The Cairo speech by Obama continued--his slanted view of Islam

This blog represents the fifth in a series examining Andrew McCarthy's powerful new book, The Grand Jihad. It's an important book every American should read, but if you don't have the time to do that, I hope you will look back at my previous blogs to get an idea of his main points. In this particular blog (the sixth on the topic), I would like to complete McCarthy's review of President Obama's speech in Cairo which he gave in June 2008 as a way to reach out to Muslims.

The President spoke of charitable giving. He said he wished to make it easier for Muslims in America to fulfill their religious obligations (zakat) by relaxing rules on charitable giving. The author points out that the Muslim definition of charity is different than what the Western world thinks of. It is the obligation of Muslims to help only Muslims, to help implement sharia, to underwrite anything that helps Islamists further their goals. McCarthy also notes that the United States does not have rules on charitable giving that makes it difficult for Muslims to be generous. What we have, instead, are federal laws against financing terrorism and providing other material support to terrorists. Numerous Islamic charities have proved to be fronts for terrorist activity, at least in part, so it's difficult to see why we should relax these rules.

In another part of his speech, Obama said "Islam is not part of the problem in combating violent extremism -- it is an important part of promoting peace." McCarthy acknowledges that George Bush said the same thing years ago, but he believes both men are wrong. He says Islam is a huge part of the problem in combating extremism. Over and over we have seen Muslims commit terror under the influence of many of their religious scholars, who invoke some of the many parts of the Koran the President decided not to mention in his speech. If Islam wants to be a peaceful religion, McCarthy says, it must purge its savage elements and must compellingly condemn the violence committed in its name. How can this happen if Obama and others tell Muslims everything is fine, that their religion is just terrific the way it is? Islam is in need of a reformation, something that can only be done by Muslims. We cannot rouse them to the task of taking this on if we keep telling them their current religion promotes peace. To help these moderate Muslims, we must fix ourselves unambiguously and immovably against the Islamists, McCarthy says.

I think the author has made a good point here. There is something wrong with a religion in which so many leaders and followers either carry out terror or support it loudly. Christianity today certainly has an element that has committed violence, especially against abortion doctors and clinics. But this group is tiny, it has no support from leading pastors, it cannot find any verses in the Bible to justify its position, and the vast majority of Christians reject it and are horrified by it. As mentioned in a previous book I reviewed called God is Back, Islam has never had a reformation to cleanse it of questionable practices and beliefs. Until that happens, we must stand firmly in opposition to its disturbing elements.

One additional problem with Obama's speech had to do with reference to the number of Muslims residing in the United States. It's common for Islamists to overstate wildly the number for one reason -- to have more of their people here than Jews. There are roughly 6,000,000 Jews living in the United States, so this has become a magic number for the Muslims to equal or surpass. In reality though, the most reliable estimates peg the figure of Muslims in this country as somewhere around 1.5 million. What did Obama say in his speech? He used the number 7 million, echoing Islamists' boasts.

There's still more I would like to report on this book, but I'll wait until another time. Again, I hope you stay alert to the threat that won't go away any time soon.