In their search for villains, media elites, not to mention political ones, frequently overlook genuine malefactors. After the September 11, 2001 attacks upon the United States, President Bush was “persuaded that Islam was a peaceful and vibrant faith,” Brian Kennedy of the Claremont Institute pointed out.
President Obama only went further to affirm Mr. Bush saying, that hearing Muslims praying at Mecca is one of the most “beautiful sounds in the world,” Kennedy noted in a talk on Friday January 7, 2011, at Hillsdale College’s Washington, D. C. headquarters.
Kennedy asserted that Islam is made up of “more than just a few lunatics.” In fact a Pew survey found that 8% of the approximately 7 million Muslims in America “believe suicide bombing is okay,” Kennedy observed.
That same poll found that “15 percent of young Muslims think suicide bombings are justified,” Kennedy noted. Kennedy went on to quote several verses from the Koran including, “Fight and slay the unbelievers wherever ye find them and lie in wait for them in every stratagem of war.”
“We must understand Muslims as they understand themselves,” Kennedy argued. “We know it is believed by those who have taken up arms against us.”
Kennedy does aver that, “If one were to ask any Muslim if they know this, the answer would be ‘no,’” but points out that for those that do, the more inflammatory passages of the Koran cannot be ignored. In the Koran, the parts that were written last have priority, and here some of the more incendiary admonitions may lie. Moreover, the president of Iran is of this more proactive element.
Although not theocracies, Russia and China also pose threats to the U. S. that most of the best and brightest ignore. The U. S. government “cannot stop a single Chinese or Russian nuke and has no plans to do so,” Kennedy claims. “If we are not going to defend the American people, we ought to tell them.”
The U. S. has not built a nuclear warhead since 1992, Kennedy remembered. By way of contrast, “China has intercontinental ballistic missiles pointed right at us,” Kennedy said.
Kennedy said, “We used to think defense was the only way to fight,” but now we are coming close to passing the START treaty with Russia which is Russia’s strategy to enhance their world positioning simply by weakening America’s.” When politicians talk about this treaty they make it “sound like it will make Americans safer,” Kennedy said.
Torey Hall is an intern at the American Journalism Center, a training program run by Accuracy in Media and Accuracy in Academia.
