The victim is "only" sodomized in order not to hurt her chances of getting married

“The Seven Pairs of Asses”

by Yashiko Sagamori

They say that amateurs built Noah's ark, while professionals built the Titanic. That is true, and yet, Noah was very lucky he didn't hit an iceberg. Just think what would have happened. Even without an iceberg, the ark began springing leaks as soon as there was enough water around to carry it afloat. Noah's little crew had their hands full taking care of the zoo, so they were barely able to fix the biggest, most threatening leaks. Imagine what it looked like in the hold of the ark on the eighth day of the flood. Animals were standing knee deep in what would make a cesspool seem fragrant in comparison. Unending thunderstorm drowned out most sounds. The waves kept rolling the ark chaotically, like an earthquake in slow motion, and nobody could tell when it would end or how. If they failed to reach land some time soon, they were destined to drown, or starve, or die of thirst, or suffocate. And while every creature aboard was thinking of its survival, the seven pairs of asses, crowded along the port side closer to the rear of the hold, were earnestly discussing anti-drought measures, because, regardless of what was happening to them now, there was a distinct possibility of a drought in the future. Throughout the ordeal, they remained blissfully undeterred by the fact that, until they manage to land and disembark, it was highly doubtful whether they had any future to plan for.

Judging from the eagerness with which we are discussing the prospects of (hopefully) budding democracy in the Muslim world, Jews and Christians must trace their ancestry not to Shem, Ham, or Japheth, but to those seven pairs of asses.

Democracy is so dear to us that we don't mind spreading it by sending our soldiers to die in a useless, hostile country half a world away. Let us ask ourselves, what's so precious about it? Why do we consider it so important that any proposed measure, no matter how obvious its benefits, will be rejected out of hand as soon as there is a consensus that it is undemocratic? Here's why. Societies evolve. Their laws must undergo their own evolution, reflecting societal changes. Interests of individuals, groups, classes, become affected. Conflicts emerge. Democracy is the only system we know that provides an option to solve these conflicts without resorting to violence or oppression. (As we can see from the examples of the Civil War and Oklahoma City bombing, it's only an option, it's not a guarantee.) We cherish democracy because we abhor violence and oppression.

There are societies that do not share our disgust for violence and oppression. In those societies, violence and oppression are a way of life. Every single person in those societies is either an oppressor or oppressed, usually, both. Such are, to a somewhat varying degree, all Muslim societies and, without a single exception, to the ultimate degree, all Arab societies. Why do we expect them to love democracy? What is the basis for our optimistic expectations, besides the liberal superstition that disregards stark differences between cultures and insolently announces, contrary to well-known facts, that all human being share the same dreams? I do not have an answer.

Why did democratizing Arabs suddenly become our national priority? Because of 9/11. If only our administration had a choice, they would've swept 9/11 under the rug, just like every previous administration did with at least two decades of highjackings, abductions, hostage taking, embassy bombings and other multiple assorted acts of jihad. But this time it happened on our territory, and the administration simply did not have a choice. What would have been a constructive response? How could we free ourselves once and for all from the dangers of war waged against us by the savages? The answer is obvious. All we needed to do was to recognize the attack as jihad and jihad as an essential attribute of Islam. Then we would outlaw Islam in the United States, padlock every mosque, close every Islamic organization, deport every Muslim alien, intern every American Muslim, and only then, having taken care of our domestic enemies, turn our attention to the foreign ones.

By the way, there are plenty of people in the United States who were born in Muslim countries and came here escaping the tyranny of Islamic regimes. Their lives and dreams are not that different from yours or mine. I would protest against any attempt to persecute them for their Muslim origins. But every observant Muslim, due to the nature of the ideology he or she adheres to with a quasi-religious fervor, is in fact an enemy of the United States of America. They come to our shores uninvited, like flotsam left on the beach by the receding tide. They falsely renounce their allegiance to any foreign potentate and falsely pledge their allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and the Republic for which it stands. All their promises and oaths are nothing but al-taqqiya. Their only allegiance is to jihad. Their main goal is to abolish the Constitution and establish Islamic rule in this country. It's the observant Muslims and their organizations that we have to worry about.

Unfortunately, the liberal wisdom has pronounced Islam just another religion, which automatically makes any such worry blatantly undemocratic. And so, we went to Afghanistan and Iraq, simply because there was nothing else we could do. If this prompts you to conclude that democracy has its shortcomings, you would be right. At the time of war, the shortcomings of democracy make us more vulnerable. However, before we blame democracy, we should blame ourselves.

Take, for example, the case of Professor Ward Churchill of the University of Colorado. The good professor has made a career of openly supporting enemies of the United States, which hardly makes him a unique phenomenon in our academia. But when some of his "works" praising the 9/11 attack and stating that its victims ("little Goebbelses" as he put it) deserved to be murdered caught public attention, Professor Churchill suddenly lost the obscurity of a provincial Che Guevara wannabe and became scandalously famous across the country. To make matters not really worse, but definitely funnier, the Indian tribe, of which Professor Churchill had claimed to be a member by birth, publicly disowned him. Protected by the First Amendment, the anti-American professor of ethnic studies enjoys the freedom of shooting his foul mouth off with no fear of prosecution. But when the university president mentioned a possibility of him being dismissed in the near future, the professor confidently promised that if any attempt to fire him was ever made, then he, Professor Ward Churchill, would own the campus. Judge Napolitano, the legal consultant for Fox News, solemnly confirmed that the First Amendment protected not only Professor Churchill's freedom of speech, but also his tenure at the university.

Do you know what the First Amendment says? It consists of a single statement. Here is the statement:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

To lock the professor up for his purely verbal support of Osama bin Laden, Congress would have to make a law abridging the freedom of speech, and that would most certainly violate the First Amendment. Ward Churchill may continue spreading his venom, while enjoying full immunity from prosecution. But where does it say that the University of Colorado must pay him for doing that? Suppose you hire a tutor to help your kid cope with fifth-grade math, and a week later your kid tells you that, instead of teaching him math, the guy forces him to memorize Das Kapital. According to the First Amendment, the tutor has committed no crime. But do you really have any legal obligation to keep him employed? Do you really have any legal obligation to subject your children to his influence?

How could we allow our judges to misinterpret our Constitution to such a degree?

This is the same type of useful idiocy that subjects blue-haired old ladies to strip-search at the airports, while young Muslims men with hatred in their eyes and God knows what in their bags gracefully glide through the checkpoint and board the plane. This is the same type of useful idiocy that prompted President Bush to begin his War on Terror with a sensational announcement that Islam was a religion of peace and, therefore, not the enemy. What an unbelievable authority on Islam our President Bush is.

When did his War on Terror become a war for democracy in the Middle East? When our soldiers kicked the enemy armies all the way to hell, and suddenly everyone saw that getting rid of the Taliban and Saddam failed to make the United States one bit safer from Islamic terrorism than it was on September 10, 2001. In plain English, it's called defeat. As we all know, acknowledging it would spell political death to our president. A new objective urgently needed to be defined, an objective that would make our defeat look like a victory. That's when democracy in the Middle East became an artificial light at the end of a terribly dark tunnel.

According to a recent, not too scientific poll conducted among the Iraqis, 62% of them believe that, thanks to the US-led occupation, their country is moving in the right direction. Even disregarding the fact that their concepts of right and wrong are drastically different from ours, I am tempted to ask, since when did the opinion of a defeated nation become a valid criterion in the assessment of a war's outcome. From the prospective of the United States, the outcome of the war appears rather grim.

In the two countries, we have lost close to 1,500 military personnel killed. Approximately 8 times as many people have been wounded. We have spent hundreds of billions of dollars and will spend even more before the end of President Bush's second term marks the end of his useless war.

Reporting the war, the mass media concentrate their attention on our mostly imaginary violations of various rules and conventions that no one observes besides Israel and us. Internet spreads news of American soldiers' heroism and sacrifice. Various blogs post letters from the front proudly describing how our intervention is improving the lives of ordinary Iraqis. This is all wonderful, but what has the war effort accomplished for this country, besides doubling the price of gasoline?

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

The theory that terrorism is rooted in the bad living conditions of the terrorists has been convincingly disproved. Actually, a hungry Arab is less likely to blow himself up that a well-fed one. Therefore, raising Iraqi living standards will not make us safer at home. Then what are we doing there? Why are we wasting the lives of our soldiers and hundreds of billions of dollars?

Democracy in Iraq? If Iraqis do not want it, we can't force it on them. If Iraqis do want it, they are free to fight for it themselves. And if they want us to help them along, why don't they pay us for the assistance? They have more than enough oil to cover all our monetary expenses. There is an interesting theory that says that they will continue hating us under any form of government. I am ready to accept that as a working hypothesis. After all, we are dealing with people who have convincingly proven that they hate Jews more than they love their own children. Do you suppose they hate America any less than they hate Israel? If this theory is correct, I prefer not to improve their living conditions. At least, not if I have to pay for it.

How did the Middle East react to the new winds from Washington? They stayed perfectly cool. Muammar Qaddafi assured the world that direct democracy which his country has been enjoying ever since he came to power is a more advanced form of democracy than its constitutional or parliamentary variety. Iran contemptuously announced that it already had Islamic democracy, which, as you understand, is the most perfect form of democracy allowed by Allah. Saudi Arabia made a bold, unprecedented step into the uncharted democratic future and conducted - can you believe it? - municipal elections. Take this, Osama! And Hosni Mubarak who until now has regularly re-elected himself, announced that next time there will be other candidates; I wonder if his son is on the list.

Despite all these iconoclastic efforts of the most backward tyrants on earth, the question remains, whether democracy is in fact compatible with Islam. Some people say that democracy implies the freedom of religion, and the freedom of religion would constitute a gross violation of the most basic Islamic tenets and, therefore, democracy and Islam are incompatible. Some others assure us that democracy is impossible without a certain minimum level of integrity, and since neither the Prophet nor any of his ghost writers possessed a detectable amount of that precious quality, their followers have long ago lost whatever little they might have had of it, and, therefore, democracy and Islam are incompatible. Yet another school of thought maintains that democracy is less a matter of laws than public mindset and traditions, and that the Muslims have so far failed to develop either the mentality needed for or the customs conducive to democracy, and, therefore, democracy and Islam are incompatible.

There are also people, by far the smartest lot of them all, who say that the question is way too important to solve it by sheer speculations. They insist that we won't know until we try. And they are 100% right! Fortunately, we don't have to do anything special to set up an experiment, because attempts to mix Islam with democracy have been conducted on the planetary scale during the last couple of decades, although we are only now becoming aware of their full extent. Let us see how Western Europe (which can be considered the oldest democratic institution on the planet) is affected by the massive influx of Muslim immigrants.

The Muslim population of France has reached the staggering 10% of all French citizens. At the same time, the proportion of Muslims in French prisons has reached 50%. Formerly peaceful Europe is learning to accept religiously motivated murders as a fact of life. Gang rapes bearing the hallmark of Islamic customs

"The victim is "only" sodomized in order not to
hurt her chances of getting
married"

have become so common across the Old Continent that even the New York Times had to acknowledge it in an article that managed not to identify the religion of the rapers. In the Netherlands, politicians who dared to openly oppose the Islamization of their country, are forced to live in hiding. Belgians are rapidly losing control of Antwerp to Muslim gangs.

"Honor killings" are another unique feature of Muslim culture. In the last 8 years, there have been 45 of them in Germany. Six of them occurred in Berlin in the last six months. The latest victim was shot to death by her three brothers. Her crime? She had refused to wear a headscarf and attempted to leave her husband of 8 years. She was 23.

Where does democracy fit into this horrifying picture? Terrorist organizations operate openly everywhere in Europe with no concern for their own safety. And why should they be concerned? Democracy protects them.

The tide of Muslim immigration has changed Europe much more than all the combined terrorist acts against the United States have changed this country. And, in case you haven't noticed, Muslims are coming to the United States as well. They settle on our land and, protected by our democratic institutions, immediately join the effort to erode those institutions from within.

When will we understand that the successes of our armed forces in the Middle East will not protect us from either al Qaeda or Islamization? When will we understand that everything al Qaeda can possibly throw at us is nothing but a diversion intended to provide a smoke screen for the real invaders? When will we understand that the elderly woman with a headscarf peacefully standing behind you in the checkout line at the local supermarket is capable of causing more damage to us in the long run that Osama bin Laden can ever dream of?

And if democracy in the Middle East is really so vitally important to us, why are we helping our enemies demolish the only country in the region that is a functioning democracy?




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© 2002-2005 Yashiko Sagamori. All rights reserved. March 19, 20