The headline says it all: “Egyptian TV Airs Slow Beheading of Tunisian Muslim Who Converted to Christianity.”
Meanwhile, in other news, Hillary Clinton has been yucking it up with Egypt’s new President, Mohamed Morsi. The United States, quoth Clinton, “supports the full transition to civilian rule with all that entails.”
Isn’t that nice? Judging by his grin, Mr. Morsi seemed to like it.
Query: What do you suppose “with all that entails,” um, entails? We know what The New York Times thinks (well, “writes,” anyway: I’m not sure “thinks” is the mot juste when talking about the NY Times). My PJM colleague Rubin got it in one: “Revolutionary Islamists Taking Power Produces Moderation and Ends Terrorism!”
That, essentially, is what H. Clinton, mouthpiece of the Obama administration, wants you to believe. It’s all part of the foundational narrative when it comes to radical Islam and the Muslim Brotherhood. A year and a half ago when Cairo exploded, there was James Clapper, our Director of National Intelligence declaring on national television that the Muslim Brother had “eschewed violence” and was now a “largely secular organization.”
Part of what is so exasperating about this spectacle of stupidity is the sense of (as the philosopher Yogi Berra put) “déjà vu all over again.” Haven’t we played this hand before? And didn’t it turn out rather badly? I think, for example, of this passage from Michael Burleigh’s: Moral Combat: Good and Evil in World War II.
On the basis of these talks, Chamberlain reported to the cabinet that Hitler’s aims were “strictly limited.” There was more, for apparently Hitler was no longer a lunatic but someone whose opinion was to be valued. . . . Hitler had let it be known that he had like Chamberlain, whose own account of the Führer’s flattery was revealing: “I have had a conversation with a man, [Hitler] said, and one with whom I can do business and he liked the rapidity with which I grasped the essentials. In short, I had established a certain confidence, which was my aim, and in spite of the hardness and ruthlessness I thought I saw in his face, I got the impression that here was a man who could be relied upon when he had given his word.”
Depressing, isn’t it?
Join the conversation as a VIP Member