A statement -- or an aspiration?

Nannette

On ABC news "The Emergence of President Obama's Muslim Roots"

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/06/abc-news-jake-tapper-and-sunlen-miller-report-the-other-day-we-heard-a-comment-from-a-white-house-aide-that-neverwould-have.html

Tommy

Exactly what is happening in the USA
http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/107459-0/

Depressing

Fronti nulla fides

Perhaps he will start calling himself President Barack Hussein Obama after all.

Liam Murray

He's referring to 'numbers' rather than %'s as the quote makes quite clear.

Obviously still ranking low in a list dominated by Middle Eastern or Asian countries but expand it to include central & western Europe (areas usually assumed by Muslims to be less hostile than America) then the picture changes.

A fairly straighforward & non-remarkable point from where I'm sitting - unless of course you're pre-disposed to distrust anything positive a centrist US president says on Islam....

Michael B

Precisely.

Obama lives on planet Obama, an almost Twilight Zone incarnation brought to you by an enthralled media class, a clerisy, a certain zeitgeist in the wake of the left's long march, ...

While Lincoln more truly led, insisting "we must disenthrall ourselves," Obama, seemingly, is only too happy to remain ensconced and in the thrall of this incarnation.

David MacKinnon

Liam Murray,

You make good points about the rationale behind Obama's statement. Although I still disagree that the U.S. can be considered one of the larger Muslim countries. However, you end your comment with the assertion that Obama is a centrist president. That is a simply laughable statement to make. Even accounting for his mimicry of some of George Bush's terror positions, Obama's domestic and foreign policies, taken as a whole, put him arguably further left than any other president in U.S. history. A bad end to a comment well begun. Where "you're sitting" must be somewhere to the left of Jimmy Carter.

Dan

@ Liam Murray

Perhaps you should read slower, Obama compared America to the world, not America + Central and Western Europe to the world.

As a matter of fact, even if you did include all of Europe including a the Eastern bloc countries who tend to have large Muslim populations you would only get a total of approx 56 million which is still not the biggest.

In my opinion the statement gives incredible insight into Obamas world view that is clearly on vacation from actual facts.

Dave

On Gawker "Jack Tapper Baits Wingnuts with Muslim story"
http://gawker.com/5276843/jake-tapper-baits-wingnuts-with-obamamuslim-story-wingnuts-bite-hard

David Raynes

Turkey-99% Muslim?
It did not feel like that last time I was there. I find that figure very hard to believe, I wonder about the provenance of that figure.

Ian C

From where you're sitting Liam Murray you must have a very tinted view of whatever wolrd you live in. First he was comparing USA v the World not the wetern world and second 'centrist?'.

What is centrist about the biggest tax and spend budget deficit in history projected to last beyond the next decade?

Then there's the gov't dictat removal of ownership rights for investors as a thankyou to his Trades Union base. And there's the suicide pact of cap and trade. These in less than six months.

Need we continue....?

sean

You're being too generous. Any realistic survey shows there's between 2 and 3 million Muslims only in the USA

sean

David Raynes - "Turkey-99% Muslim?"

Er yes. It's a well documented fact (check CIA factbook). Are you sure you were in Turkey or do you not realise that there is such a thing as secular Muslims? Urban Turks are pretty 'European', honour killings and sharia still rule in the rural areas.

There used to be huge numbers of Christians and Jews too, but those numbers have dwindled since 1900.

logdon

It's because he is a Muslim.

Born as one, educated in early years at a maddrassa, pictured in muslim dress. Even, gasp named Hussein. What's not Islamic about any of that?

Then the missing records. The birth certificate. The education records.

Not forgetting that grovelling bow.

I felt that the idea of a black potus was extremely laudable. However of all the suitable black people in the US they pick this marxist, racist and divisive product of the Chicago machine.

Nothing will surprise except for the fact that the US is still in thrall.

Pajamas Media, Atlas Shrugs and Family Security Matters are good places to start if anyone needs a little education outside the MSM.

logdon

It could also be argued that whilst Bush was a son of a bitch, he was America's son of a bitch.

With Obama, until he produces that birth certificate, who knows?

Trumpeldor

Melanie,

According to the famous and reliable Pew Institute,USA have around 2.5 millions muslim,less than 1 per cent of us population
let us hope that this barak hussein's blunder will awaken middle America to understand whom they voted for
Will the Land of the Free rise ?

Alex Bensky

Actually, when he's overseas he sometimes does refer to himself as "Barack Hussein Obama." For that matter, during the campaign it was racist Islamophobia to refer to his Muslim roots--I have no reason to believe he is Muslim.

I don't doubt that he's entirely sincere in thinking that the problem we have with the Muslim world is a lack of understanding and communication. He's entirely wrong, of course; the Muslims understand the United States very well. That's why they hate us.

One of the chief jihadist theoreticians discovered the corruption and decadence of the US in, of all places, 1950's Fort Collins, Colorado.

If only miscommunication were the problem.

Dave

Sean: Turkey is of course a fiercely secular country. If it were 99% Muslim... well why the army-backed moves to keep it a secular state? Are all 1% of non-Muslims in the army then?

Redvers

A classic, Melanie, your best yet.

Jennie

Unfortunately Obama is on this planet, in America, in the White House. God help us all!

Jennie

Tommy, I read that article that you referred to, the one published in Pravda. Devastating! Everyone on this blog should take the time to read it. Thank you for posting it.

David

Melanie, - I really would like an answer from you on this - what would your reaction be if someone pointed to Rahm Emmanuel and suggested that his presence was proof that Obama was beholden to Jews and aimed to turn the US into a Jewish puppet state?

Linda Smith

When Obama said "if you actually took the number of Muslim Americans, we'd be one of the largest Muslim countries in the world" did he mean, as there are a fair numer of Muslim Americans, the US is GEOGRAPHICALLY one of the largest countries in the world with a Muslim population.

C. Gee

Obama's statement, like so much of what he says, is so conceptually confused it is meaningless.
What is a "Muslim nation"? One which is constituted, more or less strictly, under Islamic law. It is not a secular nation with a majority or significant percentage of Muslims, such as Turkey or India.
For a nation not constituted under Islam, it is meaningless to talk in numbers and not percentages, if you want to describe how Muslim it is.
But even that concept - how Muslim a nation is - is meaningless without reference to Islam, both ideological and cultural, and its absorption (or otherwise)into the nation's ideology and culture.
For Obama, identity is all. His identity: white, black, American, African, Indonesian, Christian, Muslim etc. embodies the world.
He represents mankind.
And that is why the the idea of nation does not mean anything to him, and why he cannot and should not represent America.

Drakken

Liam Nelson

Where do you come up with that our President is a centrist? Good God man, this guy is left of Jimmy Carter!

Derek BLADES

Jennie (3 June) writes "Tommy, I read that article that you referred to, the one published in Pravda. Devastating! Everyone on this blog should take the time to read it. Thank you for posting it."

Believe me Jennie, that was never published in Pravda. The website Tommy found uses Pravda as bait. Did you read some of the other articles on the same page – “Dog Gives Birth to Mutant Creature that Resembles a Human Being" or "The Amazing story of the 256 Year Old Man"

Tory Poppins

He is SO rumbled on this one! Notice how the White House has been at great pains to recall Obama's muslim roots now that the election is out of the way!

Derek BLADES

Ms Philips gives Wikipedia as her source for the numbers of Muslims in each country. The Wiki table she used shows that the United States comes 52nd out of the 172 countries for which data are available. That puts the United States in the top third of all countries in terms of the size of its Muslim community - coming just after Germany, just before Thailand and well ahead of the United Kingdom. That also puts Obama safely back on planet earth - he was making the sensible point that the United States is home to a substantial number of Muslims. As Liam Murray writes "a fairly straighforward & non-remarkable point".

Statistics on religious affiliations are notoriously unreliable. Sean tells David Raynes that it is a "well documented fact" that 99% of the Turkish population is Muslim. That 99% includes many secular Muslims – i.e. people who have the good sense to reject religion. But the CIA Factbook still puts them down as Muslims. This is an area of statistics where no facts are well-documented.

Redvers

Hang on. I thought the last bit was satire (a joke?).

Can someone please clarify?

Angela

Interesting in this connection: I've just been reading that Obama's 86 year old gran, Sarah, is going on the pilgrimage to Mecca (Haj) with her son, Syed Obama. By the way, it's not Barack and Michelle who are footing the bill, but a certain Dr. Sulaiman al Fahim, known as the "Donald Trump of Abu Dhabi".

Sam Armstrong

Watch out America. Europe's had this for years. It will get much uglier too. Fight!

Douglas Bass

The Wikipedia article you site is internally inconsistent. The 4,558,068 figure has no citation. The other, smaller figures (0.6%) come from the CIA World Factbook.

The Pew Research Center conducted a study on Muslim Americans in 2007.

The Pew study projects approximately 1.5 million adult Muslim Americans, 18 years of age and older. The total Muslim American population is estimated at 2.35 million, based on data from this survey and available Census Bureau data on immigrants’ nativity and nationality. It is important to note that both of these estimates are approximations.

Raymond in DC

Given that, by one accounting, the US is 34th in number of Muslims, saying it's one one the largest Muslim countries in the world is like saying Chile is one of the largest Jewish countries in the world.

Granted there are many Muslims, even on these shores, who look forward to the day that the US *is* a Muslim country governed by sharia. But can one imagine the outrage if Obama had claimed the US is the largest Christian country? Then again, since sucking up to the Muslim world is now official policy, I guess the Prez gets a pass.

Marsouin

It's likely due to his teleprompter malfunctioning. At least this time, he read his speech, not President Mubarak's.

alex

if you ask daniel pipes about the number of muslims living in america (or check his site) you'll see it's actually much lower even than the number you quote. The number has been much inflated to suit special interests groups.

David Lewis

He could be referring to the square area of the USA er maybe er

Original Tony

Derek Blades...it's not about statistics or ambiguous comments made by the President of the free world, it is the INTENT behind the comments.

Therefore, one must agree with Mel that his comments are indeed an aspiration, possibly to even allow mass Muslim immigration into the USA.

Nobody really knows his ultimate goals and therefore I agree with Mel until time and history proves otherwise.

Redmond

You missed Bangladesh. About 133,880,000 Muslims (83%)

Disgusted of Tunbridge-Wells

You've finally flipped, Mel.

Werner

Obama is all about power and boundless narcissism. We know he tells people what they want to hear. We know consistency doesn´t matter to him. We know he will not simply retire in 4 or 8 years. Conclusion: I say he is eyeing the African and Islamic voting blocks at the UN. Obama is perfect for Secretary General of the UN, and I do not mean it as a compliment.

It would make sense to an Alinskyite. And we know he is one.

Margaret Muller-Johansson

David Raynes 99% of the Turkish are muslims but when you was there it did not feel like that, did you go on holiday one of those resorts where they serve English Breakfast? or you went real Turkey? the Turkish are about 90 something percent muslims some conservative muslims and the other ones liberals who drink wine and wear western clothes but I think all that is going to change slowly

An American

Werner,

You hit the nail on the head.

Obama now thinks of himself as the 'World Messiah"...the US isn't a big enough prize for this egomaniac.

This is all about Him...How could the American people have been so blind.

fellow traveller

Jennie

You should read some of the other articles by this guy. Turns out there's a lot of things he doesn't like, like gay people for example:

"What is a common sight in the capitals and major cities of the West, men doing unspeakable things with each other (and women with women) in an attempt to shock and pervert the minds of those who watch."

He's got a plan for struggling American farmers - move them to Russia:

"Russia should offer these farmers twenty acres a piece and allow them to buy more for hard cash, no loans. It should then attach with this a mandatory one year road to citizenship, free transportation of the farm equipment and animals from the US to Russia and a low interested fixed rate loan..."

And he points out that the American Civil War was won by the communists, who have held power in the US ever since:

"These very issues caused the American Civil War, one won not so much by the Federal North but by the clique of communists (German refuges of the failed 1848 socialist Europe wide revolution) who surrounded Abraham Lincoln and helped found the Republican party. ... Since than, to greater and greater extent, the Reds have held power in Washington."

Yes, he really tells it like it is.

jw

two authoritative studies carried out by scholars found that American Muslims number under 2 million - less than a third of the hitherto-consensus numberThe probability, though, is that there are no more than about 3 million Muslims living in the U.S. (See, e.g., this entry from Wikipedia (collecting varying estimates), and this one from Daniel Pipes in 2001, observing that the credible estimates put the figure back then at somewhere between 1.8 and — an unlikely high of — 2.8 million). This, it should be noted, does not translate into 3 million American Muslims, for many Muslims in the United States are are nationals of other countries (although, I suppose, by Justice Department standards, it would translate into approximately 6 million Muslim voters.)
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NTk1ZDVjODNmMjBlY2Y0MTQ5Nzc2OWU1NjA3MmIxNTA=

Michael B

The 800 lb. gorilla in the room that no one, tellingly, has yet to take note of:

Simply put, roughly 22% or more of Israel's population is Arab and perhaps 14% of Israel's population is Arab Muslim. In hard numbers, using a population base of seven million, that's 1,540,000 Arabs and 980,000 Arab Muslims - who are: Israeli citizens. That's "Israeli citizens" with voting rights and ALL the rights a citizen enjoys, including the right to run for and hold office, which has long been a fact of office holders in Israeli political life. That's the 800 lb. gorilla that no one seems to want to notice; chin pullers of the world, unite!

Various compare and contrasts come to mind, including some compare and contrasts with the content - and lack thereof - in Obama's speech in Cairo today. Compare and contrast, for example, with the lack of Jewish legislators and citizens with full rights in Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, etc. Compare and contrast the per capita numbers with the rhetoric used by Obama vis-a-vis American Muslims. And, why didn't Obama bring this salient fact, this 800 lb. gorilla, to the attention of Egypt's legislators and audience members today? Perhaps he intends to do so in Saudi Arabia? Don't hold your breath, not for a millisecond.

Reagan said "tear down this wall" while Obama says "let's paint all these walls in Arab and Persian Muslim lands bright, shiny, pretty colors and imagine they're not really walls at all." Walls vs. not-walls, much the same thing on planet Obama, brought to you via the miraculous powers of: words and oratory, the modern day, sophistical version of turning water into wine and making 800 lb. gorillas disappear!

Margaret Muller-Johansson

Happy Birthday Melanie!

Kimber II

President Obama is speaking to one audience. Next week, different seeking to please another group, the message will be sycophantic to their interests.

peace seeker

Magnificent Speech today by President Obama

Suki

It doesn't really matter how many Muslims there are. Now that Obama has given his speech in Cairo we know he is going to ease restrictions on zakat money, a proven method of getting money to Islamic terrorist front organisations.

What sort of aspiration is that?

walterc

This guy is an embarrassment.

Ann

The man is an embarassment, an ignorant clown, an appeaser, just as we said he would be. His speech in Cairo was a suicide note on behalf of the free world.

Micawber

Two points to enlarge on your readership's knowledge of Islam:

ZAKAT is one of the five pillars of Islam, defined as alms giving; among those who are to receive alms are:

"For Allah's Cause" (for Majahidun, those fighting in holy battle, Jihad) (Koran 9:60)

This fact, and the seditious consequences of Zakat, are discussed in this article:

http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2009/04/zakat-and-sedition.html#readerscomments

and
http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2008/05/generosity-is-good-zakat-is-bad.html

In the US, a major case is now looming in the Courts involving AIG (18th largest company world-wide), the US Government (which has bought controlling interest in it) and the US Constitution because AIG provides so much Shariah-compliant finance and thus Federal Govt is placed in position of violating Constitutional separation of religion and state:

http://www.saneworks.us/uploads/application/28.pdf
Civil Liability and Criminal Exposure for US Financial Institutions and Businesses Engaged in Shari'ah-Compliant Finance

This --- Zakat and Shariah-compliant finance (some of the profits of the latter must always, under Sharia Law, be applied to Zakat and thus Sharia-compliant finance funds terrorism, jihad, sedition, etc) is the real 'elephant in the room' which could make the Lloyds debacle look like a cake-walk and ensnare especially the London business world which Gordon Brown was SOOOO eager to make "the Islamic banking capital of the world."

You really ought to tackle this issue, Miss Phillips.

Adam B.

The Americans have made a terrible mistake. Obama hates America.

Micawber

Further to my comments posted at 12:37 about Zakat, here is a bit that passed relatively unnoticed in BHO's Cairo speech:

"Rules on charitable giving have made it harder for Muslims to fulfill their religious obligation. That's why I'm committed to working with American Muslims to ensure that they can fulfill Zakat."

Miss Phillips, you really have got to get on to this...

Simon Ordever

Melanie, you missed Israel out of your table of Muslim populations. Some 16% I believe?