Allah Revisited

In a piece that I called Katy Perry & Allah, I probably sounded like an enemy of Muslims.  I suggested that American Muslims needed to get used to being discriminated against, at least individually and personally (rather than officially by the government).  But my whole drift was that they could not expect to have their prophet Mohammad respected, not as they wanted him to be, not by the American people.  Because individual freedom of expression is America’s creed (not just YOUR freedom, but everyone’s); what makes us American more than anything else, is our RIGHT to offend, to blaspheme, to insult, to disparage.  And I was suggesting that this lack of “respect” was part of a period of indoctrination that might last a hundred years or more; ask a black man how long it will last that they won’t respect you, and he will say with some justice: “it never ends, white Americans are all alike, bigoted as hell.”  Seen the movie The Gangs of New York yet?  I recommend it, it will give a real face to American intolerance.  But it will allow you to breathe easier about it.  Really!

So what am I here for this time?  To associate myself with President Obama’s sentiments, and not with Donald Trump’s.  And to honor the New York tabloid Daily News (NOT a liberal rag) for its graphic eloquence!

I am here to tell American Muslims to stop getting annoyed that every American doesn’t respect you, your woman’s burkas, your holy Quran and your precious prophet: you have lots to be disrespected for; we will blaspheme and you will just have to get used to it because we are America, the land of freedom of speech.  I am here to tell you that you shouldn’t worry about Donald Trump (a pretty popular Presidential candidate) and his scurrilous notion that we should stop letting Muslims into this great and righteous nation of immigrants; rather worry about how many Americans will rally around his flag and make his hellish dream a reality.  So, pray for his defeat, work for his defeat!

 

I am here to tell my fellow American non-Muslims that officially discriminating against Muslims – as Trump wants us to do – will strengthen the cause of Muslims who hate us (radical Islamists?  Islamic terrorists?) because we hate Muslims, a self-fulfilling prophecy.  If Trump only knew: he is wishing for a 4^th Crusade.  Don’t help him out.  No one wins in a war between civilizations, not in our nuclear age.  Be careful what you wish for, be careful of the unintended consequences of what you wish for.

What did the President say?  That we must not make war (“boots on the ground”) on those who want us to make war on them; that would feed their purposes not ours.  Do you remember the Vietnam War?  We lost.  Iraq?  Looks like we lost.  Why did we lose?  Because we cut and ran.  We decided to stop throwing good money after bad, to use an expression from poker.  We might have won, if we had been willing to stay there and fight indefinitely, and if we were willing to go broke to win.  Wisdom and the acknowledgment that we are not all-powerful prevailed and saved us from ourselves.  The problem with fighting “radical Islam” is: it is not a country that we can declare war on, it is not a place on the map, with agreed-on borders.  Their troops will move to where we are not sending our troops.  Hit and run is their main tactic (compare our own Revolutionary War).  The only way to win this non-war war is to outsmart them.  Intelligence.  Technology.  We can have an arms race in communications.  Send more troops?  While we can’t pay to fix our roads and bridges?  While we send our own college kids to the poor-house?

"Boots on the ground"?  I am not saying, no, never.  I am saying that a ground war in an alien land against an enemy without borders is a bad idea, it is asking to be whupped.  Americans did not "beat" the British back in Revolutionary times.  The Brits were just foolish to imagine that we would fight them the way they wanted to fight us.  As long as we played a waiting game, we were bound to win.  It is a lesson we should have learned in Vietnam, except for all those Americans who swear we would have prevailed had we really tried harder.  And North Vietnam had borders!  So, we have to be very careful when we send in "boots on the ground" that we don't end up making some old mistakes over and over again, at the cost of immeasurable blood and treasure.

Donald Trump has no core beliefs.  He floats these outrageous trial balloons to see how many Americans salute.  Don’t be one of his guinea pigs.

And for those of my readers who hate President Obama, and "everything he stands for," please do not take this endorsement of the essence of one policy position as an endorsement of any other policy that he may have proposed (as I am an independent SOB).

Another brilliant and devastating cover from the NY tabloid Daily News!  As for these politicians – all Republicans this time – after a while what can you say besides: "What did you expect?"  And those who voted them into office will probably return them to office.  But what do they know?  And so it goes.