Saw this in the New York Times today.
Agree or disagree, at least this guy did SOME homework, making him infinitely better qualified to speak than the endless talking heads who ignore the opinions of actual Muslims (I'm talking about the normal people: your son's friend at school, your daughter's math teacher, your neighbor's doctor...not the radical terrorists that make up less than one percent of the world's Muslim population) or never got past the front (or rather back) cover (for those that don't understand that last bit, you need to go ahead and Wikipedia "Arabic language").
Not-in-chronological-order Suras, reference to Judaism and Christianity to include Moses and Jesus (and not in bad ways)...I'm just going to go ahead and say "I told you so." Thank-you Professor Reza (the prof who taught my Islamic Law class in law school) for saving me from being an ignorant asshole. I can still be an asshole, but I try to at least be a well-read asshole.
Forgive my fervor: I just really hate dumb people. It's a character flaw that I fully disclaim.
And of course, due to the political nature of this topic, I also fully disclaim the fact that this opinion is mine alone, and not representative of the people I work for. If you didn't understand that, please go to the very top of this page, or the right side of this page: it's on here twice to make sure there is no misunderstanding.
Fuck it, that brings up another point. As part of our FACCC small group setup, our instructor makes one of us brief the day's news at the beginning of each day (yeah, it's essentially Current Events for grown-ups). Obviously the crazy I-want-to-burn-Qurans guy in Florida has been a headliner for the last couple weeks, and much has been made about General Petraeus' decision to speak publicly on the topic.
Traditionally, it has been considered a faux pas for uniformed military personnel to speak out on political issues. As a military, we are considered to be a military means to a political end: an extension of political will at the nation-state level. Consequently, there is a perceived conflict of interest: an attitude that is fundamentally rooted in our rock-steady belief in military subordination to civilian authority. No one will ever contest that.
Soldiers talk about politics all the time: within the confines of the barracks or in their homes. To think otherwise is naive. To demand otherwise is foolish. Rigorous intellectual discourse and debate is what stimulates or catalyzes learning and discovery. The words I commit to this page might not be sanctioned or approved by the institution I volunteer my life for, but any debate or thought it stimulates is a positive contribution.
Since the military is an instrument of national policy, it is critical that our military leaders be in tune and in touch with the pulse of America. This is now encroaching on another blog topic that I've been piecing together ever since I had a drunken conversation at a Buffalo Wild Wings with two fellow Army officers a couple weeks ago, but the basic premise is such: as American society's moral values/ideals/goals shift over time, our military institution must be flexible and shift with society. This is one of the greatest challenges facing senior leadership in the modern, technologically rich and information-saturated, flatter global environment. A directly related challenge is whether we should recognize the emergence of a warrior class in today's America (also another blog topic for another day).
But I digress. GEN Petraeus decided to speak out on the Quran-burning affair. Outwardly, it was justified by an undoubtedly genuine concern for the welfare of our servicemembers currently in-theater. And nearly every government official (with half a brain) has been careful to underscore the fact that crazy-Florida-guy does have a Constitutional right to burn Qurans if he wants to (remember, the 1st Amendment doesn't protect only the speech we like, it protects all speech: even unpopular or loathsome forms of expression).
But perhaps this has also been a signal of a shift. Not only a shift in senior leader's TTPs (tactics, techniques and procedures) regarding interaction with the media, but maybe a signal to America of a different United States military. All of this comes amidst a sea of debate and national turmoil over salient political issues: burning Qurans, mosques near Ground Zero, Don't Ask Don't Tell. And now we have a four-star general pleading against the burning of holy books, senior Pentagon leadership saying maybe it's okay for gays to serve in the military...all in the public arena.
Maybe I'm jumping at nothing, but we are a professional Army that has been engaged in continuous combat for nearly a decade: no Army sans conscripts/draftees has ever done that before in American history. Today's military institution is profoundly different, and has undergone more change and transformation in the last ten years than it did in the preceding half-century. So maybe this is the flip-side to the arguments that denounce the evolution of a warrior class. Who knows. I'm rambling, so I'm going to stop now.
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