Extremists vilify American heroes

On August 6, 2007, a bomb in Baquba, Iraq killed three American soldiers. One was this 20 year old Stryker Brigade Corporal from New Jersey.

The Corporal “graduated from Southern Regional High School in Manahawkin in 2005, and enlisted in the Army a few months later, spurred by his memories of the 9/11 terror attacks.” The fallen soldier

His death followed an earlier combat injury for which he received the Purple Heart. He was also the recipient of the Bronze Star.

The soldier’s story is not unique. In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, thousands of Americans joined the military, motivated to do their part to defend our country from the genocidal maniacs who attacked us. Scores have died serving our nation.

But the soldier killed in Baquba was different. Corporal Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan was a Muslim. Here’s Cpl. Khan’s mother at her son’s gravesite at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia:

Cpl. Khan was hardly the first American Muslim to fall in battle. Muslims, like Christians, Jews, Atheists, and others have served with honor in our nation’s military from its inception:

Research on Muslims in the American military is scattered and incomplete, but the basic facts are common ground. . . Muslims serve in substantial numbers today and that they have served in every American war, beginning with the Revolution. As a State Department publication summarizes, “Muslim Americans have served with distinction in all U.S. wars.” The known part of the story begins with Peter Salem (or Saleem), a freed slave who fought “in the Battle of Bunker Hill and throughout the American Revolution.”

In the wake of the despicable act of mass murder apparently committed by Nidal Malik Hasan at Ft. Hood, the usual suspects on the far right immediately set about defaming an entire people, including heroes like Cpl. Khan. Religious fundamentalist fanatic Pat Robertson, far right talk show hosts, and their enablers at Fox “News” made these hideous comments after the tragedy:

Bryan Fischer, the Director of Issues Analysis at the conservative two million member American Family Association said flatly that all Muslims should be expelled from the military. How disgusting.

The United States should no more single out for discrimination millions of American Muslims than it should have turned on millions of American Christians after Timothy McVeigh murdered 168 people in Oklahoma City. Isolating, demeaning, criminalizing, and violating the rights of ordinary citizens because they practice a minority religion is no way to prevent acts of terror.

But that’s not how conservative extremists like Robertson see things. To Robertson and his fellow travelers, Muslims exist here at the sufferance of “real” Americans. How else to explain the immediate push to single out for discrimination an entire segment of American society — people who by law live here with every right and obligation of citizenship enjoyed by the likes of Michael Savage?

During the Bush Administration, conservatives were fond of saying that if we didn’t go to Disney World or go shopping, the terrorists will have won. The reality is that if anyone in this country heeds the ignorant ranting of the likes of Robertson, Fox or Savage, the bigots will have won.  That’s not what our soldiers, including Corporal Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan, fought and died for.

Partisan Gridlock with Geoff Berg airs every Friday from 3:00 – 4:00 pm on KPFT, 90.1 FM in Houston, 89.5 FM in Galveston, and everywhere else on Facebook or at www.kpft.org.