ow the word of the LORD came unto JOnah the son of Amittai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me. But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD, and went down to Joppa; and he found a ship going to Tarshish: so he paid the far thereof, and went down into it, to go with them unto Tarshish, from the presence of the LORD.
(Jonah 1:1-3)
The book of Jonah is a short portion of Scripture, but extremely rich. The village atheists of the naive, innocent early 20th century era loved to attack it for its great "fish story", only to be answered by a barrage of "answers" from our side about how known fish or whales of various species were indeed capable of holding a man inside them. But the book is far deeper and more wonderful as a tale of divine grace meeting the recalcitrance and folly of man--especially in its reminder that the purposes of God are far larger than human sin; and not changed or derailed because we refuse to cooperate.
Apart from the book that bears his name, Jonah is mentioned only in a few citations in the New Testament and II Kings 14:26. In II Kings, he is said to have prophesied that the borders of Israel would be restored, which happens under Jeroboam ben Joash (not to be confused with Jeroboam ben Nebat).
Jonah thus received the blessing to know that God was prepared to preserve and aid his people even in a dark, sinful, and thoroughly unworthy time. Jeroboam ben Joash, it is said, "departed not from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin"--specifically, an idolatry repeating the infamous episode of the golden calf (Exodus 32:1-20; I Kings 12:28-30), as if the people and their leaders learned no lessons from the past. Yet in those days, God was nonetheless willing to rescue and restore part of Israel's patrimony by an unworthy instrument. And, in those days, a prophet who recognized the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob arose to foretell such an event--Jonah the son of Amittai.
In the book of Jonah, Jonah receives a second call from God:
Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it, for their wickedness is come up before me. (Jonah 1:2).
Yet Jonah, instead of heading northeast towards Nineveh, flees to the coast and takes a ship to Tarshish--lands at the Western end of the Mediterranean--in exactly the opposite direction from that which God ordered.
It is easy to be hard on Jonah at this point. How many of us think in our hearts that, had we been in Jonah's sandals, we would have gladly heeded the divine call! We glibly envision ourselves striding boldly out the gates of some Israelite city, Scripture under one arm and staff in hand, ready to speak mightily against a sinful heathen city in northern Mesopotamia!
But let us pause. The Assyrians, the people whose capital Nineveh was, were a fierce and dangerous people. One author has described them as the storm troopers of antiquity. Archaeology has uncovered their monuments and literature, in which they boast of impaling men alive and smashing in the heads of children after conquering an enemy city. After conquering most of Mesopotamia and Aram (today's Syria), could they be expected to heed the rantings of a wandering Israelite? Could Jonah, accustomed to being the patriotic prophet of restoration, welcome the mission to speak to a people whom his own people hated and feared?
In 1940, the Japanese Christian Toyohiko Kagawa went to prison for openly expressing remorse and apologies for his country's invasion and occupation of much of the Republic of China--at a time when China was still fighting. On his release, he went to the United States in an ultimately futile attempt to short-circuit the path towards war on which both Japan and the USA were already travelling. Certain American pastors went to Japan for the same purpose, and similarly failed. But Kagawa and his American counterparts in 1940 are exceptional cases, and remembered as giants for their determined pursuit of peace. They are remarkable for how few of their kind arose in those perilous times.
Similarly, we remember the Dietrich Bonhoffers, the Wang Mingdao's, the Aleksandr Solzhenitsyns who bravely stood up in Christ's name against the horrors of 20th century totalitarianism. But again, if faced with a similar situation, would not most of us prefer to acquiesce, to go along and get along?
The refrain of these first verses of the book are that Jonah went away "from the presence of the LORD". This warns us that we must guard against self-righteousness and complacence. As we walk before God, we must adopt a posture of humility; as we deal with our fellow humans, we must cultivate both humility and charity--difficult gifts when we deal with many whom we are predisposed to see as enemies. If one who enjoyed the prophetic gift could flee from the presence of the LORD, how much more can the rest of us?
Monday, April 18, 2011
Thoughts on Jonah
For the next several postings, I will return to my earlier work on Jonah. I apologize for the bits and pieces of meditation that appeared scattered among other musings, and will repost the earlier work to allow readers an easier time following the thoughts I have had on this small but momentous book.
Also, while the political season has begun, this Christian rightist will back off a bit--not least because Jonah has provided some important lessons. True, I probably won't support Mr. Obama's re-election. True, I remain critical of what the current administration has been doing. And I remain an unreconstructed partisan on one side of the culture wars now going on. But there are some more important things to consider.
Also, while the political season has begun, this Christian rightist will back off a bit--not least because Jonah has provided some important lessons. True, I probably won't support Mr. Obama's re-election. True, I remain critical of what the current administration has been doing. And I remain an unreconstructed partisan on one side of the culture wars now going on. But there are some more important things to consider.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
America's Spineless Leadership in Government and Media
In answering Afghan rioting over the burning of a Qur'an in Florida, America's leadership has shown itself inept, foolish, and ambivalent towards the Constitution its officers are supposedly sworn to uphold.
President Karzai of Afghanistan has loudly demanded an official apology for Pastor Terry Jones' burning of the Qur'an, and apparently welcomes the rioting of his people in Kandahar and Mazar-e-Sherif. He also seems to think that the killing of UN personnel in the latter place is somehow excusable. Our own executive branch officers from President Obama to Secretary of State Clinton to General Petraeus all believe that Mr. Jones' action is somehow responsible for the reactions in Afghanistan. Even honorable members of the House of Representatives aand Senate have jumped on the "get Jones" bandwagon.
Uncle Cephas is too much a child of Milton's _Aereopagitica_ to condone the burning of any book, even Hitler's _Mein Kampf_ and _Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong_. But, for once, ire directed at the hitherto obscure Terry Jones, the revered leader of a group of perhaps fifty or sixty people in an obscure corner of Florida, should be directed elsewhere. Further, the US government needs to seize an important "teaching moment".
All officers of the US government are required to swear an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States, including the First Amendment, which guarantees freedom of speech, the press, and the free exercise of religion. It should be more than clear that Mr. Jones in no way represents the position of the US Government, for churches, synagogues, mosques, and temples are independent entities under US law.
Further, the same Free Speech rights which Mr. Jones exercised in burning the Qur'an also protect Muslim imams who call the Jews relatives of apes and pigs; Roger Baldwin when he hoped for the day when the last senator would be strangled with the guts of the last preacher; Mr. Obama's beloved Saul Alinsky when he encouraged the poor of the land to put intolerable demands on "the system"; Mr. Obama's friend Bill Ayres; and his Troofer friend Van Jones who propagates the lie that former President Bush's own administration was behind the fall of the Twin Towers and Pentagon attack. It permits calls for the abolition of the establishment clause of the same Amendment when Muslims in the USA call for the adoption of Sharia. The Obama administration needs to remind the world and itself that an obscure Pentecostal preacher is protected by the First Amendment no less than the American Nazis marching in Skokie, Malcolm X, the Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye, and all other "discrete and insular minorities".
The US Government might also do well to remind Muslim mobs worldwide that the backlash represented by Mr. Jones would never have happened had noteworthy imams and 'Ulema condended the 9/11 attacks as mass-murder and found themselves mightily echoed by their followers in the streets rather than crowing about American comeuppance on 9/11. dancing in the streets, and passing out candy--only to turn around and whimper how it was all the fault of the JOOOOOOZ as soon as its "strong horse" Osama Bin Laden had to start ducking cutter bombs. Indeed, had the Islamic world shown an inkling of responsible thought and behavior, Mr. Jones' actions against Islam probably would not have gone beyond the usual verbal polemics.
Further, the Islamic world is in absolutely no position to lecture the USA about how to treat a minority religion. In Pakistan, Christian girls are regularly abducted, raped, forcibly converted to Islam, and married to their assailants. The Copts of Egypt and Assyirans of Iraq, the true indigenous populations of those lands, are being squeezed out of their homelands. Within living memory Iraq--the burial place of several biblical prophets, the land of the Babylonian Talmud, and Judaism's second homeland, where prayers in Hebrew were heard a full millennium before the Arabic azzan was heard anywhere--has been rendered jundenrein. Turkey rid itself of indigenous Christian minorities in the 1920's, has all but rid itself of its last Jews, and dares to be dismayed when a small Evangelical Christian population of former Muslims appears in its midst. In Indonesia, Christian schoolgirls have been beheaded in Sulawesi, while areas of Sumatra attempt to make all public expression of Christianity illegal. Syria teeters on the brink of civil war between Sunni and Alawi; has rid itself of an ancient Jewish community, and continues to squeeze its shrinking Christian population. In Karzai's own Afghanistan, apostasy from Islam is still a capital crime.
Worse, the major US media, beneficiaries of the First Amendment, condemn Jones' action without a single thought for the disproportionate rage of the Muslim street. Could it be because Mr. Jones is probably of the wrong political persuasion, or, more likely, our media moghuls really play it safe in choosing their targets? All around, official reaction to Jones' action had been utterly disgraceful.
Call Mr. Jones a yokel. Call him a crackpot. Call him deluded. But don't blame him for the disproportionate reactions of foreign Muslim streets to his actions. The responsibility for such extremism lies completely in the hands of the people of those streets and their own leaders.
President Karzai of Afghanistan has loudly demanded an official apology for Pastor Terry Jones' burning of the Qur'an, and apparently welcomes the rioting of his people in Kandahar and Mazar-e-Sherif. He also seems to think that the killing of UN personnel in the latter place is somehow excusable. Our own executive branch officers from President Obama to Secretary of State Clinton to General Petraeus all believe that Mr. Jones' action is somehow responsible for the reactions in Afghanistan. Even honorable members of the House of Representatives aand Senate have jumped on the "get Jones" bandwagon.
Uncle Cephas is too much a child of Milton's _Aereopagitica_ to condone the burning of any book, even Hitler's _Mein Kampf_ and _Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong_. But, for once, ire directed at the hitherto obscure Terry Jones, the revered leader of a group of perhaps fifty or sixty people in an obscure corner of Florida, should be directed elsewhere. Further, the US government needs to seize an important "teaching moment".
All officers of the US government are required to swear an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States, including the First Amendment, which guarantees freedom of speech, the press, and the free exercise of religion. It should be more than clear that Mr. Jones in no way represents the position of the US Government, for churches, synagogues, mosques, and temples are independent entities under US law.
Further, the same Free Speech rights which Mr. Jones exercised in burning the Qur'an also protect Muslim imams who call the Jews relatives of apes and pigs; Roger Baldwin when he hoped for the day when the last senator would be strangled with the guts of the last preacher; Mr. Obama's beloved Saul Alinsky when he encouraged the poor of the land to put intolerable demands on "the system"; Mr. Obama's friend Bill Ayres; and his Troofer friend Van Jones who propagates the lie that former President Bush's own administration was behind the fall of the Twin Towers and Pentagon attack. It permits calls for the abolition of the establishment clause of the same Amendment when Muslims in the USA call for the adoption of Sharia. The Obama administration needs to remind the world and itself that an obscure Pentecostal preacher is protected by the First Amendment no less than the American Nazis marching in Skokie, Malcolm X, the Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye, and all other "discrete and insular minorities".
The US Government might also do well to remind Muslim mobs worldwide that the backlash represented by Mr. Jones would never have happened had noteworthy imams and 'Ulema condended the 9/11 attacks as mass-murder and found themselves mightily echoed by their followers in the streets rather than crowing about American comeuppance on 9/11. dancing in the streets, and passing out candy--only to turn around and whimper how it was all the fault of the JOOOOOOZ as soon as its "strong horse" Osama Bin Laden had to start ducking cutter bombs. Indeed, had the Islamic world shown an inkling of responsible thought and behavior, Mr. Jones' actions against Islam probably would not have gone beyond the usual verbal polemics.
Further, the Islamic world is in absolutely no position to lecture the USA about how to treat a minority religion. In Pakistan, Christian girls are regularly abducted, raped, forcibly converted to Islam, and married to their assailants. The Copts of Egypt and Assyirans of Iraq, the true indigenous populations of those lands, are being squeezed out of their homelands. Within living memory Iraq--the burial place of several biblical prophets, the land of the Babylonian Talmud, and Judaism's second homeland, where prayers in Hebrew were heard a full millennium before the Arabic azzan was heard anywhere--has been rendered jundenrein. Turkey rid itself of indigenous Christian minorities in the 1920's, has all but rid itself of its last Jews, and dares to be dismayed when a small Evangelical Christian population of former Muslims appears in its midst. In Indonesia, Christian schoolgirls have been beheaded in Sulawesi, while areas of Sumatra attempt to make all public expression of Christianity illegal. Syria teeters on the brink of civil war between Sunni and Alawi; has rid itself of an ancient Jewish community, and continues to squeeze its shrinking Christian population. In Karzai's own Afghanistan, apostasy from Islam is still a capital crime.
Worse, the major US media, beneficiaries of the First Amendment, condemn Jones' action without a single thought for the disproportionate rage of the Muslim street. Could it be because Mr. Jones is probably of the wrong political persuasion, or, more likely, our media moghuls really play it safe in choosing their targets? All around, official reaction to Jones' action had been utterly disgraceful.
Call Mr. Jones a yokel. Call him a crackpot. Call him deluded. But don't blame him for the disproportionate reactions of foreign Muslim streets to his actions. The responsibility for such extremism lies completely in the hands of the people of those streets and their own leaders.
Friday, April 1, 2011
The Foreign Policy Keystone Cops
Two issues irk me about the current administration's foreign policy, both of which underscore the Administration's ability to consider American interest.
One, of course, is the Libyan intervention. Uncle Cephas does not believe that any vital American interest is at stake, not even oil. And, if the Europeans are more dependend on Libyan oil, it would be no skin off their teeth to simply wait for the dust to settle and deal with whoever ends up in power, whether some rebel coalition or a triumphant Qaddafi.
And did not Candidate Obama fiercely criticize Dubya Bush for a reckless foreign policy? Is there no apology in the offing?
The humanitarian argument doesn't wash at all. Our sophisticated, humanitarian European allies who are all weepy over a bunch of rag-tag Qaida sympathizers from eastern Libya may have slapped a few sanctions on Mainland China after 1989, but went back to business as usual with that very effective tyranny after a decent interval. As for the rebels themselves, they pin a Magen David on Qaddafi's image before torching it, suggesting that they are no more evolved in their view of the rest of the world than Qaddafi himself. Will Qaddaffi unleash a bloodbath if he wins? Of course. But Uncle Cephas is pretty certain that the rebels have their own little list, probably headed by the people who waved the Cross of St. Andrew to welcome home the Lockerbie bomber--but these folks will get killed not for supporting terror, but for openly displaying a Christian symbol.
But there is something worse.
A Florida yokel preacher by the name of Jones wanted to burn a Qur'an in protest against the manifold sins of Islam. Indeed, the whole Christian world has a gripe against the world of Islam for a string of anti-Christian crimes ranging from usurpation of holy sites in the Middle Ages to the murder of Christian Pakistani cabinet ministers who voice concerns over unfair applications of Pakistan's blasphemy laws (usually against impoverished Christian farmers in Panjab who object to the rape of their daughters or theft of land by Muslim squatters). When Mr. Jones first broached the possibility of this act, the whole force of Washington's political elite came down on him, warning him of the drastic repercussions such an act would have. Jones simply waited a few months, and went on with his plan.
Well, Uncle Cephas is too much an heir of Milton's _Aereopagita_ to condone book-burning, and doesn't even burn books by Marx, Mao, or Hitler, whom Uncle Cephas sees as monstrous criminals. But that is not the main point.
Our government let slip an enormous teaching opportunity. Every elected or appointed official of the US Government is expected to swear an oath to uphold the US Constitution. That document included the First Amendment, which recognizes rights of free exercise of religion and free speech. It protects the publishers of the hate-blinded Malcolm X's autobiography. It protects second-hand bookstores that sell ratty copies of Eldridge Cleaver's _Soul on Ice_ or the screeds of Saul Alinsky. it protects Muslim imams who tells their flocks that Jews are the kin of apes and pigs, and that violent jihad is the duty of every Muslim (as long as nobody acts on the latter). It also protects Mr. Jones' right to burn a copy of the Qur'an.
Since this action, Afghanistan's Muhammad Karzai has demanded that Jones be "brought to justice" for such blasphemy, as if Sharia was part of the US Constitution. Muslim mobs in various parts of the Islamic world have attacked targets identified as "Christian", whether the long-suffering indigenous Dhimmi populations of Iraq and Egypt or UN compounds in Mazar-e-Sharif, Afghanistan. Yet where is a single administration spokesperson who had spoken up to remind the world that the US enshrines free speech in its Constitution?
The Obama administration has gone from exaggerated deference to European and Muslim sensibilities to thoughtless and potentially coslty intervention too quickly. Now, however, it adds to its stumblings a lost opportunity to remind the world of some of the things for which the US stands.
One, of course, is the Libyan intervention. Uncle Cephas does not believe that any vital American interest is at stake, not even oil. And, if the Europeans are more dependend on Libyan oil, it would be no skin off their teeth to simply wait for the dust to settle and deal with whoever ends up in power, whether some rebel coalition or a triumphant Qaddafi.
And did not Candidate Obama fiercely criticize Dubya Bush for a reckless foreign policy? Is there no apology in the offing?
The humanitarian argument doesn't wash at all. Our sophisticated, humanitarian European allies who are all weepy over a bunch of rag-tag Qaida sympathizers from eastern Libya may have slapped a few sanctions on Mainland China after 1989, but went back to business as usual with that very effective tyranny after a decent interval. As for the rebels themselves, they pin a Magen David on Qaddafi's image before torching it, suggesting that they are no more evolved in their view of the rest of the world than Qaddafi himself. Will Qaddaffi unleash a bloodbath if he wins? Of course. But Uncle Cephas is pretty certain that the rebels have their own little list, probably headed by the people who waved the Cross of St. Andrew to welcome home the Lockerbie bomber--but these folks will get killed not for supporting terror, but for openly displaying a Christian symbol.
But there is something worse.
A Florida yokel preacher by the name of Jones wanted to burn a Qur'an in protest against the manifold sins of Islam. Indeed, the whole Christian world has a gripe against the world of Islam for a string of anti-Christian crimes ranging from usurpation of holy sites in the Middle Ages to the murder of Christian Pakistani cabinet ministers who voice concerns over unfair applications of Pakistan's blasphemy laws (usually against impoverished Christian farmers in Panjab who object to the rape of their daughters or theft of land by Muslim squatters). When Mr. Jones first broached the possibility of this act, the whole force of Washington's political elite came down on him, warning him of the drastic repercussions such an act would have. Jones simply waited a few months, and went on with his plan.
Well, Uncle Cephas is too much an heir of Milton's _Aereopagita_ to condone book-burning, and doesn't even burn books by Marx, Mao, or Hitler, whom Uncle Cephas sees as monstrous criminals. But that is not the main point.
Our government let slip an enormous teaching opportunity. Every elected or appointed official of the US Government is expected to swear an oath to uphold the US Constitution. That document included the First Amendment, which recognizes rights of free exercise of religion and free speech. It protects the publishers of the hate-blinded Malcolm X's autobiography. It protects second-hand bookstores that sell ratty copies of Eldridge Cleaver's _Soul on Ice_ or the screeds of Saul Alinsky. it protects Muslim imams who tells their flocks that Jews are the kin of apes and pigs, and that violent jihad is the duty of every Muslim (as long as nobody acts on the latter). It also protects Mr. Jones' right to burn a copy of the Qur'an.
Since this action, Afghanistan's Muhammad Karzai has demanded that Jones be "brought to justice" for such blasphemy, as if Sharia was part of the US Constitution. Muslim mobs in various parts of the Islamic world have attacked targets identified as "Christian", whether the long-suffering indigenous Dhimmi populations of Iraq and Egypt or UN compounds in Mazar-e-Sharif, Afghanistan. Yet where is a single administration spokesperson who had spoken up to remind the world that the US enshrines free speech in its Constitution?
The Obama administration has gone from exaggerated deference to European and Muslim sensibilities to thoughtless and potentially coslty intervention too quickly. Now, however, it adds to its stumblings a lost opportunity to remind the world of some of the things for which the US stands.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
The Smart Folks who are unfit to either govern or inform America
Today, while driving home, I listened to Washington's oracle of record, WTOP news, the radio avatar of the _Washington Post_. Commentator Mark Plotkin, a respected political pundit, expected me to laugh when he spoke of Sarah Palin's "gaffe" of being able to see Russia from her window.
Well, the usually intelligent-sounding Mr. Plotkin made himself, and by extension his employers, look pretty dang THTOOOOOOOOPID.
My mother and uncle were from Norse--oops, North-- Dakota, and would speak of Canadians as "neighbors", even though a good few miles of American wheatfields separated their old homestead from Line Forty-Nine. Given that Big and Little Diomede Islands in the Bering Sea are scarcely five miles apart, the USA and Russia do indeed share a border, albeit a maritime rather than land one. Hence, Mrs. Palin's saying she can see Russia from her window is a perfectly understandable figure of speech when coming from an Alaskan. Far more dangerous would be an Alaskan politician seeking national limelight while thinking that Russia is "far away". After all, the Alaskan indigenous Yupik and Aleut peoples also live in Russian territory, while before and after Vitus Bering, Aleuts were trading with Ainu people living in the southern Kuril islands. At least give Mrs. Palin credit for knowing her own state.
Plotkin's expectation that people who listen to WTOP news or read the _Washington Post_ should titter at Mrs. Palin's supposed ignorance of world affairs reveals something shockingly dangerous about supposedly "internationally sophisticated" Washingtonians: they look out from their windows and see only one of the two Oceans washing their country's shores, and probably understand only the safe zones of Western Europe when they venture abroad. While such a class of people were adequate leaders for the era from the Civil War to Woodrow Wilson, when Alaska could be written off as "Seward's Folly" and Siberia a mere icebox into which successive Russian regimes dumped criminals and dissidents, they are today a liability in a world in which no place is more than 24 hours away.
Please, Mr. Plotkin, stop making us Washington-area folks look provincial and ignorant.
Well, the usually intelligent-sounding Mr. Plotkin made himself, and by extension his employers, look pretty dang THTOOOOOOOOPID.
My mother and uncle were from Norse--oops, North-- Dakota, and would speak of Canadians as "neighbors", even though a good few miles of American wheatfields separated their old homestead from Line Forty-Nine. Given that Big and Little Diomede Islands in the Bering Sea are scarcely five miles apart, the USA and Russia do indeed share a border, albeit a maritime rather than land one. Hence, Mrs. Palin's saying she can see Russia from her window is a perfectly understandable figure of speech when coming from an Alaskan. Far more dangerous would be an Alaskan politician seeking national limelight while thinking that Russia is "far away". After all, the Alaskan indigenous Yupik and Aleut peoples also live in Russian territory, while before and after Vitus Bering, Aleuts were trading with Ainu people living in the southern Kuril islands. At least give Mrs. Palin credit for knowing her own state.
Plotkin's expectation that people who listen to WTOP news or read the _Washington Post_ should titter at Mrs. Palin's supposed ignorance of world affairs reveals something shockingly dangerous about supposedly "internationally sophisticated" Washingtonians: they look out from their windows and see only one of the two Oceans washing their country's shores, and probably understand only the safe zones of Western Europe when they venture abroad. While such a class of people were adequate leaders for the era from the Civil War to Woodrow Wilson, when Alaska could be written off as "Seward's Folly" and Siberia a mere icebox into which successive Russian regimes dumped criminals and dissidents, they are today a liability in a world in which no place is more than 24 hours away.
Please, Mr. Plotkin, stop making us Washington-area folks look provincial and ignorant.
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Oh, No! Now we've done it
Now we've done it. To save the Libyan "populace", we have taken out Moammar Qaddafi's air defenses, and now our anti-war President Obama has gotten us into a third war in the Islamic world, and not to help any proven or trustworthy ally. We are involved, and, win or lose, we will take the blame for whatever outcome happens. If ever there were conflicts which called for dusting off traditions of neutrality, they are the internal conflicts of the Dar-ul Islam.
Among the towns controlled by the Libyan rebels is Darna, which some time back was identified as a favorite Qaeda recruiting ground. So, we are now investing young American lives in saving mothers whose self-professed greatest joy was to have their sons blow themselves up in order to kill Americans. Indeed, as far as Uncle Cephas can tell, both sides in the Libyan conflict are self-professed haters of America and all that the USA stands for.
Obama has been criticized for being a "do-nothing" president in international affairs and for surrendering the American lead. Even the Statist and Democratic Socialist-leaning Washington Post has printed columns accusing him of being a "muddled puddle" on the "looming humanitarian catastrophe" in Libya (Richard Cohen comes to mind). Yet, perhaps, this WAS a point where Obama may have been wiser; and one one which he sacrificed a possibly sound intuition (rather than inaction due to muddle-headedness about foreign affairs?) for the sake of a dubious image as a president who supposedly exemplifies decisiveness and toughness as well as compassion.
Unlike the younger Bush, who had to respond to the worst attack on the USA since Pearl Harbor, Obama can point to no important national interest in joining the fight to depose Qaddafi--who, clownish though he may have been, seemed capable of learning a lesson or two following Reagan's air attacks in retaliation for the 1983 airline bombings; and who scrapped the development of nuclear weapons following the younger Bush's toppling of Sadam Hussein. As for oil, whoever might have won the Libyan civil war prior to the engagement of France and its allies would have known that the only thing Libya can do with its oil is sell it. As for the tranquility of Mediterranean shipping lanes, Libya has not been a pirate haven for some time.
Do not count on the gratitude of the Libyan rebels should they win with American and other allied help. Both Bosniaks and Kosovars have exported their national pathologies. Both have contributed to making Malmo, Sweden in to the rape capital of Europe. The Somali immigrant community--planted in response to the failure of the Somali state after the death of Said Barry, have given headaches from refusing cab service to people with seeing-eye dogs to demands for employers to respect times of Islamic prayer to open witch-hunting for homosexuals. Bosnia-Herzegovina has also become a back-door conduit for Islamicist militancy in Europe.
The US had no dog in the Libyan fight. It now has chosen to back the champion rabid flea-breeder against the mangy, rabid cur.
Among the towns controlled by the Libyan rebels is Darna, which some time back was identified as a favorite Qaeda recruiting ground. So, we are now investing young American lives in saving mothers whose self-professed greatest joy was to have their sons blow themselves up in order to kill Americans. Indeed, as far as Uncle Cephas can tell, both sides in the Libyan conflict are self-professed haters of America and all that the USA stands for.
Obama has been criticized for being a "do-nothing" president in international affairs and for surrendering the American lead. Even the Statist and Democratic Socialist-leaning Washington Post has printed columns accusing him of being a "muddled puddle" on the "looming humanitarian catastrophe" in Libya (Richard Cohen comes to mind). Yet, perhaps, this WAS a point where Obama may have been wiser; and one one which he sacrificed a possibly sound intuition (rather than inaction due to muddle-headedness about foreign affairs?) for the sake of a dubious image as a president who supposedly exemplifies decisiveness and toughness as well as compassion.
Unlike the younger Bush, who had to respond to the worst attack on the USA since Pearl Harbor, Obama can point to no important national interest in joining the fight to depose Qaddafi--who, clownish though he may have been, seemed capable of learning a lesson or two following Reagan's air attacks in retaliation for the 1983 airline bombings; and who scrapped the development of nuclear weapons following the younger Bush's toppling of Sadam Hussein. As for oil, whoever might have won the Libyan civil war prior to the engagement of France and its allies would have known that the only thing Libya can do with its oil is sell it. As for the tranquility of Mediterranean shipping lanes, Libya has not been a pirate haven for some time.
Do not count on the gratitude of the Libyan rebels should they win with American and other allied help. Both Bosniaks and Kosovars have exported their national pathologies. Both have contributed to making Malmo, Sweden in to the rape capital of Europe. The Somali immigrant community--planted in response to the failure of the Somali state after the death of Said Barry, have given headaches from refusing cab service to people with seeing-eye dogs to demands for employers to respect times of Islamic prayer to open witch-hunting for homosexuals. Bosnia-Herzegovina has also become a back-door conduit for Islamicist militancy in Europe.
The US had no dog in the Libyan fight. It now has chosen to back the champion rabid flea-breeder against the mangy, rabid cur.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Hands off Libya
Uncle Cephas has no great regard for Moammar Qaddafi. He was always a bloody minded dictator, sponsor of terrorism, a first class SOB, and, back in the Cold War days, the Soviet Bloc's SOB. However, the USA would be well-advised to refrain from following France's lead in recognizing the interim rebel government. It would be best to remember John Adams' advice to be well-wisher to liberty everywhere, but champion only of our own.
There seems to be little public information on who the rebels are, who leads them, and the nature of the new Libya they hope to produce. Talk of the "democratic" nature of the recent revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt neglect to note how the revolutionary forces were quick to attack Jewish targets in Tunisia and Christian ones in Egypt--very much in character with mass movements in the Islamic world during the past couple of centuries, if not more. A few things already indicate that Islamic supremacism informs Qaddafi's foes in Libya as well (not to say that Qaddafi has much respect for any expressions of non-Islamic belief in Libya), in that they've already burned the dictator in effigy--with a Magen David attached.
Attempts to foster democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan have made things worse for the Christian and Mandaean minorities in the former and have changed nothing for the clandestine religious minorities in the latter. The latter is especially rife with corruption since the ouster of the Taliban, and America's Afghan allies seem little inclined to find and bring in Osama Bin Laden or Mullah Omar. And intervention in Libya would probably uncover an equally unpromising morass. Further, the Islamic world tends to grow more anti-American in direct proportion to American support for regimes or movements in that area.
Let events in Libya play out as the powers in place in that country determine. We do not have a horse in that race.
There seems to be little public information on who the rebels are, who leads them, and the nature of the new Libya they hope to produce. Talk of the "democratic" nature of the recent revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt neglect to note how the revolutionary forces were quick to attack Jewish targets in Tunisia and Christian ones in Egypt--very much in character with mass movements in the Islamic world during the past couple of centuries, if not more. A few things already indicate that Islamic supremacism informs Qaddafi's foes in Libya as well (not to say that Qaddafi has much respect for any expressions of non-Islamic belief in Libya), in that they've already burned the dictator in effigy--with a Magen David attached.
Attempts to foster democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan have made things worse for the Christian and Mandaean minorities in the former and have changed nothing for the clandestine religious minorities in the latter. The latter is especially rife with corruption since the ouster of the Taliban, and America's Afghan allies seem little inclined to find and bring in Osama Bin Laden or Mullah Omar. And intervention in Libya would probably uncover an equally unpromising morass. Further, the Islamic world tends to grow more anti-American in direct proportion to American support for regimes or movements in that area.
Let events in Libya play out as the powers in place in that country determine. We do not have a horse in that race.
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