America

Is AlQaeda closing in on America through Mexico?
Prof Dr Colonel K Prabhakar Rao ( Retired)

Indian defence forces must form part of decision making process in the matters of national security
Prof Dr Colonel K Prabhakar Rao (Retired)

Can India Expect sane behavior from Pakistan?
Prof Dr Colonel K Prabhakar Rao (Retired)

Pakistan cornered on Bombay terror attacks.

Prof Dr Colonel K Prabhakar Rao ( Retired)

Lashkar e Toiba is as dangerous as Al Qaida

Prof Dr Colonel K Prabhakar Rao ( Retired)

I'm not the type of woman to boss folk around on a regular basis, but for those of y'all in the US, go out and VOTE. If you've got a vehicle, offer people a lift to the polls. Remind your loved ones to do the same. For everyone, make du'a that good prevails and the innocent are protected. And if you choose to pronounce that Obama, I wouldn't blame you at all.

Comments after the jump:

“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far.

Thus sayeth a person to my wife today about an American convert she knows who talks about Islam. When she told me this, I immediately knew it applied to me as well since that man and I have in common our whiteness and maleness. You see, people *expect* a brown immigrant who speaks with an accent when they hear someone representing Islam. Even better if they are exotic with a turban or Azharite red Fez. When they don't get it, thier pre-programmed wiring tells them that the representative must not be authentic. This is despite the equally feasible conclusion that thier expectation itself was flawed, but Hummer-driving Americans who never deserved to have US Marines die for them never look within themselves for the error.

Today, while my mouth was dry and my stomach rumbling, I opened an email from MPAC (it does not seem to be up on thier site, yet). It was an editorial from one of the few national Muslim organizations that I trust, so I read it from start to finish. Salam al-Marayati wrote about the need of American Muslims to pressure the US Government to benefit more from American Muslim inputs when making policy. As I was reading, I thought that this was actually a good idea. It would finally put American Muslims in publicly prominent positions that help America. This would be a stunning public refutal of Islamophobic charges that Muslims are just freeloaders and freeriders in America. I have no doubt that Mr al-Marayati does not intend to achieve the typical Islamist goal of penetrating our government to assist fellow Islamists overseas like some immigrant Muslim organizations wistfully desire. Instead, I think he genuinely desires this as a public relations coup, one that our community badly needs.