"They wonder what I see that they don't."

OK. The story is about Iraq. The angle is the President's effort to quell unrest and instill confidence among Americans and Iraqis. The line that catches my eye is the headline above, "They wonder what I see that they don't".

Then I see the picture [AP, thanks!] of a Muslim man slicing his head with a sword. I think to myself, "Now here's an unusual twist! His own head, not someone else's. Imagine that!"

Then I'm stopped in my tracks as I ponder, "What do I see that they don't?"; how many Americans think that Islam is just another religion. Then, I think of all the Muslims throughout Europe and the rest of the world. Societies with an appreciable percentage of Muslims in the population, stressed to the breaking point. France and Australia come readily to mind, though Germany and Denmark are not too distant. Likewise, the Netherlands is in chaos with Muslim disruption. And I ask myself (because no one else is listening, thank goodness!) "If Europe is collapsing as Muslims won't assimilate, but rather want to live as Muslims, apart from the rest of western civilization, while living amongst those who are civilized acording to western traditions, how can a Muslim ever become part of a western society at all?"

"In America, almost everyone has at the outset, the right to run for public office. The truly wise avoid it, I think, yet it is to a large extent a measure of being an American. The ability to run for office and be part of the governing process is a measure of being part of a country where the people are governed by the people in the form of an elected government."

"How on earth can anyone think that a true, traditionalist Muslim can be a true American, running for office while slicing his head open when the polls deliver bad news? Slicing his head open when he gets defeated in a televised debate? Slicing his head open when Hilary criticizes one of his initiatives? How can any rational person consider, however momentarily, that a true, Allah fearing, traditional Muslim can be part of anything that we consider civilization, while slicing his head open in public as a form of grief expression?"
This is what I say to myself. Remember? no one else is listening.

This only stands to confirm what John Quincy Adams said on the subject: Islam is not religion, this is just evil which brings out the worst in humankind.