Barack Hussein Obama: US "one of the largest Muslim countries in the world"

[Teresa]

It is important to note that "if you actually took the number of Muslim Americans, we'd be one of the largest Muslim countries in the world".

So says President Barack Obama. Or I should say: Barack Hussein Obama.

That's right: Barack Hussein Obama. Say it proud. Say it out loud. The middle moniker that dared not speak its name during the election campaign is now front and center of the US president's attempt to woo the Muslim world, the theme of his visits to Riyadh on Wednesday and Cairo on Thursday.

Petrified of the potential political fallout of being branded a Muslim, Candidate Obama - a practicing Christian - never used the name "Hussein" and its use was frowned upon as a forbidden code for the nutty accusation that he was some kind of Islamic Manchurian candidate.

No more. To say Barack Hussein Obama - BHO for short - now appears to be the height of political correctness.

As I argue in this analysis for the Telegraph dead tree edition, Obama is seeking to return to a Middle East policy based on realism - buttressed by the bona fides of his own multi-cultural (including Muslim) background.

In Strasbourg two months ago, the president tried out his full name. Days later in Ankara, he was introduced to the Turkish parliament by his full name.

As ABC's Jake Tapper and Sunlen Miller astutely outline here, the Obama administration is embracing the new president's inner Muslim, as it were. Deputy national security adviser stated that Obama had "experienced Islam on three continents...growing up in Indonesia, having a Muslim father -- obviously Muslim Americans [are] a key part of Illinois and Chicago".

So that's once, twice, three times a Muslim?

Just in case the Arab world hasn't yet got this message of inbuilt tolerance, Mr Obama himself has gone a step further. In an interview with France's Canal Plus released on Tuesday evening, he suggested that the United States might be a Muslim country.

Obama said he wanted to "create a better dialogue so that the Muslim world understands more effectively how the United States but also how the West thinks about many of these difficult issues like terrorism, like democracy, to discuss the framework for what's happened in Iraq and Afghanistan and our outreach to Iran, and also how we view the prospects for peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians".

So far, so blah - President George W. Bush often expressed much the same sentiments.

But then, as is his habit , Obama turned the concept around. "Now, the flip side is I think that the United States and the West generally, we have to educate ourselves more effectively on Islam.

"And one of the points I want to make is, is that if you actually took the number of Muslim Americans, we'd be one of the largest Muslim countries in the world.  And so there's got to be a better dialogue and a better understanding between the two peoples."

Obama said in Turkey that Americans "do not consider ourselves a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation". John McCain was criticised in 2007 for saying the US was "a Christian nation", later amending this to "a Judeo-Christian valued nation".

Of course, the concept of separation of church and state, which derived from the First Amendment to the Constitution, means that the US is not officially a Christian nation or a nation of any other particular religion. Which means, I suppose, that the US is as much a Muslim nation as a Christian one.

It's a bold - some might say audacious - turnaround by the president.

It's also a classically Obamaesque move.

During the 2008 campaign, he skillfully made himself, through his life story, the personification of change.

Now, implicitly contrasting himself with the born-again, evangelical Bush who pursued a post-9/11 "crusade" against terrorism, Obama is presenting himself to the Islamic world as the personification of a new, tolerant - and, yes, partly Muslim - America.

UPDATE: The excellent Don Surber crunches the numbers and points out that Obama's claim is highly dubious. According to Surber, the US has an estimated three to eight million Muslims, less than one per cent of the world's total and less than at least 23 other countries.

The average claim for the US Muslim population is about six million. The precise figure is difficult to get because it's not included in US census data and many put the figure at much, much less.

But even if we assume there are six million Muslims in the US, that makes it only the 34th biggest Muslim country in the world - behind Indonesia, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, Nigeria, China, Ethiopia, Algeria, Morocco, Afghanistan, Sudan, Iraq, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan, Yemen, Tanzania, Syria, Malaysia, Niger, Senegal, Ghana, Tunisia, Somalia, Guinea, Kenya, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Burkina Faso and Tajikistan.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/toby_harnden/blog/2009/06/03/barack_hussein_obama_us_one_of_the_largest_muslim_countries_in_the_world

[Diane Amberg]

Not to be picky, but wouldn't we be the only "Muslim American" country in the world, so it wouldn't matter how big it was? If they lived somewhere else they'd be Muslim German or Muslim French or something. If he really meant just plain Muslim, of any nationality, then we aren't it, of course. There are also many, Muslims who aren't Arabs. All the many, many black Muslims here, like Mohammed Ali, aren't Arabs. I don't think he is a closet terrorist. I'm really sorry his mother handicapped with that name. Would you want to  be named Adolf? My life long friend who has one home in Chicago and the other in Arizona is a Catholic/ Jewish combo, but she didn't become labeled a Muslim just because there are a lot of Muslims there. It's a big city, there is a lot of everybody there. There is certainly some truth in the article, but I think a lot of it got lost in useless verbage.

[Teresa]

I didn't write the article.. I just posted it for Food for thought.
Actually...
I don't believe for a second that the Muslim world is going to buy that the USA is a "Muslim Nation."  Maybe we should ask Osama what he thinks about BHO's comment.  He may be able to dupe the mindless hordes here in the US but I give the world a bit more credit.

But it is disturbing to hear the President ignore our true history.
I think I heard BHO say on an open mic, "I reject your reality and substitute my own."
Osama has the gonads to say what he thinks...........
Barry the puppet weasel says what he thinks that audience wants to hear.
Noo..correction...... What George Soros and Nancy Pelosi tell him to say.

[Varmit]

"I thought it was very important to come to the place where Islam began and to seek his majesty's counsel," Obama said. Obama visits Saudi king before high stakes speech.  Yahoo.news


Could someone please tell me why the american president sought out the counsel of a saudi king?  Notice he didn't say that he wanted to talk to the king, or discuss certain issues,...no, he wanted the kings counsel.  And why in the hell does he think we need to improve relations with muslims?  I think that the attacks on 9/11, the beheading of American soldiers, the targeting of our allies, not to mention the cold blooded shooting of two army soldiers in littlerock, pretty much sum up what muslims think about America.  Then again, pretty much shunning Isreal and siding with the arabs sums up how BHO feels about america.

[jerry wagner]

Apparently you are either too blind, or just don't care, but not all of the Muslim world is at war with us. 

[Varmit]

Just seems to me that seeing as how it was MUSLIMS that attacked US, they should be the one looking to make amends. 

[jerry wagner]

It was not the Muslim world that attacked us, it was a group of Muslims........ Perhaps you missed that part of it?  I guess I don't understand how the Muslim world should be apologizing for the actions of a few.....  You have stated the US should not apologize for its actions, that were in most cases sanctioned by the government, yet the Muslim world has to apologize for the actions of the few.... I am confused here.

[srkruzich]

It was not the Muslim world that attacked us, it was a group of Muslims........ Perhaps you missed that part of it?  I guess I don't understand how the Muslim world should be apologizing for the actions of a few.....  You have stated the US should not apologize for its actions, that were in most cases sanctioned by the government, yet the Muslim world has to apologize for the actions of the few.... I am confused here.

lets see how many that hijacked followed islam, how many islamic jihadists attacked the cole, how many islamic jihadists took down planes over the years. Yes it is islam.  Islam is hell bent on conquering all countries. 
IF islam doesn't sanction the actions of the few, then where is the public outcry from the believers.  On 9/11 i saw celebration in the streets of the attack.  Kinda funny way to protest the actions of the few isn't it?

[jerry wagner]

It was not the Muslim world that attacked us, it was a group of Muslims........ Perhaps you missed that part of it?  I guess I don't understand how the Muslim world should be apologizing for the actions of a few.....  You have stated the US should not apologize for its actions, that were in most cases sanctioned by the government, yet the Muslim world has to apologize for the actions of the few.... I am confused here.

lets see how many that hijacked followed islam, how many islamic jihadists attacked the cole, how many islamic jihadists took down planes over the years. Yes it is islam.  Islam is hell bent on conquering all countries. 
IF islam doesn't sanction the actions of the few, then where is the public outcry from the believers.  On 9/11 i saw celebration in the streets of the attack.  Kinda funny way to protest the actions of the few isn't it?

That does not answer my question.  It has been previously stated (and I am paraphrasing) that the US should not apologize for the actions of its citizens/servicemen/etc. at any point in time, but that the Muslim world should apologize for the actions of a few of its citizens.

[Varmit]

Only a few muslims....so only a few muslims raised enough money to fund those attacks?  only a few muslims want to eliminate isreal and the US?  only a few muslims are responsible for the deaths of thousands of people?