I am refuting my previous speech where I tried to persuade you that the United States didn’t need to take military action against Iraq, because by doing so we would be imposing our value system upon them. I felt I needed to refute my previous speech, because it is important to understand the whole situation before drawing a conclusion.
In’s speech he introduced the issue of terrorism. In his speech he argued that the Iraqi crisis wasn’t about the United States trying to impose it’s values upon the Middle Eastern People but rather a situation that endangered our national security. I agree with that the problem in the Middle East is terrorism, but it’s not their actions that are the root of their problem but rather their system of belief. To understand how they believe you must first understand the situation in which they are in. source (CNN interactive)
Ok imagine yourself growing up in a world where there has been constant war for centuries, because of conflicting religious beliefs. People pray often and go to temple daily. You would probably grow up to be very religious and strong in your faith.
In Iraq and in Iran this is the setting. Iran and Iraq are Muslim countries. Source (World Assembly of Muslim Youth Web site). The let’s take for example the Muslim religion which calls for its people to pray regularly, fast, give charity, and to convert others to the religion of Islam. Some of fundamentalists do the highest form of worship and that is Jihad. Jihad means “struggle” or others put it “holy war” as written about in the Koran is the Jihad which is the converting of non-believers to the religion of Islam. By doing this they seek to obtain God’s blessing of paradise. Islamic terrorist are Islamic fundamentalist who are also very devout in their beliefs.
Iran could easily take over Iraq because Iraqi people would not support a leader who mistreated them for the last 7 years. Most people in Iraq are Muslims already so they would invite the fundamentalist movement in Iraq.
It would cause such terrorist leader’s such as Osama Bin Laden to have more power, because it influence many Muslims to become involved in the fundamentalist movement. The exaggerated statement I gave earlier about your Muslim neighbor shooting you will become much more of a possibility.
From a few fundamentalist grew millions. They rule the countries of Afghanistan and Iran. The Muslim fundamentalist threat is very dangerous, because many Middle Eastern people are being converted to the religion that has changed from a religion of peace into one of war. Other Islamic fundamentalist argue that they don’t force other people to the religion. In the Koran it states “Had God not checked one set of people by means of another, the earth would indeed have been full of mischief; but God is full of bounty to all the worlds” (2:251).
We can’t attack Iran because most of Europe’s oil comes from Iran and would be outraged if the United States were to take such action. We can’t take-over Iran but only protect the rest of the Middle Eastern countries from further Islamic invasion.
Most of you would agree that by causing our economy to tumble and the destruction of many American buildings would be seen as nothing less than as affecting our way of life. The American constitution defines an individual’s rights only extends to where someone else’s begins. Islamic terrorist bombing of World Trade Center and Pan American Flight 103 are violation of our rights, because they are killing us. A take-over of Iraq would cause paranoia of Arabian descent in the United States as portrayed in the movie “siege”.
This how one author described his view of the Islamic fundamental movement in Iran. Another theme of the new fundamentalism has been an attempt to get Islamic history back on the right track and to make the umma [Muslim community] effective and strong once again. The Iranian revolution was not just an atavistic return to the past, but an attempt to impose decent values in Iran again. — p. 265 If their religion our value system rationalize such acts as bombing the World Trade Center and U.S. embassies then something is wrong with their beliefs.
