PrintAugust 25, 2010
Dhimmis are Dummies
If someone had taken a poll on September 12, 2001 asking Americans if they believed there was any possibility that less than a decade later America would be governed by a president of Muslim descent, with a Muslim middle name, surrounded by Muslim friends and advisors, a president who sat in a house of worship in which "Goddamn America" was spewed from the pulpit, and who would support the building of a Muslim house of worship on the site of the worst terrorist attack on US soil in the history of the country, I would venture to guess that over 90% of the respondents would have answered with a resounding "No!"
Yet here we are, nine years later, with just that scenario and 24% of Americans actually believing that their president is a closet Muslim. No matter what Americans now believe, twenty months into this "transformational" presidency, the relevant question is whether Obama entered the White House with biases that impact on his ability to govern in a manner that is in the best interests of the country and its citizens.
While it is clear that Obama entered office with an ideologically driven agenda, what is only now becoming apparent is that his far left, socialist beliefs are only part of what inspire him to pursue policies that are harmful to the country. It is the combination of his progressivism and Obama's ties to the Muslim world that have shaped his values. Lump in his hubristic notion that he has the ability to heal the decades long divide between the West and the Muslim world -- and we end up with a foreign policy turning America into a "dhimmi" country.[i] Americans are becoming subservient to a Muslim friendly government at the expense of a secure future.
Much has been written about Obama's Muslim outreach that began in his first moments in office with his first official phone call to Palestinian Mahmoud Abbas, his first television interview given to Al-Arabiya, and his trip to the Mideast culminating in his infamous Cairo speech. But of greater concern are the various statements and actions not only of Obama, but also other influential Democrats, which should cause us to pause and wonder whether the country is, in fact, creeping toward eventually embracing Sharia law.
Last month the news broke that the head of NASA, Charles Bolden, was asked by Obama "to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science...and math and engineering."
In the conservative world, the backlash was huge. Watch Charles Krauthammer as he concludes, "This is a new height in fatuousness." Mona Charen stated:
"[S]olicitude about the feelings of individuals cannot comprise a foreign policy. Muslim nations, like other nations, are motivated by advantage and influenced by perceptions of strength and weakness. The president has absolutely no control over the way Muslims feel about themselves -- but he has every power over the way they perceive us."
Recently, Senator John Kerry introduced a bill in the Senate intended to create a two-way professional exchange program that would allow young Americans to work in Muslim countries and citizens of those countries to live in the US.
Forgive my cynicism but our government has expended massive resources in the form of money, manpower, and bureaucracy in order to track down terrorists. Multiple arrests recently of homegrown terrorists illustrate the dangers of shipping young Americans off to Muslim countries. Furthermore, many of the 9/11 terrorists were in the US on student visas. Does the Department of Homeland Security really need more work added to its plate so that far-left liberals can feel good about taking the country down the path of appeasement?
Kerry attempted to sell his proposal in an article on Huffington Post in which he stated, "We have come a long way in the past year in helping turn a page in America's relations with the world's Muslims, and President Obama deserves enormous credit."
God help us with people like this making laws and running the country. Any informed person must realize that America's relations with the Muslim world have not improved under the Obama outreach program and, in fact, they have only deteriorated. Arab perception of the Obama administration is at an all time low, Iran is moments away from a nuclear bomb; and all the while, the Great Satan's global power is on the decline. But Kerry was right on one point, Obama deserves all the credit for the state of affairs.
Most recently, Obama's latest addition to the Supreme Court, Elena Kagan, drew attention as she was accused of actively promoting Sharia law -- an accusation steeped in strong evidence from her days as Dean of Harvard Law School.
Last week, as Muslims began the observance of Ramadan, Democrats were falling all over each other with public pronouncements of good wishes for the holiday. The Treasury Department issued a statement recognizing "the importance of this period of intense devotion, reflection and charitable giving." Hillary Clinton stated that "American Muslims make valuable contributions to our country every day and millions will honor this month with acts of service and giving back to their communities." And Nancy Pelosi issued the following statement:
"It is a time to honor the traditions of the Muslim faith, and an opportunity for all Americans to celebrate the tradition of pluralism, tolerance, diversity, and religious freedom embedded in the very fabric of our Constitution and our history."
This is coming from the woman who suggested that Americans who oppose the Ground Zero Mosque should be investigated. It is too bad that Nancy Pelosi governs in ways completely antithetical to the ideas of pluralism, tolerance, and diversity she so graciously espouses for Muslims.
Which leads to Obama's support for the right of Muslims to build a victory mosque at Ground Zero. With claims by the State Department that Imam Rauf is a Muslim with a "moderate perspective," one has to wonder what this administration considers "moderate." For this is a man with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, who refuses to call Hamas a terrorist organization, and who believes that the US was responsible for 9/11 and the creation of Osama bin Laden. But as Lee Smith recently analyzed:
"Many have argued that Rauf's refusal to call Hamas a terrorist organization is evidence that despite the many testimonies on his behalf, the Tribeca imam is not a ‘moderate' Muslim cleric and perhaps has extremist tendencies. Maybe that's the case, but let's put it in perspective: The White House's counterterrorism czar John Brennan believes there are moderate elements in Hezbollah and actually has the wherewithal to design a policy of rapprochement with a terrorist organization."
To make matters worse, the State Department has dispatched this Sharia-touting Imam to the Mideast as a representative of the United States. In a wonderful, yet scary, assessment of Rauf's Shariah Index Project, Christine Brim questioned whether America's governing elites are complicit in helping the Imam to force Sharia law on America:
"The issues at stake here are about Americans protecting the Constitution from Shariah-adherent groups using the protective guise of religious freedom to attack the Constitution itself - using a triumphal Ground Zero mosque as ‘the base' for a project to institutionalize Shariah in America."
As the pieces fall in place, it seems no surprise then that this same man advised Obama in the aftermath of last year's illegitimate elections in Iran:
"He should say his administration respects many of the guiding principles of the 1979 revolution -- to establish a government that expresses the will of the people; a just government, based on the idea of Vilayet-i-faqih, that establishes the rule of law."
Just as Americans never dreamt of the possibility of electing a man with Obama's background nine years ago, they likely would never imagine Sharia compliant courts governing side by side with those guided by the Constitution. But, having fallen into a post-9/11 slumber, Americans must not underestimate the implications of Obama's Muslim-friendly policies and his extreme Sharia-compliant friends. Andrew McCarthy noted in a recent article, "Which Islam Will Prevail in America?"
"The United States is not going to become a sharia state anytime soon. That obvious fact has commentators pooh-poohing the encroaching peril, even as we watch Europe succumb before our eyes, as if no-go zones, honor killings, the Balkanizing of society, and the strangulation of freedom could never happen here."
Sharia courts now officially operate in England in parallel to the British system, judging civil matters offered to the court by Muslims agreeing to be bound by traditional Sharia law. As of June, 2009, 85 such courts were estimated to be working tribunals, operating mainly from mosques and settling financial and domestic disputes. To ignore this transformational president's true vision for the future of the country is to do so at our peril.
[i] A dhimmi (Arabic: ذمي [ˈðɪmːiː]), (collectively أهل الذمة ahl al-dhimmah, "the people of the dhimma or people of the contract") is a non-Muslim subject of a state governed in accordance with sharia law.
