http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2011/04/29/santorum_sharia_exist ential_threat
Friday, Apr 29, 2011 12:17 ET Santorum calls sharia "existential threat" to U.S. Likely 2012 hopeful also offers his take on what sharia actually means Video By Justin Elliott <http://www.salon.com/author/justin_elliott/index.html> Santorum calls sharia AP Rick Santorum In his big foreign policy speech <http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11119/1142715-84.stm> yesterday, Rick Santorum declared that "sharia and its violent iteration jihadism" pose an "existential threat" to the United States. That's standard fare from Santorum, but a more interesting moment came in the Q&A after the speech, when the former Pennsylvania senator was asked to elaborate. That's when Santorum did what so many <http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2011/04/07/sharia_nebraska_act_ for_america> Republican lawmakers are unable to do, which is to offer an explanation of what, in his view, sharia actually means. The question came from the Daily Caller's Chris Moody <http://twitter.com/#%21/chris_moody> : MOODY: You mentioned that sharia law is an existential threat to the United States. There seems to be some confusion among the general public on how to define sharia law. How do you define it and can you point to some instances within the United States [where] it's taking over? SANTORUM: If you look at an instance where it's taking over, you have already in the financial sector sharia-compliant finance. [That's] where funds and people who are doing investments are deferring to people put up by groups -- some of which are, let's put it this way, suspect -- as the authority as to what these funds can be invested in in a sharia-compliant way. Investment houses and others, banks, are paying in some cases less-than-reputable people a lot of money to give their blessing for their types of investments. That's a problem. That's a way of ... depending on what they're investing in and who they're paying to give their blessing could be ways in which resources go to places that I'm not too sure are necessarily in our national security interests. Here's a primer <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5064058.stm> on the Islamic finance Santorum is talking about. It often involves mundane matters like mortgages <http://prospect.org/cs/articles?article=does_pawlenty_have_a_shariah_proble m> structured in a way to take interest -- seen by many Muslims as prohibited -- out of the equation. Santorum continued: You also have situations where you you have movements in this country to cordon off and create family courts or other types of laws where Muslims are only held account to religious law as opposed to the civil laws in this country. That has gone on as we know extensively in Europe, but it's coming here and it is actually being advocated for in this country. So there are concrete examples of how that is occurring in America today. I would argue clearly -- I'm not making the argument that America is by any way in the lead on this. The bigger problems and the more notable cases are clearly in places where the higher concentration of Muslims exists and that's clearly in Western Europe and not here. Santorum did not offer any of those "concrete examples" of some kind of sharia advocacy movement in America. He was then asked again to define sharia: Sharia is a code, a civil code -- both how the government is to operate [and] things as mundane as personal hygiene, religious practices. It is made up of various texts -- not just the Quran -- that is a code by which Muslims have to live. Based on previous <http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2011/02/26/sharia_the_real_stor y> reporting <http://www.theawl.com/2011/03/what-is-sharia-law> , that's not a bad definition of sharia. Though Santorum missed the crucial fact that there are many, widely varying forms and interpretations of sharia. And less clear is why Santorum believes sharia -- by his own definition -- poses an existential threat to America. Here's the exchange: http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/RickSanto/start/2738/stop/2920 [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, discuss-os...@yahoogroups.com. -------------------------- Brooks Isoldi, editor biso...@intellnet.org http://www.intellnet.org Post message: osint@yahoogroups.com Subscribe: osint-subscr...@yahoogroups.com Unsubscribe: osint-unsubscr...@yahoogroups.com *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. OSINT, as a part of The Intelligence Network, is making it available without profit to OSINT YahooGroups members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of intelligence and law enforcement organizations, their activities, methods, techniques, human rights, civil liberties, social justice and other intelligence related issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. We believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtmlYahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: osint-dig...@yahoogroups.com osint-fullfeatu...@yahoogroups.com <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: osint-unsubscr...@yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
