Sunday, April 11, 2010

Sunday Sermon: "Deport All Muslims" Out of Christendom & British Troops Use Models of Mosques for Targe Practice

Let's begin with a sermon by a Christian:

"[T]he most compassionate thing we can do for Americans is to bring a halt to the immigration of Muslims into the U.S. This will protect our national security and preserve our national identity, culture, ideals and values. Muslims, by custom and religion, are simply unwilling to integrate into cultures with Western values and it is folly to pretend otherwise. In fact, they remain dedicated to subjecting all of America to sharia law and are working ceaselessly until that day of Islamic imposition comes.

The most compassionate thing we can do for Muslims who have already immigrated here is to help repatriate them back to Muslim countries, where they can live in a culture which shares their values, a place where they can once again be at home, surrounded by people who cherish their deeply held ideals. Why force them to chafe against the freedom, liberty and civil rights we cherish in the West?"

In other words, simple Judeo-Christian compassion dictates a restriction and repatriation policy with regard to Muslim immigration into the U.S.


Quote by the American Family Association's Bryan Fischer from an article by Kyle at Right Wing Watch / People for the American Way,April 8, 2010

If Bryan Fischer's right maybe all European Americans should go back to where they came from or the Native Americans sent packing to wherever they came from some 5, 000 or more years - or all the Europeans descended from the Goths, the Huns , the Monglols etc should go back where they came from-basically isn't this what Hitler and other racists have tried to do believing their particular group is somehow still pure and therefore the true children of God or the products of Nature forces or by abusing the work of Charles Darwin and other scientists claiming natural Evolutionary processes which has created a dominant race-all of it though is nonsense.

There are for the most part only superficial differences among the so-called races and nothing to suggest one race as inferior in some way that they do not qualify for being treated as human beings.

So when the US government or British or other Western nations torture Middle Easterners, Arabs or Muslims they are in fact torturing fellow human beings and from a religious perspective all of those being tortured ar also the Children Of God so why does the Media , Governments, political pundits and a significant number of average citizens relish the though of killing or incarcerating, or abusing and torturing these Children of God. My basic question who are the real Barbarians .

The British and Americans and their allies claim the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are not Crusades against Islam or all Muslims but only those who are terrorists yet again and again in their actions it seems otherwise. As we have seen especially in the past week or so there is evidence of improper conduct on the part of troops from trying to convert the citizens of Iraq and Afghanistan to Christianity to a callous indifference to the killing of unarmed citizens because the people of these countries are seen as the enemy and as being in the thrall of some form of Satanic Possession and so must either be converted or killed. Iraqis and Afghans are seen as not quite human or as a barbaric backward peoples who do not appreciate life as Westerners do. This is such a pernicious belief to have about those of a different religion or culture for it breeds contempt, fear and hate . It questions the Humanity of "the Other" making false over generalized claims as if only Christians or Westerners care about their families their parents, their spouse , their children , the people in their neighborhood or compound or town or city.

In the current conflict when a "Good Samaritan" stops to help a wounded stranger the "Good Samaritan" gets gunned down by an America Apache Helicopter gunship. This fits with the Neoconservative or of Ayn Rand's followers and the Right Wing Evangelicals way of thinking. Since they believe "altruism" is a great evil because it keeps the unwanted alive who are just leeches they believe feeding off of society.

To many Christians the story of the Good Samaritan is at the center of Jesus's message in the Gospels or does Christianity call for indifference, callousness or just a bit of grudging pity for those in dire need. That is a stingy form of charity given without compassion or Love for one's fellow human beings.

As we saw and heard most vividly in the Baghdad Massacre video from Wikileaks the Apache Helicopter pilots and crew were rather indifferent to the killing of unarmed civilians. These soldiers were from the beginning in this incident looking for people to kill and would use any excuse that they could to kill them. They see their mission as a matter hunting down an inferior species who happen to hate they believe America and the West's values .

In this story from Britain we are told the British soldiers as part of their training use Models of Mosques for target practice. This may seem a matter of little importance but it is not when added to other forms of prejudice and bigotry towards all Muslims. The soldiers are trained to see all Muslims as the enemy and the Mosque as a symbol of Islam which they are told is a false religion who's aim is to destroy Christianity and take over the the West. They hear this from Christian and Jewish preachers and by political pundits and by the Media. All across Europe and in the United States there is a significant proportion of average citizens and their rabble rousing professional Agitators who have demonized Islam, Muslims , all Arabs and most Middle Easterners or all who reside in the East whom they believe must be wiped out to save Christendom. But this is an old story as Said in his book Orientalism explains it has become part of our Mindset in the West as we either romanticize the Orient/the East or we project all of our fears on whatever we see as the Orient.

It is as if the First Crusade of Christendom took place in 1097 that is 913 Nine hundred and thirteen years ago but rather a decade or a couple of decades ago and therefore part of recent memory. This is not that unusual in our history as for instance in the Reconquista of Spain in 1492 which took place 400 years after Andalusia was taken over by Muslims. The Christians and Jews in Andalusia were treated better by the Muslims than they would have been by the Christians and so it came to pass the Muslims were expelled or killed , the Jews were made to convert or leave and many of the Christians were eventually persecuted as heretics since they had a different view on the nature of Jesus .

The point is the wrong done to these Spanish Christians didn't just happen in their life time or their parents or grand parents but some 400 years in the distant past.

So here's a story about British army 's cultural insensitivity or more importantly purposeful propaganda demonizing all Muslims & Islam.

This is the entire article it makes some excellent points and gives some examples of the Christian right's militant anti-Muslim propaganda goes from the kids in basic training to the Top Brass and the Pentagon.
Report: British Soldiers Using Models of Mosques for Target Practice via AlterNet.org April 8, 2010

While a military spokesman denied the structures were meant to be mosques, he defended the use of props 'that replicate the environment [soldiers] will be deployed to.'


The British military has been using models of mosques as targets in shooting practice, a UK newspaper reported on Thursday.

Some of the mosques have single domes and others have double domes, and appear to be targets for six firing ranges around 100 meters away, in full view of the main road.

The chairman of the local Bradford Council for Mosques (BCM) accused the British military of using the mosques as a "symbol of danger."

The cutouts were first spotted from a nearby road.

"We came to know about the structures because a passerby saw them from the road and felt that they resembled mosques," Ishtiaq Ahmed of the BMC told the Daily Mail.

Upon visiting the site on Wednesday, Ahmed said they discovered the structures were, indeed, cutouts of mosques.

We saw soldiers on the firing range yesterday and we were very shocked and angered and also confused as to why the British Army would do something like this -- it seems like a very silly thing to do," he said.

Anyone looking at it will think about mosques and Muslims and think about them in a negative way. The shape of the structures, the green color of the dome -- symbolizes an Islamic place of worship. What angers me very much is that we are conditioning the young British to say that mosques are a place where you are going to find danger and a place to target and that is really disturbing.

Ironically, Ahmed said the BCM has been trying to work with the British Military "to help them recruit more soldiers from the Muslim community."

'We Hunt People For Jesus'

Defenders of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the broader fight against "Islamic extremism," often characterize the enemy as a group of religious fanatics bent on destroying Judeo-Christian civilization. Yet Muslims around the world have watched as soldiers deployed in Western-led wars have not only bombed real mosques and desecrated holy symbols with callous consistency, but have gone so far as to suggest they are on a mission to convert Muslims to Christianity -- inevitably casting the wars as a clash of religions.

There are many examples:

- In May 2008, Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Hammond, commander of U.S. forces in Baghdad, was forced to apologize to Iraqis on behalf of a U.S. soldier who used a copy of the Qur'an as target practice. In a letter of apology, the unidentified soldier, who was redeployed to the U.S., called shooting the holy book "shortsighted, very reckless and irresponsible," but said, "in my heart [the actions] were not malicious."

-- Earlier that year, hundreds of Afghan villagers protested in Helmand province after British soldiers reportedly threw copies of the Qu'ran on the floor during a raid in search of Taliban fighters. "The villagers told them that there were no Taliban hiding in the villages and swore by copies of the Qu'ran they had in their hands," a protester named Ghulam Mohammad told the Daily Mail. "The British soldiers threw away the Qu'ran and began searching the houses."

-- In January of this year, ABC News reported that the U.S. military was using military weaponry inscribed with passages from the New Testament, despite the fact that "U.S. military rules specifically prohibit the proselytizing of any religion in Iraq or Afghanistan" -- a rule meant "to prevent criticism that the U.S. [is] embarked on a religious 'Crusade' in its war against al Qaeda and Iraqi insurgents."

The Bible-inscribed weaponry "allows the Mujahedeen, the Taliban, al Qaeda and the insurrectionists and jihadists to claim they're being shot by Jesus rifles," Michael Weinstein of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation told ABC.

-- In 2004, during the first battle of Fallujah -- known as the City of Mosques -- the U.S. bombed a mosque using hellfire missiles, killing some 40 people. "Worshippers had gathered for afternoon prayers," according to the Associated Press, which reported that makeshift "hospitals were set up in private homes to treat the wounded and prepare the dead for burial."

-- During the second battle of Fallujah, in November 2004, after U.S. Marines stormed a different mosque, one soldier was caught on video shooting an unarmed injured prisoner at point blank range, leading to an investigation.

-- In May 2009, Al Jazeera captured damning footage of the chief of U.S. military chaplains in Afghanistan exhorting U.S. soldiers "to be witnesses" for Jesus. "The special forces guys -- they hunt men basically. We do the same things as Christians, we hunt people for Jesus," Lieutenant-Colonel Gary Hensley told soldiers at Bagram Air Base. "Get the hound of heaven after them, so we get them into the kingdom. That's what we do, that's our business."

The report also revealed Bibles translated into Pashto, apparently for distribution to locals. "I … want to praise God because my church collected some money to get Bibles for Afghanistan," one soldier, Sergeant Jon Watt, said on tape.

-- In another notorious series of incidents, Army Maj. Gen. William Boykin, an evangelical Christian, declared the supremacy of Christianity over Islam. "In October 2003, Boykin was revealed to have gone on several anti-Muslim rants, in public speeches, many of which he delivered in military uniform," Jeremy Scahill wrote last May. "Since January 2002, Boykin had spoken at 23 religious-oriented events, wearing his uniform at all but two."


and so it goes,
GORD.

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