For instance, why shouldn't Albertson's put lamb and hummus on sale during Ramadan?

Mmm... lamb and hummus. I'm all for that!

Have you ever read anything so disingenuous?

"Many Muslim core values — freedom, justice and peace ..." Unfortunately, Khan's view of Islam is not shared by most Moslems and I don't really appreciate being chided, even as gently as this article does, that we don't treat Moslems fairly.

Khan is confusing cause and effect. Cause: Moslems terrorists kill our people and the Moslem community doesn't condemn them roundly and unequivocally -- Effect: We don't feel warm and cuddly towardd them.

Perhaps if he or she spoke to that truth, we'd have more reason to take the complaints in this article more seriously.

No sales on lamb during Ramadan? Yes, that's the problem all right!

What percentage of Muslims are terrorists? Less that 1%? Should we be judged by Tim McVeigh's actions?

What's 1% of a billion? What percentage of the German population in WW2 were SS? Of the Japanese, what percentage attacked Pearl Harbor?

A lot of what stores do and don't stock for religous holidays depends on area demographics and shelf space.

In Texas, the new mega-supermarkets are far more likely to stock Kosher items, even in areas with a small Jewish population, because they have the space for it now. Before, the stores had to have a higher percentage of people living in the area to keep those items on display, because their available space for the faster selling products was less.

The same would be true for foods centered around Muslim holidays -- find an area with a relatively high Muslim population (Detroit, for example) and those items will likely be in stock; in areas with smaller populations, they would likely show up only in the biggest markets, or in specialty food outlets.

Echoing AllenS and erp, it's not that most Muslims are active terrorists, it's that most of them are sympathetic towards the terrorists.

It's understandable, given that most Muslims are Arabs, Persians, and Northern Africans, and none of those cultures have turned out to be particularly successful, so the terrorists are in effect saying "we matter" on behalf of those failing cultures, even if it's in a negative way.

It just doesn't endear Muslims to the world's dominant culture, as we exterminate Muslim terrorists and supporters, and weep for the hundreds of thousands of people maimed and killed due to the totally ineffective death spasms of Middle Eastern/Northern African cultures.

Indeed, it's possible that we're witnessing the death throes of Islam itself, since if Orrin's analysis is correct, the "Muslim" religion that survives the 21st century will be a clone of Christianity.

Posted by: Michael Herdegen at December 25, 2005 1:16 PM

Monsignor Walter Brandmüller, president of the Pontifical Committee for Historical Sciences, spoke of the "core values" of Islam at the Pontifical Lateran University on Dec 13th:

Christianity and Islam in History

We won't see those comments in the American media. And God help any Republican who repeats them. The PC Cheka would destroy him.

We're not judged by McVeigh because we, the people, didn't stand by and tacitly approve of the bombing, nor did we shoot off guns and dance in the streets in glee.

The bombing was roundly denounced and we, the people, executed the perpetrator.

The problem is that most of America's fundamentalists equivocate dissent with terrorism; with us or against us. So it leaves Muslims in kind of a hard spot.

Doesn't Eid al Fitr, occur at the end of November;
(ie: at the time of the Pantano shooting in the
Fallujah mosque)

Interesting argticle, and it sounds like this Brandmuller guy's got groggy's number:

"The so-called “secularism” that would silence all the monotheistic religions through accusations of fundamentalism"

As for when they occur— Each year the Muslim holidays come about 11 days earlier in the seasons that the previous, resulting in their rotating through the year on a 30 year cycle. This is because the Islamic calendar, unlike any other culture's calendar, is tied solely to the moon, and has only 354 or 355 days per year. (Allah, in yet another of his snubs to the Jews, proclaimed that "intercalating a month is adding to unbelief." (Sura 9, 37) )

So by not being tied to any exact date or short period of time (Jewish holidays, Easter or even Chinese New Year, for the latter) is another impediment to acceptance of Islamic holidays. The problem lies in their culture's choice of calendar and its rejection of the idea of seasonal repetition.

(Which is also a reason to remember that if there is to ever be an anniversary "celebration" of 11 September 2001, it won't be on that date, but on 22 Jumada ath-Thani (next being 19 July 2006) instead.)

Raoul Ortega...He certainly does. But the charge of "fundamentalism" and the "progressives" contention that Christians are, anyday now, going to intitute their version of Shia law is self-defeating as the majority of Americans fall into that slander.

For instance, according to a recent The New York Times article, Evangelicals now include Catholics.

Bottom line is anyone who isn't a Howard Dean/Michael Moore/Jim Wallis type and is Christian is a "fundamentalist" and a grave danger to the Republic.

Here is another excellent article from Chiesa. Guess what? " The Holy See consistently defined, not as an “occupation,” but as a “mission of peace,” the presence of Western troops in Iraq in defense of the nascent democracy. . . .(and has) demanded that the soldiers remain in Iraq as long as necessary, to safeguard the formation of a new order, free and peaceful . . ."

We certainly don't read about that in the New York Times, do we?

Most Irish and Jews were sympathetic to terrorism in the 20th century, they outgrew it.

erp:

It was conservatives calling the feds jack-booted thugs and trying to stop the Clinton Administration from exercising the same national security powers that W uses now against Islamicists. It's no conicidence the GOP Senators trying to kill the Patriot Act are being led by an Idahoan.

David:

We Reformed the Catholic Church without too much trouble, we'll Reform Islam.

Allen:

Majorities. If Islamicists could field a military the size of the Nazis or Tojo they'd be worth taking seriously.

oj,

Don't give me any majorities crap. 19 suiciders killed more people than the Japanese did at Pearl Harbor. It will only take a handful to deliver the next terrorist attack on us. This war that we are in right now, is not like any war we have fought before. Human waves of enemy infantry trying to take Omaha or Des Moines, will not happen.

Allen:

The Japanese happily raped and murdered hundreds of thousands just at Nanking and the Holocaust required a phenomenal level of co-operation from a substantial portion of the German population. There Islamicists aren't popular enough control any states where they could commit such systematic crimes and there aren't enough Muslim extremists to commit such personal crimes (Darfur is something of an exception, though there it's Arabs raping black Muslims). They can only pull one-offs.

I'm sorry, but this article is silly. I heard a commentary on NPR a few weeks ago, that I assume is by the same person. Muslims make up something on the order of 1% of the population, right? And Christians are something like 85% or more, depending on how the question is asked. So why would the holidays of the former be treated similarly to those of the latter? If I moved to Qatar, it would be absurd of me to expect Christmas to be celebrated the same as it is in America, just so I wouldn't feel marginalized.

oj. There are any numbers of kooks and nuts on what the media calls the right, but I don't classify them as conservative any more than I classify fascists as conservative.

GOP senators come in all persuasions, some too far left (Rinos) and some too far right. While I trust Bush explicitly not be violate his position of trust, I don't trust Clinton not have violated his position for personal gain, so perhaps that senator from Idaho knew what he was doing. I think the Barrett Report will confirm the Clinton interpretation of presidential power gone mad.

My contention is while the vast majority of Moslems won't fly planes into buildings or strap explosives around the children's waists, they don't condemn those that do so either. That's the difference.

If the Moslems living in the U.S. want to be treated like just any other American, they should be, as the president said, hearts and minds with us, if not, then they're with the terrorists.

-- I don't share her definition of "peace."

--
Many non-Christians merely want their religious holidays to receive the same recognition and acceptance as Christmas.

When the Magic Kingdom gives US a church or few, then we'll talk.

Besides, and Eid sale at Macy's???

Isn't that haram?

That would send some turbans twirling.

erp:

You don't consider extremist conservatives to be part of the Right but do consider extremist Islamicists to be exemplars of Islam? Why, other than parochialism?

Mr. Judd;

Because of, as has clearly been stated, the reaction of the majority to the actions of the lunatic fringe. You keep trying to avoid that point but it's the heart of the matter. When the Ummah reacts to Islamic terror the way Middle America reacted to Timothy McVeigh, then it will be just prejudice.

AOG:

They do when the terrorists blow up Muslims, as in Jordan, just as we only minded about the militia movement when they blew up a building any of us could have been in. If Tim McVeigh had blown up the UN building he'd be a hero on the Right.

OJ, you are saying then that most American Christians would applaud a private citizen like McVeigh killing innocent citizens in Cairo, or Teheran. I think you know your wrong. You have no basis to suggest any such thing.

McVeigh, a hero of the right if he blew up the UN building? Equally absurd. Or you are using the term "Right" in a very twisted manner.

h:

Nne of us have minded killing 530,000 Iraqis the last 15 years.

oj. I thought I was clear about this. I don't classify extremists like skin heads and white supremacists who promote violence as rightwing or conservative. Similarly despite media foolishness, fascists aren't rightwing nor conservative either.

Neither do I consider extremist Islamicists to be exemplars of Islam and the gentlemen above have further clarified that position in their usual brilliant manner.

You are right about one thing. I am shamelessly parochial -- about the United States of America, land of the free and home of the brave.

Mr. Judd;

The counter examples are many, but I'll just pick two.

The first is a subject you visit often, the "Minutemen" along the southern US border. Note how carefully they have to refrain from actually hurting anyone and how fast the movement would collapse should they blow up even a single busload of immigrants.

The second is American support for the IRA, which even during its height had to carefully claim that it wasn't supporting the violent side, on the humanitarian and political wings. This was obviously bogus to people who paid attention but yet the need to conceal was clear from the attempt.

So, no, I don't see the West openly supporting anything close to the terror that was supported by places like Jordan until Jordanians got blown up.

AOG/erp:

To be realistic here, you have to judge the level of their outspokeness against their tradition of speaking out. Most of these people come from societies in which for hundreds of years it would have been very dangerous to speak out too loudly about lousy garbage service. To survive and protect your family, you close your eyes and distance yourself and repeat the minimum rote cant you need to to survive the fanatics. Measured against the average American town hall, it's pathetic, but against their own traditions, the speaking out and voting we have seen in the past few years in conditions of extreme danger to self and family is nothing short of astounding and deserving of admiration. I'd like to believe I'd do the same, but I've never been so tested.

This argument comes up a lot about the Holocaust, i.e. "How did they let it happen?" It's a question that has formed Germany ever since and, to their credit, they've done pretty well in answering, but it takes generations to instill a democratic soul and sense of collective civic responsibility that checks absolute power. North Americans who sniff that every decent burgher in Nazi Germany should have stormed the trains or organized public protests are living in fantasy land and really don't understand just what totalitarianism means. Nor freedom.

When Bush promised a long war, he presumably wasn't just talking about battles. There are plenty of good reasons to keep our eyes well peeled and our powder dry, but also plenty of good ones to embrace the majority (especially here) wholeheartedly.

While I disagree with Orrin's larger point, on the specific issue of the West supporting terror it should be noted that the U.S. have knowingly, willingly, and near-randomly killed 400,000 - 600,000 mostly innocent people in an effort to enforce their geopolitical will since Jan. '91, a sum that all terrorists, of any stripe, everywhere, have no possibility of jointly matching.

What happened in Jordan was indeed a horror, but again, U.S. warplanes have accidentally bombed wedding parties in both Afghanistan and Iraq, killing hundreds of revelers.

In terms of ultimate goals we are right and they are wrong, but we should not pretend that we are less willing to kill.

In fact, their overt bloodthirstiness is less appalling than the indifference and ignorance which characterize the American public's attitude towards the death of wogs, as long as "our boys" aren't getting killed in large numbers.

Posted by: Michael Herdegen at December 26, 2005 6:36 AM

erp:

As long as we're agreed that this was not accurate:

"Have you ever read anything so disingenuous?

"Many Muslim core values — freedom, justice and peace ..." Unfortunately, Khan's view of Islam is not shared by most Moslems..."

AOG:

The Minutemen are afraid of the government, not of popular opinion. No one minds the number of immigrants who die trying to get here and a group executing aliens at the border would have just as much popular support as the Minutemen. The feds would jail them though.

As to the IRA you lost me after "obviously bogus"...

We kept sanctions in place for 12 years and killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, trying to terrorize Iraq into changing its behavior.

I'm getting an Excedrin headache. What's the discussion about now? I thought the argument was with an article in which a Moslem decries that Islam isn't being treated in as a equitable manner as the other major religions in the U.S. by our public schools and supermarkets as well as our department stores. My contention is that the Moslem community have not behaved like loyal Americans, but like cheerleaders for terrorism.

Now the discussion has moved on to our having killed hundreds of thousands to impose our will? If that's true, we've done a pretty poor job of it. Other than the Anglosphere and few other enlightened countries, we stand alone. If we wanted to impose our will, the whole globe would be living under the stars and stripes.

The minutemen are afraid of the government? Unless the media have become the government, that's a ridiculous statement. The government (Bush) can't even stop the media from exposing leaked information that jeopardizes our intelligence gathering. Any movement by the government on the minutemen will bring the wrath of we, the people, on their heads.

oj. What are we agreeing to? Are we agreeing that the statement "freedom, peace and justice and Islam" is the most disingenuous statement you ever heard? Or are we be agreeing that it isn't?

If we wanted to impose our will, the whole globe would be living under the stars and stripes.

This is true, but it would require an ENORMOUS effort, and a corresponding amount of desire, to do so.

We might have to get nuked, to unleash that much passion.

Posted by: Michael Herdegen at December 26, 2005 10:32 AM

Of course we are forcing the entire world do adopt our social and political structures.

oj. How impose? Per dictionary.com, Impose: establish or apply as compulsory; levy; apply or make prevail by or as if by authority; obtrude or force on another or others. We don't impose our social and political structures on the rest of world. They want what we have because it's obvious that our way life offers freedom and prosperity.

Michael, I didn't mean we should have the whole world living under the stars and stripes, I merely said, if we wanted to, we could.

Mr. Burnett;

That's a fair point, but it leaves the currently observed situation the same. I consider still an open question whether Islam can be reformed to be compatible with the End of History. But even if Islam can't, that doesn't mean the societies of which you write cannot. It is for precisely that reason I support the current efforts to do so. But those efforts aren't helped by making excuses. We need to be forthright on what is expected and the current behavior in this regard is not.

What amuses me is OJ's doublethink of

• Islam doesn't need reform because the Ummah doesn't behave differently than we do
• Islam will be reformed by our current efforts

Mr. Judd;

I meant only that aid to Sien Fein and its ilk was support for terror, no matter how it was dressed up for public relations purposes.

I think Americans would be more accepting of the idea that Islam's core values were freedom, justice, and peace if they were seen to any substantial degree in Muslim countries. Instead, we see despotism, tyranny, and violence. This is not entirely fair to ordinary Muslims nor true for a variety of reasons, but there is plenty of legitimate reasons why non-Muslims are wary of Islam.

The other issue is that Muslims in America came to a Christian country. By coming, they are implicitly agreeing to live in a society with Christian celebrations and culture. Americans, however, did not leave their country to live in an Islamic one. Thus, there is more resistance to seeing accomodation of another culture. Furthermore, that same religious culture explicitly denies the majority religion of America the same rights in Islamic countries because of Sharia that it seeks for its own in America. America is tolerant, but the incorporation of new traditions in the public square is always a slow process.

The actual religious tradition and practice of most Muslims in America is probably totally copacetic to America, but there's enough out there to give credence to fears. It would be better for Muslims hoping for more assimilation to demonstrate a complete break with those elements non-Muslims are concerned about, rather than some vague speech that Islam is just dandy and the problem is with non-Muslims for not knowing that.