The Lamps

On the eve of World War I, British foreign secretary Sir Edward Grey stated, "The lamps are going out all over Europe. We shall not see them lit again in our time."  The lamps Mr. Gray spoke of were freedom and peace.  Today, to paraphrase Sir Gray, “The lamps are going out all over the Mid-East”.

When the “Arab Spring” broke out on December 18^th, 2010, the western world rejoiced as despotic rulers were forced from power in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen, along with the ongoing civil uprisings in Bahrain and Syria, considering these revolts to be the birth pangs of democracy in the region.  With considerable western aid which Messrs. Sarkozy, Cameron, and Obama told the world they were sending purely out of the goodness of their hearts, the Libyan revolutionaries were able to depose Moammar Gaddafi, probably the worst of the lot, and replace him with… who?

Once again the west had assumed that the peoples of these long suffering countries would welcome the demise of authoritarian rule, despite their ages long history of tribal and theocratic dictatorship, and don’t forget our ten years of experience with Islamic fundimentalism in Iraq.  Where western humanitarian intervention takes place and accomplishes something that the local Arabs cannot seem to do for themselves, do we have the right to tell ourselves that the “rescued wretched slaves” are automatically going to jump to our tune?  Do we really have the right to expect them to start singing the Marseillaise, and asking for copies of the Magna Carta?  (I won’t mention their asking for billions in American foreign aid, as that’s nearly an automatic reaction in today’s Arab world.)  Was Washington really foolish enough to believe that the Libyans were fighting for a chance to be just like us?  Probably, yet that’s no more foolish than our notion that the Afghan and Iraqi peoples would all stand up when American troops arrived and clamor for copies of our Constitution!  Elections were eventually organized in Libya to give legitimacy to a revolutionary assembly, and getting the electric power back on.  That assembly included Islamist agitators who had been quite overt during the civil war, and the impact of their continued agitation has not been diminished by letting a national assembly get in the way.  With trans-national networks and financial support, arms caches, and a simple message – “Islam is the answer” – these agitators could take their appeal to a weary people with little confidence in the new regime.  But who are these people so quickly assuming power and taking over the Arab Spring nations?

Recent US administrations have been seemingly unable to grasp the sources and motivation of the Islamic political movement… not as if the information to understand it is unavailable.  Since the 1920s Islamic scholars and intellectuals have laid out a record of what they think is wrong with Islamic society and what can be done about it.  The “Muslim Brotherhood” was formed in Egypt during the 1920’s, by one Hassan al-Banna, an Islamic scholar and schoolteacher.  The brotherhood’s credo was, and is, "Allah is our objective; the Quran is our law, the Prophet is our leader; Jihad is our way; and death for the sake of Allah is the highest of our aspirations."  The Brotherhood's stated goal is to instill the Qur’an, Hadiths, and Sunnah as the "sole reference point for ... ordering the life of the Muslim family, individual, community ... and state".  Its most famous slogan, used worldwide, is "Islam is the solution."  The movement officially opposes violent means to achieve its goals, although its paramilitary wing has been involved in numerous massacres, bombings and assassinations of political opponents, including it’s founder al-Banna.

  

The attacks against the U.S. embassies in Libya and Egypt seem to have brought about mass confusion in the halls of the US government, and generated near hysteria in the world’s media, with everyone seemingly contradicting each other.  However, the attacks were from all indications planned far in advance by the Muslim Brotherhood, and it would seem that the Egyptian president (an admitted Muslim Brotherhood member) had foreknowledge of these attack plans. The White House and State Department were warned of impending attacks a week prior!  So, why then was nothing done to prevent these attacks?  According to the government reports, and many somewhat hysterical news reports, the embassy attacks were a “spontaneous reaction” to an obscure anti-Muslim film called “Innocence of Muslims”.  Originally linked to an “American-Israeli-Jew” producer, this low budget video was hastily created with bad costumes and fake backdrops. According to cast members, they believed the film to be about something entirely different than their lines portray, lines they claim to have never said.  Tentatively, the creation and “distribution” of the video has been linked to one Nakoula Bassily Nakoula, reportedly a Coptic Christian Egyptian native with numerous aliases, and who is on a conditional release from prison.  Additionally, nobody seems to know if he’s even an American citizen. 

Another interesting item here are the news reports that the attackers were armed with, among other things, 20mm anti-aircraft cannon!  Certainly not a weapon I would expect to be carried by the run-of-the-mill Arabic mob out for an evening’s entertainment!  AK-47’s and RPG’s I can understand, as they’re nearly household items in the mid-east, but anti-aircraft guns are an entirely different story, and indicate considerable advanced planning.

U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens, murdered alongside three aides, paid the price of our administration and foreign policy establishment’s unwillingness to understand political Islam.  Even our experienced foreign policy officers insist on following the notion that Islam is a religion of Peace, and that Islamic societies can be reformed along Western lines.  President G.W. Bush thought he was a crusader for democratic self-determination.  Obama, following Jimmy Carter’s lead, seems to think of himself as a champion of human rights.  Both found it impossible to understand that their ideas are of no interest to Islamist theoreticians and militants. They, despite all the hand wringing and pious bleating of our loony left, are at war with the west, in the best tradition of Islamic teachings.

An Islamic mob stormed our embassy in Libya, killing our ambassador and dragging his body through the streets. Hours earlier, more than 2,000 Egyptian protesters gathered at our embassy in Cairo where many tried to scale its walls.  Muslim fanatics in Sudan attacked the German embassy.  US embassies in Tunis and Yemen were assaulted.  Riots have exploded in the rest of the Islamic world as well.  Strangely enough, all this was exactly on the eleventh anniversary of al-Qaeda’s 9/11 attack on the US, with the timing and coordination of these attacks over such a widespread area telling me at least, that this wasn't about a video, it’s about a caliphate.  Along with all our other problems, the US Government, and the American people, better understand that fact.