I just received this in an e-mail. Keep in mind, I don't believe everything I receive in my e-mails but if this has a shred of truth to it, I find it the height of hypocrisy and disgusting. I guess I am posting it here because I am tired of our military being bashed. Read it an evaluate it for yourself.
Hypocrisy Most Holy
By ALI AL-AHMED
2005 - WSJ Opinion Journal
With the revelation that a copy of the Quran may have been desecrated by
U.S. military personnel at Guantanamo Bay, Muslims and their governments
-- including that of Saudi Arabia -- reacted angrily. This anger would have
been understandable if the U.S. government's adopted policy was to desecrate
our Quran. But even before the Newsweek report was discredited, that was
never part of the allegations.
As a Muslim, I am able to purchase copies of the Quran in any bookstore
in any American city, and study its contents in countless American
universities. American museums spend millions to exhibit and celebrate
Muslim arts and heritage. On the other hand, my Christian and other
non-Muslim brothers and sisters in Saudi Arabia -- where I come from -- are
not even allowed to own a copy of their holy books. Indeed, the Saudi
government desecrates and burns Bibles that its security forces confiscate
at immigration points into the kingdom or during raids on Christian
expatriates worshiping privately.
Soon after Newsweek published an account, later retracted, of an American
soldier flushing a copy of the Quran down the toilet, the Saudi government
voiced its strenuous disapproval. More specifically, the Saudi Embassy in
Washington expressed "great concern" and urged the U.S. to "conduct a
quick investigation."
Although considered as holy in Islam and mentioned in the Quran dozens of
times, the Bible is banned in Saudi Arabia. This would seem curious to most
people because of the fact that to most Muslims, the Bible is a holy book.
But when it comes to Saudi Arabia we are not talking about most Muslims,
but a tiny minority of hard-liners who constitute the Wahhabi Sect.
The Bible in Saudi Arabia may get a person killed, arrested, or deported. In
September 1993, Sadeq Mallallah, 23, was beheaded in Qateef on a charge
of apostasy for owning a Bible. The State Department's annual human rights
reports detail the arrest and deportation of many Christian worshipers every
year. Just days before Crown Prince Abdullah met President Bush last month,
two Christian gatherings were stormed in Riyadh. Bibles and crosses were
confiscated, and will be incinerated. (The Saudi government does not even
spare the Quran from desecration. On Oct. 14, 2004, dozens of Saudi men and
women carried copies of the Quran as they protested in support of reformers
in the capital, Riyadh. Although they carried the Qurans in part to protect
themselves from assault by police, they were charged by hundreds of riot
police, who stepped on the books with their shoes, according to one of
the protesters.)
As Muslims, we have not been as generous as our Christian and Jewish
counterparts in respecting others' holy books and religious symbols. Saudi
Arabia bans the importation or the display of crosses, Stars of David or any
other religious symbols not approved by the Wahhabi establishment. TV
programs that show Christian clergymen, crosses or Stars of David are
censored.
The desecration of religious texts and symbols and intolerance of varying
religious viewpoints and beliefs have been issues of some controversy inside
Saudi Arabia. Ruled by a Wahhabi theocracy, the ruling elite of Saudi Arabia
have made it difficult for Christians, Jews, Hindus and others, as well
as dissenting sects of Islam, to visibly coexist inside the kingdom.
Another way in which religious and cultural issues are becoming more
divisive is the Saudi treatment of Americans who are living in that country:
Around 30,000 live and work in various parts of Saudi Arabia. These people
are not allowed to celebrate their religious or even secular holidays. These
include Christmas and Easter, but also Thanksgiving. All other Gulf states
allow non-Islamic holidays to be celebrated.
The Saudi Embassy and other Saudi organizations in Washington have
distributed hundreds of thousands of Qurans and many more Muslim books, some
that have libeled Christians, Jews and others as pigs and monkeys. In Saudi
school curricula, Jews and Christians are considered deviants and eternal
enemies. By contrast, Muslim communities in the West are the first to admit
that Western countries -- especially the U.S. -- provide Muslims the
strongest freedoms and protections that allow Islam to thrive in the West.
Meanwhile Christianity and Judaism, both indigenous to the Middle East,
are maligned through systematic hostility by Middle Eastern governments and
their religious apparatuses.
The lesson here is simple: If Muslims wish other religions to respect
their beliefs and their Holy book, they should lead by example.
Mr. al-Ahmed is director of the Saudi Institute in Washington
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