spiral of violence. Neither of the two leading Iraqi parties which emerged from the general election earlier this year – Maliki’s State of Law Party and ex-prime minister Iyad Allawi’s Iraqiya Party – is seen capable of commanding a parliamentary majority any time this year.

Dropping out of negotiations for joining Allawi in a coalition government, the transitional prime minister has turned his attention to preparations for a Shiite war against the Sunnis to be launched as soon as the Americans are gone. He has lined up senior Shiite commanders in the Iraqi Army who are willing to lead an all-out offensive against the Sunnis in Baghdad and central and western Iraq.

US intelligence is perfectly aware of the imminent threat. It is according to them that –

[The Shiites] are preparing to capture large parts of Baghdad as well as Habaniya, Ramadi, Tikrit, Falluja and sections of Anbar Province, in order to achieve two objectives.

One is to defeat Sunni forces, forcing them to accept their loss of political influence and bow to his conditions, or else face more casualties, the loss of more territory in the cities and more debacles.

The second is to crush the power bases the Saudis are building in Iraq at great expense.

While the Saudis and the Syrians are spending money to buy off Maliki’s supporters, he plans to physically destroy the Sunni power centers in which they are investing.

The war could be protracted, and disastrous not only for Iraq:

His plans could ignite a Shiite-Sunni war lasting from one to two years up to late 2012 or early 2013. At least one to one-and-a-half million Iraqi Sunnis will be put to flight and flood neighboring Jordan which has neither the resources not the utilities to support that many refugees.

And while that civil war is raging, another could break out:

A second Iraqi community, the Kurds of the north, is in the midst of war preparations out of a bitter sense of betrayal by Washington.

They are furious over America quitting the country without solving the critical issue of Kirkuk and its oilfields. Calculating that the Shiites and Sunnis will be caught up in their own war and have no soldiers to spare for stopping them, the Kurds have lined up this strategic northern city for capture as soon as September.

They also plan to exploit the anticipated armed Sunni-Shiite feud to drive south and grab parts of central Iraq up to a line some 250 kilometers north of Baghdad.

Holding such towns as Saghir, Chay Khanah, Qarah Tappah, Muhsin Aziz and As-Sadiyah would be the key to Kurdish control of the eastern provinces bordering on Iran. …

And all the while Iran will be watching, ready to take advantage of the turmoil for its own ends:

Tehran is also eyeing rich spoils in Iraq’s post-American era.

The networks in Iraq run by the Iranian Intelligence Ministry, the MOIS, and the Revolutionary Guards Al Qods Brigades have joined forces with their Iraqi allies to take over the southern oilfields centering on the city of Basra, which account for about 60 percent of the country’s oil output.

This would be Iran’s payback for the energy sanctions President Barack Obama imposed in July.

Iran also covets the two holiest cities of the world Shiite movement, Karbala and Najaf. …

Have seven and a half years of  war in Iraq achieved nothing worth the blood and sacrifice? We wouldn’t say so. We think President Bush was right to invade Iraq. It was good that the tyrant Saddam Hussein was toppled, captured, and hanged. But perhaps that was as much as could be done, and the Iraqis should have been left then to flounder into their next calamity on their own.

In his speech to a largely Muslim audience at a Ramadan dinner at the White House on Friday August 13, 2010 [transcript here], Obama stressed points of US law and the values that inspired them to justify his support for the building of a mosque at the site of the 9/11 attack in New York. The speech was a ringing endorsement of religious tolerance. These are some of the statements he made:

Thomas Jefferson wrote that “all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion.” The First Amendment of our Constitution established the freedom of religion as the law of the land.

Indeed, over the course of our history, religion has flourished within our borders precisely because Americans have had the right to worship as they choose – including the right to believe in no religion at all. And it is a testament to the wisdom of our Founders that America remains deeply religious – a nation where the ability of peoples of different faiths to coexist peacefully and with mutual respect for one another stands in contrast to the religious conflict that persists around the globe.

As a citizen, and as President, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as anyone else in this country.

This is America, and our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakeable. The principle that people of all faiths are welcome in this country, and will not be treated differently by their government, is essential to who we are. The writ of our Founders must endure.

He implied that Islam  shares the American value of tolerance, custom of “diversity”, and principle of mutual respect:

Tonight, we are reminded that Ramadan is a celebration of a faith known for great diversity.

We can only achieve “liberty and justice for all” if we live by that one rule at the heart of every religion, including Islam—that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us.

That’s the so-called “Golden Rule”, holy writ for Jews and Christians. It’s also a sound principle for all civilized people to revere – and perhaps even to try and live by. But we doubt that you could find it stated or suggested in the Koran or any authoritative source of Islamic belief.

Obama, however, is not alone in alleging that the laws and values of America are compatible with the sharia law of Islam. One Muslim who supports his view, at least to some degree, is Feisal Abdul Rauf, the imam who is planning to build the mosque at Ground Zero.

In his book What’s Right With Islam is What’s Right With America: A New Vision for Muslims and the West, Chapter 3, America: A Sharia-Compliant State, Rauf writes:

What I am demonstrating is that the American political structure is Shariah compliant.

The principles of the Declaration and Constitution are consistent with divine ordinance, the particular method of government and a particular scheme of sociopolitical cooperation that follow from it are thereby invested with divine sovereignty and command an authority that comes from God.

But the claim is exposed as fiction by Dr Jal Maharaj. He has devised a questionnaire for Muslims seeking U.S. Citizenship, which illustrates the essential difference between American law and sharia. He lists the contradictions, and at the end of each item asks the imaginary Muslim applicant, “Do you repudiate this verse in the Qur’an [which contradicts US law]?”

Here is an abridged version of his document:

1. The Constitution of the United States requires equal legal rights for men and women. [Sharia does not.]

Qur’an, Surah 2: 282 says, in part: “call in to witness from among 
your men two witnesses; but if there are not two men, then one man 
and two women from among those whom you choose to be witnesses…” 
This is the basis for Shariah law which holds that in all cases of 
law the testimony of two women is necessary to equal that of one man.

2. US Law does not tolerate wife beating and regards it as a crime [while sharia orders it].

Qur’an, Surah 4: 34 says: “Men are the maintainers of women because 
Allah has made some of them to excel others and because they spend 
out of their property; the good women are therefore obedient, guarding the unseen as Allah has guarded. But as to those women on 
whose part you fear desertion, admonish them, and leave them alone 
in the sleeping-places and beat them …”

(3) Cruel and unusual punishment is illegal by provisions of the 
US Constitution.

This includes such retribution as physical mutilation and injury to 
the body.

Quran, Surah 5: 38 “As for the thief, both male and female, cut off 
their hands. … ”

Surah 5: 33 “The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger, and strive with might and main for mischief 
through the land is: execution, or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides, or exile from the land:”

(4) The age of marriage varies by state, but in all cases requires 
that a wife should be of child bearing age, that is, she should be 
post-pubescent, generally 15 or 16 years of age minimum, 17 or 18 in 
other jurisdictions.

Qur’an, Surah 65: 4 “As for your women who have despaired of further 
menstruating, if you are in doubt, then their waiting period is three 
months as well as those who have not yet menstruated. As for those 
who are pregnant, their term shall be the time they deliver their 
burden. Allah will ease (matters) by His order for whosoever fears 
Him.”

As a Muslim scholar named Maududi has said in his official [and incomprehensible! – JB] interpretation of this verse:

“Therefore, making mention of the waiting-period for girls who have not yet menstruated, clearly proves that it is not only permissible to give away the girl at this age but it is permissible for the husband to consummate marriage with her. Now, obviously no Muslim has 
the right to forbid a thing which the Qur’an has held as 
permissible.”

(5) The 13th Amendment to the US Constitution explicitly outlaws slavery in all forms, male or female.

Qur’an, Surah 4: 92 “And it does not behoove a believer to kill a 
believer except by mistake, and whoever kills a believer by mistake, 
he should free a believing slave, and blood-money should be paid, but 
he who cannot find a slave should fast for two months successively.” 
As scholars have pointed out, this verse assumes that Muslims will own slaves, or a significant number will, as did Muhammad, who owned slaves and bought and sold them. This is just one verse out of dozens that approve the institution of slavery and present in as an eternal condition of humanity.

(6) Hate speech is objectionable in American culture, and federal 
law regards such language as legally actionable, deserving punishment.

Qur’an, Surah 5: 60 – 65, says in part, speaking specifically of Jews 
as verse 59 makes clear, “Those whom God has cursed and with whom He 
has been angry, he has transformed them into apes and pigs, and those 
who serve the devil”

This is the source of Muslim demonstrators’ signs and chants that Jews are apes and pigs — the Qur’an itself. There are still other 
passages in Muhammad’s book which also are anti-Semitic — as the 
term is generally used in America to refer to anti-Jewish bigotry.

(7) War or any acts of physical violence, or threat of violence, with the intention of forcing people to convert to a religion is utterly abhorrent to American law and is explicitly outlawed by the 
First Amendment.

Qur’an, Surah 8: 12 “Thy Lord inspired the angels (with the 
message): “I am with you: give firmness to the Muslims, I will instill terror into the hearts 
of the unbelievers. Smite them on their necks and cut all their fingers off.”

This is one of 164 jihad verses in Muhammad’s book. Of this number 
approximately 100 are commandments to able-bodied Muslim men to physically fight against non-believers.

There is no reasonable doubt that the meaning of the 100 
jihad verses in question all promote violence against people of other 
faiths. The main objective is conversion but also important is 
terrorizing others so that they fear the wrath of Muslims.

(8) The First Amendment guarantees freedom of religion to all US 
citizens. No-one may prohibit someone from changing religion, or 
ceasing to belong to a religion. No-one may prohibit someone, in any 
appropriate setting, from seeking to convince someone else of the 
rightness of his or her faith and seeking to win converts. No 
believers of any faith are exempt from this provision of the First 
Amendment.

Qur’an, Surah 4:88-89 “Then what is the matter with you that you 
are divided into two parties about the hypocrites? Allah has cast 
them back (to disbelief )… Do you want to guide him whom Allah has 
made go astray?… They wish that you reject (Islam), and thus that 
you all become equal (like any other faith). So, take not… 
(friends) from them, till they emigrate in the way of Allah (to 
Muhammad). But if they turn away (from Islam), take hold of them 
and kill them wherever you find them.” One of several verses which 
deal with what Muslims characterize as apostasy. The penalty for what 
Americans insist is a God-given right, to free choice in religion, 
is death in an Islamic context.

(9) In America, free speech is sacrosanct and, while a people have 
the right to object to criticisms of their beliefs, and while others 
must obey libel or slander laws, everyone who so desires is free to 
make any criticisms of religion he or she wishes to make.

Qur’an, Surah 4: 140 “Allah will collect the hypocrites and those who defy faith – and put them in Hell.” This is one verse which is 
foundational to Shariah law penalizing all forms of what Muslims 
characterize as “blasphemy.” Depending on the “offense” and what 
country such law is enforced in, the punishment may be anything from 
jail time or banishment, to death.

What qualifies as blasphemy? A few examples–criticizing Islam making 
jokes about Muhammad or the Qur’an criticizing the Qur’an, … criticizing Muhammad, especially perceived insults 
of Muhammad criticizing such Muslim practices as saying prayers 5 times a day, … reporting objective facts that embarrass Muslims, such as the fact that Muhammad married Aisha, a 
girl of 6 and consummated the “marriage” when she was 9, creating an 
image of Muhammad or portraying him with an actor in a movie or stage play …

(10) The First Amendment guarantees freedom to worship any deity of 
your choice. Or freedom to be an Agnostic or Atheist. You may worship 
100 Gods or Goddesses, or just one, or none at all. All US citizens 
accept this principle but are free to express their opinions if they 
think someone else’s beliefs are wrong.

Qur’an 4: 116 “Verily Allah does not forgive setting up partners in 
worship with Him. But He forgives whom he pleases, sins other than 
that.” To be devoted to a Goddess, in other words, is, in Islam, the 
unforgivable sin. Also extremely serious is 2: 28, “How do you 
disbelieve in Allah, seeing that you were dead and he gave you life! 
Then he will cause you to die…”

In other words, Goddess worship [as in Hinduism] deserves death according to Islam, and Atheists also deserve death.

Dr Maharaj adds:

There are numerous other morally reprehensible passages in the 
Qur’an, all of which contravene American law and the freedoms 
guaranteed in the Constitution.

And declares that in his opinion:

Islam should be recognized for what 
it is, a subversive and criminal religion that functions in outright defiance of American law and which is based on principles which are totally incompatible with the US Constitution.

Quod erat demonstrandum.

Obama says that Islam has contributed much to the United States.

An editorial in the Washington Times disagrees:

Mr. Obama has used the occasion of Ramadan to rewrite U.S. history and give Islam a prominence in American annals that it has not earned.

In this year’s greeting, Mr. Obama said the rituals of Ramadan “remind us of the principles that we hold in common and Islam’s role in advancing justice, progress, tolerance and the dignity of all human beings. Ramadan is a celebration of a faith known for great diversity and racial equality. And here in the United States, Ramadan is a reminder that Islam has always been part of America and that American Muslims have made extraordinary contributions to our country.”

That Islam has had a major role in advancing justice, progress, tolerance and the dignity of all human beings may come as a surprise to Muslim women. Young Afghan girls who are having acid thrown in their faces on the way to school might want to offer their perspectives. That Islam is “known” for diversity and racial equality is also a bit of a reach. This certainly does not refer to religious diversity, which is nonexistent in many Muslim-majority states. …

Most puzzling is the president’s claim that “Islam has always been part of America.” Islam had no influence on the origins and development of the United States. It contributed nothing to early American political culture, art, literature, music or any other aspect of the early nation.

Throughout most of American history, the Muslim world was perceived as remote, alien and belligerent. Perhaps the president was thinking about the Barbary Pirates and their role in the founding of the U.S. Navy, or Andrew Jackson’s dispatch of frigates against Muslim pirates in Sumatra in the 1830s. Maybe he was recalling Rutherford B. Hayes’ 1880 statement regarding Morocco on “the necessity, in accordance with the humane and enlightened spirit of the age, of putting an end to the persecutions, which have been so prevalent in that country, of persons of a faith other than the Moslem, and especially of the Hebrew residents of Morocco.” Or Grover Cleveland’s 1896 comment on the continuing massacre of Armenian Christians: “We have been afflicted by continued and not infrequent reports of the wanton destruction of homes and the bloody butchery of men, women and children, made martyrs to their profession of Christian faith. … It so mars the humane and enlightened civilization that belongs to the close of the nineteenth century that it seems hardly possible that the earnest demand of good people throughout the Christian world for its corrective treatment will remain unanswered.”

The editorial concludes with a horror story:

It also is customary in the United States to search for obscure contributions made by in-vogue minority groups as a feel-good way of promoting inclusion. One of the earliest Muslims to come to the United States was a 17th-century Egyptian named Norsereddin, who settled in the Catskills and was described by one chronicler as “haughty, morose, unprincipled, cruel and dissipated.” Spurned by the princess of an Indian tribe that had befriended him, he managed through a subterfuge to poison her. He was later run down by the betrayed Indians, who burned him alive. It is not the kind of tale that makes it into politically correct history books.

How do Muslims who live in the US feel about the country Obama thinks they have helped to build and strengthen and glorify?

On May 19, 2010, some American Muslims debated whether they should be loyal to America.

You can read the pros and cons here at an interesting site called Muslims for a Safe America.

The cons:

1. American Muslims have no special relationship with (or obligation to) America. American-born Muslims have given no “implicit pledge” to be loyal to America. The “Oath of Allegiance” taken by naturalized American citizens is just a formality to gain citizenship; most people who take the “Oath of Allegiance” don’t even remember the words they recited. A Muslim’s true covenant (or pledge) is with God.

2. American Muslims can be loyal to both God and country, but only if that country is [ie if America becomes] an Islamic state, governed by Islamic law (Shariah), not a country that rejects God’s law and follows man-made laws.

3. American Muslims must be loyal to the worldwide Muslim community, not to Americans of other faiths who have rejected Islam and repeatedly elected political leaders who have caused great suffering in the Muslim world. God says, “O ye who believe! Take not my enemies and yours as friends (or protectors), offering them (your) love, even though they have rejected the Truth that has come to you, and have (on the contrary) driven out the Prophet and yourselves (from your homes), (simply) because ye believe in Allah your Lord!”

4. [An example to be followed.] Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) instructed a Muslim, Naim bin Masud, to place his loyalty to the Muslim community over his loyalty to his tribe. The tribe of Banu Ghatafan and its allies besieged the Muslims of Medina (in what came to be known as the Battle of the Trench). During that siege, Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) learned that Naim, a prominent member of Banu Ghatafan, had secretly become Muslim. The Prophet asked Naim to feed false information to his tribe, Banu Ghatafan, and its allies. Naim agreed. Naim’s false information helped create distrust and break the alliance between Banu Ghatafan and its allies, contributing to their failure to defeat the Muslims.

5. America and Islam have contradictory agendas and priorities, and they have different visions for the world. American Muslims cannot simultaneously support both sets of agendas, priorities, and visions.

6. American Muslims who loyally pay their taxes are funding whatever evil the American government does.

7. America is dar-ul-harb (the land of war), because America is at war with Muslims in various countries, oppresses Muslims in various countries (including in America), and seeks to dominate the Muslim world. America is dar-ul-kufr (the land of disbelief), because America has rejected Islam and actively opposes the establishment of a Caliphate in the Muslim world.

Nothing is said about a count of votes, so we don’t know which side had the greater support.

Remember all those pundits, many of them journalists and newspaper editors, who explained why they would not reprint the cartoons of Muhammad which appeared in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten in September 2005, and made world news because of the angry reaction of Muslims, by saying that while it was legal to publish them, it should not be done because to do so was offensive?

Have we heard from them again, saying that while it is legal to build a mosque beside Ground Zero, it should not be done because it is offensive?

If anyone has heard any of the same people repeating, in relation to this new controversy, the principle they so firmly and self-righteously avowed, please let us know.

If none do, could it be because they only don’t want to offend Muslims, and don’t give a damn if anyone else’s feelings are hurt and outraged, even though with far greater cause?

And could that be because their consciences were stimulated not so much by moral compunction as by sheer terror, since Muslims have been known to kill when offended at being depicted as killers?

Obama supports the plan to build a mosque, an Islamic victory monument, where Muslims slaughtered thousand of Americans. He made this clear last night, addressing Muslims while celebrating a Muslim feast. (Find the transcript of his speech here.) He could have used the occasion to ask the planners not to do this profoundly offensive thing. Instead he preached that America’s traditional and constitutional principle of religious tolerance demands that the mosque be built, implying that only bigots could object to it.

The 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center was carried out in the name of Islam, a cruel, intolerant, and aggressive religion.

By violently attacking the WTC and the Pentagon, Islam declared war on the United States of America.

In this continuing war, the elected president of  the United States has shown himself plainly to be on the side of his country’s enemy.

He has now explicitly demonstrated what his words and actions have long suggested, that he has a deep sympathy for Islam and a concomitant antipathy for America.

In response to President Obama’s declaration, Debra Burlingame of 9/11 Families for a Safe and Strong America issued a statement of which this is part:

Barack Obama has abandoned America at the place where America’s heart was broken nine years ago, and where her true values were on display for all to see. Since that dark day, Americans have been asked to bear the burden of defending those values, again and again and again. Now this president declares that the victims of 9/11 and their families must bear another burden. We must stand silent at the last place in America where 9/11 is still remembered with reverence or risk being called religious bigots.

Muslims have worshipped in New York without incident both before and after the attacks of 9/11. This controversy is not about religious freedom. 9/11 was more than a “deeply traumatic event,” it was an act of war. Building a 15-story mosque at Ground Zero is a deliberately provocative act that will precipitate more bloodshed in the name of Allah. Those who continue to target and kill American civilians and U.S. troops will see it as a symbol of their historic progress at the site of their most bloody victory. Demolishing a building that was damaged by wreckage from one of the hijacked planes in order to build a mosque and Islamic Center will further energize those who regard it as a ratification of their violent and divinely ordered mission: the spread of shariah law and its subjugation of all free people, including secular Muslims who come to this country fleeing that medieval ideology, which destroys lives and crushes the human spirit. …

Obama cannot feel for the victims of  9/11 and their survivors, or understand their anguish. He does not share the natural reaction of the nation as a whole to the attack. He is incapable of grasping its historical significance. All this marks him as entirely unsuited to his office.

The speech he made last night was treacherous, abominable, iniquitous, and should end his political life.