These are interesting posts. I don't believe that America is anti-Islam or anti-Muslim, no matter what this idiot general said. He is a member of a very fundamentalist church, a fringe group that does not speak for all Christians. We all have problems with fundamentalists in our countries, and they all make us look intolerant and judgemental. If you look at our newspapers, you will see that they are all making fun of this sick crackpot, so please do not judge us by what he says. I think that the Pentagon will try to sit on him and you won't see him saying much more, at least while he is in uniform. He can say whatever he wants out of uniform, and this is because we value free speech.
If you watched the actions of the government after the 9/11 attacks, it was clear that they were not trying to blame all Muslims for this. For instance, the big memorial service at the National Cathedral in Washington included a Christian, a Jew, and a Muslim cleric as speakers. They all spoke of tolerance, forgiveness, and peace, which is the underlying message of all these religions.
I don't think the average guy in America is anti-Muslim, but I will say that there are many that are just intolerant of different people. We're very xenophobic, but probably not more than most other countries. If you really want to see racism, just go to Japan, for instance. Or China, Russia, or northern Europe.
We are just very protective of certain things. For instance, if the Taliban were to take over, if they started to smash TV sets like they did in Kabul, Americans would kill them all. Not because they are Muslims, but because we live on TV.
Muslims are a fast growing sector here, and they are a valuable part of our economy and society. We have had some problems since 9/11 with mosques being vandalized, but for the most part people understand that Muslims here did not support 9/11. What hurt, however, was the scenes of people in Egypt and Pakistan dancing in the streets when those people were killed. I'm sure the Palestinians lost a lot of support here when they did the same thing. And then when some Muslims kept suggesting that this was not the work of al- Queda or bin Laden, but was some sort of Israeli plot, that was amazing. I hope that these sorts of silly theories, spread by the Muslim version of our general, mentioned above, have been put to rest.
Rambling as usual. Bye for now. Jack