Chuck Hagel Quotes
We are perceived as a nation at war with Muslims. This debilitating and dangerous perception must be reversed.
Chuck Hagel, U. S. Senator (Republican, NB), http://www.voanews.com/english/2007-03-27-voa72.cfm
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
He was a brutal, sadistic war criminal who was assassinated by one of his many enemies in 2000 before he could be brought to trial.
The images of the hostages in the Russian School:
At the time, General Flynn was campaigning as a part of the Donald Trump Campaign Team. There was a great deal of Islamaphobia and Flynn and Trump thoght that given the history of Radical Islamic Brutality and Gross Violence, the rear was reasonable. Critics however pointed out that while some Southernors were still violent White Supremicists leaders should not encoruage a fear of Southerners. They argue that the fear should be of extreme radical Muslims, and not Muslims in general. The generalization of fear to all people of any group for the actions of a small subset of the group is actually dangerous and leads to prejudice, feal, hate and often violence such as when many American Blacks feared all pol;ice in the beginning of the 21st century becasue dozens of police officers short and killed unarmed black men,, or the West Cast American fear of the Japanese in WWII, or the terrible result--the Holocaust-- of many Germans' fear and hate of Jews for the "trangressions" of some. All human groups have some bad souls within the greater body of good people--including Muslims.
The attitude of the non-Muslims at that time was based on the Muslim attacks in the Punjab on Sikhs where entire Sikh villages and neighborhoods in towns and cities were murdered—every man woman and child. In many cases women were first raped. The Muslims had been whipped up by the leaders of the Muslim League to put terrorist pressure on the Sikh, Hindu and British to meet the League's political and territorial demands for an Independent Pakistan. Soon there was retaliation in kind and there were many Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims engaged in internecine slaughter and behaving "little better than animals".
This sura illustrates why peace treaties between Islamic and non Islamic countries are difficult to negotiate and enforce. For some fundamentalist Muslims, even making a peace treaty with Israel would constitute a transgression of the word of God. Nonetheless, the first treaty that the United States ever made was with a Muslim nation—Tripoli.
The Prime Minister was stating a widely held, but erroneous view of the West, history and geopolitics. The Crusades were traumatic for Muslims as the Europeans were not only military threats to the Muslim holy places, but the Christians were particularly brutal even to Richard the Lionhearted butchering unarmed prisoners of war who had surrendered. This aggression by some countries in Europe under the Christian “banner” is associated, to this day with Christianity and any primarily Christian nation is therefore just poised to attack and expel Islam from the Middle East. Mahathir therefore saw the American attack on Afghanistan and later Iraq as just an extension of the Crusader zeal whose object is to destroy Islam. Malaysia has a large population of Muslims—much larger than any of the Middle Eastern Islamic states. Yet, religiously oriented Islamic political leaders make common cause with other Muslim nations which have almost no other interest in common other than their religion.
This quotation was used both by those illustrating “Islamaphobia” even in the United States Congress, but also by those illustrating the level of ignorance or some members of Congress. While it is true, that the majority of terrorists at the time of this erroneous remark were Muslims, there were many others in addition to McVeigh. In addition to McVeigh’s accomplice, in America alone, there were many terrorists in prison for various bombings, sniper attacks, and the like. In Sri Lanka, the Tamil Tigers (Hindus), the inventors of modern suicide bombing, have been terrorizing that region for years. And in Nepal, a rash of Buddhist terrorists had almost paralyzed the country when she made her statement. And in the past, Muslim terrorism was far less than when she uttered the quotation and the Irish Republican Army, the Stern Gang in Israel, and dozens of others have been Christian and Jewish.
This quotation is used by many to illustrate the discrimination that Muslims face in America. The President and almost all other national leaders rejected ideas like this.
Strictly anti-Islamic discrimination is not racism as Muslems are represented in every race and nationality in the world.
Many Muslims did not want science and technology to fall into the hands of the heathens. Even today America limits the information and technological products that can be exported to the Islamic nations. At the time it was the case that some Christian and Jewish Scholars translated Islamic scientific treatises and promoted them under their own name, but most of the translations were published and labeled as such .The reason was that at that time Europe was emerging from the Dark Ages and was scientifically relatively ignorant whereas the Muslims had the best scientists and mathematicians in the world. It was more prestigious and credible to attribute science material to Muslims. At the same time, a good bit of the Islamic science texts were translations of the great Greek scientists and some Muslims offered it as their own. Most however translated the Greek works and labeled it as such. Ibn Abdun quotations are very important because he wrote many of the Islamic legal opinions that governed Muslim Spain and influenced the Arabs of North Africa.
This is a noteworthy quotation for two reasons: First, it shows part of the motivation for his murderous acts. Second, it illustrates a unique characteristic of Islam. Most people in the world first view themselves nationally or tribally, then often locally or occupationally, and then religiously. Eg ‘I am a French, Parisian, attorney who is Christian. For many Muslims, they are first a Muslim and the other identities follow. Eg ‘I am a Muslim, Nigerian teacher.
See {590863} for a similar sentiment.
Charles Timothy Hagel is an American military veteran and former politician who served as a United States Senator from Nebraska from 1997 to 2009 and as the 24th United States secretary of defense from 2013 to 2015 in the Obama administration.