{"id":185806,"date":"2015-09-25T03:31:18","date_gmt":"2015-09-25T03:31:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=185806"},"modified":"2015-09-25T05:01:37","modified_gmt":"2015-09-25T05:01:37","slug":"ben-carson-meet-saudi-arabia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/editorials\/ben-carson-meet-saudi-arabia\/","title":{"rendered":"Ben Carson, Meet Saudi Arabia"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chris Ernesto<\/a><\/p>\n

(RINF)<\/a> – Republican presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson attempted to wiggle out of his religiously bigoted comment<\/a> that he “would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation,” by claiming that what he meant was<\/a>, “I could never support a candidate for President of the United States that was Muslim and had not renounced…Sharia law.”<\/p>\n

Does Dr. Carson realize that one of Washington’s biggest allies is Saudi Arabia, a country that is governed<\/em><\/a> by Sharia law, and is one of the largest, if not the largest supporter<\/a> of Islamic terrorism in the world?<\/p>\n

Does Dr. Carson believe it’s okay to do business with<\/em> countries that are run by Sharia law, as long as the U.S. itself is not run by a Muslim?<\/p>\n

How does Carson come to terms with the $30 billion worth of weapons<\/a> the U.S. recently sold to the Kingdom? <\/p>\n

And, what are Carson’s thoughts on the staunch support the U.S. is giving to Saudi Arabia in its war on the Houthis in Yemen, particularly since the Houthis have been fighting against<\/em><\/a> the Sharia law-driven groups of al-Qaeda and ISIS for years? <\/p>\n

Islamophobia in the United States is out of control and needs to be halted immediately. Dr. Carson’s statement may be even more disturbing because he is an African-American. Can you imagine an Arab and\/or Muslim American saying that a black person, or a Christian should never become president of the United States? The backlash would be infinitely more pronounced than that faced by Carson.<\/p>\n

You would hope that Carson’s views don’t reflect how Americans as a whole feel, but that may be wishful thinking. <\/p>\n

\u201cI wouldn\u2019t expect those remarks would hurt Dr. Carson in [the] Iowa [caucuses]. I think they help him\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

said<\/a> Rep. Steve King (R), a conservative leader in that state. \u201cThe people on our side who pay any attention to this at all understand Sharia is incompatible with the Constitution…”<\/p>\n

In fact, Carson says that donations to his campaign have increased since he made his comment. “The money has been coming in so fast, it’s hard to even keep up with it,” Carson claimed<\/a> on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Maybe there’s hope that not all<\/em> Americans are as ignorant as Carson, as “only” 38% of those responding to a June 2015 Gallup survey<\/a> said they would not support a Muslim candidate for president.<\/p>\n

Given this nation’s ugly history of demonizing groups of people within its own borders (see<\/a> the internment of 127,000 Japanese-Americans, for example) one would hope that the establishment media understands the potential ramifications of Carson’s sentiments. <\/p>\n

If nothing else, the media should ask Carson these three questions:<\/p>\n

1. Dr. Carson, when asked, “Do you believe that Islam is consistent with the Constitution?” you responded “No, I do not.” So, do you believe that Christianity<\/em> is consistent with the Constitution?<\/p>\n

2. You said that you wouldn’t support a Muslim presidential candidate who didn’t denounce Sharia law. Would you support a Christian presidential candidate who didn’t denounce fundamentalist Christianity? Or a Jewish candidate who didn’t denounce Zionism?<\/p>\n

3. You and your wife are publishing a book in October entitled A More Perfect Union: What We the People Can Do to Reclaim Our Constitutional Liberties<\/em>. In the book you are quoted as saying: \u201cI believe that making a difference starts with understanding our amazing founding document, the US constitution.” So, the question is, did you know that in the Constitution, Article VI, paragraph 3, it says, “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States”?<\/p>\n

It’s probably a pipedream to expect Carson to be asked these questions. But whether or not Carson becomes the next president of the United States, what’s even more critical is that the anti-Muslim sentiments that people like him continue to spew are vehemently denounced and immediately stopped. <\/p>\n

In the context of what’s happening to Muslim refugees who are fleeing war zones (in large part due to<\/a> U.S. expansionism) and the anti-Muslim backlash spreading throughout parts of Europe, now is the time for Americans to reject the anti-Muslim hysteria sweeping the globe.<\/p>\n

It’s bad enough that the U.S. has bombed<\/a> seven predominantly Muslim countries since 9\/11, and an estimated 4 million<\/a> Muslims have been killed by western wars since 1990, but now to see Muslims in the U.S. be treated like second-class citizens is intolerable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chris Ernesto (RINF) – Republican presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson attempted to wiggle out of his religiously bigoted comment that he “would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation,” by claiming that what he meant was, “I could never support a candidate for President of the United States that was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1303,"featured_media":185847,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[461],"tags":[7074,7075,7092,7093,7077,7076,914,5697,1594,1367,840,963,1143,913,727],"class_list":{"0":"post-185806","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-editorials","8":"tag-ben-carson","9":"tag-bigotry","10":"tag-christianity","11":"tag-fundamentalism","12":"tag-hatred","13":"tag-ignorance","14":"tag-islam","15":"tag-islamophobia","16":"tag-muslim","17":"tag-president","18":"tag-racism","19":"tag-republican","20":"tag-saudi-arabia","21":"tag-sharia","22":"tag-zionism"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1303"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185806"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185806\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/185847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}