Smart power! The PA is saying that the U.S. should be “ashamed” of vetoing the settlement resolution. Imagine, if you will, the outrage that would spew if an Israeli official—even anonymously—said the U.S. should be ashamed for anything regarding Israel. Say kids, what times is it? That’s right, Israeli Double Standard Time. But not to worry: It only occurs on days that end with a “y.”
Libya massacres Muslims, Muslim world not much up in arms: The death toll is over 200, and where did the latest shootings occur? A big protest march? At a government building? Nope. At a funeral procession for the ones killed the day before. The dictators of the Middle East have seen what happened to Mubarak, and especially the ones who hate the U.S. are doubling down on the oppression to keep power.
Egypt’s Khomeini is ba—aaack: And he’s preaching against Jews and homosexuals. Awesome. The moderating Muslim Brotherhood is going to be just find and dandy. Ask Tom Friedman, who couldn’t find an anti-Semitic Egyptian to save his life while he was there (not that an anti-Semitic Egyptian would save his life; we all know how much they want to kill Jews).
That is why this revolt is primarily about a people fed up with being left behind in a world where they can so clearly see how far others have vaulted ahead. The good news is that many Egyptians know where they are, and they don’t want to waste another day.
Yep. Totally. Because two million people chanted “To Jerusalem we are heading, Martyrs in the millions.” The revolt isn’t about Islam. It’s all about catching up to modernity.
“That is why this revolt is primarily about a people fed up with being left behind in a world where they can so clearly see how far others have vaulted ahead. The good news is that many Egyptians know where they are, and they don’t want to waste another day.”
One of the best ways to guarantee that they will be left behind further is to adopt political Islam after the example of Iran. These guys hacve tried just about everything except liberty to catch up and nothing has worked. An Islamic state was how they got behind in the first place. The one thing the Arabs and other Middle Easterners have not tried is letting their people be free. That was the point of Bush’s freedom agenda.
If the Arabs reject freedom then they are rejecting the modern world as well, and they had better reconcile themselves to being behind everybody else. Their vanity tells them that, despite backwardness, they should rule the world. Muslims are about one-fifth of the human race. The other four-fifths are mostly more advanced than they are: militarily, socially, culturally, technologically, and scientifically. If the Muslims, by their actions, persuade the rest of the world that they are too dangerous to live with, it will go hard on the Muslims.
The Egyptians had better be careful what they wish for, they just might get it. One nuclear bomb, dropped on the Aswan Dam in such a way as to maximize radiation in the soil there, will make Egypt uninhabitable for 10,000 years. Their calls for martyrdom might be answered in ways the Egyptians don’t expect.
That is why I supported Bush’s freedom agenda, because I foresaw a terrible bloodletting if it did not work, a bloodletting in which most of the blood shed will be Muslim and which I want to avoid. But it cannot be avoided if the alternative is the triumph of obscrantist Islamofascism. Qardawi and his ilk intend to bring on the bloodbath. If Muslims follow his lead it will be on their heads, not ours, that the bloodbath occurs.