Shariah is coming! Shariah is coming!

[SteveMetz]

A PC crowd pushing special accommodation, status, protection, etc. for Moslem's and Islam. (For reasons I will not go into on this board.) It hasn't gone as far in the U.S. as it has in Canada or Europe, but it is still there. That will inevitably alienate people who will ask why Christian prayer in school violates the legal principle of Separation of Church and State, but building a Moslem prayer room in the schools doesn't.[/LIST]

I think that for most people, not just in the U.S. but also, increasingly, in Europe, Canada, Australia, etc., these add up to concerns that are both rational and mistaken, but not delusional or hysterical. Obtaining a more accurate evaluation will require recognizing that the concerns are legitimately held, then working to demonstrate that they aren't correct. Which is why I would like to see the responsible Imams and other spokespeople given more prominence in the national discussion on the issue.

We'll agree to disagree. When an organization screaming about the Islamic take over of Oklahoma is endorsed by a former CIA director, we're well beyond "rational and mistaken." We are, in my opinion, at the point of delusion and hysteria. (Unless there is an AQ document I've missed where OBL listed his priorities as liberating Mecca, then Jerusalem, then Tulsa.)

And your statement about "why Christian prayer in school violates the legal principle of Separation of Church and State, but building a Moslem prayer room in the schools doesn't" is, at best, a red herring. No one prohibits Christian students from praying; law prohibits school officials from sanctioning prayer or making in mandatory. If schools were forcing non-Muslim students to use the prayer room, then the comparison would be valid. As it is, public schools can and do provide a space for Christian prayer groups to meet outside of class time.

And the comment "I would like to see the responsible Imams and other spokespeople given more prominence in the national discussion on the issue" overlooks the fact that it happens on a regular basis. Yet we see purportedly responsible media like the Washington Times printing op-eds by people like Ted Nugent which assert that no Muslim clerics condemn terrorism or extremism. That is a demonstrably false statement.

What concerns me is that delusion, hysteria and falsehood about Islam has moved from the lunatic fringe like Pamela Gellar and Robert Spencer to the mainstream like the Washington Times and Fox News, stoked by people like Boykin, Woolsey and some other major political figures.

My major concern, as expressed in my essay that I can't find a venue for, is that it is ridiculous to assume that this will have no effect on our strategy of building partnerships in the Islamic world. One of the most important points made in the 1980s by Jeanne Kirkpatrick and institutionalized in the Reagan strategy was that other nations couldn't spew virulently anti-American rhetoric and expect to be our partners and recipients of aid. That made perfect sense. But it cuts both ways. If Americans see Islam as a religion as a threat rather than simply Muslim extremists, then we cannot rationally expect to implement a strategy based on partnership with Islamic nations.