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A best-selling author who once had to escape from Afghanistan says America needs to evaluate seriously the meaning of free speech in light of wartime realities in the contemporary environment of Islamic terrorist aggression.

Dr. Phyllis Chesler is a former college professor and the author of numerous books examining historical and contemporary culture, including About Men (1979); Women of the Wall: Claiming Sacred Ground at Judaism's Holy Site (2002); and The New Anti-Semitism: The Current Crisis and What We Must Do About It (2005). In addition to her teaching and writing, she has been a strong opponent of anti-Semitism and waged several political, legal, religious and human rights campaigns in the U.S., Canada, Europe, the Far East and the Middle East.

In 1961, however, Chesler was only 20 years old when she fell in love and married a man from Afghanistan. And when the American woman accompanied her Afghan husband to Kabul, her U.S. passport was confiscated, and she learned very quickly all about the treatment of women in an Islamic society. Chesler managed to escape and says she literally kissed the ground at the airport when she arrived back home in the States.

But now the retired college professor believes Americans are increasingly unable to recognize the vast difference between a Muslim-dominated society and their own because they are being what she calls "Islamized." She claims the liberal media and the largely liberal academic community in America have turned the U.S. Constitution into a tool to defend anti-American rhetoric and pro-Islamic propaganda against the truth.

"If you have students and professors saying America is to blame for everything and Israel has to be exterminated and is to blame for everything also, and Islam cannot be criticized," Chesler posits, "and you cannot tell the truth about Islam lest you be branded a racist or, worse, a neoconservative, this is the way in which America might be Islamized."

By this means, the retired academic says, liberal college and university campuses are being turned into ideological sanctuaries where radical Islamists can hide behind the Constitution of the United States while they foment their hatred against the America and Israel.

"We have a culture, beginning with the left-wing media and with the largely progressive and left-wing university systems, that wants us to be very sensitive to different cultures and to different religions," Chesler contends. But as liberal students and professors blame the U.S. and Israel for the conflicts in the Middle East and everything else, she says, they close their eyes to any and all criticism of Islam.

In so doing, the best-selling author maintains, the Left in America is playing right into the hands of radical Islam and promoting Muslim extremists' global agenda. As a result, she asserts, "We are now using First Amendment rights and academic freedom rights to protect hate speech and to protect lies."

I had always though that the threat of physical violaence should not terrorize a Christian. Did not Christ teach "Fear not those who destroy the boby and leave the spirit, Fear those who destroy the Spirit and leave the body"? The term "Terrorism" should not exist in the Christian vocabulary.

As far as "Wartime" is concerned, nobody here really knows what war is. Some of those serving in the military are getting "Trigger time" but for most of us, we need the news to explain to us that there is a war going on. When everybody has to deal with shortages because they are needed for war, when there is a draft and every community knows someone who came home in a box. When every day one wonders if the town or city will still be standing the next day, then we can say "We are at war"

As far as Islam is concerned, we both go too far. They beat their women for showing a little too much skin, our women show all the skin they want and have men arrested for rape for reacting to it. Are we really better? While religious fundamentalism Islam, Judaism, or so called Christian is not the answer to ourslouch towards Gommorra, Niether is our decadence the answewr to thier fundamentalism.

Hi Bernie,

Welcome to Christians Unite.

Christians should not be afraid of those that can destroy the body but rather He that can destroy both body and soul.


I totally disagree. I do know the kind of war that you are talking about. I have lived it first hand. However there are many different kinds of war. The war that is in progress right now is not necessarily all bullets and bombs although those have been involved also. With this war we don't know when our cities will be there the very next day or not. There are factions in the U.S. at this very moment waiting for the opportunity to physically destroy as many of us as they can. Putting our heads in the sand pretending it does not exist will not make this fact any less true than it really is.

There always has been someone who wants us dead, and there always will be.
Right now, anybody who will force his way into my door and threaten my family is far more likely to be an American criminal. Invading other nations and imposing our opostasy is not the answer. I learned very quickly that war is not the glorious adventure too many of these chickenhawks claim it is. It is easy to cheer for war when you are not the one having a blast in Bagdad. During my 26 years in the military, Viet Nam Combat veterans have always kept my young eagerness to go to war in check. The day I had to dive under a real ship looking for a real bomb to defuse, I finally realized what all those combat veterans are talking about.
I myself was more than willing to do domestic harbor defense, and even willing to go to Afgahnistan to get the ones who actually did it on 9-11. But to invade Iraq in the name of democracy, that is where I drew the line. In disagreement to what was then the up and comming war, I submitted my retirement papers.

I garuantee you that will not always be the case> We are told in the Bible that this is so and God does not lie. If we wait for the enemy to be at the doorsteps of our homes then we have waited too long.

I served in Viet Nam and in Desert Storm. I know of very few, myself included, that think that war is "glorious". Anyone with a decent head on their shoulders would not consider it that way either. However war is sometimes very necessary.


And well you should have as you would have no longer been effective in your job. I thank God that there are many that still are willing to fight for the freedoms that we so thoroughly enjoy in this nation. One day those freedoms will no longer exist and I don't think that will be long in the coming. We are losing our freedoms daily because many do not see the dangers that are facing this nation.

The verse you are looking at is.
Matthew 10:28 And do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; but rather be afraid of Him who can destroy both soul and body in hell

Now that just smacks of arrogance Bernie. You know of nothing, of some of the member here. Some here have been under fire before. I myself, don't need the news explained about war going on.

COmabt veterans don't cheer for war and don't cry to star ones. Arrogant are those who send others to do the dying while waiving the flag and not having to pay or suffer. Can anybody show me the huge fleet of ships that would be needed to bring the hundreds of thousands of Islamic enforcers here to occupy us and "Take away our freedoms? Sorry, but those pwoplw over there cannot take away our freedom, only we can do that ourselves and I for one cannot suker kids into going over there and imposing our slouch towards Gomorra upon other nations. I have and will continue to talk kids out of joining and even helped a couple cancel their enlisments.
The "Freedom" Christ talks about is not our poitical freedom but freedom from the bobadge to sin. Nowhere are we called upon to impose political freedom. There is no Gospel of Bombs & Bullets.

Brothers and Sisters,

Most combat veterans know exactly what they did, and those still in harms way know exactly what they are doing. Further, they are proud of what they're doing, and they have every right to be proud of what they're doing. I give thanks for the brave young men and women who:

1 - Are fighting the terrorists on their own soil so that innocents will not be killed on our own soil. 9-11 was just a small example of what the terrorists wanted to do. If we don't fight the terrorists there, we will be fighting the terrorists here.

2 - The mass killing is over in Iraq. There are estimates of a minimum of 300,000 killed, but the actual number is over ONE MILLION. They will be discovering mass graves for years to come.

3 - The rape rooms and the torture chambers are closed in Iraq. A mini-Hitler was put out of business, and he will have NO opportunity to become a full blown Hitler. The people of Iraq will determine their own future, not some blood thirsty mass murderer.

4 - A haven and supporter of terrorists around the world is closed for business. Terror operations around the world will no longer be financed from Iraq unless the freed people of Iraq make the wrong decisions and go down the same road that their former mass murdering dictator went down. The families of suicide bombers around the world are no longer being paid $25,000 for each murdering fanatic who goes out and kills innocent people. Part of the network that finances and supports terrorists acts around the world is gone, and that does include 9-11.

5 - We know now that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq - it's just a matter of when Saddam moved them and who helped him move them. We also know that the worst terrorists in history had direct connections to Iraq. Iraq was, in fact, a safe haven for terrorists and a supporter of terrorists acts around the world.

In conclusion, the brave men and women who closed down Iraq and freed millions have every right to be very proud. Every drop of blood and sweat was worth it because it brought down a "want to be Hitler", eliminated thousands of terrorists, and occupied more thousands of terrorists in a way that removed their freedom to do many more 9-11s. THANKS!!!

Tom