Madinat al-Muslimeen Islamic Message Board
| Charley Reese is Awesome |
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| writeamir |
| 12/16/00 at 00:42:48 |
| Columnist Charley Reese of the Orlando Sentinel is one of the most unbiased columnists I have ever read when it comes to issue concerning Muslims. I could never imagine him being allowed to say this stuff if he was in New York. Here is his latest column. Isolationism is hardly the problem Published December 14, 2000 I was disappointed to hear the president-elect say that the main problem facing America was isolationism and then issue a silly, macho warning against terrorism. Isolationism is hardly our problem. We are entangled in so many treaties and alliances, and we have American armed forces posted in 100 foreign countries, almost without exception on missions that have nothing to do with either national interests or national security. As for warning terrorists, let's get real. Most terrorist acts are suicidal. So whom is this tough talk supposed to scare? Certainly not men who are prepared to die as long as they can take a few of us with them. I already fear that I will have to adopt a sort of secular prayer in which, from time to time, I will repeat, "Well, at least he's not Al Gore." Terrorism is neither a police nor a military problem. It is a political problem. The new president ought to shut down that cottage industry on the beltway of so-called terrorism experts and concentrate on developing a foreign policy that will not give people just cause to hate us. I hope that no one is so naïve as to think that we are going to escape some kind of payback for having killed 500,000 Iraqi children with the cruelest embargo in human history. It isn't the government of Saddam Hussein we have to fear. We haven't harmed it. It's the Iraqi people whom we have mercilessly tortured. I don't know why it seems so difficult for politicians in Washington to understand. We have no reason on God's green Earth to harm the people of any country on this planet. If we have a quarrel with a government, then let us confine our actions to that government, not to innocent people. Nor should we ever support, in any way, another government that is harming innocent people. When we do, we become accessories, and then their enemies become our enemies. We also ought to stop committing war crimes by bombing or shooting missiles at countries when we are not in a state of war. Reprisals are war crimes. When we respond to an act of terrorism by bombing a country, we are doing exactly what the German army did in World War II when it would killed 50 or 60 civilians in reprisal for an attack on its soldiers. Some Americans have this kooky idea that if you kill innocent people with a bomb or a missile, instead of a rifle, it's not a war crime. It is. The choice of weapons makes no difference. It's just more cowardly to kill at a distance than it is up close. I would like to see some of these politicians who profess to be Christians start acting like Christians instead of decadent and pagan Romans. We should be helping people live better lives rather than destroying them. We should, as George Washington suggested, be extending the hand of friendship and commerce to all the nations of the world while not getting ourselves involved in their internal affairs or regional quarrels. As Americans, we have many, many domestic problems that require our full attention -- aging infrastructure, rampant immorality, a failed government education system, a shrinking agricultural base, a too-expensive medical-care system, polluted air and water, usurpation of power by various government entities, uncontrolled immigration. You probably can add others to my list. Mr. President-elect, isolationism is not the problem; it's part of the solution. Let's dump the aging Cold Warriors and bring some new thinking to our problems. Copyright © 2000, Orlando Sentinel |
| Re: Charley Reese is Awesome |
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| writeamir |
| 12/16/00 at 00:43:56 |
| Here is another one of his columns The right to criticize Israel Published December 7, 2000 While we're over here, stewing about our election, the Israeli government continues to kill Palestinians and to strangle the rest economically simply because the Palestinians have the audacity to demand an end to 33 years of illegal and military occupation. Let me tell you something else that's interesting: The United Nations has condemned Israel for using excessive force. The United Nations Commissioner of Human Rights has condemned Israel for using excessive force. The Physicians for Human Rights, an independent human-rights organization, after examining wounds in Palestinian hospitals, has condemned Israel for using excessive force. Amnesty International has condemned Israel for using excessive force. The United States secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, says, however, that Israel is a victim of aggression and is only defending itself. Now that lady is either nutty or evil. If she's so disconnected from reality that she thinks that people with no army, whose dead number 250 and whose wounded exceed 5,000, are a threat to the most powerful military state in the Middle East, she's nutty. If she's deliberately lying, she's evil. Furthermore, if the United States government treated American Indians or blacks in precisely the same way in every detail that the Israeli government treats Palestinians, people would be screaming to high heaven. I confess I'm mystified how decent Americans can condone the brutality and abuse that Israel inflicts on innocent Palestinians. If you're thinking that you don't have the right to criticize a foreign government, let me set you straight: Your government has given a cumulative total of 85 billion of your tax dollars through the years to the Israeli government. I think that buys you a right to criticize. The truth is, I fear, that Palestinians won't get their independence until Americans get theirs. The Israeli occupation forces hold down the Palestinians, and our government appears to be the captive of the Israeli lobby. You might write your congressman and senators and remind them that they ran for office in the United States, not in Israel, and that they took an oath to defend America, not Israel. You might also tell them that it is not in our national interest to be seen the world over as a flaming hypocrite, nor is it in our national interest to alienate 1.1 billion Muslims who happen to control more than 60 percent of the world's oil reserves. As an aside, let me clear up a matter. In reprimanding a politician for a racist slur against Palestinians who had killed two Israeli undercover agents, I suggested that he use the same slur against Israeli killers of Palestinians. The case I cited was a man whom people in Ramallah believe was kidnapped and beaten to death either by settlers or Israeli soldiers. The Physicians for Human Rights, at the request of an Israeli human-rights group, examined the X-rays and pictures, talked with doctors and family, and came to the conclusion that his injuries were caused by an automobile accident. All of the Palestinian doctors involved in the case, however, disagree with the report and say they plan to issue their own report. So there you have it: a medical disagreement. At any rate, examples of Israelis killing Palestinians are plentiful enough. There are the children shot to death, not to mention the 28 Palestinian men and women killed by a Jewish settler in Hebron a few years ago. When the Israeli terrorist paused to change magazines in his weapon, surviving Palestinians overpowered him and beat him to death with his own rifle. The other Israeli settlers who were mighty proud of their mass killer turned his grave into a shrine. Copyright © 2000, Orlando Sentinel |
| Re: Charley Reese is Awesome |
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| Mul@n |
| 12/22/00 at 10:17:47 |
| wow...i would have never suspected that an american writer would take such a view that favored us! hey, keep the articles coming..they are interesting... |
| Re: Charley Reese is Awesome |
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| Saleema |
| 12/22/00 at 17:22:59 |
| Assalam ualykum, Mulan, go to [url]www.orlandosentinel.com[/url] Click on Columnists, then click on charley Reese. Even the editorials that aren't about Muslims, they are very good too. He would make such a good Muslim....... wassalam |
| Re: Charley Reese is Awesome |
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| writeamir |
| 04/02/01 at 19:02:36 |
| Charley Reese Burning fuse can ignite Mideast Published April 1, 2001 If President Bush thinks he can minimize the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians, he is making a strategic blunder that will cause pain to the United States and the American people. I've developed the uneasy feeling lately that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell are living in the past. They seem to think nothing much has changed in the past decade. They seem to believe that the United States can still say, "Jump!", and every country in the world will reply, "Yes, sir. How high, boss man?" Those days, if they ever existed, are over. They, as well as the president, seem to be totally unaware of just how dangerous the situation in the Middle East has become. Perhaps they think that the Palestinians will meekly submit to being bludgeoned into submission by the Israelis. They won't. They apparently think the other Arab countries will do nothing but watch and pass meaningless resolutions. They should understand that there is a fuse burning that could blow that region and the world economy to bits. Past performance shows, I believe, that most leaders of the Arab countries do not wish to take any risks on behalf of the Palestinians. They are content to talk and to write a few checks. The exception is Saddam Hussein. The burning fuse is the rising anger of the Arab people, the folks in the streets, in the cities and in the villages. Americans are insulated by the self-censorship of American news media, but, through satellite television, the Arabs (and Europeans to a greater extent than Americans) get daily coverage of the brutal treatment and injustices the Israelis commit against the Palestinians. The Arabs are aware that the United States, which has voted many times to send United Nations peacekeepers here and there, just vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution to send peacekeepers to protect the Palestinians. The Arabs see correctly that it is United States support -- military, financial and chief blocker at the United Nations -- that allows Israel to act in any way it pleases. Therefore, they can conclude with perfect logic that the United States is an enemy of the Arab people. The United States is willing to cause the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children in the name of enforcing "sacred" United Nations resolutions, but blocks the enforcement of more than 60 United Nations resolutions critical of Israeli actions. American politicians are clever at covering their tracks and at deliberately misleading the American people. Every time an American is killed in the Middle East, the politicians act as if the perpetrators had parachuted down from Mars and attacked Americans for no reason whatsoever. In fact, though, too many Americans who have died in terrorist attacks in the Middle East have died because of the grossly unfair and unjust policies of the United States vis-à-vis Israel and the Palestinians. Eventually, if America continues to allow the Israelis a free hand, the Arab people will get so angry they will force their leaders to act or replace them with leaders who will. At that point, the United States will find its policy in shambles. It is not an impossibility that one day Persian Gulf states may say to the United States, "Get out and take your ships and planes with you." It is not inconceivable that one day Russians and Chinese will be guarding the oil in the Persian Gulf. At this very moment, Chinese are exploiting the oil in the Sudan -- oil that had been discovered by an American firm, which got bounced out along with the pro-American dictator. We have, in fact, been thrown out of other countries. And it most definitely is not an impossibility that the region could explode into open war with an untold cost in lives and with dire economic consequences for the whole world economy. The American government is endangering the nation's strategic interests and American lives simply to cater to the lobby of a foreign government. Merely repeating whatever the Israeli government says is not a policy or a strategy. That is acting like a ventriloquist's dummy. Bush promised us leadership. Well, here's his chance. Reach Charley Reese at creese@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5315. |
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