Monday, February 22, 2010

Representing American values, Not.

Obama selects a voice of radical Islam
Examiner Editorial February 22, 2010
President Obama has made some terrible appointments during his first year in the White House, including now-former White House environmental adviser Van Jones, who once signed a petition accusing President George W. Bush of allowing the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks as a pretext for going to war. Jones also defended a radical Marxist group in San Francisco known as Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement.
But, as Examiner columnist Cal Thomas wrote recently, Obama's selection of Rashad Hussain, his deputy associate White House counsel, as U.S. special envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference, "should be of concern to Congress and the American people." Comprising 57 member states, the OIC's charter makes clear its purpose is to "defend" and "disseminate" the Muslim faith. Whenever human rights collide with Islam, the OIC sides with the latter.
In announcing Hussain's selection as a U.S. diplomat, Obama first cited the fact that the Texas-born Yale Law School graduate is a Hafiz, a person who has memorized the Arabic language version of the Quran. Put aside the uproar that would have ensued had Bush enthused that his hypothetical selection for the Court of St. James was mainly qualified because he had memorized the Anglican Church's Book of Common Prayer. Hussain's Muslim beliefs appear to go quite beyond merely knowing Quranic verses. As Thomas points out, Hussain has a long history of participating in activities connected with the Muslim Brotherhood, a major organizational and theological wellspring for radical Jihadists who seek to impose Shariah law on America and the rest of the world.
Among the most disturbing elements of Shariah law are its sanctions for killing apostates (i.e., those who leave the Muslim religion), suppression of speech by individuals and organizations that is critical of Islam, criminalization of adultery and homosexuality (including provision of the death penalty for both), "nonviolent" wife beating, and lying to advance Muslim interests. Clearly, there is no room in Shariah law for the core principles ingrained in the U.S. Constitution and embodied in the First Amendment's protection of freedom of speech, assembly, petition and religion.
So the question for Obama is this: How can Hussain be a forceful advocate to OIC and other international forums on behalf of individual rights that are most brutally and routinely suppressed by Islamic regimes like Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Iran? Or is this no longer a topic American diplomats are allowed to bring up on the world stage?

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