The picture on your left was taken on Friday, June 23, 2006, outside the Culver City Mosque in Culver City, California. The caption reads "Lighting candles for our two tortured soldiers, Pfc. Kristian Menchaca, 23, of Houston and Pfc. Thomas L. Tucker, 25, of Madras, Ore."
About forty people showed up to participate in the vigil. Not a single Muslim participated in the vigil!
The report provides the following information about the vigil:
"All of the middle easterners you see in the pictures below are Coptic Christians from Egypy [sic], for the entire evening not ONE Muslim would join us in condemning the tortures of our two soldiers, and in fact some of them yelled out that the two soldiers deserved 'what they had coming to them' because they were 'in a Muslim land.'"
See more pictures, and read the full report from Sons of Washington here.
I think that somehow we have to give Muslims more explicit chances to stand up and be counted. It is becoming clear that they will refuse to do so. If we could make that clear sooner rather than later, it might save a lot of lives.
ReplyDeletePastorius,
ReplyDeleteBut how to do that? If they won't stand up right here in the United States, where is the hope?
We’ve given them enough chances. Eisenhower back Nasser in the Suez Crisis, we helped Afghanistan fight the USSR, saved Muslims in the Balkans, helped liberate Kuwait, helped Egypt get back the Sinai, try to give Iraqis a democracy on a silver-platter, etc. Fifty years of helping Muslims seems to have backfired.
ReplyDeleteI think we need to change our approach.
I don't think I made myself clear.
ReplyDeleteHere's what I am thinking:
Just as the Cartoon Jihad made many people aware of the depth of the problem we have with Muslims, I think perhaps an active campaign of calling Muslims out may help as well.
If we keep calling, and they never show, then they show themselves clearly to be in league with our enemies.
What we need to accomplish is making it clear to citizens of the West that Muslims are not with us, but are instead against us. Unless, of course, they finally show up and start helping, which would be a nice surprise, if one we can not at all expect.
Shiva and I at jihadwatch have been calling for a few years now for a "politics of confrontation." Some people think of that as provoking a violent response from Muslims by creating some intolerable affront that they must react to violently. Ah, but they must react violently to almost anything. Derek's cartoon of Mohammed is a fine example. It is confrontational and it is a cartoon. Muslims went bonkers.
ReplyDeleteWe recently protested against hippies holding a "Peace Forum" here in Vancouver, Canada. We didn't get any violent response, but the anger from many of the peace-hippies was intense. It provokes them to outrage, and that is our gain.
When a Muslim claims that ours "got what they deserve," then that is grounds for retaliating. It requires a sacrifice on the part of one to escalate the situation, meaning that we still live in civil society and must obey our own laws or willingly accept our punishments for deliberate infraction. But if some arsehole told me those boys deserved what they got I wouldn't stand by idly. And in not doing so, I would be escalating the issue, not victimising the Moslem but bringing the issue to the public's attention. I suspect a jury would find me guilty of whatever infraction, but I also suspect not much in the way of a bad conscience.