OSAMA BIN WASHINGTON?
OSAMA BIN WASHINGTON? US Rep. Marcy Kaptor (D, OH) compares Islamic terrorists with the Founding Fathers in an interview reported in the Toledo Blade.
“If you think back to our founding as a country, we are a country of revolution,” Miss Kaptur said in an interview this week. ***
When America “cast off monarchical Britain” in 1776, it involved the help of many religious people who had fled repression in other countries, the 11-term Toledo congressman said. Among the nontraditional American revolutionaries were the Green Mountain Boys, a patriot militia organized in 1770 in Bennington, Vt., to confront British forces, she said.“One could say that Osama bin Laden and these non-nation-state fighters with religious purpose are very similar to those kind of atypical revolutionaries that helped to cast off the British crown,” Miss Kaptur said.
Well, yes. Except that Osama’s folks aren’t fleeing repression in their countries, but staying there except for brief interludes where they come over to kill Americans. And the American revolutionaries were fighting their colonial captors, not a country that has nothing to do with governing them. And that the Americans declared a state first. And didn’t send suicide bombers to kill thousands of innocent civilians, preferring instead to fight the uniformed soldiers of their colonial occupiers. But, other than that, the analogy is dead-on.
In Iraq and other Arab nations where revolutions are potentially brewing, religious fervor will play a vital role in shaping political events, she said, and the United States must be careful “not to get caught in the crossfire.”
Other than the fact there is no revolution brewing in Iraq and that, indeed, the US would be fighting to overthrow the regime and, thus, would by definition be helping any potentially brewing revolution in the most effective manner possible.
“I think that one thing that people of faith understand about the world of Islam is that the kind of insurgency we see occurring in many of these countries is an act of hope that life will be better using Islam as the only reed that they have to lean on.
“I think that people of faith understand that for many of the terrorists, their actions are acts of sacred piety to the point of losing their lives. And I think that people of faith understand that there is a heavy religious overtone to the opposition.”
I think that people of faith understand that intentionally murdering thousands of civilians is a big no-no in virtually every faith–including even Islam. I also think PoliBlogger can retire his Big “I”[diot] Award. (link via Drudge)
