As always, Mark leaves nothing left to say regarding Sen. Lindsey Graham — though I am tempted to suggest that maybe the country would have been better off if he hadn’t exercised his First Amendment right to offer help beefing up the Libyan regime when he was a special guest in Qaddafi’s tent a few months back.
I would instead like to draw attention to the repugnant statement issued by General David Petraeus and NATO Ambassador Mark Sedwill:
KABUL, Afghanistan (April 3, 2011) – In view of the events of recent days, we feel it is important on behalf of ISAF [i.e., the International Security Assistance Force] and NATO members in Afghanistan to reiterate our condemnation of any disrespect to the Holy Qur’an and the Muslim faith. We condemn, in particular, the action of an individual in the United States who recently burned the Holy Qur’an.
We also offer condolences to the families of all those injured and killed in violence which occurred in the wake of the burning of the Holy Qur’an.
We further hope the Afghan people understand that the actions of a small number of individuals, who have been extremely disrespectful to the Holy Qur’an, are not representative of any of the countries of the international community who are in Afghanistan to help the Afghan people.
Notice he condemns the moron who torched the Koran — um, I’m sorry, the Holy Qur’an (including all its holy verses that command Muslims to strike terror into the hearts of unbelievers) — but not a word of condemnation for the sadistic jihadist killers who struck terror into the hearts of the unbelievers. Rather, there is just an expression of sympathy for the families of those who were slain. And, of course, there is not a word of condemnation for our great ally, Afghan President Hamid Karzai, the jihadi-pandering sleaze who did more to incite murder than the nutty Florida pastor did.
The warped moral universe we’ve turned into policy has become a national embarrassment. Leave aside the mind-bending idiocy of the Graham theory, under which it would have been condemnable to torch Das Capital during the Cold War. Our Middle East policymakers can no longer distinguish between evil and stupidity. They go out of their way to genuflect to the scriptures that catalyze our enemies while willfully ignoring bible burning, church burning and infidel burning, which are everyday events in Islamic countries. Their strategy prizes the lives of people who despise our country over the security of our troops. After a decade of our sacrifice, they have managed to birth states in which Americans are hated, religious minorities are persecuted, and people who attempt to convert from Islam face prosecution and — unless they get whisked out of the country — the death penalty. And now, they’ve decide the big problem is not their skewed value-system but our First Amendment.
Enough. Petraeus says, “we are in Afghanistan to help the Afghan people.” Is that why you thought we sent troops to Afghanistan? Is that what you think we should be doing in Afghanistan now? I am pretty confident that most Americans couldn’t care less about the Afghan people, and I know the Afghan people couldn’t care less about us — except to the extent they trouble themselves to dislike us.
We got in this to defeat our enemies, and we’re ending up defeating ourselves and the principles for which we once stood. We never had any strategic vision of the global war, we had no stomach to follow through on the Bush Doctrine commitment to eradicate the rogue regimes that were behind the terror networks, and we decided we could outreach and democratize them into submission. Now we are predictably hoisted on our own petard as Islamists exploit our rhetoric to make themselves the champions of “democracy” — meaning of elections that are bringing to power those who hate our country and whose ambition is to destroy Israel and the West. Obviously, no one in government is willing to change this policy, so let’s end it.
What should our new policy be? We should have as little to do with Muslim countries as possible. At home, we should focus on the political and legal terrain with an eye toward:
(a) distinguishing between our allies in the American Muslim community (i.e., those who do not want to impose sharia on public life) and those who seek to undermine our constitutional system, so we can marginalize the latter;
(b) excluding from the United States aliens who would support supplanting the U.S. Constitution with a sharia system (i.e., revisiting the hash Congress and the courts have made regarding the reliance on anti-American ideology — not just ties to violence — as a basis for keeping non-Americans out of our country); and
(c) cutting off immigration from, and sharply reducing contacts with, Muslim countries until they take it on themselves to reform — on separation of mosque and state, freedom of conscience, equality, interfaith tolerance, individual liberty, and unambiguous rejection of terrorism.
Not only is that a policy that can work, it is one an insolvent country can actually afford.
Makes perfect sense. The commitment to "reform" countries that do not share our values is not conservative it is Wilsonian. The "conservative" tradition is the moderate isolationism of Robert Taft.
We need to rebuild our economy through lower deficits, lower taxes and higher interest rates, protect our borders and let the world outside the United States go to hell in its own way if it insists upon doing so.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseOur military shouldn't be in the business of having to play multiculti diplomacy games like this. The statement would be bad enough coming from our ambassador in Kabul, let alone the guys who are supposed to be fighting the heathens (yes, I said it) who run around beheading people over a book burning.
The sad part of this statement is that it implicitly assumes that rioting in response to burning the Koran, and becoming so violent as to engage in intentional and brutal murder of individuals having nothing to do with that burning, is an acceptable response to the events. It is not, and at the very least our military commanders should be able to say so.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhen I heard GEN Petraeus' statement,my first thought was, "oh no, he's drunk the Kool-Aid of PC."
Then I remembered what the Army's Chief of Staff said about the Hasan murders: "...as horrific as this tragedy was, if our diversity becomes a casualty, I think that’s worse." (External Link
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The PC disease, carefully nurtured under both Bush and Obama, has spread.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbusePetraeus' first responsibility is to, as per his oath of enlistment, "...support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic" and "...bear true faith and allegiance to the same".
No active duty soldier should ever feel free free to condemn, *in his official capacity*, the lawful exercise of a private citizen's free speech rights. Petraeus doing so because that speech might result in 'American soldiers getting killed' betrays a further appalling loss of perspective and integrity.
If a Republican wins in 2012, one of his or her first acts should be to forcibly retire Petraeus, on the specific grounds that he has violated his oath of enlistment.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseBeautifully stated, Andrew. That is a repugnant statement by Gen. Petraeus, and a stain on the record of a man who has been an honorable and accomplished servant of our country.
Disengagement from the Muslim world is definitely the way to go. We have no significant strategic interests in that region. Its significance pales in comparison to Europe, Asia and Latin America. Oil is a commodity, and any regime that comes to power in one of the oil-producing states will depend for its survival on its ability to sell it.
Everything we try to do in the Muslim world makes our strategic situation worse, and only fuels hostility to the U.S. and to the West in general. Ideally, we would have NO military presence in Muslim countries. We should immediately establish quotas for immigration (including student visas) from those countries at ZERO. Exceptions to be made for Copts, Bahais, Sefardic Jews and other oppressed minorities that have shown themselves capable of embracing civilization.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseRe: reldim, John of VA and Barbarian.
Agree with your comments with this additional generalized subtext.
I suppose presidents have always done it, but George W. Bush and now Obama both egregiously use General and Flag officers to front political positions.
It should be the military leadership's job to fight and win wars. Not make or publicly advocate policy. It's the civilian leadership's job to justify and direct wars that America fights.
Also agree with Andy McCarthy. I fault Petraeus for stating that position and I fault Obama and Gates for politicizing his position as a Commander.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWonderfully put, Mr McCarthy. But your proposals do not go far enough. Prohibiting the importation of Middle Eastern oil would save us from buying the rope for those who will hang us. Sabotaging Libyan, Iranian and Saudi oil shipping facilities would prevent Europe and China from doing so and would impoversh those who would destroy us.
This is a war of civilizations, ongoing since the seventh century. Whoever has the most devotion and dedication and patience will win it. Right now, that does not appear to be Western civilization.
Since the appeaser-in-chief remains at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, one might as well wish upon a star...
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI'm thinking the "Betray Us" ads weren't wrong, just early.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbusePlease, Mr. McCarthy, run for President, or Vice-President. McCarthy and Bolton on a ticket? Dream Team!
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhat a crock, Mr McCarthy. Petraus is not betraying any of our principles. His first and last responsibilities are winning the war, and his every action and statement have to be bent towards that end. It's not his job to parse the rights of individuals or to defend Western Civ as a whole - just to do everything in his power to win its battle in this one theater. When he says "We are in Afghanistan to help the Afghan people," he is not talking to you - he is talking to the Afghanis who have to decide which side to choose. It's strategic propaganda. I'm very surprised you don't realize this.
That is an entirely separate issue from whether we should be in Afghanistan in the first place, and I'm inclined to agree with you there. And points a, b, and c are spot on, but will, unfortunately, never happen.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI thought of that ad also Bob in FWB, I was incredibly disappointed when I saw General Petraeus' comments about this atrocity.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI have not always been convinced that we should pull out unilaterally from Afghanistan. In the wake of this latest incident, I am increasingly of the opinion that we should--and that these killings should be cited explicitly as the tipping point.
Would that I would turn on the TV tonight to see Obama reminding everyone why we went to Afghanistan in the first place, point out the we made a good faith effort to the tune of billions of dollars and numerous lives to try to make Afghanistan a better place despite the role its Taliban played in al Quaeda's visiting terror upon soil, but that such change cannot take root in a society's whose leaders aren't invested in anyone but their own survival and whose people would viciously murder innocents on rumors of that someone thousands of miles away burnt a book.
And so, he would continue, he has ordered the immediate beginning of the withdrawal of the United States' military and personnel from Afghanistan. "To conclude, I want to tell the people of Afghanistan: you got what you want. We are leaving, and you are on your own with no one blame for the corruption of your leaders and the brutalization of your people but yourselves. Make no mistake, however, that should your country be implicated in another attack upon the United States, that our military will return to rain just devastation upon those responsible. Only next time, we won't stick around to help you. May God help you, because now no one else will."
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseHear! Hear! We really are behaving stupidly and our elites continue to set the Koran and Islam above other religions and they do it out of fear. Do they really think the Jihadis don't realize this?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAndy, the real threat from immigration is the 15+ million illegal aliens from Central America.
Thanks to them -- most of whom (according to Pew) have less than an 8th-grade education -- we'll be seeing plummeting education levels, and correspondingly plummeting median incomes, economic competitiveness and ability to attract high-skilled jobs, and thus reduced diplomatic and military weight. Oh, and wait for the entitlement state to keep growing under the weight of people who have no shot in a competitive global economy who are our demography's most prominent dynamic.
Given the real immigration problem (next to which the handful of Middle Easterners looks like an afterthought), the jihadis will probably lose interest in the US as our star fades and we slip from exceptional superpower to the anonymity of yet another socially restive, Second World economic basketcase.
Bottom line: If we don't quickly change course to adopt a Canada-style, meritocratic immigration policy that actually WANTS the world's best and brightest, we're toast. Obviously, national security would factor into the calculus. Get the building blocks of a decent, fair policy for the educated, skilled, and pro-American, and the threats from both the jihadis and the Latin American illegals drops off precipitously.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWell, all of this will continue to an ignition point, where there will be a severe backlash against all the Jr. Jihadis and their PC friends. It's happened before (the Crusades) and it will happen again. If I'm not mistaken, Vlad the Impaler killed Romanians who pandered to Ottoman muslims as they sold out chunks of Romania. If Christians and Jews acted like animal terrorists everytime their religious beliefs are mocked, the PC "Lamestream" Media would start to show them respect. Right now, they only like and have respect for Muslims. See how it works, boys and girls?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI am sort of on the disagreement end of burning anything, but I wonder if the thing to do regarding Koran burning, is to have a million Americans and a million Europeans burn two million Korans.
One, two, or three people doing it will bring mockery and condemnation. Several million doing it will force people to examine both the book, and our enemies closer.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIn his exhilarating column VDH describes this issue with greater clarity than all other commentators who have indulged in embarrassing criticisms of Terry Jones while groveling before Islamic religiously inspired atrocities. Such excessive tolerance is the virtue of people who believe in nothing.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIf pre-Columbian Aztecs were still sacrificing hundreds of peasants on their temple altars then cannibalizing their dismembered bodies should our response be expressions of respect for their religion coupled with withering attacks on any simple folk who execute demonstrations of disrespect for the moral system behind such atrocities.
Salman Rushdie’s book “Satanic Verses” is a much more severe sacrilege against Islam yet it continues to earn him respect for his courage. His book caused much more rioting than Terry Jone’s burning of the Koran.
As a result of his disrespectful book Rushdie was knighted for services to literature in the Queen's Birthday Honours on 16 June 2007. In response to his knighthood, many nations with Muslim majorities protested. Al-Qaeda has condemned the Rushdie honor. The Al-Qaeda deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri is quoted as saying in an audio recording that Britain's award for Indian-born Rushdie was "an insult to Islam", and it was planning "a very precise response."
Unfortunately VDH felt it necessary to display his establishment badge by labeling Jones a “moron”. While we may not endorse the Reverend Jones’ actions, our elitist culture’s wave of calling him stupid, idiot and moron, while knighting Salman Rushdie reveals a streak of class prejudice.
Well done. If anything positive comes from this atrocity and the left-wing/politically correct's cowardly response to it, will be calls for our extrication from this Third World cesspool and the use of harsh measures here and abroad against Islamists and Muslims who assist them.
The gloves are off.
While I do realize that Gen. Petraeus and these treasonous senators have different roles, even the military is sworn to uphold the United States Constitution.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseA big thumbs up to proposal (c), to cut off immigration from Muslim countries. A big thumbs down to (b), imposing an ideology test on anyone who wishes to visit or emigrate to the United States. Two big thumbs down, with a "you gotta be kidding" cluster to (a), that "we" -- meaning the federal government -- should launch an effort to sort the Muslims already in this country into the good Muslims and the bad Muslims. Not only is that proposal repugnant to our country's core values, it is impossible to implement.
The experience in Europe has been that, at least until they reach a critical mass of about 20 to 25% of the population, Muslims of all stripes will generally present an Uncle Tom veneer of submission and assimilation to members of the kaffir, with an entirely different persona emerging behind closed doors. It is difficult to imagine, and extremely unpleasant to contemplate, a federal effort which could effectively penetrate this duplicity. Assuming the feds could identify offenders, what next? Concentration camps? Deportation for thought crimes? Finally, as the experience in the UK has shown, the effort is doomed to failure in the second and third generation, as the children and grandchildren of happily assimilated Muslims strap on the Sentex and head for the subways in the name of Allah and the ummah.
No, the sad fact is that once a Muslim is in the country and green-carded or naturalized, his or her ideology is off limits. The correct response, then, is to keep them out in the first place.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWith regards to Mr. McCarthy's new proposed Middle East policy: that's the first sensible policy proposal towards Muslin countries that I've heard in my lifetime, and I'm 57! What more can I can than "AMEN!"
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