Fathers and the Patriots, right through to the times of deeply courageous men who were blessed with a powerful intellect and huge moral suasion like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, James Madison and Benjamin Franklin, this is indeed a blessed land with an extraordinary and rich heritage and history.
From the heady days of their struggle for independence from the British, right up to the tumultuous times of Abraham Lincoln and John Brown and their bitter struggle against slavery, the civil war and so much more, the American story is littered with heroes and heroic acts and presents us with compelling evidence of the fact that ultimately good always triumphs over evil.
From the beginning right up until modern times and indeed today, their history, with all its twists and turns, is not only inspiring but also a great testimony to the power of the Living God. Yet today America is at a crossroads and in the next few weeks and months she will decide who President Barack Obama will pass the baton of leadership to.
That choice is critical because it will determine whether the self-styled “land of the free and home of the brave” will, once again be transformed into a great and major power with the strength and immense moral authority that she once enjoyed on the world stage or whether she will gradually lose her mystique and prestige and recede into a divided, conflicted, pitiful, isolated, intellectually weak, economically crippled, greatly diminished and morally bankrupt spent force. All this in a world that is witnessing and experiencing the growing power and strength of an increasingly assertive Russia and China.
There is no gainsaying that the race for the White House this year is probably the most important in recent times because the consequences of the choice that the American people will eventually make will affect the entire world for either good or bad. Needless to say, the stakes are high.
Given this, I am delighted that my preferred candidate and fellow evangelical Christian, the brilliant African-American neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson, finally recognize the warning sign and dropped out of the race for the presidential nomination of the Republican Party. I am also thrilled that he has thrown his support behind Mr. Donald Trump who I believe is a simply remarkable man that is blessed with immense potential and promise. Dr. Carson is the second presidential candidate in the Republican Party that has dropped out of the race and endorsed Mr. Trump, the first being Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey.
These are indeed good times for the colorful billionaire. He has done exceptionally well regardless of the numerous conspiracies within the leadership of his own party to stop him and regardless of the controversies that appear to trail him. Yet Mr. Trump has had his own fair share of challenges, trials and tribulations. The ugly affair at his Chicago rally on March 11 being one of them. The disruption of that rally and the suppression of freedom of speech by a large crowd of violent and threatening anti-Trump protesters at the event were appalling and unacceptable.
They show us the level to which those that wish to oppose him are prepared to go. This was an organised and premeditated effort to disrupt the rally and as Mr. Marco Rubio , another contender for the GOP presidential nomination told CNN, it was ‘’a clear violation of Mr. Trump’s first amendment rights”. The suppression of free speech for any reason is unacceptable and the protesters that shut down Mr. Trumps rally were an utter disgrace.
The truth is that that sort of behaviour will not deter Mr. Trump or his supporters and such lawlessness will only swell the ranks of those who believe in him and his cause. It will also embolden and enlarge his support base. I hope and believe that he will win the GOP presidential nomination comfortably and after that, despite his numerous eccentricities and idiosyncrasies, I believe that he will go on to give Secretary Hillary Clinton a damn good fight in the November presidential election.
The truth is that if any of the American presidential candidates energises and excites me, it is Mr. Trump. This is because he is tough, fearless, strong, quick off the mark, sharp, charming, witty and refreshing. He also offers a genuine hope of restoration and a safe return to traditional American conservative, and I daresay, Christian values. For example, he is against same-sex marriage and he is strongly pro-life.
He also believes passionately in building up the American Armed Forces and renewing their strength and glory and in the implementation of a strong and virile foreign policy.
He is the only American presidential candidate that has publicly admitted that removing Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gadhafi from power in Iraq and Libya respectively was a grave error, which has led to nothing but chaos. Unlike President Obama and Secretary Hillary Clinton and instead rather like President Putin and the Russians, Mr. Trump recognises evil for what it is and he is committed to fighting Islamic fundamentalism and Islamist terror with everything that he has got.
Consequently, he has pledged to send 30,000 ground troops into Iraq and Syria to take on ISIL. That is like music to my ears. He is pro-Israel and he seems to understand the dangers that the antisecularist forces in the Middle East and the ethos and philosophy of the Salifists and Wahhabists of Saudi Arabia pose to world peace far better than any other American politician. Most important of all he is prepared to speak his mind and say what he believes about any issue no matter whose ox is gored. With Trump, what you see is what you get.
That is a rare quality among politicians from anywhere in the world and it ought to be encouraged. By nature, politicians have to compromise on everything otherwise they cannot get elected and they very rarely say what they mean or mean what they say. They must always be seen to be politically correct. It is for this very reason that I do not regard myself as being a politician in the true sense of the word.
Unlike most, I will never compromise with what or who I consider to be incompetent, questionable, insincere, malicious. ill-motivated, bloodthirsty, bigoted or evil. Like Mr. Trump, I will always call a spade a spade. Like Mr. Trump, I will never see darkness and call it light or see light and call it darkness. And like U.S. President Harry Truman said many years ago, “I never give them hell: I just speak the truth and they think that they are in hell”.
Yet despite my fondness and respect for Mr. Trump, there is one area in which I believe that he is getting it badly wrong and that is in his expression of thoughts about members of the Muslim faith.
He fired the first salvo a couple of weeks ago when he said that all Muslims should be banned from coming to the United States of America. This created a major storm all over the world coupled with a deep sense of fear, trepidation and outrage from millions of Muslims.
Yet sadly, he did not stop there. During the GOP presidential candidates’ debate, which was aired live by CNN on 10th of March, he said: “Islam hates us’’, meaning that all Muslims hate America and the rest of the non-Muslim world. This assertion is divisive and deeply offensive.
It is also blatantly false and I don’t have to be a Muslim to say or know it. It is true that radical Islam ‘’hates us’’. It is true that the Islamic fundamentalists ‘’hate us’’. It is true that the Islamists ‘’hate us’’.
It is true that the Jihadists ‘’hate us’’ but it is not true that “Islam hates us”. ISIL, Al Qaeda, Al Shabab, Hamas, Boko Haram, the Taliban, Islamic Jihad, the Fulani militants/herdsmen, the Al Nusra Front and all the other terrorists and terror groups in the world ‘’hate us’’ but the overwhelming majority of Muslims do not and neither do they indulge in acts of terror.
As pained and concerned as we are about what is going on in the world today and about the barbarous atrocities that the terrorists are committing on a daily basis, we must learn to separate the wheat from the chaff.
If we do not make this distinction very clear and emphasize the fact that not all Muslims are filled with hate and are terrorists, we run the risk of alienating millions of decent God-fearing Muslims from all over the world who hate the jihadists and terrorists just as much as we do and who also deplore their actions.
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