The real problem with Donald Trump and Islam

Yes the hoopla continues as we head into the next debate. Donald Trump still proves he can find the most outlandish thing to say and walk away successful.

Is Mr. Trump wrong to say that we should bar Muslims from entering the country? Of course he is, that has been discussed in length by the press, various bloggers, political pundits, entertainers, and a host of other people.

What I do not hear anyone discuss and maybe I have missed it was the second half of his sentence. “Maybe we should bar Muslims from coming into the country until we figure this out.”  ..until we figure this out?????  Dr. Kissinger couldn’t. And for now even if we did ban Muslims from our country it doesn’t guarantee we won’t have problems.

Mr. Trump we have not figured out Islam and from the way things are going we may never figure out Islam. And I do say that in partial jest. I think there are many scholars in the West who have studied the history etc… but what makes it more difficult is how much Western influence drives the feelings of everyday Muslims. And I am talking about going back over the last hundred years or so. And yes there is actually a 1500 year period that people and groups from the West have interacted with Muslims. And usually it has not gone well.

For now though, the recent history is enough to cause confusion for us and the Muslims. And I do want to stay away from a blame game for either the West’s recent manipulation along with a certain royal family of an oil rich country of Middle Eastern politics or the current head in the sand or denial of everyday Muslims of the extremism coming from their side of the table.  And there is a wide array of extremism being played out by various factions also.

And now we have this interesting multi proxy war in Syria that is shaping up to be one of the wildest situations in Western-Middle Eastern-Near East affairs. There are so many players with so many competing interests it cannot end well or worse just not end. This could be another Vietnam for us, the Russians, the Saudis, Iran, Turkey, Iraq, the Kurds, Hezbollah, a host of other potential players, and of course Syria. And you might have noticed I didn’t include one not so popular barbaric group of people trying to call themselves a country.   So Mr. Trump…  just how do we figure this out?

And you are probably saying to yourself, we aren’t are we? Well we might, but not anytime in the near future. The quagmire going on right now is going to lead to decades of problems even if we get rid of Daesh. Generally people in the West just do not understand the Sunni v. Shi’ite or Shi’a problem. The history of this conflict goes back over a millennium so trying to understand everything involved in Syria is dangerous. And then you throw in people wanting power, despots, historic regional differences, historical power struggles, the created country called Iraq, ignorance, poverty, wealth disparity, and Mr. Trump you want to wait until we figure this out.

This leads me to believe you are a genius because you know we will never figure this out and can keep Muslims out of this country perpetually or your lack of understanding is insanely dangerous for someone who wants to be President. I fear the latter. And it is too late for you or your followers to claim the former. 

Mr. Trump there are solutions to the problem, but just getting started on a positive path will take decades. And that is to get us to a point where we actually can get started. None of the players currently in the power struggle for all of the Middle East being played out in Syria do not want to give in to anything. All the groups mentioned above are trying to have a dynasty or have influence on one.

I always try to find an optimistic answer so I have thought of a few, but even my humble opinion needs work so I am going to spare the readers for now a litany of thoughts. It is going to be interesting to see what can be done just to bring an end to the fighting in Syria. Once that stops do we begin to bring in all the regional players and put the onus on them to work out a framework to begin a peace process.  It isn’t something that has happened before. 

So does the United States need to stay involved in Syria, in the war against Daesh, In Iraq, supporting Turkey in NATO? And the list goes on. Right now I do not think even we have a good handle on what we want out of the Middle East or how we are going to define our relationship with all of the Middle East going forward.

So I will try and stomach the disaster called the next Republican or even Democrat debate to see if anyone has a new rational idea.  I am not expecting one, but not because there may be some players on either stage who have or do not have the capability to try and work out something. I think this because we, as a country, have no idea what we want from the rest of world or what we want to give the rest of the world anymore. 

I think we need to sit down and reinstill within ourselves our values and what our founding Fathers gave us. Once we come back to our roots of understanding the idea of what life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness means; what it means to have representative government; what we have learned from our mistakes everything from slavery to Vietnam to economic crisis; defining what are equal rights; understanding the bill of rights; and a host of other values that are hijacked by elitists will we be able to project ourselves upon the rest of the world and receive the respect we just automatically expect everyone to give us.

Mr. Trump we are a great country, but we cannot make rash decisions no matter how popular it may be that doesn’t preserve and protect the values our forefathers gave us that made us great in the first place. So Mr. Trump when you have this figured out, please let me and everyone else know. The world is waiting.