So I was interested to find this blog. I've had to cut and paste as there is a problem with the URL and I cannot do it as an imbedded link (if that is the sort of thing I mean anyway). See if it helps.......
BABY, I DON'T CAIR
A caller to the Hewitt show said that the silence and inaction of mainstream Muslims towards Islamic-inspired terror was “the elephant in the room,” and my immediate thought: elephant? More like a mule. It just looks like an elephant because it’s wearing a bulky coat.Hugh had on Hussam Ayloush, a California CAIR spokesman. Others have taken him to task for the
first interview, which I too thought was somewhat . . . credulous. Hussam was reasonable and mild for the most part, but he choked when it came to simple questions like the right of Israel to exist. Then he sounded like someone trying to gargle a Mozart aria while choking on a fishbone, thinking that everyone would merely think he had a sore throat. Schooled and prepped in the job of PR, it was as if he still could not grasp the importance of covering up his true feelings on this issue. He was incapable of quality dissembling.It made me realize something, but I didn't quite know how to put it. Yet.Hussam came back the next day, matched with Frank Gaffney, who knows the subject well. Many telling moments, but the one that made me sigh in despair was Hussam’s response to Gaffney’s recitation of an FBI intercept of a meeting of CAIR’s founders. (Details and a transcript will, no doubt, show up at radioblogger.com; say a rosary for Duane’s
blistered fingers) Hussam defaulted to the grievance posture, complaining that all Muslims had to be tarred with this brush, be profiled as terrorists, etc. In the end, you came away with three or four swords embedded in a sea of honey pudding. If, in the end, he cannot say “Of course” when asked if Israel has the
right to exist, cannot condemn the ‘48 and ‘73 wars, and retreats to victim status when confronted about the questionable actions of CAIR members, well, are we required to shrug and point out that at least he brought a nice dessert? Not to say that CAIR represents all Muslims in America. Not to say most Muslims
oppose Israel. Not to say not to say not to say etc., and all rest of the interminable disclaimers one is required to offer while approaching the elephant. Not to say many haven’t spoken up and denounced terrorism – although when the denunciation is followed by “whether it is committed by one side or by the Israelis,” I am less inclined to put that one in the “Condemn” column. And when one lists the numbers of Islamicist attacks over the last few years and is met with “Timothy McVeigh” and “Eric Rudolph” (or Hitler, for Odin's sake) one suspects your interlocutor lacks perspective. As well as facts. Or perhaps there
something else at work. Could it be the old problem of is harmonious fact-sets. Noncontiguous information streams. At the heart of the matter, we may simply lack the terms to forge consensus. a different set of facts . . . and a different understanding of the value of a fact. This isn’t a pleasant thought, because it might mean that rapprochment isn’t likely, and confused, mistrustful coexistance is all we can hope for. (As if most of human history has been different, but that’s another story.) From the comments section of Froggy uminations:Hugh Hewitt is one of the finest talk show hosts on the air today. I love his show. However, like all "respectable" main stream conservatives (Dubya included) he is so desperate to find "moderate" Muslim leaders to display that he had to pull CAIR's wacko spokesman out of the gutter.I wouldn’t go so far with the gutter comment; CAIR is board-room penthouse material, smooth and polished. But I understand what the commenter
meant; there’s a deep and almost anguished desire to find moderate Muslims who are indistinguishable from Unitarians. And find them by the millions. But alas.When defenders like Hussam make the standard dismissal – they are not acting in the name of Islam, because Islam forbids such things – they makes a strategic mistake. No one really believes him. Islam may forbid it here, but it may well permit it over here. A preacher may forbid it in Michigan mosque, but he may well demand it in a Saudi one. In short: the denials ring false. Most of them, anyway. When I hear the spokesmen and apologists I cannot shake the feeling that they’re holding something back. Not telling the whole story. Not saying something that might be true but is inconvenient to admit to the occupants to the House of War.What might that be?Googling around tonight, I found this simple description of Islam: at submission.org1. What is Islam?That is the most misunderstood Word. It simply means submission. Anyone submitting to the one God is practicing Islam and is a Muslim or a Submitter. (Quran 3:19, 3:85, 21:92)2. One God? Which God? Allah?Yes, but Allah is simply an Arabic word meaning 'The One God', that being the Creator of the Universe. (Quran 2:255). Arab Christians and Jews also use the same word (Allah) for God.A verse in The Quran says "Such is God your Lord, there is no god except He, The Creator of all
things. You shall worship Him alone..." (Quran 6:102). This is The same God that Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad worshipped.3. So anyone who submits to Allah or God is a Muslim?Yes. Again Islam means submission. Anyone
who submits to the One God, believes in the Hereafter and leads a righteous life is called a Muslim or Submitter. (Quran 2:62)By this logical construction, all Christians are Muslims. Of course the hardcore death-cult sects believe that you have to be a Muslim to be right with Allah, you have to pray five times a day,
you have to accept shar’ia, and you have to ululate with joy when the head of a Jew gets sawed off on general principle. Leave them aside for a moment, if you can. What if the heart of moderate Islam consists of a frustration with the stubborn refusal of the People of the Book to realize that they are really
Muslims, and just don’t know it yet?Before we all got into the big messy incoherent debate about Islam – before the Towers thundered down, in other words – most Christians regarded Islam as another path to God. Mistaken, of course, what with their ideas about Christ getting off the cross and all that. But the devil’s in the details; nobody here but us monotheists, and we all in the end yearn towards the same God. If some wanted to move Muslims to Christianity, though, it involved a change in fundamental attitudes, to say the least; it meant a different channel to God. Dial back, forget about Mo, dig this dude from
Bethlelem. Christianity is the proper route; Islam is a latter detour.That’s different from believing that Christianity is a rutted road running parallel to Islam, which after all came later and thus filled in the gaps, answered the questions, nailed it down. The final prophet has spoken. Imagine you’re a spokesman for a religion, and you have to appeal to the People of the Book, set their minds at ease. You could never tell them that they’re already Muslims. It would be impolitic and counterproductive to tell them what they so dearly need
to know, because you suspect that when you tell a Christian that he’s really a Muslim, he might not react well. O the frustration. But what do I know. I had long conversations about Islam and Christianity with cabbies in DC, and they always ended with happy faces and salaam and go in peace. I’ve no doubt millions
and millions of Muslims are content to let the Christians go about their errant path, content that in the end a just God will say okay, you crazy lug, you’re in. Just as millions of Christians are willing to say Koran, Shmoran, you’re just and upright and believe in the One Big Guy, meet you at the Old Country
Buffet in the sky. Bacon bits on my side, hummus on yours, whatever. But when you have your Clash of Civilizations, people retreat. MOOOON GODDDD! Oh yeah? Cough up the dhimmi tax, kaffir! The point is not to get to that point. We are
seriously need in live-and-let-live juice applied globally by aerosol spray, the sort of thing that makes people swallow big chunky doctrinal differences and concentrate simply on the idea of a God who is out of the smiting business for the time being. Take that as your daily verse: smite not. And the first one who
says “but” gets sent howling down to hell? Smite not. Tomorrow, smite we might. After a day of not smiting we might actually refocus and agree who is smite-worthy, who truly profanes God’s gifts. But today? Smite-free.It was a good start when President Bush had a revered Imam speak at the National
Cathedral after 9/11. Now it would be nice for the Saudis to invite the Pope to speak at Mecca. Ball’s in your court, guys.
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