America is her God

"I sometimes hear Osama Bin Laden walking behind me in my bedroom and I wonder why he doesn't shoot me; but most of the time, I am at peace about my decision to speak out."

Those are the words of Wafa Sultan, the Syrian-American who has spent the past two years criticizing the radical roots of Islam and spoke Monday night at Sinai Temple in Westwood. The Calendar Girls have the story.

Listening to her polemic, one wonders what quality enabled Sultan to escape her religious prison and how she mustered the courage to denounce Islamic terror. Though she credits her husband, whose encounter with a Christian man expanded his theological purview, she is sustained by her belief in God and in American democracy: "America is my God; Americans take it for granted because they do not know the difference," but Sultan does. She concluded, "I was born in hell and now I'm in paradise."

I can appreciate the fact that moving from Syria to the United States was like leaving hell for heaven. But Sultan has some misplaced spirituality if she is worshiping Uncle Sam. Here is Sultan's famous rant on Al Jazeera in early 2006.