Awlaki, The Model Moderate Muslim

Editorial - September 30th, 2011 - The Washington Times

Al-Awlaki wasn't always an enemy of the state. In the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, the New York Times said the New Mexico-born cleric was being "held up as a new generation of Muslim leader capable of merging East and West." At the time, he was the Muslim chaplain at George Washington University and imam at the Dar Al-Hijrah Islamic Center in Falls Church, Va. The charismatic and media-savvy cleric was sought out for his views on terrorism. In The Washington Post in November 2001, he criticized the "one-sided" coverage of the war and said, "as an American, I do have the right to have a contrary opinion." He told National Geographic he worried that, "because of this conflict, the views of Osama bin Laden will become appealing to some of the population of the Muslim world." In 2002, he conducted a prayer service in the U.S. Capitol for the Congressional Muslim Staffer Association.

The premise of this editorial is non sense. It presumes that Awlaki was a moderate in the beginning and somehow he moved to become more extreme due to actions by our government. However the evidence was always there that he was only pretending to be moderate, and that nothing made him appear more radical as time went on except the value to his cause of stopping the pretense. The Times editorial staff also ignores the reality that any Muslim can lie to any infidel and it is totally okay. Both Allah and Mohammad think this is the right way to act, lie to your infidel face. How can anyone from the Times believe anything said by someone who embraces a religion that glorifies lying to those who do not share their belief?

Again and again those who oppose our nation taking any action that is in our own interests condemn us and insist that we caused our enemy's hatred by not subsuming our interests to their demands. Why does this not apply to them also? Why do we not demand that they stop opposing our national interests? I do not care whether it is foreigners who defend their interests and deny we have a right to defend ours, or whether it is self loathing Americans who always side with our enemies, I reject as intolerable the very idea that America cannot promote our own interests. Everyone else in the world does. Why does this universal right not apply to us?

Awlaki was never a moderate. The Times has deluded itself. Do not allow them to con you also.