Why Bush Cannot Be Honest About Muslims

Conservative blogs and some talk show hosts are bashing President Bush for speaking to a Muslim group on Wednesday and for announcing the appointment of a representative to an international Muslim organization. Since 9/11, Bush has consistently maintained that Islamic terrorism is limited to a relatively small number of radicals, and that almost all Muslims are peaceful people who, in the USA at least, only want for their children the same things that everyone else does.

My position on this is a little complicated. I have moved slowly from 1. not much thinking about Muslims at all prior to the USS Cole massacre, to 2. agreeing with President Bush for some time after 9/11, to 3. concluding that the Muslim religion is as much a hateful, political movement as it is a religion, and that it must be confronted and stopped or changed. I reached this conclusion not only from observing more closely the number of Islamic terrorist acts transpiring every day around the world, but also from noticing that Muslims try to impose their Sharia whenever they gain some political power.

I have also been influenced by the actions of the so-called “flying imams”, by the Rasmussen poll that found that more than a quarter of American Muslims support suicide bombing and also by the many cases of murder carried out here by American Muslims on non-Muslims (such as the Washington, DC snipers).

I think that privately President Bush agrees with me, and that the Iraq War is clearly the start of a long range plan to bring modernization and democracy into an area of the world still operating in the 7th century, but, as President of this country, he recognizes two things and has responsibilities I do not have: first, he wants to keep our fight with Islamic fundamentalists from being seen as a religious war. This could force the huge number of moderate Muslims in the world to choose up sides to defend their religion. It is a religious war of sorts, but Bush wants to maintain the fiction that it is not, and he is right to do so. Bush’s other consideration is that he is president of all Americans, and he does not want acts of violence against all Muslims to occur in a major way here. Again, he is correct in trying to keep a lid on this real possibility.

For these reasons, I agree with the decisions of President Bush to make appearances at Muslim events and to appoint this representative, however, I also support efforts to shut down all further immigration of Muslims, and I support efforts to stop the preaching of hate messages at Muslim mosques – including the deportation of persons delivering sermons urging violence and the imposition of Sharia.

Bush condemns radical Muslims in visit to mosque
By James Gerstenzang
LA Times Staff Writer

9:20 AM PDT, June 27, 2007

WASHINGTON — Visiting an Islamic mosque on Washington's Embassy Row, President Bush delivered a strongly worded denunciation today of Muslim radicals and said he would appoint for the first time a U.S. representative to a major international Islamic organization.

Drawing a distinction between moderation in the practice of Islam and those seeking to use the faith for what he described as radical political ends, the president said "it is these radicals who are Islam's true enemy."

Bush's remarks came during his second visit to the Islamic Center of Washington, which is marking its 50th anniversary. He is the first president to visit the center more than once. Six days after the Sept. 11 attacks, he spoke at the center to denounce anti-Muslim violence and prejudice.

That visit occurred during a period of sympathy for the United States. Today he spoke under much different conditions, at a time when U.S. officials have gone out of their way to defend the war in Iraq and present the Bush administration's policy as one intended to further democracy rather than an attack on Islam.

The president, in keeping with custom, removed his shoes before entering the sanctuary. He said the Islamic Center, in a neighborhood not far from a Jewish synagogue, Roman Catholic Church, Greek Orthodox Church and Buddhist temple, represented the nation's commitment to religious diversity.

He cited U.S. support for Muslims in Kosovo and Bosnia-Herzegovina after the disintegration of Yugoslavia — a reference applauded by his audience — and said Americans offered such support out of "compassion, conviction and conscience." It reflected the proper course of supporting moderation against extremism, he said.

In the Middle East, he said, "we have seen the rise of groups of extremists who seek to use religion as a path to power."

It is the radicals, Bush said, who stage "spectacular attacks" against Muslim holy sites to divide Muslims and push them into fighting each other, conducting "acts of butchery ... in the name of Allah."

It is such extremism, the president said, that needs to be turned back "before it finds its path to power."

Bush said he would appoint an envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference, a nearly 40-year-old group of 57 nations created to protect Muslims and fight discrimination against them. The envoy, whom he did not name, will be dispatched to share "America's views and values."