Iraq's Weapons and the Road to War
Reader comment on item: Iraq's Weapons & The Road to War

Submitted by Dick Sartain (United States), Jun 10, 2003 at 23:09

This is an excellent article, and one that I will present the next time I go to the Dallas Central Mosque. I'm developing position papers of my own, for example, US Protestantism and Islam. I'm appalled at the media and particularly the Administration for their responses as to why there aren't any WMD (after only two months).

I'm a nominal Protestant, and really got into the world situation after 9-11-01. Since that time I've tried to understand Islam, and fortunately the Dallas Central Mosque has lessons in Islam each Sunday night at 6:30 pm (Spring Valley and Abrams Rd. Dallas, Texas). It's free to anyone who wants to attend (for both men and women). The discussions that we've had have been very interesting. Everything from Iraq, Israel-Palestine, Al-Qeada in the USA, the life of the Prophet. This Mosque is of the Wahhabi school, in that, among other things, they do not celebrate the Prophet's birthday. It's of Sunni tradition. However, the leaders are very open to any discussion, and the views are very different from traditional US one.

I've recently met a Shi'a Imam in Irving, Texas (a smuch smaller mosque). The views of Islam ae VERY different. The Shi'as are much more uplifting. In fact, the Imam's favorite book in the Christian Bible is the Gospel of John. My own impression is that the Shi'as are much closer to the US position on the War on Terrorism than the Sunnis. Shi'as are much more flexible in their thinking. In fact, the Shi'a Imam recently attended the first ever convention of Shi'as in the US and Canada. The key note speaker was Paul D. Wolfowitz, the assistant Secretary of Defense. I'll be meeting with the president of the World Khoja Shia Foundation (Plano, Texas) soon.

The above should not indicate that I believe all is roses. There are many terrorists among us now, but the moderates are beggining to emerge, and they're speaking out against the fanatics that are trying to hijack the religion. I've read about 50 books on terrorism, and some of the more important ones are: Terrorist Hunter by Anonymous. This is written be a female Jew who was born in Bashra (Iraq). Her Dad was executed by Saddam Hussein. She migrated to Israel, married, and came to the US. The book, unfortunately not indexed, tells of actual terrorists in the US. Certainly Daniel Pipes "Militant Islam Reaches America" is excellent, and Steve Emerson's "American Jihad. Many of the people mentioned in the books are still active in US at the present time. However, the Patriot Act has, on the whole, improved our safety against further attacks. Believe me, Al-Qaeda would love to strike another sever blow to the US. We are at war. It's sites like this one and www.siteinstitute.org that are helping the US become safer and cleaning the tragic situation in the majority of Middle Eastern countries. Most Muslims that have migrated to the shores are here because they LOVE us. However, there are some militant Wahhabis that HATE us, and they're in very powerful positions. The War on Terrorism isn't over, but we're winning...

Dick Sartain

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