THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume XIII, Issue # 252, October 23, 2011
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
MUAMMAR AL-QADDAFI -- DEAD AT LAST
By Alan Caruba
WITH THE OVERTHROW & DEATH OF MUAMMAR AL-QADDAFI, WHAT TYPE OF GOVERNMENTAL SYSTEM WILL EMERGE IN
LIBYA? WILL LIBYA BECOME SOME SORT WESTERN-STYLE CONSTITUTIONAL REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY,
RATHER THAN A HIGHLY AUTHORITARIAN, SHARIA-RULED ISLAMIST HELL-HOLE THAT WILL BECOME THE LATEST HAVEN
FOR AL-QA'IDA?
FULL STORY:
There were, at last count, at least 643 ways to spell Muammar al-Qaddafi and, I for one, am very happy he is dead for that
reason alone. The fact that he was the dictator of Libya for over forty years and funded the Lockerbie bombing of a Pan
Am airliner and other terrorist acts also contributes to the good news.
These are proving to be bad times for dictators, and it is easy to suggest that Basher Assad, a second generation dictator
of Syria, will likely come to an equally bad end. So far this year, the former dictator of Tunisia had to flee. Egypt’s Hosni
Mubarack had to step aside, and both Syria's and Yemen’s Presidents are under seige. Nobody knows who’s in charge of
Somalia.
As I watched U.S. President Obama take a victory lap when he announced al-Qaddafi’s death, my thoughts turned to what
Ted Belman, a widely-read blogger called the Israpundit, had to say. “Qaddafi wasn’t any worse than the barbarians that
killed him and will replace him. There are no freedom-loving democrats in the entire Muslim world, which consists of
Seventh Century-minded brutes.”
The Israelis have had the misfortune of having had to fight off Muslims not only for the past sixty-plus years of statehood,
but in the decades leading up to it. Unlike those of us in the West, the Israelis understand Muslims in terms of the insane,
fanatical hatred they have for Jews, Christians, and all other “infidels” (unbelievers).
“The way the jihadist-enabling mainstream media is reporting the death of al-Qaddafi,” observed Belman, “you would think
that Libya will become some sort of Western-style constitutional representative democracy, rather than a Sharia-ruled
hell-hole that will become the latest haven for al-Qa'ida. So, why are the same people who condemned Bush’s overthrow of
Saddam Hussein celebrating this?”
Good question.
Simply put, Muslims — particularly those in the Middle East — see the world in a way that is totally the reverse of how
Westerners do. Ours is a pluralistic society. Theirs is a tribal society. We practice tolerance for other religions. They not
only seek to drive out unbelievers, they regard apostasy as a death sentence for anyone who wants to leave Islam. Many
have.
As Raymond Ibrahim, an Associate Fellow at the Middle East Forum, noted in a recent book review:
“Last week Saudi Arabia’s religious police arrested
an Indonesian housemaid for casting a magic spell
on a local family and turning its life upside down.
The maid ‘confessed’ to using sorcery and
commission experts took the magic items to their
office and managed to dismantle and stop the spell.”
In the West we celebrate Halloween once a year. In the Middle East, it’s every day.
The book by Robert Reilly, The Closing of the Muslim Mind, a senior fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council,
makes clear that such beliefs are common; magic spells, jins and genies. Reilly wrote of the different schools of Islam,
showing how, by the 10th. Century, three hundred years after the death of Muhammad, the fatalistic schools had triumphed.
The giants of Muslim philosphy, Ghazali and Ashari, “concluded that knowledge was unknowable, that moral truths can
only be ascertained through revelation.”
This explains why so much of what occurs in the Middle East seems to defy logic to the Western mind. As Reilly noted
about Islam, “All acts are in themselves morally neutral” and “Allah does not command certain behavior because it is good;
it is good behavior because he commands it. Likewise, he does not forbid murder because it is bad; it is bad because he
forbids it.”
The Ten Commandments forbid murder, adultery, and other acts because the acts themselves are bad, not simply because
God instructed Moses that they were. The logic of good and evil is embedded in Judaism and its offshoot, Christianity. In
Islam, any act can be justified if one can find a surah in the Koran and there is always one that will. Indeed, the Koran
commands Muslims to kill for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is to extend Islam and to punish “insults” to it.
Any negative reference to Muhammad is enough to cause riotiing in the streets and acts of retribution. It is very
intimidating and the West is easily intimidated, unless, of course, you fly jet airliners into our skyscrapers and the Pentagon.
Then, however, within a few years they begin to debate the probity of building a mosque within a block or two of where the
Twin Towers once stood.
While the Western world is defined by the spirit of inquiry, Islam is indifferent to it. Reilly notes that, for Muslims, “the only
thing worth knowing is whether a specific action is, according to Sharia: obligatory, recommended, permitted, discouraged,
or forbidden. The rest is irrelevant.”
This suggests that the last ten years since 9/11 (and all that preceeded it) have had a brief saluatory effect on Middle
Eastern and North African Muslims only because they know with some certainty that we shall kill them if we must.
When Arabs took hostages and demanded ransom during the administration of Thomas Jefferson, he called on Congress to
authorize a Marine Corps and warships. The first Barbary War (1801-1805) was also known as the Tripolitan War, as in
Tripoli, Libya -- the same Libya that just rid itself of the most recent dictator, after a long succession of comparable dictators
stretching back forever.
At some point, an American President is going to have to authorize a major, preemptive attack on Iran, a Shiite nation whose
lunatic Ayatollahs see themselves as preparing the way for the return of the Twelfth Imam, a mythical figure who lives at the
bottom of a well. They will use nuclear weapons, i.e., weapons of mass destruction, to achieve this unless we stop them first.
As the Israelis keep telling us, these people are nuts.
© Alan Caruba, 2011
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
North Africa -- The Arab States of Islamic North Africa
Tunisia, Islamic North Africa, & the Arab World
Egypt, Arabs, & the Middle East
The Middle East & the Arabs
American Foreign Policy -- The Middle East
Islamism & Jihadism -- The Threat of Radical Islam
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
International Politics & World Disorder:
War, Peace, & Geopolitics in the Real World:
Foreign Affairs & U.S. National Security
Page Two
Page One
Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.
Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization
Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
U.S. National Security Strategy
COMPARATIVE GOVERNMENT -- TYPES OF GOVERNMENTAL SYSTEMS:
CONSTITUTIONAL DEMOCRACY & OTHER POLITICAL REGIMES
Modern Constitutional Democracy:
Fundamental Character & Essential Ingredients
Constitutionalism: The First Essential Ingredient
of Modern Constitutional Democracy
Dictatorship: The Opposite of Constitutionalism
Representative Democracy: The Second Essential Ingredient
of Modern Constitutional Democracy
Direct Democracy & Representative Democracy
Political Culture & Modern Constitutional Democracy
Modern Constitutional Democracy:
Summary & Conclusion
Alan Caruba's commentaries are posted daily at Warning Signs, his popular blog -- and thereafter on dozens of other
websites and blogs. His monthly report on new books is posted at Bookviews.
A business and science writer, Caruba is the Founder of The National Anxiety Center, a clearinghouse for information
about "scare campaigns" designed to influence public opinion and policy.
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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Conservative Government Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity