"Soliciting for your service and support"

Today the New York Times reports that “After Egypt’s Revolution, Christians Are Living in Fear …” Meanwhile, a senior British politician said that Britain must join the Euro because “people have no idea of the scale of money British banks are owed by European banks. If the European banks start going it will be our banks that are on the line, our government on the line.” But most importantly, I received critical news bearing on developments in Libya through this urgent email which speaks for itself.

Hello Sir,

I am El-Gamil D. O. Mustafa, a Libyan nationality and legal adviser to Mr. Saif Al-Islam Muammar Gaddafi the first Son of Late Colonel Muammar Gaddafi the President and chief in command of the ruling armed forces of Arab Republic Of Libya.

His families are soliciting for your service and support, due to the recent crackdown and rebellion killing of his Father and his younger brother (Muatassim) by a NATO Air strike and Rebels.

The United Nations have now set their eyes on their family wealth. Over 30 Billion Pounds worth of Cash and Assets have been Freeze by the Western World. My client’s Family needs your help to move some Funds Millions of Dollars from Europe and other neighboring countries in Africa in to your country for buying of Properties and Real Estate Investments.

I will give you guideline and instruction on how best to transfer all the fund into your country without raising any eyebrow. Note that this transaction is 100% risk free.

All we need from you is your honesty and cooperation to move this funds as soon as possible before they get confiscated by the British Government.

Some might think that answering the the entreaties of Mr. El-Gamil D. O. Mustafa would be foolish. But it can’t be. After all, Washington and London can continue continue “leading from behind” and succumbing to the blackmail of the European union and still claim it is the wise thing to do. But responding to Mr. Mustafa would only be to commit folly once; yet politicians in Washington and London can continue an imbecility indefinitely on the principle that irrational policy becomes rational if repeated long enough.

But maybe Western governments are as rational as one can ever hope politicians to become. Andre Aciman, author of the NYT article on Egypt describes the process of cogitation in that great and ancient state. The attacks on the Copts are apparently the product of “hidden hands”. He explains:

Unable to explain exactly why events turned violent, Egypt’s interim prime minister, Essam Sharaf, claimed that the wholesale slaughter of civilians was not the product of sectarian violence but proof that there were “hidden hands” involved. …

I grew up in an Egypt that was inventing hidden hands wherever you looked. Because of my family’s increasingly precarious status as Jews living in Nasser’s Egypt, my parents forbade me to flash my flashlight several times at night or to write invisible messages with lemon ink in middle school. These were a spymaster’s tricks, and Jews were forever regarded as spies after the 1954 “Lavon Affair,” in which Israeli intelligence recruited Egyptian Jews to bomb targets in Egypt.

Sadly, the phrase “hidden hands” remains a part of Egypt’s political rhetoric more than 50 years later — an invitation for every Egyptian to write in the name of his or her favorite bugaboo. Rather than see things for what they are, Egyptians, from their leaders on down, have always preferred the blame game — and with good reason. Blaming some insidious clandestine villain for anything invariably works in a country where hearsay passes for truth and paranoia for knowledge.

Sometimes those hidden hands are called Langley, or the West, or, all else failing, of course, the Mossad. Sometimes “hidden hands” stands for any number of foreign or local conspiracies carried out by corrupt or disgruntled apparatchiks of one stripe or another who are forever eager to tarnish and discredit the public trust.

So that is who the world must blame for the outrages on the Copts: The Hidden Hands. And I happen to know where their headquarters are. Right next to the residence of Mr. Mustafa in the Western Libyan desert. His full name is El-Gamil Mustafa Daw Omer, Esq., a notable in those parts.

And why not? By the standards of mainstream policy, it is comparatively logical to entrust the entire contents of my meager bank account to the the representative of the son of the late of Duck of Death, since my betters can do far more illogical things and keep on trucking. Maybe they know something I don’t.