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Friday, August 12, 2005

Drinking with a moderate Muslim

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I got a call from an active duty SEAL buddy yesterday afternoon letting me know he was going to be in town for the night. He and I also went to high school together so we met at a friend’s house had some barbeque and started catching up over some beers. At some point in the evening, I met a 28 year old Egyptian guy who was born in the US. He was a friend of the host, but I didn’t really get a good look at him right away as it was dark outside when he showed up.

The GWOT was a major topic of discussion as my Teammate and I spent much of the time catching up on what’s happening in the Teams, and who is doing what and so forth. The conversation somehow turned to the Israeli-Palestinian situation and out came the whole issue of the most silent majority on the planet… the moderate muslim. It was at this point, my acquaintance made his presence known.

He claimed to be one of those vaunted moderates that hates radical islamists and abhors terrorism. My question to him was, “Why don’t I ever hear anything from this vast moderate majority?” His answer was to say, “Because the media won’t report it when we do speak out. Besides, George Bush says that most muslims aren’t radical.” That answer was an interesting one, and I wasn’t quite sure how to respond to it.

He asked me if I supported Israel against the Palestinians, and I told him, “100% without reservation.” Which was clearly not what he wanted to hear. He was basically regurgitating the full revisionist meme about the land being stolen from Palestinians by the British and the Jews. My beer soaked mind could only think to say that essentially the Israelis were attacked on all sides and kicked a** in all directions. They won their land fair and square, not to mention the fact that this was the second time they had to do it if you count Joshua leading the nation of Israel into the Promised Land. And I do. He didn’t like that either.

Then I put the question to him, “What are YOU doing to fight against radical elements that are ‘hijacking’ your religion?” His answer, “What can I do?” Since he speaks Arabic, I asked if he had offered his abilities to the FBI to help translate terrorist intercepts. No. Ever volunteer to go and check out a mosque for the FBI to see if there are any questionable activities going on? No. I told him that even if he went into mosques just to rule them out as hotbeds of jihad and reported to the authorities, he would be helping to prevent resources from being squandered. That was all I could think of as I was like six beers deep at that point. Who knows what kind of slurring screed I was riffing on at the time; I’m just reporting what I can recall.

I ended up drinking and talking with the guy for several hours after that and he turned out to be a great guy. The earlier contentious conversation was disappointing because while I believe him when he says he is against radical jihadis, he had clearly been spoon fed much of the “muslim victim” pap from the likes of CAIR and others. He was uninformed and even spewing propaganda about Israel that while didn’t reach the level of terrorist support, certainly was the type of rhetoric used to support those activities. I know I mentioned that the Palestinian’s goal is to annihilate all Israelis, but I never did get a response to that.

The lesson learned was that we are going to have to wait a long time for moderates to take charge of islam and reform it to the point that jihad is no longer in fashion. I guess we better just keep killing the terrorists wherever we find them.

http://froggyruminations.blogspot.com/

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