Ok... I must be missing something or not understanding.
Can someone walk me through why the outrage over the prayer because I simply do not see it. But then I never studied the Muslim prayers to understand the translations.
You all know I don't knee-jerk to the defense of Obama or this administration, but I have to understand the issue before I can get upset over it.
Ok, let me see if I can explain it to you.
The mission it's all related to included the shoot-down of a CH-47 helicopter which resulted in the deaths of 38 men.
Some were Seal team members, some were crewmen and some were Afghans. The Taliban claimed responsibility for shooting it down and nobody denies that.
In as good an example of dishonest journalism that you can find, The Washington Times, WND and FOX consistently uses the term "families" of the dead. While that is technically correct, in fact it is only three families from the dozens involved who are involved in a lawsuit against the President and the government, alleging a number of things were done "wrong," including the use of an inexperienced, National Guard pilot (a common enough disparagement of the NG by active duty people, in spite of the fact that the Guard has as much combat experience these days as any other unit) and that Apache gunships were not pulled off chasing the Taliban to cover the CH-47 landing. In other words, they're second-guessing the ground commanders and even alleging that somebody tipped off the Taliban.
Now...the whole lawsuit, and resulting predictable outrage from right wing media, is being stage managed by a guy named Larry Klayman, a lawyer who goes around finding excuses to sue politicians. He created the virtually one man organization Freedom Watch as a vehicle for his lawsuits. He is anti-Obama and writes a weekly column for WND, so he has an outlet to put his name and lawsuits out there. Of course, anything appearing in WND is picked up by Fox and the Times as their editorial positions are the same: Tell any lie, spin any story, reveal as little truth as possible to "get" Obama. Naturally, it goes from there to the hundreds of interconnected, right-wing websites, organizations and blog sites where it spreads like a cancer and is lapped up by conspiracy freaks and the OMG! OBAMA brigade.
The families involved have questions about the mission in which their sons died, which is common for grieving families and is nothing new. But, Klayman has fed their grief and talked them into suing. It's exactly the same thing left-wing activist's did with Cindy Sheehan during the Bush administration. The handlers care nothing for the families and are just using them to damage the administration.
Now...on to the prayer.
The translation is accepted by nearly everybody as correct. However, please note that the parts enclosed in parenthesis is the OPINION of Klayman and families about what they think it means. They've gone through the transcript and pointed out words and phrases which can be spun to substantiate their point. In fact, that's a fairly common Islamic type prayer which are often wordy and more direct than Christian prayers usually are. The Cleric's comments about heaven and hell are no different than the usual Christian funeral service which includes an explanation of repentance, redemption and a guarantee of heaven for believers. But, if it can be spun to evoke an emotional response, it will be by Klayman and his fellow travelers in the right wing press.
In the end, it's another "issue" manufactured out of whole cloth by people with an agenda and, just as with Cindy Sheehan, the families are simply pawns in a bigger game. It's disgusting, reprehensible and dishonest.