THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume VI, Issue # 187, August 23, 2004
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
HOLY CITY? GIVE ME A BREAK!
By Alan Caruba
FULL STORY:
What if I were to invite you to visit the “holy city” of San Diego, named after a saint? So was St. Augustine, Florida. Providence,
Rhode Island references God’s grace. There is hardly a major city where one cannot find an impressive cathedral or other religious
structure. From one end of America to another, you can find “holy cities,” but, while they honor religious figures or ideals, they do
not claim to be “sacred” ground.
So what makes Iraq’s Najaf a “holy city,” other than the fact that there is a big mosque there? What, for that matter, makes every
grain of sand in Saudi Arabia “sacred”? Or makes Mecca and Medina more sacred than cities that preceded both by well over two
thousand years, such as Jerusalem and Rome? Other than pure arrogance, what gives Islam the right to claim Jerusalem as an
Islamic holy city when Muhammad never physically stepped foot there, nor anywhere else outside of Arabia?
Returning to Najaf, the home base of Muqtada al-Sadr, the renegade Shi’ite mullah, just how holy is a mosque when it serves as a
place to store weapons and plan military operations against an interim government? So I suggest that the time to give him five
minutes to get out of town or watch his mosque turned into a parking lot has arrived.
This is likely to make a lot of Arabs angry at the Big Bad United States of America, but frankly these people don’t need any excuse
to dislike us. I get a lot of email from people in the Middle East who don’t like what I have to say about Islam. One universal theme
runs through virtually all these communications and it is that the United States and Israel are responsible for the “oppression” in
their nations, not the monarchs and despots that run those nations.
It is the U.S.A., they contend, that supports these dictators and, therefore, is to be blamed for their actions. As for Israel, it is
responsible for everything that is wrong with their lives. By contrast, militant and even peaceful Muslims are never to blame for
anything.
In the past, I have tried to reply reasonably that the United States has not only suffered attacks on its homeland, but also a long
succession of attacks going back to the seizing of its diplomats in Iran in 1979, the bombing of Marines in Lebanon, the attack of
the USS Cole, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. All by Muslims. It was Muslims who blew up trains in Spain, a nightclub in Bali,
synagogues in Turkey and Argentina, foreign compounds in Riyadh, and let’s not forget those U.S. embassies in two African
nations.
For good measure, I tried to point out that our military has gone in harm’s way to defend and protect Muslims in Kuwait, in
Somalia, in Bosnia, and against the Taliban in Afghanistan. Now it is engaged in the liberation of 25 million Muslims in Iraq,
setting them on the path of constitutional democracy and freedom.
None of this, I assure you, has the least affect on the thinking of my correspondents, nor, I suspect, on any of the other millions
of totally ungrateful slaves of the despotic governments of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, Algeria, Libya, the Sudan, and other
nations where Islam plays a significant role in governance or whose militants are engaged in insurrections to become the
government. In Islam, there is no separation of religion and government, of mosque and state.
Islam so suffuses the lives of Muslims throughout the Middle East and elsewhere, they are utterly blind and indifferent to the
fact that it has consigned them to backwardness, poverty, and the mercy of whoever is in charge. There is little hope for the
individual Middle Eastern Muslim, even if he is an educated member of the middle class. That is why most of the 9-11 hijackers
came from this segment of Saudi Arabian society. That is why Osama bin Laden, who came from a Saudi family of great wealth,
uses Islam to advance his self-glorification and evil agenda. And right now, the Saudis have launched a public relations
campaign to tell us what good friends of ours they are. With friends like these, who needs enemies?
So here come us Americans with our military power, and these Islamic morons sit in front of their television sets listening to and
watching al Jezeera tell them over and over again that their sacred lands or holy cities are being destroyed by us simply
because we want their oil. Yes, we want their oil. We are paying $44 a barrel for it right now! Has the money gained from its
purchase in the past done anything to benefit the individual Muslim? Has it built a decent infrastructure or educational system
in any of these places?
I suggest we Americans get over the notion that we are “creating” Islamic enemies. Just as the nation of Israel was born
surrounded with Islamic enemies and has battled them for over a half century, the only thing the United States can do is kill
our enemies and liberate the rest who must be dragged into the 21st. century and connected to the rest of the world before they
destroy us in the name of Allah.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Islamism & Jihadism -- The Threat of Radical Islam
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
The Middle East & the Arabs
The Middle East & the Problem of Iraq
The Problem of Rogue States:
Iraq as a Case History
War & Peace in the Real World
Page Two
Page One
Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.
Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization
Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
U.S. National Security Strategy
Alan Caruba is a veteran business and science writer, a Public Relations Counselor, Communications Director of the American Policy Center,
and Founder of the National Anxiety Center, a clearinghouse for information about media-driven scare campaigns. Caruba writes a weekly
column, "Warning Signs," posted on the Internet website of the National Anxiety Center
(www.anxietycenter.com). A compilation of his past columns, entitled Warning Signs, is published by Merril Press. In addition
to Warning Signs, Caruba is the author of A Pocket Guide to Militant Islam and The United Nations vs. the United States,
both of which are available from the National Anxiety Center, 28 West Third Street, Apartment 1321, South Orange, New Jersey, 07079.
Copyright 2004 Alan Caruba
Published with Permission of Alan Caruba
ACaruba@AOL.Com
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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