“Dear Mr. President, I must tell you that you are wrong about ISIL. You said ISIL speaks for no religion. I am a former Muslim. My dad is an imam. I have spent more than 20 years studying Islam. … I can tell you with confidence that ISIL speaks for Islam. … ISIL’s 10,000 members are all Muslims. … They come from different countries and have one common denominator: Islam. They are following Islam’s Prophet Muhammad in every detail. … They have called for a caliphate, which is a central doctrine in Sunni Islam.”
He continued: “I ask you, Mr. President, to stop being politically correct . . . .
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/07/opinion/sunday/thomas-l-friedman-how-isis-drives-muslims-from-islam.html – 12/6/2014.
(posted to YouTube 9/2/2014)
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Islam in political ascendancy is dangerous in all of its forms. This is my signature statement and I stand by my decade-long research and observations. Islam is now in political ascendancy. By limited example: a languishing Shi’a population in the seventeenth century was not a threat. A declining Ottoman Sultanate remained a threat to Armenian Christians – as noted by the massacre which came on the last political gasp. Islam in ascendancy in Egypt in the early 1930’s is just the shadow or foretelling of what we see today.
Islam, if behaving within the same parameters as practiced in the seventh century, functions as a cultural eraser. In ascendancy, all other civilizations, all democracies, are at risk.
*If this is to be disputed, why is it that we spend tens of billions of dollars to monitor, secure, cordon, and limit this political footprint?
Tammy Swofford
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As much has become apparent to much of Islam itself. While observation and squawk respond to atrocious behavior, the wherewithal to transform to meet such as ISIS seems lagging. The Yezidis are not near secure even though some have escaped the worst of immediate violence; some large portion of Sunni Islam remains focused on Sunni alignment with Islamist elements for gain as scripted; and some Shiites focus on a coming great Sunni-Shiite battle, as well they may considering the persecutions shaping that stance. My favorite trio “Putin-Assad-Khamenei” have an investment in sustaining medieval politics and as much spills out across the middle easy by way of their methods of attaining their wants.
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Yet in other forms, Islam shows the encroachment of soft power within the public corridors of the West and we do not deal with it as such.
Is it perhaps also a “hate crime” (I am uncomfortable with the term) to see movement toward Shari’ah compliance in the West? I believe so. If you love America, you will be an American first; not a hyphentated American. When hating our way of life, not embracing democratic human liberty, Shari’ah compliance in the public space is sought. Thus…. the veiled woman at a Dallas mall that does one billion dollar in sales per annum is protected in her “right” to hate our way of life. I fought this battle with management last week and lost. Meanwhile, a veiled woman in Abu Dhabi lies in wait (Islamic term) in an upscale mall bathroom and stabs an American teacher to death. This is Islam. It is violent, coercive, expansive and non-assimilative when practiced as it was hatched in the seventh century.
No apology.
Tammy
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Good to read Tammy’s words.
She coined the phrase that America is the prize.
The nazis, soviets, and now some islamists are chasing after a new Lebensraum called America this time.
Let us find the best defense, without the usual big waste.
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