Obama You're No Osama Revisited

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Center for Strategic and International Studies fellow, Edward Luttwak has a particularly interesting op-ed in today's NY Times titled "President Apostate" which has garnered a good deal of blogosphere buzz and the thesis of which is best summed up here:

As the son of the Muslim father, Senator Obama was born a Muslim under Muslim law as it is universally understood. It makes no difference that, as Senator Obama has written, his father said he renounced his religion. Likewise, under Muslim law based on the Koran his mother’s Christian background is irrelevant.

Of course, as most Americans understand it, Senator Obama is not a Muslim. He chose to become a Christian, and indeed has written convincingly to explain how he arrived at his choice and how important his Christian faith is to him.

His conversion, however, was a crime in Muslim eyes; it is “irtidad” or “ridda,” usually translated from the Arabic as “apostasy,” but with connotations of rebellion and treason. Indeed, it is the worst of all crimes that a Muslim can commit, worse than murder (which the victim’s family may choose to forgive).

The point is a legitimate one. Of course it is unsurprising that I would find this to be so since it is the same point I made on this blog's second post way back in January as can be seen here. And no I don't think Luttwak somehow found his way into my small corner of the universe and swiped my swell idea. Daniel Pipes raised the idea in an article back in December 2007 as have others. (And no I didn't steal the idea from Pipes or anyone else.) It is a legitimate issue to raise. My thinking on the matter was that although I don't believe that Obama is a Muslim (this emphasis being required so that people don't miss that point, intentionally or otherwise) he may well be perceived as having been one and therefore may now be considered to be an apostate by many Muslims. As I said in the original post:

But the issue can’t just end there. While whether baby-Obama was Muslim or not may or may not matter to you or me there are people to whom it matters a great deal: Muslims. The fact that there is some evidence that he was once an adherent to the faith and now proclaims himself to be a Christian makes him an apostate; and that is not a very good thing to be at all. And the fact that he should be viewed as such has some very real ramifications should he become President.

According to Islamic teaching the punishment for apostasy is death. Now while George W. Bush may be an infidel, the very existence of whom may cause any self-respecting Islamofascist to start sharpening his scimitar, apostates really drives them berserk. We are in completely alien territory when we begin to try determine how, not just Muslim extremists would react to having an apostate as President of the US (although considering how some not unusually nasty cartoons sent them into a tizzy, I’m sure we can all just imagine) but how even more “moderate” Muslims would react.

The effect it would have vis-à-vis relations with the Arab world might be seen if we look at how Muslim countries treat apostates within their legal systems. As it turns out apostates don’t fare very well. In Saudi Arabia apostasy is punishable by death. The death sentence hasn’t been imposed for a number of years however, 300 lashes being the preferred punishment of late. Sudan, Qatar and Mauritania also have codified death as the proper penalty for converts as well. Shari’ah courts in a number of countries also have called for fatwas for the offense. Even as American-friendly a country as Afghanistan recently had a controversy over its prosecution of Abdul Rahman, once Muslim, now Christian. After a loud international outcry he was eventually released, going to Italy with his life intact, if not his nerves.

How exactly would countries whose laws call for the death of apostates work with, negotiate with a US President who is one? Would he be invited to those countries? Would his representatives? How would Pakistan, already unstable, react to such a turn of events? How would it affect the “peace process”?

And what would be the foreign policy implications within the US? The Democrats, who have seemed to adopt a the-enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend policy toward Islamic radicals while George Bush has been in office may find their blinders ripped off when an ever growing Islamofascist “fringe” makes the central focus of their lives the destruction of, not the hated hillbilly Texan but their own beloved hero.

Luttwak is right in sync with this line of thought:

Because no government is likely to allow the prosecution of a President Obama — not even those of Iran and Saudi Arabia, the only two countries where Islamic religious courts dominate over secular law — another provision of Muslim law is perhaps more relevant: it prohibits punishment for any Muslim who kills any apostate, and effectively prohibits interference with such a killing.

At the very least, that would complicate the security planning of state visits by President Obama to Muslim countries, because the very act of protecting him would be sinful for Islamic security guards. More broadly, most citizens of the Islamic world would be horrified by the fact of Senator Obama’s conversion to Christianity once it became widely known — as it would, no doubt, should he win the White House. This would compromise the ability of governments in Muslim nations to cooperate with the United States in the fight against terrorism, as well as American efforts to export democracy and human rights abroad.

That an Obama presidency would cause such complications in our dealings with the Islamic world is not likely to be a major factor with American voters, and the implication is not that it should be. But of all the well-meaning desires projected on Senator Obama, the hope that he would decisively improve relations with the world’s Muslims is the least realistic.

There are a lot of factors that go into choosing a President and many people (granted most of them are Lefties) believe that in electing Obama President they'll be getting someone who is more likely to "get along" with the rest of the world. This belief may turn out to be as misguided as many of the ideas of what an Obama Presidency are likely to be. President Obama could find himself even more loathed abroad than *GASP* GW Bush.

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A personal aside: My original post about Obama's perceived apostasy was written before this blog was even a glimmer in my eye. It actually originally ran as a post on Redstate.com. To my enormous surprise, within an hour or two of the post being published it was removed and I was banned from Redstate *sniff* never again to be allowed to post there. The actual reaction can be seen here .

When this happened I really didn't know what to think. I didn't think the post was "bigoted" or inappropriate in any other way and yet I was gone. Their actions angered me and made me decide that if I wanted to get my opinions "out there" the best way to do it was to do it myself. Thus Because I'm Right was born. Thank you, Redstate.com.

I have to admit to feeling somewhat vindicated by Luttwak's piece and the good deal of attention that it has gotten, including this comment by Lisa Schiffren on NRO:

Andy and Byron, you make excellent points about the Luttwak piece on the possibilities that a former Muslim president will create more ill-will than good among the Islamic nations.

Numerous other bloggers have discussed the issue (there are links to some of them below) including....Redstate.com. I smiled at that. I really did.

Hot Air comments on a NY Times op-ed on just this subject.
Gina Cobb finds the topic worthy of discussion as well
Outside The Beltway adds their thoughts
Gateway Pundit picks up the story, too.
Abe Greenwald at Commentary Magazine looks at the issue, as well
The Southern Appeal finds it an interesting topic.
BLACKFIVE finds merit in the argument, too.
A Blog For All is also finds sense in the idea.
Ditto for Rhymes With Right

Flipping The Pages

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Fred exits stage Right

Yesterday, after much speculation following his disappointing third place finish in the South Carolina primary, Senator Fred Thompson's promise-filled presidential run came to a frustrating end. While on the launch pad Thompson seemed heavily armed for the fight ahead; his column, radio spots and the ease with which he delivered his devastating video swat at the corpulent communist, Michael Moore's impudent debate challenge had much of the Right thinking the Senator was channelling the Gipper himself.

When the campaign actually launched, however much of that feistiness and fun seemed to have deserted Fred, with most stories concentrating on campaign personnel firings, lack of cash and accusations of lethargy on the part of the candidate himself.

Bipolar disorder is difficult for an individual to experience, but for a

presidential campaign it is fatal. The shortcomings of the campaign occurred at the same time as Senator Thompson was issuing some of the boldest yet most practical, detailed and conservative position papers of the whole race. On immigration, Social Security, the military etc., Fred Thompson shined. Rush Limbaugh described him as "an idea guy" which he is. Unfortunately even the greatest ideas need an equally great salesman. And counter-intuitively, despite his second career as an actor, Fred didn't prove to be much of a salesman. The rocket faltered and fell.

Senator Fred Thompson, with more intellect than almost any of his competitors, a wonderful personal story and character that all President's need and far too few actually have, didn't have the patience to put up with all the inane indignities and trivialities through which presidential candidates are put. He thought that running for President required serious talk from serious people.

No one had to ask "where's the beef?" with Fred. But the American people weren't just looking for the beef but also for the special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions, and the sesame seed bun. Fred refused to deliver. Fred was all beef. You've got to respect that. There are worse reasons to lose a race than for being too substantive.

You can't handle the truth!

Debuting tonight on Fox is Moment of Truth, TV's latest contribution to a form of entertainment that got its start in the Roman coliseums. The difference between the modern version and the ancient is that those who wound up being trotted out to be destroyed in Rome did so unwillingly while in the modern permutation, the victims volunteer for the slaughter.

A combination of game and reality shows Moment's "fun" is had by watching people who, prior to taping, take a lie detector test in which they are asked all sorts of embarrassing and potentially destructive questions. "So you really think you'll still be married to your spouse in five years?" "Have you ever been sexually inappropriate with a member of the opposite sex at work?" "Have you ever been paid for sex?" That sort of thing. Oh yeah, they stand to win some money...They may lose their wives, potentially their freedom and the respect of their friends but they will have gotten some face-time on TV and maybe enough cash for some appliances. Good deal!

The American mania for exhibitionism has been manifest for a long time. The internet and other media have taken this twisted little corner of the human psyche and given it free reign. Honesty is a virtue but even virtues can turn ugly with excess. American culture which once was able to entertain with some degree of style and delicacy long ago started its slide into the gutter. Today it lies there in the muck and rolls around. Moment of Truth reveals just how coarse and degraded we have let ourselves become. And that's no lie.

And the winner is...

Due to the writers' strike there may be no Academy Awards show this year. The nominees were announced yesterday. I've always loved the movies and as a wee lad I would watch the Oscars religiously. As an adult I realize that Hollywood is now filled with very wealthy people who lately spend much of their time saying very bad things about the US which gave them the opportunity to get so very wealthy in the first place.

So, should the writers decide to leave their lovely homes in their lovely neighborhoods and go back to work to write ostensibly clever lines for their other wealthy friends in what is basically an orgy of self-congratulation, when the words that all the world knows so well are said, "And the winner is..." I WON'T BE WATCHING!

Would/Would Not

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Back during the halcyon days of Ronald Reagan's presidency the question of what was or was not a conservative position was fairly easy to determine. Reagan, unlike the caricature constructed of him by an elitist, near monolithic press and a long-regnant Democratic party, was far from a shallow simpleton; in fact, in a very real sense he may have been the most prepared president in US history. Reagan had spent most of his life reading, writing, talking and thinking about how society is ordered, where it had failed and what principles were needed to be to be in place for a free and dynamic society to remain free and dynamic. The nascent conservative movement nurtured and grown by the likes of William F. Buckley, Whittaker Chambers, Barry Goldwater, William Rusher and all the others squabbled and debated their way to a generally consistent philosophy whose standard bearer Reagan became. It could be argued whether a certain position or policy was conservative or not but the answer could be found in the First Principles to which the (now established) Movement had pledged its fealty.

Well things have changed. After years of electoral success which saw opportunity shrivel into opportunism and a Republican Congress that, under the corrosive spell of Washington's many temptations seemed to morph more and more into that regnant Democratic party it had come to power to replace, what is and is not a conservative position has lost the clarity it once had.

So now we see a current Republican field of presidential candidates whose conservatism has left the public suspicious and dissatisfied. We have candidates who just a few short years ago held positions even they admit weren't conservative. We have candidates who seem very much commited to conservative principles on some issues but not at all on others, revealing a kind of ideological confusion we have all seen before to our dismay. And we have candidates whose sound-bites echo the worst impulses of Democratic demagogues. And we seem to have a Republican electorate that is as confused about the verities as politicians would like them to be.

This series of posts, "Would/Would Not" is going to attempt to answer some of the questions about what is and isn't conservative based on First Principles. It will be serious, it will be fun. It will raise the biggest issues and spend just as much time on the small. It will not attempt to be a Bible that demands anyone's loyalty, but hopefully a provocative discussion that might clear the thinking and blow away just the smallest bit of the fog that has floated in over the last few years, obscuring what had once been clear.

Coming soon: If Huckabee were guided by conservative principles he would...

Obama, You're No Osama

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Now that the results of the Iowa Caucus has given Hillary Clinton yet another type of surge from which to recoil in horror, causing her to resort to some truly odd campaign decisions, such as apparently hiring Edmund Muskie’s old campaign manager, it seems like an appropriate time to look at her apparent replacement as the newly anointed savior of America, Senator Barak Obama a little more closely. While the msm treats him with the kind of deference they might reserve for the love-child of Che Guevara and JFK there is much about him that the American people should consider before going into the polling booth, pulling the lever for him and then being carried away in the Rapture.

While it is vaguely known that Obama had some sort of childhood Muslim connection, the specifics of that connection remains hidden by the blinding light of the Senator’s ambition. A review of the information available does show that while his mother was Christian both his natural father and step-father were both Muslims. His given name, Barak Hussein certainly makes that Muslim influence clear. While living in Indonesia as a small child he attended both Christian and Muslims schools. Now there is ample evidence from the time to make a case for the fact that he was, at least in a technical sense, a Muslim. He says today that at no time was he ever anything but a Christian and frankly it is hard to know what was in his heart then or even if what was in the heart of small child has any bearing at all on the man of today. If he says he wasn’t a Muslim, I’m perfectly happy to take his word for it.

But the issue can’t just end there. While whether baby-Obama was Muslim or not may or may not matter to you or me there are people to whom it matters a great deal: Muslims. The fact that there is some evidence that he was once an adherent to the faith and now proclaims himself to be a Christian makes him an apostate; and that is not a very good thing to be at all. And the fact that he should be viewed as such has some very real ramifications should he become President.

According to Islamic teaching the punishment for apostasy is death. Now while George W. Bush may be an infidel, the very existence of whom may cause any self-respecting Islamofascist to start sharpening his scimitar, apostates really drives them berserk. We are in completely alien territory when we begin to try determine how, not just Muslim extremists would react to having an apostate as President of the US (although considering how some not unusually nasty cartoons sent them into a tizzy, I’m sure we can all just imagine) but how even more “moderate” Muslims would react.

The effect it would have vis-à-vis relations with the Arab world might be seen if we look at how Muslim countries treat apostates within their legal systems. As it turns out apostates don’t fare very well. In Saudi Arabia apostasy is punishable by death. The death sentence hasn’t been imposed for a number of years however, 300 lashes being the preferred punishment of late. Sudan, Qatar and Mauritania also have codified death as the proper penalty for converts as well. Shari’ah courts in a number of countries also have called for fatwas for the offense. Even as American-friendly a country as Afghanistan recently had a controversy over its prosecution of Abdul Rahman, once Muslim, now Christian. After a loud international outcry he was eventually released, going to Italy with his life intact, if not his nerves.

How exactly would countries whose laws call for the death of apostates work with, negotiate with a US President who is one? Would he be invited to those countries? Would his representatives? How would Pakistan, already unstable, react to such a turn of events? How would it affect the “peace process”?

And what would be the foreign policy implications within the US? The Democrats, who have seemed to adopt a the-enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend policy toward Islamic radicals while George Bush has been in office may find their blinders ripped off when an ever growing Islamofascist “fringe” makes the central focus of their lives the destruction of, not the hated hillbilly Texan but their own beloved hero.

All this may not be the sole issue on which people decide who will be getting their votes but if it is not a consideration everyone may be in for a very big surprise.

Hot Air comments on a NY Times op-ed on just this subject.

Gina Cobb finds the topic worthy of discussion as well

Outside The Beltway adds their thoughts

Gateway Pundit picks up the story, too.

Abe Greenwald at Commentary Magazine looks at the issue, as well

The Southern Appeal finds it an interesting topic.