It looks a bit too much like a Muslim Brotherhood symbol for critics’ tastes. It’s not being worn by jihadists, however. But by U.S. soldiers fighting jihadists in Iraq. It’s a new U.S. Army patch, featuring the Arab swords called “scimitars,” and at least one critic has called it creepy. You be the judge: The patch is shown on the far right juxtaposed with a symbol of the terrorist organization the Muslim Brotherhood to its left.
Business Insider provides the official line on the new design:
The US Army has debuted a new shoulder patch that soldiers in Iraq can wear to represent their role in the ongoing fight against ISIS, USA Today reports.
The patch features crossed scimitars, three stars, and a palm wreath. According to USA Today, the three stars denote the US land, air, and sea forces involved in the fight against ISIS.
The palm wreath is meant to symbolize honor, while the crossed swords evoke the twin goals of the ongoing operations: the defeat of ISIS and the restoration of stability in the region.
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Some, though, take a dimmer view of the patch’s symbolism. Calling Barack Obama an “Islamophile president who is actively helping to advance the caliphate while weakening the United States,” American Thinker’s Carol Brown writes:
As Pamela Geller notes, this patch is a sign of submission.
All the words used to rationalize the design are an example of pretzel-twisting mental gymnastics of epic proportions.
… ([American Thinker editor] Thomas Lifson adds: Don’t fail to notice that the red, white, and blue of American tradition have been replaced by green, the color of Islam.)
So let’s not get lost in the lies being peddled about the symbolism behind the swords or any other aspect of the design of this despicable new patch. We’re awake, and we know what it means. It is yet another act to undermine our military — and indeed our nation — by aligning the United States with the enemy as Obama sends signal after signal to the Muslim world that he stands with them and not with the United States.
In fairness, the color green has often figured prominently in traditional Army patches, as the selection of them below illustrates.
Yet the scimitar symbolism has raised eyebrows. As Innovate US points out, “The Scimitar was associated with the Saracens in their battle against the Crusaders. The Saracens fought the crusades and other warfare with a variety of weapons but predominantly used the scimitar sword.” (Note that, as I explained here, the Crusades were defensive actions designed to stave off Muslim aggression.) Website Aceros de Hispania tells us that “for Muslims, it is said that the semicircular shape of its sabres represented the half moon, and that therefore the sword itself symbolised the sacred weapon of Islam: the weapon of Allah.” We’re also told that the scimitar was Mohammed’s ensign before it was changed to a crescent.
Of course, a more charitable view is that the new patch is designed to win allies, to send a message stating, “We’re not opposed to Islam in general; we’re just here to vanquish the bad actors in your midst.” Thus, the patch could reflect the belief (whose wisdom many question) that we have to be pro-Islam but anti-terrorism. After all, some may say, forging ties with sympathetic locals is what British soldier and diplomat T.E. Lawrence (“Lawrence of Arabia”) did, as he spoke Arabic and adopted elements of Arab dress and culture.
And if the new patch had been created under, let’s say, the Ronald Reagan administration, it might raise nary an eyebrow. The problem is that Obama is not even a Jimmy Carter, never mind a Reagan, and his actions and background do not smack of Americanism. Nor does he appear a friend of the military. As Bizpac Review wrote September 27:
President Obama’s social experimentation is degrading the ability of the United States military to do the job it was created for, a retired two-star general said Saturday.
Taking part in a panel at the Values Voters Summit in Washington, Army Maj. Gen. Robert Dees said the Obama administration is using the U.S. military for “social engineering” and the end result is damaging the nation’s ability to defend itself, according to CNS News.
“Not only are we losing physical readiness to fight, we have to fix the problem of moral readiness,” Dees said.
Since Obama was first elected to office, restrictions have been lifted on women in combat, homosexuals now serve openly and there’s an effort currently underway to remove a ban on transgender soldiers.
Even more to the point, Obama has used NASA as a vehicle for Muslim outreach; has characterized the Muslim call to prayer as “one of the prettiest sounds on Earth at sunset” (and recites it with a seemingly flawless accent); and as Human Events pointed out, has ducked “Christian events — like the National Day of Prayer – while speaking out about his Muslim heritage.”
Add to this that Obama appears to have a pro-Muslim foreign policy — including supporting “Arab Spring” rebels who would prove to be jihadist-minded, while not supporting those opposing the Iranian Islamic theocracy — and his hosting of Muslim Brotherhood allies at the White House, and it’s no surprise that 29 percent of Americans and 43 percent of Republicans believe Obama is a Muslim.
Yet it is a stretch to believe Obama is, quote unquote, a “Muslim.” This doesn’t mean he’s Christian. Remember that he’s a hardcore leftist, raised by a leftist mother (when she was around) and grandparents and mentored by card-carrying Communist Party USA member Frank Marshall Davis. And to devoted leftists, religion is the “opiate of the masses.”
Does anyone really think Obama truly believes that God exists and that his name is Allah? Would a pious Muslim advocate for faux marriage, women in combat, and “transgenders” in the military? Obama is a de facto atheist. But here’s the distinction:
While he’s not religiously Muslim, he is, at least to a great extent, culturally Muslim.
This means that his distaste for Western culture is perhaps matched by an affinity for Muslim culture. Note that he didn’t characterize church bells as “one of the prettiest sounds on Earth.”
None of this should come as a surprise. Marinated in Marxism and other leftist ideology, which alienate one from America, Obama also lived in the Muslim country of Indonesia between the ages of six and 10 with his mother and Muslim stepfather, Lolo Soetoro. And since we generally don’t remember much from prior to the age of five or six, this means Obama’s earliest memories are of life in an Islamic culture.
So how could Obama have indicated that there are 58 states in the United States when the geographical fact that there are 50 is drummed into the head of every American child at a tender age? It’s simple. All the discussion about Obama’s birth certificate and natural-born status perhaps misses the most important point: Whatever the president may be legally, he is not American in the most important sense.
In spirit.
