How can Muslims influence United States foreign policy?
Answer
I've answered your question in Arabic, but briefly I can make four points. First, Muslims must show that Islam can be put in practice. This means that in Muslim countries corruption must be overcome or at least reduced. Most Americans judge Islam by the Muslims they know. The media is biased, but there is too much truth in media attacks on Muslims. The stereotypes have a basis in fact, even though Muslims say we should not admit this.
Second, Muslims in America must continue to lobby on specific policies to counter prejudice against Muslims and promote justice for Muslim causes abroad.
Third, Muslims should work through their own think tanks in alliance with other like-minded think tanks to influence the policy agenda in Washington and in the 50 states to promote justice for Muslims, all Americans, and humankind in general.
Fourth, Muslims should work with intellectuals and with policy advisers in thinktanks to change the overall paradigm of thought in America in order to revive the traditionalist thought that gave rise to the Great American Experiment. I am working on a three-volume study to revive the best of American thought, because it is thoroughly Islamic.
Name
Haroon
- United States
Profession
writer
Question
Why do you think the US continues to sit down while innocent people are being killed in Chechnya? Also, do you feel that Russian reports of Chechen involvement in the bombings that took place in Moscow were really by the hands of Chechen Muslims?
Answer
I have answered your question and many like it in English on the simultaneous live chat in Arabic. Chechnya is an example where the priority on humanitarian intervention is outweighed by the priority of maintaining an alliance with Russia against Muslims, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and against any "instability" anywhere. The U.S. regrets only the use of "too much force" against the Chechens. President Clinton welcomed the "liberation" of Grozny. This reflects the influence of Zionist propaganda.
Name
Rafik
- United Kingdom
Profession
Question
The US is promoting itself as a guarantor of Democracy and Human Rights in the World. How do you explain the US foreign policy toward Human Rights abuse in Tunisia?
Answer
The general U.S. policy is to support representative government everywhere, but a strong movement originating in the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington opposes support for democracy in Muslim countries. The reason is the Zionist propaganda that Islam is a violent religion and Muslims cannot be trusted to support representative government except as a tactic to gain power and oppress everyone who disagrees with them. Tunisia is perhaps the world's worst case of American hypocrisy, because the Islamist movement there, led by Rashid al Ghanouchi, is the world's clearest case of a movement that understands and supports truth and justice, which is governance on the same principles that guided the American founding fathers.
Name
Barbara Lee
- Australia
Profession
Question
Hello and thank you for your thoughtful answers. Could you please tell us about yourself: When you converted to Islam and why you chose to do so? Thanks.
Answer
Allah converted me to Islam when I was five years old, and again through a religious experience when I was 21, but I did not know there were other persons in the world who understood what Allah showed me until I met an old man in Bahrain who told me that there is a word for what I worshipped, and this is "Allah." I figured that all Muslims could not be bad, as I had thought before, if this man was so good and was an admitted Muslim. I did not choose to become a Muslim. I am and have always been a Muslim, but did not know it self-consciously until I was 50 years old.
Name
ilham
- Morocco
Profession
student
Question
my question is why there is too much propaganda about islam and why are muslims are often described as terorists
Answer
Assalamu alaykum. The U.S. government follows the Zionist lead in trying to create an enemy as a substitute for Communism. This justifies U.S. support for Israeli expansionism. The Muslims, however, play into this trap in two ways. First some Muslims do engage in terrorism and are exploited to give a bad impression of all Muslims. Secondly, the corruption in so many Muslim countries gives the impression that all Muslims are corrupt and that Islam must be at fault.
Name
muhammad
-
Profession
Question
can you tell us how you became muslim
Answer
Very simple. Allah showed me that Islam is the road to spiritual awareness and social justice. Assalamu alaykum.
Name
Faouzia Ali
- Switzerland
Profession
Researcher
Question
Many contemporary Muslim and non-Muslim scholars are targeted by the Zionists and classified as anti-western and pro-terrorist, like Roger Garudi, Rached Ghannouchi and John Esposito. You don't feel threatened - as an American scholar - by this "intellectual terrorism" which is strange given western liberalism?
Answer
One of the strategies of the Zionists is to terrorize independent Muslim thinkers by making them think that they will be terrorized unless they stop their campaign for truth and justice. The power of the Zionists is real but nowhere near what they want us to think.
Many Muslims think it is hopeless to promote justice in the Middle East, especially in the Holy Land, because the Zionists control U.S. policy. The American people are not brainwashed by the Zionists, nor are most of the policy-makers in Washington. They are open to objective thinking, and have told me that Muslims would have an important role in policymaking if they would prepare themselves so that can participate in policy discussions at the same level of sophistication as the Zionists, and if the Muslims would address all issues from the perspective of what is good for America's enlightened interests. America's enlightened interests are to support truth and justice.
Name
Jamshed
- United States
Profession
Research
Question
In what capacity were you an advisor in Nixon's administration and in what specific area did you provide advice for him at that time?
Answer
For several years leading up to Nixon's election as president, I was his principal foreign policy advisor. My job was to prepare a monthly digest of the best professional articles on the principal foreign policy issues. And I prepared a book of position papers for the 1968 campaign, for which Gerald Ford wrote an introduction. Nixon appointed me Deputy Director for Planning in the National Security Council, but Kissinger, the Director, fired me the next day.
Although I then became liaison between the State Department and the NSC, my only input to Nixon's thinking thereafter was secret memos channeled to Nixon through his long-time personal secretary, Rosemary Woods. He read my memos secretly at night, until finally she too was excluded from his immediate circle and the ruthless goons (Bob Haldeman, Ehrlichman, et al) isolated him completely and then caused his eventual downfall.
This process of corruption, either financial or political, exists in all governments, in accordance with the maxims, "power corrupts" and "absolute power corrupts absolutely." Only a saint can survive in Washington without starting to worship power as a false god.
This is a digression. I would add only that one of my principal roles was to advise Nixon on the great religions of the world. Nixon had two personalities, one a very spiritual and compassionate person, and the other a street-fighter. The latter dominated when he was in a political battle, which is the constant status of every sitting president.
Name
Y.A. Salam
- India
Profession
Question
Dr. Crane, you worked with President Nixon. Did he have any particular attitudes toward Muslims?
Answer
When I was his principal foreign policy adviser from 1963 to 1968, we both looked at Muslims only as a strategic ally against Communism. During the 1970's and l980's, we both saw Muslims as a constructive force to build a global civilization of truth and justice. He read the many essays I wrote on Islam after I realized that I have always been a Muslim, and he wrote two books reflecting this more sophisticated view of the world.
Name
Ahmad
- Bosnia and Herzegovina
Profession
Question
Why is the U.S. so not serious in arresting the war criminal Caradic and the general butcher Mladic, as it is doing with the former Nazis around the world to satisfy Jews? Don't the Muslim victims of Bosnia deserve to have justice?
Answer
Perhaps the answer is that the Muslims of Bosnia cannot compete with the Zionists in the halls of power in Washington. Most U.S. policymakers genuinely want to support humanitarian policies and to combat faschist tyrants around the world, but the policy that emerges usually reflects the power equation in Congress. Zionists have more power than Muslims, and especially than Bosnian Muslims. Nevertheless, the suffering of the Bosnians has helped more than any other factor in awakening Americans to Islam and Muslims as a force in the world.
Name
Ali
- Algeria
Profession
Question
North Africa is a strategic region, it seems like the US is confortable with its allies (the dictators) in the region. You don't think that this foreign policy is influenced by the Zionist lobby and in contradiction with American values?
Answer
Right on! You have it right. To make a real difference, Muslims must work with like-minded non-Muslims in America to change the entire framework of foreign policy so that the ultimate goal is justice -- not short-term stability. Worship of the status quo with all of its injustices is a false god. Justice based on an enlightened understanding of the Shari'ah is the only legitimate goal of Muslims and of Americans in general.
Name
Bakr
- Germany
Profession
Student
Question
What do you think about building up an Islamic State? I mean a real Islamic state , ruled by a Khalifa(Calif)?
Answer
The very concept of an Islamic state is an oxymoran. The concept of state is a secular Western invention, which by definition claims that the ultimate sovereign in the universe is man. This is the opposite of Islam. A society governed by the Shari'ah recognizes that the maqasid al shar'iah, or universal principles of Islam, based on tawhid, taqwa, and al-Khilafa are the basis of Islamic society. The idea of a single Muslim khalifa is no better than the chance of such a single human leader following the shari'ah. I am sceptical of such utopianism.
Name
Mohammed Jalal
-
Profession
Question
Dear Prof. Crane,
Is religion a major factor in the US foreign policy? Thanks
Answer
Religion is becoming more and more important in U.S. foreign policy. First, it is being exploited by Israel and the Zionist movement to show that Israel is threatened by an evil force even worse than Communism. Israel needs and enemy in order to justify U.S. continued support of Israeli defense technology. Second, however, the movement toward morality and justice in all policy, domestic and foreign, is growing rapidly. This raises a conflict between just intervention in foreign conflicts and the sovereign nations' opposition to any intervention for humanitarian purposes. Thus religion is a two-edged sword. In sha'a Allah, policy advisers and policy makers who support justice will eventually triumph over those who want only power.
Name
khalid
-
Profession
Question
what is the US policy towards the holy city of jerusalem and the muslims living there?
what is the US's opinion of the plans for the holy mosque al aqsa to be brought down and be replaced by a jewish temple?
Answer
There is no U.S. policy toward Jerusalem, but merely a vigorous debate both within and outside policy circles (sorry for the constant interruption by Arabia questions)on what is in the best interests of the United States. Ultimately, the United States must want the Jews in the Holy Land to be accepted by their Arab neighbors, but this will be possible only when Israel stops oppressing Arab Palestinians. The only alternative is a holocaust with millions of deaths both in Israel and throughout the Middle East. Since U.S. policy is to promote stability, it must promote genuine stability, which can come only from justice.
Everyone I know thinks that the plan to destroy Al Aqsa is pure madness, because it would make any peace through justice impossible. Those who support this project are a fringe element who make a lot of noise but have no influencs.
