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I got this piece of poor propaganda, and I had to reply to it.
_____The Original ___________________________________
Subject: FW: **Fwd: Fw: Christmas Stamp**

This is strange, but knowing how stupid our Government is sometimes this makes sense; let's make sure this is a loser for the Post Office!-----
CHRISTMAS STAMP

How ironic is this??!! They don't even believe in Christ and they're getting their own Christmas stamp, but don't dream of posting the ten commandments on federal property?



This one is impossible to believe. Scroll down for the text.


If there is only one thing you forward today.....let it be this!


REMEMBER the MUSLIM bombing of PanAm Flight 103!

REMEMBER the MUSLIM bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993!

REMEMBER the MUSLIM bombing of the Marine
barracks in Lebanon!

REMEMBER the MUSLIM bombing of the military barracks in Saudi Arabia!

REMEMBER the MUSLIM bombing of the American Embassies in Africa!

REMEMBER the MUSLIM bombing of the USS COLE!

REMEMBER the MUSLIM attack on 9/11/2001!

REMEMBER all the AMERICAN lives that were lost in those vicious MUSLIM attacks!

Now the United States Postal Service REMEMBERS and HONORS the
EID MUSLIM holiday season with a commemorative first class
holiday postage stamp.

REMEMBER to adamantly and vocally BOYCOTT this stamp
when purchasing your stamps at the post office.
To use this stamp would be a slap in the face to all those
AMERICANS who died at the hands of those whom this stamp honors.

REMEMBER to pass this along to every patriotic AMERICAN you know
________________________________________

DOUG writes:
My response:

I do have a few things to say about the anti-stamp e-mail.

1. Nowhere in the anti-stamp e-mail does it say what the stamp is. The Eid stamp, designed by Mohammed Zakariya of Arlington, Va., features the Arabic phrase "Eid mubarak" in gold calligraphy on a blue background. English text on the stamps reads "EID GREETINGS."

The Eid stamp commemorates the two most important festivals-or eids-in the Islamic calendar: Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha. On these days, Muslims wish each other "Eid mubarak," the phrase featured in Islamic calligraphy on the stamp. "Eid mubarak" translates literally as "blessed festival," and can be paraphrased as "May your religious holiday be blessed." This phrase can be applied to both Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha.

(See here for more information about the stamp.)


2. “They don't even believe in Christ and they're getting their own Christmas stamp…” Who is “they”? The Muslims? The stamp is not a Christmas stamp, as explained above. Some right-wingers have called the Eid stamp a Christmas stamp, but this is inaccurate.

3. Boycotting the stamp will have no financial effect on Muslims. The stamp is put out by the United States Post Office, which will get all the money for the purchase of the stamp. (From snopes.com)

4. George W. Bush, has extended official greetings, issued messages, and participated in commemorations of both Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha (even after the September 11 attacks), and the White House web site promotes the EID stamp as well. (from snopes.com)

5. George W. Bush has stated repeatedly that we are at war with the terrorists, NOT WITH ISLAM. Just yesterday, Sept. 20, 2006, Bush told the United Nations General Assembly that we are not at war with Islam.

====================
Bush denies war on Islam
UPDATED: 2006-09-20
By KATHLEEN HARRIS, OTTAWA BUREAU


NEW YORK -- America and its allies are not at war with Islam, U.S. President George W. Bush said yesterday, as he called on Muslims to embrace his peace plan for the Middle East.
See
here.
========================
Doug Krueger writes:
Stating that we are at war with Islam, or engaging in the hating of Muslims, is EXACTLY WHAT OSAMA BIN LADEN has been praying for. He wants Muslims across the world to believe that the U.S. is really at war with Islam instead of at war with terrorists, and bin Laden would thereby draw more Muslims to his anti-U.S. stance if they were to believe that the U.S. is anti-Islam.
My advice:
Don’t give in to the terrorists’ goals. Don’t hate Islam.

To boycott this stamp would be to give in to terrorist wishes, to make the President a liar, and it would increase the danger to the U.S. by fomenting more hatred of the U.S. if Muslim terrorist leaders were to use this boycott as a PR tool.

===========
DOUG ADDS:
Afterwards, I regretted not mentioning that of course the U.S. has put out many Christian stamps, and the EID stamp is part of a series of holiday stamps.

3b. Boycotting the stamps alone won't only fail to affect Muslims, it will fail to noticeably affect the USPS. If you go in to buy stamps, and you simply choose to buy other stamps instead, the only money the USPS loses is in the printing of the stamps in question; the post office certainly isn't going to (pay to) deliver pieces of mail that boycotters claim would be properly stamped if only certain stamps hadn't been "offensive"...

6. Because the USPS is technically only a quasi-governmental agency, even if it were true that the stamps could reasonably be seen as "endorsing" a religion, the analogical complaint of "no Ten Commandments on federal property" is questionable. Regardless, Doug's point that Christian stamps and holiday series have been printed makes it hard to justify that any endorsement is involved.

I've seen Feliz Navidad seasonal stamps in the past and as far as I know, nobody had conniption fits because the blessing was in spanish. Of course there was a very popular Jose Feliciano song out about the same time, so that may have been an ameliorating factor. Why somebody would foam at the mouth because "seasons greetings" was in arabic would be beyond me, if I didn't know about "liberty cabbage" and "freedom fries". Some people in America can't reason from A to B.

I’m NOT defending the Eid stamp (like we need something as trivial as a postage stamp to rally behind).

Count me among all Americans who want to see an end to the Muslim extremist terrorists but this is not an Al-Qaeda stamp we are talking about for crying out loud.

I'm pretty sure a boycott is automatic. Non-Muslim Americans are not going to buy Muslim theme anything.

I would prefer a non-government mail system and would probably buy beer and bikini model stamps.

(Anyone have a problem with foreign bikini models ?)

Also don’t forget that the American greeting card manufacturer Hallmark has a variety of holiday cards celebrating Eid al-Fitr. (Did you know that?)

If you want to make a statement, you have to boycott them too!

Better to buy beer and bikini model cards for every occasion!

They make those too!

I've been doing floral and vegetation stamps lately. Safer.