Wednesday, December 05, 2007

Strange Bedfellows


“The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” is a generally unsavory principle I use as a history teacher to explain why our country has associated with scumbags at various times. Practical politics dictate that it’s sometimes necessary to do business with a person, a group, or a country with whom we would never associate otherwise. When at war with Hitler’s Germany, for example, we sent military aid to Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union - a country which had murdered more people than the Nazis. We helped Saddam Hussein when he was at war with Iran and we helped the “Mujahideen” who were allied with Osama Bin Laden’s cause when they were at war with the Soviet Union in 1980s Afghanistan. My students grasp the realpolitik behind those unfortunate alliances as a “lesser of two evils” thing. Once our common enemies were vanquished, alliances ended.

Lately, I’ve been using the principle to shed light on the unlikely alliance between the Western political left and Islamofascism. Who could have predicted that leftists, whose most cherished causes include women’s rights, homosexual rights, abortion and pacifism, would be apologists for Islamofascists who are against them all? There’s only one explanation: they both hate Western Civilization and the United States as its epitome. They have a common enemy and it’s us. Islamofascists call us “The Great Satan” and the left calls us “The Evil White Patriarchy.” Islamofascists see us, correctly, as the biggest obstacle to achieving their goals of converting everyone in the world to Islam, restoring the Caliphate, and the universal application of Islamic law - Sharia. Leftists see us, also correctly, as the biggest obstacle to achieving their goals of one-world-government socialism with taxpayer-funded healthcare including abortions, homosexual marriage, and state-mandated multiculturalism.

For example, the liberal ladies on “The View” declined to criticize Sudan for arresting British school teacher Gillian Gibbons whose class named a teddy bear “Muhammad,” even when she was about to get forty lashes and Muslim mobs were literally calling for her head. Co-host Sherri Shepherd said, “. . . you would think that with her being in Sudan, she would know the rules and customs . . .” whereupon Whoopi Goldberg responded, “ . . . you’d think if you were going overseas [you’d be] learning the customs and knowing what is cool and what isn’t cool . . . It’s just one of the reasons we’re called the ugly Americans.” The National Organization for Women declined comment entirely.

Leftists who dominate our universities act as apologists for bizarre Islamofascist practices like female genital mutilation. Referring to a debate at the American Anthropological Society’s Annual Meeting, a New York Times article asks: “Are critics of this practice, who call it female genital mutilation, justified in trying to outlaw it, or are they guilty of ignorance and cultural imperialism?” Hey, maybe it’s okay to snip off a girl’s clitoris, right? What do you think Whoopi? Sherri? Barbara? Let’s hear your views. I’d even listen to Rosie O’Donnell on this one.

How about 200 lashes for the victim of a gang rape in Saudi Arabia? You read that right - the victim. She was raped 14 times by seven men, but she was guilty of getting into a car with a man who was not her relative. Can’t have that.

How about Muslim “honor killings”? In certain Muslim communities, a young woman may be killed by her brothers or her father if she “dishonors” her family by having sex with someone not her husband, even if she’s raped - even if the rapist is one of her brothers. I’m not making this up. This would be an “honor killing” and it’s practiced not only in Muslim countries, but in expatriate Muslim communities in Europe and the United States as well. Occasionally, feminist groups have condemned the practice, but when scholars are invited to college campuses to discuss it, they’re shouted down and accused of “hate speech.” Often discussion of such horrible Islamofascist practices (be warned: this link is disturbing) is banned altogether at our universities because talking about them may be offensive to Muslims. Women’s Studies Departments virtually ignore them.

Then there’s the execution of homosexuals. Records are scant, but some claim reports of 200 to 4000 killed in Iran since the Ayatollahs took over, which could be why Ahmadinejad claimed there were none in his country when he spoke at Columbia recently. Why don't homosexual activists and other leftists protest? Heck, Columbia University won't let our military on campus because of “Don’t Ask - Don’t Tell” but they invite a leader of a country that kills them? Doesn’t make sense unless you apply “The enemy of my enemy is my friend” principle. Both hate America, therefore they’re on the same side.

The only other explanation is that the American and European left is too cowardly to criticize Islamofascists because, unlike Americans, they don’t tolerate criticism. They kill you. It's okay to throw the Eucharist on the floor at St. Patrick's Cathedral, but stay away from mosques. Boy Scouts don’t want homosexual leaders in their tents on camping trips? Go after them. Leave Islamofascists alone.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

You are right on, Tom. This country will never wake up in time, however. This is all part of the plan to get us to one world government.

Harvey in North Baldwin

Anonymous said...

Harvey,

it is OUR task to get the word out and to sound the wake-up call in time. We are still 10 or 15 years behind Europe on this and if we work hard and fast we can stop this development before it overwhelms us.

Put a link to Tom's website in an email to all your friends. That is a good contribution to our fight against Jihad and the Loony Left. Print the article out and post it in your diner, library, workplace ...

Karen Tintori said...

Thank you for this important discussion, Tom.

What the hosts of The View have done -- to blame the victim -- is all too common a way to dismiss violence against women. So Gillian Gibbons had it coming to her? She should have known better? I could vomit.

It is unconscionable for American feminists to remain silent on these issues. When human life is at stake, we do not have the luxury of hiding behind a flimsy veil of cultural or moral relativism.

It is a cop out of the highest order. If we do not speak up for these victims, who will?

Karen Tintori, author
Unto the Daughters: The Legacy of an Honor Killing in a Sicilian-American Family
www.karentintori.com

Anonymous said...

Tom, you've given me a lot of food for thought here.

I, too, have noticed the deafening silence, and I've been wondering whether Islamophobia hasn't become the new anti-Semitism. I think some people are afraid to speak out for fear of being labeled or perceived as being politically incorrect. Guess it doesn't bother them so much that people are being mutilated and murdered for no justifiable reason.

I, too, was dismayed by the position taken by the ladies of "The View" where the teddy bear incident was concerned. I can only dismiss it as extremely uneducated and horribly naive.

As for "honor" killings, too often they are conducted on the basis of mere fabrication or unsubstantiated rumor. No actual transgression need have occurred. There is no burden of proof, no agreed-upon set of behaviors that make one subject to this form of intrafamilial summary execution. Just whatever sets someone off, true or not.

Do you actually know of a case of an Arab/Muslim "honor" killing that has occurred in the U.S.A.? I follow this closely, but I have not uncovered even a single case. So please educate me if you know better.

Ellen R. Sheeley, Author
"Reclaiming Honor in Jordan"

Tom McLaughlin said...

Ellen:
The one I read about is here:

http://www.newsnet5.com/news/337138/detail.html

Karen Tintori said...

Ellen,

I've been searching for a Detroit News or Detroit Free Press archived story on the honor killing I vividly recall, to no avail.

A young woman of Arabic or Albanian descent was murdered perhaps five or six years ago in the Detroit area by her father, attacked as she walked in the side door of the family home to her high school graduation party -- because she was becoming too Westernized. I remember one of the problems he cited was that she was wearing blue jeans.

There was another one several years later, in another Detroit suburb, involving another immigrant family.

Here is what else I've found:

http://www.solomonia.com/blog/archives/003699.shtml -- wife and daughters murdered for "honor" in Scottsdale, including a four year-old girl

http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2007/05/religioon_of_pe.html -- religious killing in Anaheim

http://garbanzotoons.blogspot.com/2005/06/muslim-mayhem-in-madison-heights.html -- 15 year-old girl's back broken over "honor" by her brother in Madison Heights, MI, and parents do not seek medical attention for her

http://www.debbieschlussel.com/archives/2006/07/hezbollah_usa.html

and

http://www.debbieschlussel.com/archives/2006/05/la_shish_owner.html -- Detroit area "honor" killing of a Christian male for dating a Muslim female

Karen Tintori

Anonymous said...

It's not the honor killings alone that occur in muslim parallel societies. It is the continuous threat of violence to which every muslim woman is subject if she strays from the rules of the quran.

Imagine this. Happened in Germany (civilized country last time I checked): a moroccan woman, 26, 2 little kids gets beaten savagely and repeatedly by her moroccan husband. Now German divorce law states, that in case of open hardship, a marriage may be divorced without insisting on the legally prescribed waiting period of 12 months. That was what the moroccan woman sought, an immediate divorce from her husband whose extremely violent treatment of his wife was on the record in several police reports.

The female judge refused to allow the divorce, on the grounds that the husband's right to beat his wife was given by the quran and was part of muslim culture"

I kid you not. Here is one of the sources: http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/0,1518,472849,00.html

The European multicultural human experiment is a disaster. And it is coming our way within the next 10 years.

And I think more and more, that we in the so-called Free World and our damned political correctness are the REAL PROBLEM. Our cultural suicide by Islam is only a result of "politically correct" leftist politics and loss of identity and personal values.

Another nice example of fear in Islam on my blog: http://transatlanticconservative.blogspot.com/2007/12/can-you-spell-sharia.html

Anonymous said...

sorry:

"personal values"

was supposed to be:

"conservative values"

Tom McLaughlin said...

Thanks for the links, Karen. I couldn't get the first three to work, but the rest did. Interesting. It's more extensive than I thought.

TC - that's exactly right about the European experiment with multiculturalism. It was actually codified in many countries and it's a disaster. Won't hear about it here in the MSM however. It's still sacrosanct among the "humanists."

Anonymous said...

Hi Tom, good article. Saw a bumper sticker that read " Animal rights wackos attack old ladies with fur coats, not motorcycle gangs in leather jackets". Ed