Hanging Our Troops Out to Bleed ─ Politicians’ Islamic Cultural Center Button-Pushing Puts Our Troops into More Danger

© 2010 Peter Free

 

23 August 2010

 

Calculated demagoguery that kills is the new wave in American politics

 

The deliberately escalated controversy regarding the proposed building of an Islamic cultural center (two blocks from Ground Zero in New York City) has negative effects on our military’s already strained ability to stay alive in Afghanistan.

 

Columnist Frank Rich wrote recently:

 

So virulent is the Islamophobic hysteria of the neocon and Fox News right — abetted by the useful idiocy of the Anti-Defamation League, Harry Reid and other cowed Democrats — that it has also rendered Gen. David Petraeus’s last-ditch counterinsurgency strategy for fighting the war inoperative.

How do you win Muslim hearts and minds in Kandahar when you are calling Muslims every filthy name in the book in New York?

The ginned-up rage over the “ground zero mosque” was not motivated by a serious desire to protect America from the real threat of terrorists lurking at home and abroad — a threat this furor has in all likelihood exacerbated — but by the potential short-term rewards of winning votes by pandering to fear during an election season.

 

Poor General Petraeus. Over the last week he has been ubiquitous in the major newspapers and on television as he pursues a publicity tour to pitch the war he’s inherited.

 

But have you heard any buzz about what he had to say? Any debate? Any anything? No one was listening and no one cared. Everyone was too busy yelling about the mosque.

 

© 2010 Frank Rich, How Fox Betrayed Petraeus, New York Times (21 August 2010) (italics added and paragraphs split for online readability)

 

Demagoguery abandons the Constitution and a sense of proportion

 

Our ignorance and bigotry seem to surface at every turn.

 

In justification for defying the Constitution’s inviolable say on the matter of the Islamic cultural center, opponents (to expansion of the Islamic center that has been there for decades) have attempted to portray its chief proponent, Feisal Abdul Rauf, as a sponsor of terrorists.

 

They have seized on (free speech) statements that he made that were critical of America’s obvious contribution to the escalation of anti-American feelings in the Middle East.

 

Apparently after 9/11, no one “who ain’t a white Christian” should look honestly at flaws in America’s treatment of other peoples.  Had Imam Rauf been Anglo, few would have paid him any mind.

 

It is a blind nation that cannot examine potentially legitimate criticism, especially when its actions have arguably (b) violated stated American principles or (b) brought us harm. 

 

Second, Imam Rauf is Sufi.

 

Islamic Sufism is one of the world’s gentler religions.  Its preeminent poets are frequently quoted by other faiths because they beautifully and accurately capture the heart of religious aspiration.  In the United States, Rumi is probably the best known.

 

Sufis make unlikely jihadists.  The chief principle underlying Sufism is its unerring focus on the love of God.

 

Demagoguery regarding the Islamic cultural center puts our military into unnecessarily heightened danger

 

Given these facts:

 

(i) U.S. combat troops currently fighting in Afghanistan,

 

(ii) American military training troops left in Iraq,

 

and

 

(iii) America’s geopolitical interest in preserving moral leadership in a violent world ─

 

it makes absolutely no sense for the United States to go on record as being blanket-wide intolerant of the world’s second-most populous religion.

 

Are we trying to motivate a self-protective crusade against us?

 

Is our fear of others so deep that we have to separate ourselves from the commonality of shared humanity?

 

Are we falling into the medieval mindset that many Americans accuse (a ridiculously generalized) “Islam” of having?

 

Most of our political leaders have let us down

 

Our leaders’ lapses on this issue might be more understandable, if the issue regarding our military were not so glaring.

 

One can briefly excuse a failure to see the larger geopolitical point.  One can (maybe) forgive an initial oversight in failing to recognize the necessity of living within the Constitution.

 

But one cannot forgive the demagogues’ knowing escalation of the danger our troops are in.

 

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg deserves respect for his politically courageous stand in supporting the Constitution on this issue.

 

His is a demonstration of leadership for the greater good.

 

How vanishingly rare that is these days.