Category Archives: Islam

Miss Mubarak Yet?

Democracy, Foreign Policy, Islam, Middle East

Sadly, and as this writer wrote on October 18, 2011, when Mohamed Husni Mubarak was ousted, the Egyptian Christian Coptic community lost a protector.

Yes, how is the Lotus Revolution working out? That was how the West had dubbed the mess in Egypt. With few exceptions, the American media slobbered mightily over the revolution in Egypt.

So, you had the Beltway libertarians joining Anderson Cooper (CNN), Neil Cavuto (Fox News), and Christiane Amanpour (ABC) in spirit at Cairo’s Tahrir Square to celebrate Egypt’s democratic spring; you had America’s female journos rushing to the mainly macho scene to show solidarity with the generic freedom fighters, who, it turned out, doubled up as common-or-garden gropers and rapists.

At the time, this writer wrote about the impossibility of a happy ending “in a country that has become progressively more Islamic since the 1950s.” I added that, “Mubarak’s dictatorial powers were directed, unjustly indubitably, against the Islamic fundamentalists of the Muslim brotherhood.” Unjustly, but probably quite usefully.

“This is about freedom,” said the immensely silly Lara Logan before the freedom fighters piled up on top of her.

Indeed.

In touting the sea-change underway in Egypt and elsewhere in the Muslim world, our moron media interviewed 0.1% of the country’s population, the intelligentsia, to extrapolate to the majority. And there was also the a central stupidity, so prevalent in the US, whereby all human beings are said to be the same under the skin, with an equal “civilizing potential.”

UPDATED: Morsi, The Military: Egypt Is A Hot Mess (The Size of Discontent)

Democracy, Elections, Foreign Aid, Foreign Policy, Islam, Middle East

There are perhaps two not entirely unhappy conclusions to take away from the events underway in Cairo, Egypt. This week’s WND column, “Independence And The Declaration of Secession,” lamented that America has become a nation “of deracinated, fragmented and demoralized people, managed to their detriment by a despotic State.” (Updated here.)

The Egyptians, on the other hand, still have a redeeming quality, and it is a profound contempt for power. “Son of 60 dogs” is an Egyptian expression for a political master. This quality should serve them well.

The other thing I took away from listening to the more enlightened Egyptians of Tahrir Square is that many want what Americans once had thanks to their founders. Modern secular Egyptians are articulating a wish for a republic that safeguards minority rights, and not for a raw democracy in which those rights are subject to the whims and wishes of the majority, and where few are the issues that are not adjudicated by a national majority.

Moreover, while Americans have a hard time understanding the difference between a democracy and a republic, I get the impression that some Egyptians are hip to these distinctions.

Those who’ve been misled into believing that Morsi is not democratically legit, for what that’s worth, ought to be reminded that the Democratic Alliance for Egypt, “a coalition of political parties,” the largest party of which was the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party,” won the 2011-2012 election with 37.5% of the vote.

The runner-up was the Islamist Bloc, the “second largest political bloc in the parliament.” It was even more devout than The Brotherhood. It won 27.8% of the vote.

The nature of democracy and humanity is such that it is quite possible that their former supporters no longer back these parties. These supporters have realized, as Benjamin Barber put it, that “politics has become what politicians do; what citizens do (when they do anything) is to vote for politicians”:

It is hard to find in all the daily activities of bureaucratic administration, judicial legislation, executive leadership, and paltry policy-making anything that resembles citizen engagement in the creation of civic communities and in the forging of public ends.

Economic Policy Journal (EPJ) quotes Ron Paul’s on the Egyptian mess:

“A military coup in Egypt yesterday resulted in the removal and imprisonment of the elected president, Mohamed Morsi, a closure of media outlets sympathetic to him, the house arrest of his advisors, and the suspension of the constitution. The military that overthrew Morsi is the main recipient of the $1.3 billion yearly US aid package to Egypt. You could say that the US ‘owns’ the Egyptian military that just overthrew its democratically-elected leader. The hypocrisy of the US administration on these events in Egypt is stunning …”

“Let’s review US policy toward Egypt to see the foolish hypocrisy of the government’s interventionism,” write Paul:

“First the US props up the unelected Hosni Mubarak for decades, spending tens of billions of dollars to keep him in power. Then the US provides assistance to those who in 2011 successfully overthrew Mubarak. Then the US demands an election. The Egyptians held an election that was deemed free and fair and shortly afterward the US-funded military overthrows the elected president. Then the US government warns the military that it needs to restore democracy – the very democracy that was destroyed by military coup! All the while the US government will not allow itself to utter the word “coup” when discussing what happened in Egypt yesterday because it would mean they might have to stop sending all those billions of dollars to Egypt. ”

UPDATE (7/8): We now have some idea of the size of Egyptian discontent: “22 million …—a large number considering Egypt’s estimated population of 93 million people.” We got those numbers from revelation of a “signature-gathering campaign called ‘Tamarod’ or ‘Rebel.'”

I will write more, however, on western delusions of representation (my book already does this http://www.ilanamercer.com/newsite/into-the-cannibals-pot.php) in a future post. Suffice it to say that the Egyptians have a better idea than we in the West of how to remove their rulers. Game. Set. Match, Egyptian people.

McCain’s Murderous Muhammadans Behead Syrian Catholic Priest

Christianity, Foreign Policy, IMMIGRATION, Islam, Jihad, John McCain, Literature, Middle East, War, Welfare

Today came terribly sad news. John McCain’s murderous Muhammadans beheaded a Syrian Catholic priest, to the cheers of local villagers, children too.

The senior Republican senator from Arizona recently crossed enemy lines to cavort with these Syrian rebels, the type of chaps who lunch on enemy lungs. He, Lindsey Graham—another senior Republican Senator—and many of their Demopublican colleagues can’t wait to supply the noble savages of the world with rations, their exotic tastes and murderous proclivities be damned. The US Constitution these politicians have spent a lifetime trashing.

Those who know “McMussolini” know that the only time John McCain will shake fists and point fingers is over a war delayed, one that isn’t led by the US, or a war waged without the necessary conviction (read collateral damage).

Oh, he’ll also wrestle a crocodile for an illegal alien. Or, rather, get his beefy dumbo of a daughter, Meghan McCain, to do the wrestling for him.

The complaint McCain and his posse level against Obama for not becoming as entangled in Syria as they would have liked is remarkably sophisticated (NOT): Had Obama intervened in Syria earlier, they assert without proof, we’d be dealing with the purest of rebels, and not with the McCain mongrels, who’ve been diluted by Jihadis.

Rubbish.

A quip by a character in one of the great Oscar Wilde’s plays (not to be confused with wonderful Oscar-Wood) comes to mind. “She thought that because he was stupid he’d be kindly, whereas kindliness requires intelligence and imagination.” I paraphrase Wilde, but this applies in spades to McCain, a career Republican malevolent fool, who took to Fox News Sunday with his buddy Chuck Schumer to promote more war (in Syria) and more welfare (the Oink-Filled Immigration Omnibus).

For Christians, rule by Alawite minority is by far the more civilized of the options facing them in this country. This, unfortunately, is the reality. But does the US ever learn from the Anglo-American calamity in Iraq or Afghanistan? In the words of Frederick Douglass, “To ask the question is to answer it.”

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Citizens Vs. Criminals (Lawful & Unlawful)

Britain, GUNS, Individual Rights, Islam, Jihad, Rights, The State

There is no doubt that were an American-born Jihadi stupid enough to perform an act of butchery in public, he would not have left the scene alive as Michael Adebolajo, the butcher from Woolwich, did. US police would have arrived on the scene quickly and that would be it.

As was observed in “Disarmed Brits Can Only Shoot Savage … With A Camera,” there is a lot to be said for “an armed citizenry and an unarmed police force.” Although permitted to bear arms, Americans are nevertheless severely limited in how vigorously they can defend their homes and lives without incurring the wrath of the law.

However, since the US police is not unarmed, as it is in the UK, our homegrown Jihadis are a little more circumspect about carving up a countryman in public, a la Adebolajo. They are still perfectly comfortable setting off remote-controlled explosions.

A day after “Disarmed Brits Can Only Shoot Savage … With A Camera” went up on WND, The Daily Caller asked, “Why did British bystanders watch a soldier get hacked to death?

The DC answered its rhetorical question with a list of regulations imposed in the UK which would prohibit any form of self-defense.

According to the United Kingdom government website, the online storehouse of British government regulations, it is illegal to:
sell a knife of any kind (including cutlery and kitchen knives) to anyone under 18
carry a knife in public without good reason – unless it’s a knife with a folding blade 3 inches long (7.62 cm) or less, eg a Swiss Army knife
carry, buy or sell any type of banned knife
use any knife in a threatening way (even a legal knife, such as a Swiss Army knife)
Folding knives, regardless of blade size, with a locking mechanism are illegal in the U.K. for carry in public and are referred to as “lock knives.” According to British law, “The maximum penalty for an adult carrying a knife is 4 years in prison and a fine of £5,000.”
Pepper spray is also illegal under section 5(1)(b) of the Firearms Act 1968, which prohibits “any weapon of whatever description designed or adapted for the discharge of any noxious liquid, gas or other thing.”
It is illegal to import pepper spray or a stun gun because British law expressly states that pepper spray and stun guns are classified as firearms. Blow guns are classified as “offensive weapons” and are prohibited to own, except for veterinarians or registered animal handlers.

The DC neglected to mention that the US also has “bewilderingly complex, startlingly severe” “State and local knife-control laws.”

There can be no doubt that an American is better off than a Brit in as much as he can defend himself in public if he abides by strict laws—rules which do not impede criminals (not that this fact would penetrate Piers Morgan’s skull).

An Englishman attempting the same is pretty much doomed. If the criminal does not get the better of the Brit, the long arm of the law surely will.