Moderate Muslims

A friend of mine, who was killed in The World Trade Center on 9/11, wrote an amazingly ironic passage in a letter from 1987 while traveling in Indonesia.   His travel companion was an Israeli/New Zealander named David who was using his New Zealand passport because Indonesia didn't allow Israeli citizens into the country.  Carl wrote, "On arriving, I noted that they [the Indonesians] seemed to be laid back Muslims, which David implied was impossible."

I'd never seen that letter until this year.   It took my breath away. 

I bring this up in the context of the most recent terror attacks and the political debate about what to do with Muslim immigration and refugees.

Perhaps it all boils down to whether one has a Carl view, or a David view, of Islam?

             

Memory Hole - 9/11 Edition

Today, being the fifteenth anniversary of 9/11, I'd like to remind folks that the 9/11 attack was conceived, planned, funded, staffed, trained, and scheduled, during the last Clinton administration. Osama bin Laden was well known to the Clintons, al Qaeda had declared war on the U.S., they had attacked the U.S., and there were multiple foregone opportunities to take them out.  The jihad had already tried once to bring down the World Trade Center towers during the Clinton administration in 1993.

That's the kind of excellent vision and competence we would be getting with a new Clinton administration.

So could Donald Trump be any better?  Here's what he said almost two years before 9/11:

“I really am convinced we’re in danger of the sort of terrorist attacks that will make the bombing of the Trade Center look like kids playing with firecrackers,” wrote Trump in his 2000 book, The America We Deserve. “No sensible analyst rejects this possibility, and plenty of them, like me, are not wondering if but when it will happen.” 

Trump even mentions Osama bin Laden by name, in a criticism of an American foreign policy that too quickly jumps from one crisis to the next. 

“One day we’re told that a shadowy figure with no fixed address named Osama bin-Laden is public enemy number one, and U.S. jetfighters lay waste to his camp in Afghanistan,” The Donald wrote. “He escapes back under some rock, and a few news cycles later it’s on to a new enemy and new crisis.”  

           Source: Buzzfeed

Also remember, the Obama/Clinton team, despite their claims, had nothing to do with getting bin Laden. This is like the rooster claiming responsibility for the sunrise.  Obama and Hillary opposed every single policy set in motion by the George W. Bush administration that actually led to the successful raid on bin Laden's compound in Afghanistan.

As I've stated many times before, my Labradoodle had more to do with getting bin Laden than Barack Hussein Obama, peace be upon him, or Hillary Rodham Clinton:





     

Ted Cruz is Awesome! X

Donald Trump won hands-down over Ted Cruz on the "New York Values" exchange during Thursday's debate when he invoked 9/11.  It was evidence of Trump's evolving genius as a politician. Yet, I'm a constitutionalist, and therefore a natural supporter of the less skilled Cruz.  Hence, this post is not about Trump's victory, but Cruz's adept "apology" to the people of NY after the debate.  He did an awesome job of turning lemons into lemonade.

The Syrian Refugee Problem - Part 1

Battle lines have been drawn on the issue of Syrian refugees.  (Whether or not the refugees are actually from Syria is beside the point.)  The questions everyone is struggling with are these:

• Are the refugees fleeing a war?
• Are they coming here for a better life?
• Do we owe them a better life? 
• Are they coming here to conquer us?  
• Is coming here the best way for them to have a better life?
• Can we know they are not terrorists?
• Can we discriminate against refugees based on religion?
• Does the West have an obligation to absorb every civil war torn population?

All good questions.  Before I answer them, please watch some Syrians sing about one of their favorite events:  

(YouTube has deleted this content, and as we now know this censorship is often done at the direction of the U.S. government in direct violation of the First Amendment to The Constitution of The United States.)



I'll answer the questions in my next post - Part 2.

The Syrian Refugee Problem - Part-2

Evan Sayet's 9/11 Conversion

Evan Sayet tells his 9/11 story and explains his conversion from liberal to "9/13 conservative".



This is just a short clip from an hour long speech titled "How Modern Liberals Think".  Watch the whole speech here.

Anatomy of a Myth

If I were to bet you a million dollars, could you tell me which President famously asked Americans to fight terrorism by “going shopping”? (Please email me immediately if you want to take this bet and don’t read on!)

Of course I’d win this bet because no American President including George W Bush ever said those words and the reason you think he did is because of Time Magazine.

Here is the line from the Time Magazine article from September 21, 2001 analyzing Bush’s speech from a few days earlier:

And for God's sake keep shopping — "I ask your continued participation and confidence in the American economy" — and keep praying:

Time Magazine said “keep shopping” not George W Bush. Notice where the quotes are.
Here's the whole enchilada:
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,175757,00.html

Bush did once utter the words "I encourage you all to shop even more!" But this was in 2006 while he was ribbing reporters during the Christmas shopping season and the context was the economy and the early Christmas retail numbers!

I bring this all up because I hear this lie repeated constantly and it stuck in my craw when I heard it this week from a big Democrat in the context of how great Obama was compared to Bush “who just asked Americans to go shopping!”

But this is nothing new. Much of what we know, just ain’t so when it comes from indirect and filtered sources. So much of what we're fed by the pop-media is little more than agenda driven propaganda.  Constant repetition keeps the “myth train” rolling on and on and on. I’d have much more faith in our Democracy if fewer people were sucked-in by these tactics.

One other thing I’d add to this subject is a speech Bush made to airline employees also in September 2001 where he asked Americans to continue flying for business and tourism and to "go to Disney World", etc. Remember that between the 9/11 attacks and the anthrax attacks, the whole economy including retail and tourism came to an abrupt standstill. There were even widespread reports of anthrax being introduced into mall air systems! What President would not use the bully pulpit to ask Americans for “continued participation and confidence in the American economy”? Think about it…
UPDATE:  Oh, and you owe me a million dollars.