Conscience-Ridden Self Destruction
That seems to be the course that social democratic nations appear embarked upon; conscience-ridden self destruction. We are so utterly wedded to the concepts of social equality, an egalitarian and safe background situation for all that any hint of accepting anything less than equal social opportunities for everyone, regardless of ethnicity, cultural heritage, ideology or religion places a stranglehold on our conscience; we cannot endure the very thought of inequality or physical harm visited upon even those who espouse a murderous antipathy toward us.When faced with an obdurately fanatical adversary whose barbarism and fealty to death and destruction knows no bounds, the civilized world hardly knows how to react in its own defence. Any actions it seeks to take, meeting barbarity with the resolve to react in a manner acceptable to those with robust social consciences makes for an unequal joust. Resorting to any means reflective of those which the barbarians use is met with outright censure by the conscience-driven social democracies.
Led, needless to say, by the ultra-socialist intelligentsia who take it upon themselves to steer their compatriots in the correct social direction. Otherwise, government agencies are met with shrill condemnation in an unequivocal show of self-loathing that they have descended to the level of the barbarian hordes clamouring at the gates of civilization. Those who govern, who feel their backs against the wall in this unequal battle between enlightenment and darkness act in a conspiracy of covert underhandedness.
They betray the values, the morals and ethics of their civilized parliaments in a secretive attempt to meet the violence of the barbarians with a protective violence of their own devising in an attempt to ensure that the wall between the barbarians and the civilized world does not collapse. Outwardly self-inhibiting, the secret response is not unnoticed by those unburdened by the constraints of civil and moral order.
Examples abound of the lack of moral constraints from extreme cruelties visited one upon the other through sectarian butchery in Iraq, Lebanon and the Palestinian Authority; in the generally repressive authoritarian rule of most Muslim societies. It is an altogether other value system, one of complete abnegation, or 'surrender' to the perceived will of a higher power, one whose admonition to his followers is to be true to Islam.
But there have been many Islamic rules over the last one and a half millennia, some of them outright delinquent in the observation of basic human rights and others whose paternalistic rule has been fair and open, leading to a great inflorescence of culture, art, science and philosophy. The world at large owes a great debt to the artistic flowering and cultural awakening of the Arab and Muslim world through its insights in agriculture, pottery, textile and carpet production and maritime trade. Alas, the modern era has the great ill fortune to be living in a time of militantly jihadist Islamic rule.
Where fanatical Islamists like al Qaeda see justice in murderous rampages targeting their religious/cultural adversaries to advantage themselves in a positioning of global ascendancy. A world where religious fundamentalists sit in judgement of other religions, judging their very existence an insult to their own, and seeing nothing amiss in destroying ancient and revered religious talismans and statuary of other faiths, as the Taliban have done.
Where religious fanatical militias like Hezbollah and Hamas successfully challenge the rights of existence of other followers of Muhammad because they are insufficiently steeped in Sharia laws of universality and Koranic precepts. Where both of these militias can state their intent to exterminate their enemies rather than attain a peaceable accord for co-existence. Where the Islamist theocracy of Iran can threaten the existence of a sovereign country and the world at large, seeking Allah-sanctioned nuclear dominance.
Hezbollah, in service to Syria and Iran, waging terrorist war on a neighbour and using civilian populations to protect themselves, then decrying the retaliatory actions of the state militia which they initially targeted, in returning fire resulting in the deaths of those very civilians behind whom Hezbollah protected themselves. And their denunciations of the state militia finding resonance in the eagerly condemnatory opinions of Western media.
Hamas, for whom any game is fair as long as they attain their end game, instructing impressionable young people in their religious responsibility to Islam, by submitting to its will entirely, to the extent that the sacrifice of their young lives in extinguishing lives of the enemy is a requirement placed upon them by Allah. Now it is not only the young men and women whose lives require sacrifice, but those of mere children who are now receiving instruction in the glory of the ultimate sacrifice.
In Iraq, Shia and Sunni militants target one another in large-scale bloody conflict, but also go the extra mile to target innocent civilians; men, woman and children going about their daily lives. Young men seeking employment, women and children shopping in public markets are all fuel in the incendiary war between sectarian Islamists. Bodies are found mutilated beyond recognition in the savagery of their deaths, scattered everywhere in the Baghdad landscape.
The Taliban seem to think nothing amiss in torturing and murdering those who disobey their edicts. Afghan civilians caught practising behaviours unacceptable to the fundamentalist mullahs are not allowed to repeat their offences; their lives are summarily taken. Teachers have been mutilated and murdered, for the unspeakable offence of offering education to young Afghan girls. These values bespeak a total abdication of humanity.
Yet those Islamists practising their inhumanity seem not to be able to recognize the offence against humanity and against all concepts of the goodness of religious offerings to mankind. And to their great astonishment and bemusement, Islamists have discovered the barbarity-averse nature, the tender sensibilities of the West; their Achilles heel. They have learned to make good use of this conscience-ridden society; to mobilize the guilt in their favour.
They have learned to successfully manipulate that socially-enlightened sensitivity against causing harm or undue hurt to their advantage. While they engage in ongoing primitive acts of unspeakable barbarity toward their adversaries, visiting torture and murder by means guaranteed to cause the most anguished and mortal pain, they invoke the guise of a misunderstood and brutally put-upon innocent when it serves their purpose.
This newfound and cherished weapon of Islamofascists has resulted in the West second-guessing itself, recoiling in horror at the very thought that their forces might conceivably be employing some kind of torture against captured Islamists - if not themselves outright, then by rendering them into the care of fellow Muslims whose consciences when dealing with those who murder them are not impaired as ours are by social niceties of civil behaviour.
So the fanatical murderers when isolated and retained learn how to complain convincingly, alleging torture most foul at the hands of their enlightened captors. And the home audience in the West recoils in moral revulsion that the military representing their enlightened countries' conscience could descend to such tactics.
Labels: Political Realities
posted by Pieface @ Monday, April 30, 2007
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