Yet Another Muslim Atrocity

Yet Another Muslim Atrocity
by Andre Zantonavitch

       Two brave and noble American soldiers in Iraq were recently obscenely violated, horrifically tortured, and savagely beheaded by the usual inhuman Muslim jihadis. The reaction by most Americans -- as is natural and healthy -- was one of outrage and fury at this most recent Muslim monstrosity. Such fiery anger is a great motivator to rethink things and come up with fresh answers. But as the cousin of one of the mutilated soldiers helplessly noted: "We're very angry, but we don't know who to be angry with. Or who or what to blame." This almost universal view is both admirably honest and contemptibly pathetic.

       Certainly one obvious group to blame -- and perhaps the most important one -- is the "moderate" or mainstream Muslims. They play a very shameful and blatant "good cop, bad cop" game with the whole oblivious world, while quietly being very sympathetic to, and supportive of, their breath-takingly savage jihadi brothers.

       But another group to greatly blame and hate here is "the leaders of the free world" (sic). George Bush and Tony Blair, among others, never seem to shut up about how "Islam is a great religion of peace which has been hijacked." Such loathsome apologias by these "useful idiots" constitutes a true Randian "sanction of the victim." These shameful excuses for, and promotions of, the ideology of Islam almost certainly encourage the jihadis to go ahead and slaughter many times the number they would have murdered otherwise.

   Such savage betrayals of liberal culture and Western Civilization by Bush, Blair, and others constitutes something very close to treason. All such traitorous and suicidal leaders of the West should probably be removed from office and put up on charges of "giving aid and comfort to the enemy."

       But the real blame for this Iraqi foreign policy fiasco and ultra-frustrating quagmire lies with the religious right and the multicultural left. They're the ones that have reduced America to the state of embarrassing and pitiful "paper tiger."

       The "god and country" "traditional values" conservatives ultimately feel a lot of quiet empathy for their barbaric Muslim cousins. They regard their fellow monotheists as basically good human beings who are merely pious nationalists deserving of much indirect sanction and support. Few Western Christians condemn Islam to the extent it richly merits.

       Even worse in this overseas failure are the "cultural relativist" "politically correct" progressives. These post-modernist amoralists generally favor such policies as oil socialism, welfare state bureaucracy, and "soft" sharia for the Iraqis. Their highly destructive deference and "sensitivity" to Iraqi Big Brother proclivities practically doomed the whole "nation-building" enterprise from the start.

       And both right and left waste most of their time and energy promoting and supporting the close-to-valueless phenomenon of "democracy." They little know -- and only tepidly and ineffectively support -- the crucial and invaluable concept of individual liberty.

      The real answer in Iraq -- assuming everyone hasn't already abandoned all hope -- goes something like this:

           1. Impose the United States' Constitution.

           2. Separate mosque from state.

           3. Remove Allah from the public schools.

           4. Privatize the oil industry.

           5. Ban economic regulation.

           6. End subsidies for "basic necessities."

           7. Eliminate all "victimeless crime" vice laws.

           8. Privatize the (bomb infected) roads.

       Now this would bring freedom to the Middle East!

       But no one right or left is ready, willing, or able to do anything remotely like this. It's a true failure of vision and philosophy. So we're basically all just stuck with one hell of a long-term mess on our hands.

       America is very slowly and painfully coming to realize that when it comes to "nation-building" and "teaching democracy" -- these two hideously misidentified and confused ideals -- we are almost entirely incompetent. When it comes to these two generally worthy goals, the US is almost totally intellectually and morally bankrupt.

       So whether we choose to "stay the [failed] course" as conservatives favor, or "cut and run [and surrender]" as progressives favor, or some impossible and pointless combination thereof, all we can really do now in the face of these unbearable jihadi horrors is try to muddle through.

       Pathetic, isn't it? Our only realistic options are to try to use our brains and recent experiences as much as humanly possible, as we unintelligently and contextlessly improvise, adjust, and adapt. And as we try to stay the holy hell away from all current and popular Western ideologies.

       In the long run what is desperately needed -- both for foreign and domestic policy -- is for someone to blast the living daylights out of the "god and country" "traditional values" religious rightists, as well as the "cultural relativist" "politically correct" multicultural leftists. Both groups have got to go as we move toward radical Objectivism or at least some version of high, pure, perfected, Enlightenment liberalism.

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