Posted on 05/19/2004 2:54:18 AM PDT by Theodore R.
What do we offer the world?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: May 19, 2004 1:00 a.m. Eastern
"So, how do we advance the cause of female emancipation in the Muslim world?" asks Richard Perle in "An End to Evil." He replies, "We need to remind the women of Islam ceaselessly: Our enemies are the same as theirs; our victory will be theirs as well."
Well, the neoconservative cause "of female emancipation in the Muslim world" was probably set back a bit by the photo shoot of Pfc. Lynndie England and the "Girls Gone Wild" of Abu Ghraib prison.
Indeed, the filmed orgies among U.S. military police outside the cells of Iraqi prisoners, the S&M humiliation of Muslim men, the sexual torment of their women raise a question. Exactly what are the "values" the West has to teach the Islamic world?
"This war ... is about – deeply about – sex," declaims neocon Charles Krauthammer. Militant Islam is "threatened by the West because of our twin doctrines of equality and sexual liberation."
But whose "twin doctrines" is Krauthammer talking about? The sexual liberation he calls our doctrine belongs to a '60s revolution that devout Christians, Jews and Muslims have been resisting for years.
What does Krauthammer mean by sexual liberation? The right of "tweeners" and teenage girls to dress and behave like Britney Spears? Their right to condoms in junior high? Their right to abortion without parental consent?
If conservatives reject the "equality" preached by Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan, NARAL and the National Organization for Women, why seek to impose it on the Islamic world? Why not stand beside Islam, and against Hollywood and Hillary?
In June 2002 at West Point, President Bush said, "Moral truth is the same in every culture, in every time and in every place."
But even John Kerry does not agree with George Bush on the morality of homosexual unions and stem-cell research. On such issues, conservative Americans have more in common with devout Muslims than with liberal Democrats.
The president notwithstanding, Americans no longer agree on what is moral truth. For as someone said a few years back, there is a cultural war going on in this country – a religious war. It is about who we are, what we believe and what we stand for as a people.
What some of us view as the moral descent of a great and Godly republic into imperial decadence, neocons see as their big chance to rule the world.
In Georgia, recently, the president declared to great applause: "I can't tell you how proud I am of our commitment to values. ... That commitment to values is going to be an integral part of our foreign policy as we move forward. These aren't American values, these are universal values. Values that speak universal truths."
But what universal values is he talking about? If he intends to impose the values of MTV America on the Muslim world in the name of a "world democratic revolution," he will provoke and incite a war of civilizations America cannot win because Americans do not want to fight it. This may be the neocons' war. It is not our war.
When Bush speaks of freedom as God's gift to humanity, does he mean the First Amendment freedom of Larry Flynt to produce pornography and of Salman Rushdie to publish "The Satanic Verses" – a book considered blasphemous to the Islamic faith? If the Islamic world rejects this notion of freedom, why is it our duty to change their thinking? Why are they wrong?
When the president speaks of freedom, does he mean the First Amendment prohibition against our children reading the Bible and being taught the Ten Commandments in school?
If the president wishes to fight a moral crusade, he should know the enemy is inside the gates. The great moral and cultural threats to our civilization come not from outside America, but from within. We have met the enemy, and he is us. The war for the soul of America is not going to be lost or won in Fallujah.
Unfortunately, Pagan America of 2004 has far less to offer the world in cultural fare than did Christian America of 1954. Many of the movies, books, magazines, TV shows, videos and much of the music we export to the world are as poisonous as the narcotics the Royal Navy forced on the Chinese people in the Opium Wars.
A society that accepts the killing of a third of its babies as women's "emancipation," that considers homosexual marriage to be social progress, that hands out contraceptives to 13-year-old girls at junior high ought to be seeking out a confessional – better yet, an exorcist – rather than striding into a pulpit like Elmer Gantry to lecture mankind on the superiority of "American values."
Before the war, Christians in Iraq were free to worship. If this mess ends well, Iraq will resemble closer our friend - Saudi Arabia (or Iran if it ends bad). BTW, even in Iran there are some churches allowed to exist as opposed to Saudi Arabia.
I've yet to see anything from Pat Buchanan that would lead me to believe he has been saved by Jesus Christ.
He is religious though, for whatever that's worth.
It is not possible to separate us into good and evil...all Germans and Japanese were not evil,all Americans or even soldiers were not "good"..We nevertheless had a duty to defeat the countries.
We did not do it because our country was perfect...We had segregation,Jim Crow, and other wrong laws...but we did it because it was necessary. We were better, and still we had to cooperate with the murderous Stalin.
This enemy is not concentrated in one country...they are here and everywhere and our useful idiots give support to the notion that they are not really that dangerous..They forget the ideology driven zeal,the devastation they inflict and the fact the Islamofascists truly do want us under sharia or dead.
Getting a democracy in the middle east is a hope and a vision to enable that 7th century part of the world to concentrate on bettering their lives instead of ruining ours. Our country,warts and all, is head and shoulders above Saddam's Iraqi government and the people of Iraq may have a chance at much better days.
We are fighting those who do not want freedom for the Iraqis..They want power. Some are tied to Al Queda.
You know next to nothing about Syria.
That's what I call apropos.
O.K so substitute Syria with Saudi Arabia and my point works. Would a Christian in Saudi Arabia want to move to America if given the chance? Give me a freakin break with that response.
Heh! I follow. Believe me. And you're right.
Syria has a way of dealing with their enemies inside the country...They kill them. If they find a nation next door that is troublesome..They occupy it and give it "stability".
Thats fine, but my response was to the statement of not wanting to move to America because I see how our culture is. True we have some nasty things that go on in America but we also have a lot of good things. In America at least you have a choice of what you want to be.
I could care less about spreading 'democracy' and more about killing terrorists.
That's what I was trying to get across in my lame, awkward manner. What THEY see as Christian being represented by the developments (or more appropriately, setbacks) of late is NOT what Christian really is. They try to tell us that strapping bombs to one's waist isn't Islam and probably it isn't. But proof is in deed and perception is everything in the eye of the beholder.
Yes. "Substituting" one country with another is not a trivial thing. After Pearl Harbor, America did not fight against Korea. In Syria Christians can worship freely, in Saudi Arabia no churches are allowed and Christian converts can be beheaded according to the law.
If Syria is attacked and changed into Islamic regime it will show how Christian our leadership is.
Krauthammer saw anti-Semitic happenings from the Passion of Christ - so much for his acumen.
Is there a "J", Alex?
Agreed. I assumed, wrongly, that Syria would be the same as other parts of the Muslim world. After I typed that, I started thinking about some of the articles posted here, which I think you've even pinged me to, about the Syrian Christians.
If, in the process of attacking the current administration, you find yourself defending the Saddam Husseins of the world, perhaps you ought to step back and very carefully consider whether you actually give a damn about the Iraqis at all, or if you simply consider them a convenient stick to use in beating those with whom you happen to disagree. It is difficult to see how anyone interested in actually improving the Iraqi lot in life could proceed from the essential thesis that the tyrant wasn't really so bad after all.
That is what I was responding to originaly. I used Syria in my response but you say Syria is a great place for Christians and Saudi Arabia isn't. O.K. substitute Saudi for Syria and the statement " If I were a Christian living in (Syria) Saudi Arabia I would love to live in America.
If Buchanan was black, he'd be Louis Farrakhan.
Tell me, where Christians had more freedoms - in Saudi Arabia or in Baath ruled Iraq? Do you care at all?
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