Dear Military Religious Freedom Foundation:
Where is it – the outrage, I mean
Our Comander-in-chief hosts those who fail to denounce their own who seek our death.
He supports an IMAM with ties to Hamas in building a mosque in a most hotly debated location.
Where is the outrage?
Thanks,
(name withheld)
Hi (name withheld),
Rick Baker here. I’m a regional coordinator for MRFF.
First of all you need to calm yourself. No sense adding to the casualty list.
Secondly, you ask: “Where is the outrage?” Well, there’s enough outrage out there on both sides of this Mosque issue to go around and I see you’ve pretty much used up your share already.
I wish I were smart enough to figure this whole thing out. As you know, MRFF’s basic charter is religious freedom and freedom of non-religious belief in the military. This means religious freedom for every Soldier, Airman, Marine, Sailor, Coast Guard, Reservist, National Guardsman and Service Academy Cadet, Christian, Jew, Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu, Shinto, Baha’I and others and the freedom of the non-religious not to believe in religion.
This is already tough enough with getting things in a snarl like the Mosque thing.
Islamic extremists are as bad as they come. But this is not the first time we’ve had to defend ourselves against extremism. The Japanese in W.W. II employed suicide pilots and troops called Kamikaze’s,(Divine Wind) The Germans had the “Wilde Sau” (Wild Boar) pilots who volunteered to crash headlong into bombers and ships. (They never got their program off the ground)
Now we’ve got suicide bombers that blow themselves up and many of us along with them.
The hard thing here is to figure out who is really the bad guy and who is the good guy. Many Muslims have been killed or injured by their own people. And many Muslim police and military have died defending themselves and Americans from terrorists in war zones.
Frankly, I wouldn’t want to be the President who has to keep good, moderate Muslims on our side while simultaneously whacking the bad Muslims. Then, he’s got the really extreme Americans who want to kill all the Muslims and Muslims who want to kill all Americans. Whew!
Then there’s the whole Christian Vs. Muslim Vs. Christian thing which only exacerbates the issue.
I think President Obama is just trying to hold things together until we can can honorably end the conflicts in the Middle East and then concentrate on our developing domestic Muslim problem. But you are correct that we have to be alert to the possibilities that activities like the Muslim Mosque and recreation center near the Twin Towers site could be a dangerous move while at the same time not breaking our centuries long constitutional religious freedom guarantees. The Islamic Jihadists would like nothing better than to see America violating its own freedom of religion guarantee.
As a former Air Force Rescue Pilot and two-tour Vietnam Veteran, I am not very patient with America’s enemies. And I know how satisfying it would be to strike back at some of these total idiots. The trouble, of course, is getting the right idiots.
I guess all of this boils down to my not having a great answer for you. I can only ask that you be patient and try to give your support to those who are trying to keep it together. It’s easy to snipe from the bushes at those who are trying and much harder to be in the thick of it. Some of our politicians are even using this situation to make political points.
As for outrage, you can toss mine in with yours.
Stay in touch and remember our duty is to protect our families and our youngsters in the military from dangers originating from all sources, foreign and domestic. But if we go off half-cocked and begin to violate our own long standing and honorable constitution, we could end up being like the bad guys.
Hang in there.
Rick Baker
MRFF
