Secretary Clinton and ‘Real Democracy’ in the Middle East
“The era of Big Government is over!”
I could not get President Bill Clinton’s famous declaration out of my mind this morning as I read the speech Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave in Egypt yesterday.
Very simply, Mrs. Clinton’s discussion of the lofty — and probably unattainable — goal of democratizing the Muslim Middle East is the best ever delivered by a senior American government official.
I can’t shake her husband’s speech, though.
Back in 1996, when he made his succinct, imperative assertion about the need to rein in Leviathan, we knew he didn’t mean a word of it. We’ve had galloping runaway government ever since. I don’t mean to suggest that that is Clinton’s doing, by the way; Democrats are worse than Republicans on this, but Big Government is very much a bipartisan disease. For present purposes, though, my point is that the Clintons, who are both extraordinarily able, have a penchant for saying exactly what needs to be said … while not meaning a word of it.
At long last, in Secretary Clinton’s telling, it has dawned on the State Department that the culture of democracy — the Western liberty culture — is by leaps and bounds more essential than democracy’s procedural elements, such as popular elections and constitution-writing. “Democracy,” Secretary Clinton proclaimed in Egypt yesterday, “is not just about reflecting the will of the majority. It is also about protecting the rights of the minority.” Even better, she added: “Real democracy means that no group or faction or leader can impose their will, their ideology, their religion, their desires on anyone else.”
Exactly. I’ve been a naysayer on the Islamic Democracy Project since the late Nineties, when the Clinton administration tried to turn Yasser Arafat into James Madison, and since circa 2003-04 when the Bush administration twisted the Bush Doctrine from a roadmap to military victory (“with us or against us”) to a Bridge to Nowhere (the “forward march of freedom”). All along, this has been precisely the point: there is no real democracy until a society accepts the Western democratic principles that Secretary Clinton so eloquently outlined. Democratic culture is the horse that has to go before the popular-election cart. The third-grade elects a class president; that doesn’t make it a democracy.
Here is the problem: Islamic culture is implacably hostile to what Mrs. Clinton correctly says real democracy means. To undo that, if it is even possible, would take decades of rolling the stone up the mountain.
When the secretary says, for example, that real democracy means no leadership in the society can impose its ideology or religion on others, that means real democracy requires a secular space in civil society where citizens — minority or not — are free to live indifferently to, or even in contradiction of, the rules and mores of the leadership’s ideology/religion.
Now consider the following statement: “Secularism can never enjoy a general acceptance in an Islamic society.”
That is not me or some other jaded “Islamophobe” talking. Nor is it a quote from Osama bin Laden, the Blind Shiekh, or some other notorious jihadist “violent extremist” who has purportedly “hijacked Islam.” The statement was actually made by Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi in a 2010 book he wrote about the need for Islamic societies to resist Western ideas — How the Imported Solutions Disastrously Affected Our Ummah.
Qaradawi, who holds a doctorate in Islamic jurisprudence from storied al-Azhar University, is the most influential Islamic cleric in the world. Put aside, for a moment, his fatwas approving suicide bombings. Despite those and a host of other despicable preachments, Qaradawi actually is fairly “moderate” as some of these scholars go. He is the very voice of mainstream Middle Eastern Islam.
When his book came out, the sheikh published an excerpt of it for the Saudi Gazette entitled: “Why is secularism incompatible with Islam?” Here is the essence of his explanation:
As Islam is a comprehensive system of worship (Ibadah) and legislation (Shari’ah), the acceptance of secularism means abandonment of Shari’ah, a denial of the divine guidance and a rejection of Allah’s injunctions. It is indeed a false claim that Shari’ah is not proper to the requirements of the present age. The acceptance of a legislation formulated by humans means a preference of the humans’ limited knowledge and experiences to the divine guidance: “Say! Do you know better than Allah?” (Qur’an, 2:140) For this reason, the call for secularism among Muslims is atheism and a rejection of Islam. Its acceptance as a basis for rule in place of Shari’ah is downright apostasy.
As you read that last sentence, bear in mind that Sheikh Qaradawi adheres to the classical interpretation of sharia that prescribes the death penalty for a Muslim who publicly apostatizes from Islam.
The bottom line is this: you cannot have real democracy as described by Mrs. Clinton and Islam as taught by Sheikh Qaradawi. You can have one or the other, not both.
The constitutions the State Department has been writing for “Islamic democracies” for the last decade install Islam as the state religion and enshrine sharia as a fundamental source of law (with Muslim societies naturally taking this to mean sharia is the fundamental source of law). When State is not writing the constitutions itself, it encourages Muslim countries to go ahead and write them this way.
This is worse than fraudulent. Fraud in this context would only mean we were being duped into believing secularism and Islam are compatible. But these constitutions don’t just fool us; they actually endorse Islam and its sharia system as the society’s “comprehensive system of worship and legislation,” to borrow Qaradawi’s formulation. If you have that, you cannot have real democracy.
I happen to think Mrs. Clinton is more than smart enough to know all this. So did she truly mean what she said about “real democracy” in Egypt yesterday? Well, if she did, she might have added: “Consequently, we really have to rethink our whole approach to democratization in the Middle East over the last twenty years. You simply can’t have real democracy, as I’ve described it, while enforcing Islamic law and mores on people who don’t want them.”
She did not do that. Let’s review what she did instead, shortly before giving her “real democracy” speech.
First, she met with Egypt’s newly elected president, Mohammed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood, whose platform is full enforcement of sharia as the law of Egypt. Indeed, as previously noted here at Ordered Liberty, Morsi has just cut a deal with other Islamist parties to make clear that not just the airy “principles of sharia” but the tenets of sharia law itself will rule Egypt.
Next, she met with the general in charge of the military junta that currently rules Egypt in order to try to pressure the junta into surrendering power to the freely elected parliament and presidency — both of which are dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood.
That is, Secretary Clinton labored mightily to elevate sharia and the mere ornaments of democracy (popular elections) over what she later perfectly described as real democracy. What she did completely undermined what she said.
The era of Big Government is over!
“The constitutions the State Department has been writing for “Islamic democracies” for the last decade install Islam as the state religion and enshrine sharia as a fundamental source of law”
Wait, what? Why is our State Department writing constitutions for other countries. Let them write their own, and be judged by them.
rbj – The oh so ‘smart set’ is really not that smart after all. For if they were, surely it would not have taken them so long to figure out the obvious – western democracy IS incompatible with Islamic dictates, and even in the wider Arab world when some secular concepts manage to take hold. Unless, on the other hand, Washington was pretending to believe in the impossible, simply to implement various political chess games by default.
This is a subject I am highly schooled in, as such, my efforts involve working without blinders. In this regard, I refer the posters/readers to one (out of several) related commentaries at my blog. It is called ‘Islam & Blood…The World Stands On A Precipice’.
PJM readers are quite sophisticated, therefore, I urge them to click on the policy paper contained in the commentary. It is also important to click on all the embedded links. It will round out its efficacy – http://adinakutnicki.com/2012/07/13/islam-blood-a-groundbreaking-policy-paper-contained-herein-the-world-stands-on-a-precipice-commentary-by-adina-kutnicki-109/. Please share it wide and far. It is that groundbreaking.
Clinton, as well as her surrogates, would do well to internalize its lessons-if she dares!!
Adina, I am sure that you understand that the liberal, leftist, progressive, socialist-marxist leadership in America shares many of the same goals that Islam promotes. They do not fully understand Islam and all the ramifications that would redound to the American way of life if Islam became dominant here. Our liberal leaders want to lord it over we the ‘unwashed masses’ to show that their way of government is better than that proposed by our founders. Freedom of speech, assembly, religion, etc all must go. Islam is not familiar with any of these concepts as well, so our useful idiots help Islam whenever thay can. What they do not understand is that when their time of usefulness is ended the Islamic knife will be at their throat and they will have sold out their country for less than the proverbial 30 pieces of silver. A pox on their house
They think they are smarter than their Iranian counterparts who pulled this same stunt back in the 70′s. The result was that the popular uprising against the Shaw turned into the Islamic Revolution and all the leftists ended up dead.
A most apropos reminder of what happens to die-hard secularists under sharia.
whirlwinder, exactly.
And, this is why I wrote several op-eds,as well as a recent commentary on the issue you mention – http://adinakutnicki.com/2012/07/01/leftist-dogma-the-same-world-over-freedom-loving-people-beware-commentary-by-adina-kutnicki-32-2/
Wirlwinder, Adina, who said this only days after the 9/11 Muslim terror attacks on America, a leftist or a self-professed Christian conservative Republican?
The terrorists practice a fringe form of Islamic extremism that has been rejected by Muslim scholars and the vast majority of Muslim clerics; a fringe movement that perverts the peaceful teachings of Islam…..
I also want to speak tonight directly to Muslims throughout the world.
We respect your faith. It’s practiced freely by many millions of Americans and by millions more in countries that America counts as friends. Its teachings are good and peaceful, and those who commit evil in the name of Allah blaspheme the name of Allah….
(APPLAUSE)
The terrorists are traitors to their own faith, trying, in effect, to hijack Islam itself.
Qaradawi would say: Theocracy is the only true Democracy.
I guess they didn’t offer Greek at his madrasa….
Coptic leaders and other Christians refused to meet with our SOS. This was real news. Instead, we hear about shoes thrown and cries of, “Monica!”
And did anyone see the warm and friendly reception that Hillary got.
What was it, shoes thrown at her, and that has to be really funny, because we were told how funny it was when the shoe was thrown at President Bush. But for those that don’t know, throwing a shoe at a person is a huge insult.
And how about those chants of Monica, Monica, tying her to her husband’s scandals.
Is Hillary truly interested in protecting the rights of minorities in Egypt? I am skeptical.
About as interested as she is in the continued existence of Israel. Remember, to a doctrinaire “it takes a village” collectivist/leftist like The Hill, our “problems with the Islamic world” all stem from the continued existence of people who the Islamists disapprove of. Like Coptic Christians, “secular” Muslims, and of course Jews, especially those in Israel.
She is convinced that everything would be wonderful if all those disruptive people would just go away. So she and the rest of the “enlightened ones” can get on with the business of building the Brave New World, with their Islamic Socialist friends.
Yes, they believe that the Islamists are socialists at heart; after all, they believe in a top-down, autocratic regime’ based on mystical principles. Just like our “best and brightest” here do.
It’s difficult at times to distinguish that brand of megalomania from plain stupidity. Then again, maybe there isn’t any difference in the practical sense.
clear ether
eon
A waste of good tomatos
nobody should be surprised. obama and his crowd of clowns is pushing for a muslim brotherhood ruled middle east and destroying freedom of western nations.
judge them by their deeds and do no even listen to their words unless you know that the truth is 180 degrees opposed to what they say. and it has been for decades.
See my comment below at posting No.12. Also visit Nonie Darwish’s lectures on You Tube. She explains why Shira and democracy are incompatible. I also recommend her other books, especially Now They Call Me Infidel.
“Here is the problem: Islamic culture is implacably hostile to what Mrs. Clinton correctly says real democracy means. To undo that, if it is even possible, would take decades of rolling the stone up the mountain.”
This is exactly true. There will never be any real democracy, at least a lasting one, in the Muslim world. At least not in North Africa and the Middle East. Malaysia and Indonesia may have a shot at it, but even they have their problems with free and honest elections, not to mention rampant corruption. But when it comes to the Muslim world in Africa and the Middle East, you’re barking up the wrong tree there. Democracy has never, EVER, been popular there. All those countries have been run by kings, dictators, generals, tribal leaders, or religious fanatics and that will not change. Even in Iraq, where we gave them every chance possible to create a decent democracy, you have a country on the brink of civil war and doomed to failure. And let’s not even talk about Afghanistan, where we’ve been languishing for over 10 years now. You cannot undo cneturies of religious fanaticism, corruption, and barbarity (not to mention Sharia Law) overnight. It took them centuries to get themselves into this mess, and it will take them centuries to get out of it, if ever.
But one point never seems to be mentioned. Perhaps arabs and Muslims in the Middle East just don’t WANT democracy? Maybe they don’t see anything wrong with having a dictator, or a king, or a general, or a mullah in charge of their countries? Nobody seems to ever ask them that and maybe, just maybe, for them the 12th century is preferable to the 21st century. That seems to be the way it is in Afghanistan and they have no hope of changing. Maybe there just are some countries that want to keep their tribal customs and their ancient mysoginistic laws, no matter what. Hillary Clinton should start asking tribal and religious leaders in these countries what their idea of a perfect world is, and I’ll bet you ANYTHING they do NOT want to be like the United States.
The key to what you’re saying is what was mentioned in the article regarding the cultural foundations of democratic governance. That culture began in ancient Greece, grew with the Roman Republic, was embraced and spread throughout western Europe during the Enlightenment and ultimately resulted in the democratic traditions of the US and some other European governments.
Islam has none of this history. Anyone who would expect a people raised on Islamic culture to also embrace the western culture of democratic governance is either dangerously arrogant or incompetent to stand in diplomatic circles.
Have a good look again at the “leaders”, those people selected by the “voice of the people” drummed and piped by self arrogating media pundits, educators, lawyers, and government agents in the the European West and the USA. Specifically the hierarchy of the socalled – falsely called – Democratic Party within the last half and even full 20th century as to their fidelity to the democratic, or republican ideas and institutions..
Persons at the top e.g. the Kennedys with their clones the Clintons and now their Messiah Obama. and influential core with one goal. One goal only. That goal no secret: power by any mean over “The Lives of Others”. Persons without apology for whom literally anything goes. Under the mantle of politics as usual.
Gaining their present power with a serf class devised by them as the Great Society. Votes – numers count in this power game – from groups and persons with no active investment on the body politic except “what’s in it for me”.
Fed by the cultural and political elite and government agencies from the taxes expropriated with the fist of law from labours and blood of the invested and productive citizens. Taxes expropriated and called public, or government money.
With no recognition, and not being called by the citizens on their lies. Not emphasising that the “Government” of the USA ia “of, by and for the people” ALL the people. And has no money except that of productive people who produce the goods and services for which money is exchange as token of value.
Individuals unapologetically without dignity, private and public shame, able to differentiate right and wrong/left, and utterly contemptuous of the people who give them the power over their lives. No surprise that Hillary Clinton, ruthless in pursuit of power at any cost to others, and BH Obama bow and curtsey before dictators of the Middle East, Asia and that collection of dictators and mass murderers the UN. Birds of a feather? Brothers/Sisters?
Well, we see how well Obama’s diplomacy works.
Appearing weak and acquiescent in the Middle East, like Obama, is not diplomacy, it’s comedy crossed with a death-wish.
Well said Virginia Bob.
This is why America needs to become energy independent so that we can separate ourselves from the Middle East forever. They have nothing to offer us.
Great idea. We’ll let the Europeans Chinese and Japan worry about how to deal with these ignorant followers of Mohamed. I would love to see a law passed that all oil pumped from offshore and Federal lease lands remain in the USA. The products of that oil could be sold overseas – but not in the form of a liquid – gas diesel etc. That would put many Americans back to work too.
The people don’t care. I learned that from my tour in Vietnam. They just want to be left alone and try to survive. No matter who is in charge the people will suffer. When the French controlled the area the people paid taxes to them,when the Viet Mihn fought the French and took control of the area the people paid taxes to them. When the Viet Cong controlled their area they paid taxes to them. When they were “freed” from the VC, they paid taxes to Siagon. They saw no difference one from the other. The same thing is happening in the Middle East. Someone comes in, says vote for us and we will make your life better, the people say, yeah, sure, we’ll do that knowing full well nothing will change.
The fact that Clinton showed up in Egypt at all after Morsi demanded freedom for Omar Abdul Rachman, the World Trade Ceneter bomber, shows how deep Obamas bow really is.
Watching an American President eat shit should make every American sick.
I thought I was missing something because I couldn’t find any other criticism of Hillary for even going to meet the Muslim Brotherhood. Thanks, Menachem! She should have sent a boilerplate congratulatory telegram and let Ambassador Anne Patterson go get an idea of what kind of relationship the new Egyptian government expects to have with America. It’s ridiculous that Hillary couldn’t have anticipated the tomato-pelting and taunts of “Monica!”
Anyone else?
Obama can’t make an appearance in Israel, but goes to Egypt AND sends his SOS there immediately after an Islamist takes office. It’s pretty clear to me who Obama considers his allies, and it sure as hell isn’t the only democratic country in the Middle East.
I strongly urge everyone here to read Nonie Darwish’s new book The Devil We Don’t Know in order to understand how democracy hasn’t a snow ball’s chance in hell of surviving in a Sharia rich environment. Reproduced in the book is a fatwa permitting the murder of an apostate from Islam who lives in Germany. The issuing authority was Al-Azhar University where Obama gave his I Love Islam speech in 2009.
That said democracy may survive in Iraq as a non-violent means of having a civil war and because the public can’t decide on what kind of dictatorship to set up. This may be the secret of getting democracy into the middle east without being noticed. It could be sold to the Arabs as “civil war by other means” or as a stepping stone to a more repressive tyranny.
I am familiar with Darwish, I haven’t read her books yet. on my list.
Iraq will not become a democracy …even if they vote occasionally.
the whole thing was handled badly and the current leader (Maliki) has already usurped control. he lost the election but is still there.
no islamic country can be democratic. …if it were then it would not be islamic.
cheers
Congressman Allen West is the ONLY politician who seems to recognize Islam for what it really is. Republicans as well as Democrats spout that ignorant “Religion of Peace” crap as if it was true. The longer it takes for the West to wake up to the mortal peril Islam is to our way of life, the more blood will be shed when it finally comes in force to our neighborhoods. And unless we stop it soon, Islam and its inherent violence WILL come to all our neighborhoods.
So, you are so right. I think there are a few more in congress who know the threat of Islam. However, No one wants to take any decisive action. Unfortunately, it takes a disaster before America will take action. 9/11 was that type of disaster but apparently, not large enough. I hope it will not be a dirty bomb in Boston, Chicago or Miami that finally wakes us up. We do need to take Islam seriously and beginning right now.
Hillary Clinton learned her politics at the foot of the master. The master in profiting from the madness of crowds. Who knows people en masse will buy anything no matter how poisonous if sold with pretty packaging, primary colours, unrepentant and ruthless false advertising and “charm” – meaning any smiling lie that works. AND of course active support any lies to sell the gullible public their products. Allies in the major propaganda machinery.
Hillary suffers the disadvantage that she lies with intensity and thrusts her lies at us with aggression. She lacks that essential of smiling charm so successful for her masters in the Kennedys and their clone WJ Clinton.
She’s trying but the charm escapes her because not natural or comfortable for her. Her tactic is battering ram.the same tactics without success as they do not come naturally or comfortably to her.
That neither Clinton is renowned for telling truths to power or to anyone is no secret. So it should come as no surprise that H. Clinton is not averse to twisting information for whatever good it’ll do her. Unfortunately there are many – too many – who accept her as symbol because she’s female. And calls herself democratic. But look at the special brand of democracy of these Clintons and look again.
What could possibly go wrong? The MB now has a track record of good governance. There’s Sudan … and Gaza … and Afghanistan under Rabbani, Sayyaf, Hekmatyar. The MBros also do the loyal-opposition thing well — as in Algeria in the 1990s. Let’s give ‘em a break, eh? They’ve never committed more than the tiniest of little genocides. Heck, their body count in the 1990s never even reached 3 million. Besides, they’re not Wahhabis. Those guys are dangerous. As in the 1930s, the key to U.S. policy should be to support the moderate Nazis. As DoS likes to say, “What? Me worry?”
Peace in our time!
Bringing democracy to an islamic nation is a fool’s errand. We are seeing this in Iraq where Bush (another fool IMO) thought it was a great idea. We should never have gone in there – or at least left after toppling Saddam – instead we got into a crossfire between regional factions that never have liked each other (thanks to England et al for this) and have been at relative peace only because of Saddam. Secular rule is a joke in ME countries for many reasons – but for one especially – lack of education. Indonesia is very shaky as a democracy – but they at least have secular education which may be key to their eventual success in democracy. In the ME the education function is done by the clericals – and we all know what the fruits of that effort are.
Qaradawi is on record advocating suicide bombings, attacks on Americans in Iraq and sundry other despicable adventures and misadventures.
“The only thing I hope for is that as my life approaches its end, Allah will give me an opportunity to go to the land of jihad and resistance, even if in a wheelchair. I will shoot Allah’s enemies, the Jews, and they will throw a bomb at me, and thus, I will seal my life in martyrdom.”
We can only hope the sealing is soon.
“The acceptance of a legislation formulated by humans means a preference of the humans’ limited knowledge and experiences to the divine guidance: “Say! Do you know better than Allah?”
It’s hard to fathom that a guy who holds a “doctorate in Islamic jurisprudence” from “a storied university” can seriously make an argument for shari’a as coming from Allah, can keep up the pretense that it is something other than what it is, a body of user convenient ideas concocted by men in the 14 centuries since Mohammed.
I don’t need Qaradawi to point out to me that democracy and Islam are incompatible
As for Hillary meddling in Egyptian affairs, trying to pressure the military into doing this or that, I’d say America should just step back and quit messing around in the Islamic cesspool.
We need to send community organizers to Cairo. That’ll fix it. Thanks to the schmuck-in-chief, we’ve squandered whatever influence we had in this retrograde region, but hey, thank God for shale oil and fracking.
Islam does not teach the same sort of compassion for the other that virtually every other religion including today’s “secular humanism” teaches. Muslims murder and torture each other without compunction and their own ummah, “brotherhood” has no condemnation to offer. That’s because they don’t value individual human life the way Christian westerners do. It’s not a concept in Islam, which means it’s not a concept in Muslims “hearts and minds”. Their hearts and minds instead understand what Allah teaches them in the Koran, namely, the Collective Will to Power.
When will our leaders understand this? And moreover understand that it is necessary in the end to treat Muslims in the way they themselves understand moral principles? Which ultimately means that they must be beaten back and vanquished and humiliated by a greater strength. That is clearly what they understand. Every move to win their hearts and minds only strengthens them, emboldens them to advance their own peculiar ethics of the world, which couldn’t give a damn about “hearts and minds”, as we understand the term. They will accept the shehada from anyone they can swindle and connive to recite it while at the same time are willing to kill anyone who leaves Islam. Whatever it takes to build the army of Islamic soldiers is what their ethics is about.
There is no way of avoiding the reality that the adults in this world are going to have to act like adults and step up and slap, and in a big way, Muslims who have made of their own societies the equivalent of “Lord of the Flies” and who now threaten to overrun every more advanced society with their mayhem. We’re going to have to come to terms this reality. Either that or it’s simply going to be cruel for all of us, with no kindness in sight, and possibly no one left to come and rescue us off an Island from Hell that in our passivity and cowardice we allowed to be taken over by moral pygmies.
In medieval times, people created fairy tales and magical creatures to make sense of their world. One of the most endearing is the unicorn, a horse with a single horn that symbolized purity and wholesomeness. In our modern times, people in Europe and the United States consider themselves more sophisticated and rational than people from the Middle Ages, but we still create myths, albeit more subtle ones.
Daily we hear reports of violent acts committed by Islamic terrorists on every inhabited continent. We try to wish it away with the myth of the ‘Moderate Muslim’, telling ourselves the Islamic agenda has been’ hijacked’ by a ‘tiny minority of extremists’ and that soon the huge, silent, moderate majority of Muslims will take charge and change things. However, post 9/11 very few Muslims have condemned terrorist actions. We are still waiting for moderates to stand and deliver, identifying and removing extremist thugs from their mosques and their communities. Waiting for this self-correction is our modern version of unicorn hunting.
“Moderate” Muslims will not be able to wrest control of the agenda for several reasons. First of all, Mohammed, the Messenger of Allah’s eternal word, was not moderate. No “moderate” can legitimately tell another Muslim to stop doing the extremist things Mohammed himself did. Also, the Qur’an condones violence and coercion to further the Islamic agenda. People whom we call moderates are labeled hypocrites by Allah Himself in the Qur’an. Moderates will always lose the argument because, as ex-Muslim author Ibn Warraq says, “There may be moderates in Islam but Islam itself is not moderate.”
Islamic expert Daniel Pipes and others estimate ten percent of the Islamic world to be militant. In 1933 when the Nazi party took control of Germany it had 2 million members, comprising only three percent of Germany’s sixty-six million citizens. A tiny minority of extremists can control a vast number of “moderates”, making them irrelevant.
Placing hope in ‘The Moderate Muslim’ is like searching for unicorns in the forest.
The necessary consequence of this understanding is to recognize that being or becoming Muslim must be deemed as akin to renouncing US citizenship in favor of membership in a world wide Ummah. A Muslim could not possibly be truthful when taking any Oath of allegiance. (8 CFR 337.1)
The borderlessness of the Ummah should not be grounds for ignoring the need to demand immediate emigration of Muslims and Muslim converts.
Will a Muslim who calls themselves a Muslim! think of it as a title of nobility, as distinguished from non-Muslims, as envisioned by the US Constitution and 8 CFR 337.1?
“All along, this has been precisely the point: there is no real democracy until a society accepts the Western democratic principles that Secretary Clinton so eloquently outlined.”
… “culture of democracy? … “western liberty culture.”??? Eloquently outlined?
I am not a genius as exemplified by Hillary Clinton and other smart people running the foreign policy show in Washington, but for a great many things it doesn’t take a genius. It does, however, take some one who will be honest with the facts and honest with themselves.
What is eloquent about this? It used to be considered common knowledge that the character of the people is what shapes a democracy. Any student from Government 101 should be aware of how this works.
In fact any First Grader who recites the Pledge of allegiance … “With liberty and Justice for all” … should be aware of this concept. To be discussing something which is as elementary as this to a functioning liberal democratic republic is much like a professor of calculus going over the multiplication tables. Eloquent? I think not. Absurd is is a more accurate description.
“Culture of democracy? Western Liberty Culture? Oh Yeah, I remember reading about our Founding Fathers discussing those things a lot!
Its the Judeo Christian tradition! There is not now nor has there ever been a functioning democracy not based on the Judeo Christian tradition.
“The culture of democracy”, and “The Western Liberty Culture” had to get their values from some where. America’s founders were religious men and their values, the ones they embedded in the founding documents, came from the Bible; the Judeo Christian tradition.
We can’t say that to Muslims because the Judeo Christian tradition is anathema to them. So what do we do?
First, we can stop writing or helping to write constitutions for them which have a success probability approaching absolute zero. Then we can tell them we will defend OUR interests and those of our friends read:Israel. Then we can tell them they are on their own and that they can expect no help from us. Help for which they have always repaid us with contempt.
Then we let them stew in their own juices.
Only after we elect a president who will put America’s interests ahead of “reaching out to Islam” can this even begin to happen.
The Clintons LIE?
No way, dude!
Egypt, Gaza, and Iran were Moscow projects.
JFK, LBJ and Nixon were destroyed for warring on or splitting the Bloc.
Carter, Ted Kennedy, the Clintons, and Obama are/were all Marxists.
Easy to understand.
They have the same dreams of capturing Islam’s soldiers that Russia and Germany did.
(1) A close aide of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is Huma Abedin, a Mohammedan whose family are members of the Muslim Brotherhood.
(2) There is a democracy in the Middle East – Israel. (But Israel does not meet with the favor of Hillary Clinton, or her boss, Barack Hussein Obama, 20 year member of the church of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright in Chicago, bigoted Marxist – “Black Liberation,” anti-white, anti-semitic.
(3) The boss of Hillary Clinton, President Barack Hussein Obama, showed how he wanted to “reset” the policies of the United States, by returning the bust of Winton Churchill, given to President George W. Bush after 9/11, back to Great Britain, bowing to the King of Saudi Arabia, and giving a major speech in Cairo saying how wonderful Islam is. His Ignoramus said that Muslims had invented the printing press – tell that to Gutenberg, that they had invented the compass – tell that to the Chinese, and that they had founded the first university -tell that to the the Italians who founded the first university at Bologna.
(4) There is a mohammedan country which is more or less a democracy, Turkey. But President Obama embraces the ruler Erdogan, who is undermining it and the reforms of Kemal Ataturk.
Was Hillary’s speech in Arabic the same as her speech in English?
“Democracy,” Secretary Clinton proclaimed in Egypt yesterday, “is not just about reflecting the will of the majority. It is also about protecting the rights of the minority.” Even better, she added: “Real democracy means that no group or faction or leader can impose their will, their ideology, their religion, their desires on anyone else.”
Oh really? Has she seen what Obama has been doing to us since he got in office?
Hillary is an opportunistic, pandering, political “working girl”, to put it nicely. What she doesn’t seem to realize is that the tool in the WH, and the despots she kisses up to overseas, view her as nothing more than a useful idiot. It’s a shame that new show on USA is glorifying her in their thinly veiled “fiction”.
McCarthy wrote: “I’ve been a naysayer on the Islamic Democracy Project since the late Nineties, when the Clinton administration tried to turn Yasser Arafat into James Madison, and since circa 2003-04 when the Bush administration twisted the Bush Doctrine from a roadmap to military victory (“with us or against us”) to a Bridge to Nowhere (the “forward march of freedom”).”
I’m not sure what Mr. McCarthy is talking about with respect to the Bush roadmap. The roadmap was the result of President George W. Bushl’s speech on June 24, 2002, “in which he called for an independent Palestinian Muslim state living side by side Israel.” It was early October 2001 (only days after the Saudi-backed Muslim-terror attacks in New York and Washington) that Bush unveiled his “vision” for a Muslim-enemy state in Israel’ heartland; one dedicated to Israel’s destruction. Mr. McCarthy says he’s been a consistent naysayer of appeasement. Were he alive in the nineteen thirties, little doubt McCarthy (in league with Winston Churchill) would have condemned the 1938 Munich accords as dishonorable; the Munich accords which former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon alluded to after Bush’s incredible betrayal of a friend. I would like to know what Mr. McCarhty wrote. What did he say at that time about this huge betrayal on the part of George W. Bush? I am willing to eat crow and apologize to Mr. McCarthy if he condemned it. Did he?
I am Egyptian, Muslim, Liberal and I say it clear what USA is doing in Egypt is a shame as they support the radicals from day one. We were expecting that USA is democracy promoter and minority rights protector but actually now we see a game for empowering radicals over all the community!!!
We as liberals for the first time protested against USA & Hilary with majority of our Christian friends from all ideologies as we see USA now as an official sponsor for radicals!!!
Only radical who welcomed Hilary in this visit!!!!
The same mistake of sponsoring Bin Laden in early 80s and Middle East will be a hell.
I am afraid that Egypt the center of Middle East and initiator of peace process with Israel became a center of radicals due to this unjustified support of radicals!!!
Walid, Mr. Obama is supporting the radicals. I guess you can say Obama represents the United States; sadly. Do you remember when Obama spoke at Al-Azhar University, June 2009, he invited the radicals to attend his speech? President Mubarak did not attend. Obama has been courting radicals here in the U.S. He invites them to the White House. They are dictating policy visa-vis FBI training manuals with respect to Islam, etc. Obama is deeply invested in the Muslim Brotherhood. According to Islamic law, Barack Obama is Muslim since his father is Muslim. Likewise if a man is born of a Jewish mother, he is a Jew.
Steve, Obama is following different strategy with radicals, he is trying to control them but I do believe this is useless!!
Yes, Obama father is Muslim but this doesn’t mean he is Muslim or supporting Muslims because I am Muslim and I am against those radicals and they got the religion as a guard to control the non educated people here!!
The game simply Obama is planning to use them to control Egypt but this will cost USA losing all Egyptian liberal Muslims and all Egyptian Christians!!
I am wondering is it logic for USA to support radicals and ignore liberals!!
The Egyptian Parties refused to meet Hilary!!
The Egyptian Church Pope also refused to meet Hilary!!
The perception here now is very strange we see USA as a sponsor for radicals and opposing liberals who defend minority rights and equality!!!, Not only that but the radicals now preparing new constitute that we expect it as a protection for a new radical country!!
We hope that USA promote for real American values that we know like liberty and equality as this is a role of world leader and as a friend country as this is the only way for making peace in Middle East and the world.
N.B.: The majority here is liberals but radical are very strong financially and this is why they got about half of the votes!!
Quote below parrots Israeli Prime Minister’s July 4th remarks to America very closely. http://www.israellycool.com/2012/07/04/prime-minister-netanyahus-message-for-us-independence-day/
“Democracy,” Secretary Clinton proclaimed in Egypt yesterday, “is not just about reflecting the will of the majority. It is also about protecting the rights of the minority.” Even better, she added: “Real democracy means that no group or faction or leader can impose their will, their ideology, their religion, their desires on anyone else.”
A reminder that the Bush Administration had blinders on with regard to Democracy and Islam. The Iraq and Afghanistan constitutions all defer to Sharia and these were put in place during the Bush administration. I attended a meeting where one of the lead State Department lawyers for the Afghan constitution said human rights were included in the constitution and these rights protect people. The rights were in direct dispute with Sharia and the constitution defers to Sharia.
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