Then when US conservative correctness activists like Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich and Glenn Beck protest against the mosque, that gives the Islamic Fanatics the opportunity to say "see I told you that the US is anti-Islam", which makes Al Quaida recruitment a lot of easier.
New York Times editorial writer Frank Rich wrote a great editorial titled "How Fox Betrayed Petraeus"
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/22/opinion/22rich.html?_r=1
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?
Anti-mosque fanatics, read that paragraph again! And again!
Your idiotic campaign is insulting the allies we need to win in Afghanistan! It is insulting the allies we rely on in Pakistan! In war, you need allies! In the war on Terror, you need allies who are Muslim. We rely on the anti-Taliban Afghans to win in Afghanistan! We rely on Muslims in Pakistan to fight against the Islamic Fascists! We rely on moderate Muslims to keep the peace in Iraq! You alienate them, you'll make them vulnerable to the Islamic Fascists!
More from Frank Rich
After 9/11, President Bush praised Islam as a religion of peace and asked for tolerance for Muslims not necessarily because he was a humanitarian or knew much about Islam but because national security demanded it. An America at war with Islam plays right into Al Qaeda’s recruitment spiel. This month’s incessant and indiscriminate orgy of Muslim-bashing is a national security disaster for that reason — Osama bin Laden’s “next video script has just written itself,” as the former F.B.I. terrorist interrogator Ali Soufan put it — but not just for that reason
Read that paragraph again, anti-mosque fanatics! Bush understood we needed Muslim allies! He understood that we had to rely on the Northern Alliance to fight off the Taliban! He understood that we needed to rely on Harmid Karzai to keep Kabul to falling under the Taliban rule again! He understood that we needed to rely on the Pakistani government to fight against the Taliban! He understood that we needed Muslim allies in order to make the 2007 US troop surge in Iraq work! He understood that the US needed an image of "we respect Muslims too", so that the Islamic Fascists would have less gullible people to brainwash into thinking "US is anti-Islam"
For all the criticisms of George W Bush in the previous decade, people are now starting to realize what good he was attempting to for tolerance! He discouraged anti-Muslim hate crimes, and discouraged anti-immigrant bashing! He attempted to get the Republican message marketed to non-whites as well! Too many left-wingers ignored that about Bush!
But now that Sarah Palin, Jan Brewer, Glenn Beck, et al are now the leading spokesman of the Republicans, now the left-wingers have belatedly realized that George W Bush wasn't the evil guy they portrayed him to be, because now they understood that there are people who are WORSE than Bush could ever be!
I don't agree with Bush on abortion, gay marriage, the war on drugs, nor did I like the fact that he hired inexperienced people to run FEMA! But I will always respect the fact Bush was trying to get the Republicans to be more pro-immigrant, more pro-Muslim, to do more outreach to non-white communities! I was really hoping that the other Republicans will follow his lead on those issues!
Unfortunately, a civil-war among the conservative movement has erupted, with the craziest voices (ie Jan Brewer, Tom Tancredo) and the pander bears (ie. so-called mama grizzly Sarah Palin) has made the Republican Party radio-active to many non-whites and libertarians!
So far, Bobby Jindal hasn't publicly objected to the mosque, possibly because he understands how toxic such sentiment is! Jindal is an articulate, well-educated, fiscal and cultural Christian conservative, and he is of Indian ancestry! He is the most likely to get the Republicans in the right path when it comes to tolerance of minorites - racial, cultural, religious, etc. He was the voice of competence during the oil spill!
The Republicans need to someone like Bobby Jindal run for President in 2012, instead of hateful lunatics like Tom Tancredo nor pander bears like Sarah Palin! Otherwise, that party will continue to be seen as radioactive to minorities, libertarians and moderate voters, giving Barack Obama an easy victory in 2012.
