Our embassy in Yemen attacked
Like many, I was deeply saddened and disturbed by the murders of our ambassador and other Americans last week. The brutal pictures showing him being dragged, whether alive or dead I don’t know, through the streets by Islamist thugs were horrible.
Over a decade ago, when Bush was president, I was for going to war in Afghanistan and then also, contrary to the pope and U.S. bishops, in Iraq. I have done a complete turnabout now and think that the Iraq war was a mistake, and Afghanistan might have been, too.
So ironically, though I voted against Pres. Obama, I had hopes that he would at least end these wars and bring all our troops and personnel home. Yet he hasn’t done that, and instead got us embroiled in several other uprisings and rebellions in that part of the world.
As Frank Weathers said, the only sensible thing to do is repel boarders from the walls of the embassies. And I would add, we either do that, or we simply get the hell out of these countries. Do we need an embassy in Libya? In Yemen? In Egypt? If these countries’ governments either cannot or will not stop violent attacks against Americans, and if we are not willing to defend our people there, then we should leave. Close up the embassy, sell it, give it away, whatever. Just get out of there.
Our country has many serious problems. We will not reverse our image with Islam, especially not with militant Islam. They hate us, in part for wrong reasons and in part for good ones (e.g. our exports of consumerism, pornography, contraception, etc.). Pres. Obama understands little of Islam, that much is clear from his idealistic belief that when he became President the Muslim world would change its perception of us.
Anyone who has studied history from 600 to 1500 AD will know that Islam spread through invasion and subjugation. Christian areas were put to the sword and Christians were squashed. This is enshrined in Islam, which is both religious (theological) and political in nature. Talk to Muslims today, and some may say it is a religion of peace; others not. My Eastern Orthodox friend Timothy Flanders explains why this is so. In short, Islam is akin to Protestantism: there is no authority within Islam who can definitely interpret the Koran and Hadith. Instead, multiple conflicting interpretations exist.
But back to our country. Why do we still have bases and embassies all over the world? Why do we spend billions to maintain them? We need to retrench as a country. We are not the overlords of the world we once were. We are not the police of the world. Leaving these countries will not make Muslims there like us any more than they do now. But it will enrage them slightly less. Meanwhile we can work to build a robust culture, founded on Christianity, within our country. A robust Christianity is the only thing that can stand against militant Islam.
I am ashamed and disappointed by Pres. Obama’s responses to these assaults on our countrymen. I also do not think for a minute that Romney, if President, would bring our troops out of these countries or close bases and embassies. It seems neither major political party sees the writing on the wall here. God help us.
What do you think? Should we have embassies in unstable countries made up of people who hate us? Should we have bases all over the world? Will either party do something about this?
These people hate us whether they are there, or not.
When 9/11 happened we weren’t in Afghanistan or Iraq. Can we just let evil regimes grow and get stronger? Do we wait until our country is itself attacked (again)?
People closed their eyes to the dangers of Japan and Germany before WWII. If we had acted earlier could we have prevented hundreds of millions of lives lost?
These are tough questions, but one thing is for sure, evil will always be with us and war will also always be with us until our Lord returns.
Steve,
I think we have to defend ourselves and prepare our very best against potential attackers. But it seems there are too many countries where terrorists are recruited to try to stop all of them _at their country of origin_. Instead, we have to do our best to secure our borders, secure immigration, and be vigilant in our own country for people fomenting terror.
It is one thing to enter a just war on the side that is the just one. It’s another thing to try to put troops and bases, in perpetuity, in scores of foreign countries to try to keep from being attacked.
In any event, I appreciate your comment and want you to know that I don’t think I have all the answers here.
The only advantage I can envision of embassies (not bases) is that Christian minorities in those regions can have some hope of connecting with loved ones and possibly even flee the area if need be. But even that isn’t likely what they’re used primarily for, and in some ways it’s not always good for Christians to flee a nation.
I think a lot more people are waking up to the fact that it makes no sense whatsoever that such huge costs should be spent to be in places where we’re hated.
To shift gears a bit, thank you for that post by Timothy Flanders. I would like to add that there is also a new ‘campaign’ starting up among scholars to look into the “historical Mohammed” – akin to the “historical Jesus” fad a few years back when scholars tried to discredit Jesus on every front – but in this case there is some compelling evidence that Mohammed (as we are accustomed to envision him) never existed! This is huge. This is NOT to say there was not a literal man named Mohammed, but rather that the ‘superhero’ version of him is largely myth. I would suggest you check out THIS POST for a podcast showing one example of this new scholarship.
Nick,
Yes and some of that can be done with a consulate instead of a full-blown embassy: http://ask.yahoo.com/20000824.html
That’s interesting about Mohammed. I will be watching this research.
Mohammed was a real person.
And the facts about him are not very pretty.
It is as if people turned Hitler into their ‘prophet’. Which in fact they did.
These Islamists will never end their goal of world domination. Do we let them gain in strength…or fight them right now?
I say we should do what we can do now. We obviously cannot do everything, but we can do some things and go after the most dangerous ones.
Had we waited just a few more months to get into the war against Germany the whole world could this day be enslaved to Nazism.
If I am wrong now, the worst we end up with is what we have now.
If you are wrong (Devin) then the worst we could end up with is the loss of our freedom, our country, possibly all our lives. Or we could all end up enslaved to Islam.
I totally agree with you, Devin, except on one point: Muslims don’t hate Americans. Many Muslims hate the American government and its policies and personnel who machinate against or invade and kill them. The fact of the matter is that not only Muslims but many in non-Muslim countries hate the American government for the same reasons and regard it as an imperialistic might.
And, make no mistake, while Egyptians were congregating peacefully in Tahir Sq. and being shot at by police forces, Amb. Clinton, from her podium in the UN, condoned such actions and encouraged Mubarak to maintain the order, which led to more protesters being killed. So, the one thing that Americans cannot play is the innocent bystander, for the American government is not, but a meddler and often a violent one.
And, before neo-cons issue their fatwas against me, calling for my deportation, since I’m a foreigner, for daring to not see America as the light shining on a hill, an exceptional nation among the nations. I deplore the recent violence, but I can separate what is a political problem from a supposed war of civilizations. I’m only siding with Alexis de Tocqueville: “only foreigners or experience can make certain truths reach the ears of the Americans.”
Have mercy on us and on the whole world.
When the planes hit the Twin Towers, Muslims all across Cairo were dancing in the streets and throwing candy.
This, my friend, is hate. Pure, plain, and simple.
(and, at that time, Egypt was considered to be one of the most moderate Muslim states)
When OBL was cowardly and illegally assassinated, Americans all across NYC were dancing in the streets… This is hate.
So, you see, my friend, dishonest, pure and simple dishonest generalizations and sophistic charges of guilt by association are cheap.
We are of two different worlds.
Did you also think it was unfair to put to death those responsible for the Nazi death camps?
Why the notion of keeping murderers, mass murders alive? To me, that does not seem very loving to the victims, or to societies.
It wasn’t unfair to put to death some responsible for the Nazi death camps AFTER their being tried in Nuremberg. That’s the Western tradition, not assassinations in the middle of the night invading another country.
Over the past two years, Western policy in the Arab world has been to replace some fairly nasty allies (who by-and-large protected the Christian minorities) with some far nastier enemies (who by-and-large want to kill them).
Utter madness.
You are so right. It is madness.
When Jimmy Carter helped to depose the Shaw of Iran, I said to myself (even at my young age) this will come back to haunt us.
1st stage thinkers…good intentions gone awry.
The deposition of the Shah may have haunted you, but Iranians could finally breath.
This is exactly why the American government is disliked the world over: no matter which peoples need to suffer so that its interests, factual or rhetorical, are safeguarded.
I myself find this attitude abhorrent and extremely deplorable, unworthy of a nation that thinks of itself as Christian.
Finally breath? Are you kidding me? They were enslaved to radical Islam.
The Shaw may not have been perfect, but at least Iran flourished and people had a modicum of freedom. I have talked with a great many Iranians (there is a very large Iranian community where I live) and they came here AFTER the Shaw was forced to leave, so that they would not be prisoners of the Imams and their new Islamic Republic.
I actually know Iranians and they are unanimous to say that they couldn’t have access to education and jobs if it weren’t for the revolution. They have much more freedom now, under Ayatollahs than under the Shah, who ran Iran like a despot in a banana republic with the support of the US. Say what you want, but they only got to elect their leaders under the Ayatollahs, a right which was denied them by the Shah.
Enough said to you.
Maybe you missed that brutal exhibition that took place a little while back in Iran where the Islamic government shot down protestors in the streets.
There’s no freedom there.
No, I didn’t. But perhaps you should research the rule by the Shah, when such things happened as par for the course.
However, the problem with this American exceptionalism is that it blinds Americans to the actions of their government against them. For, as history demonstrates, when a people fails to reign their state, it turns against them.
So, since some Americans seem to be fine with assassinations without trial, all Americans now face the possibility of these very same human rights being stripped away form them: http://bit.ly/SuHWqC
Either we are Christian in everything and regard every human being, even those who are our political foes, as our neighbors, or we ourselves are anti-Christian, or anti-Christs, as St. Paul would put it.
Here’s a portion of an interview with an Iranian born American, about the country he had to leave, Iran:
Amil: Thank you, Sher, for having this interview with me. I left Iran in the midst of the radical Islamic revolution of 1978/79 to continue my education abroad, but never envisioned that Islamist extremists would take over our very modern and prosperous country. Most likely, I would not be alive today if I had stayed in Iran.
In 1979, the U.S. government (notably Jimmy Carter and Company), with the help of allied forces, created the greatest Islamic terrorist nation on the face of the earth and this spurred the rise of Islamofascism elsewhere. In fact, Jimmy Carter, by his interference in another country, betrayed the most valued friend to the West, the late Shah of Iran.
In reality, there was not a country for me to return to. Many of my friends were either killed in Iran-Iraq war or simply disappeared for standing up for their rights. Overnight, we lost everything. My battle with the forces of darkness started when evil (Ayatollah Khomeini) landed in Iran and unleashed his wrath on thousands upon thousands of Iranians who in the beginning, believed this “holy” man was their savior. But, he turned out to be the “evil” that our ancient prophet Zoroaster had warned us about.
Ayatollah Khomeini, with his cultural revolution, intended to de-civilize a very rich and civilized nation.
For the past 33 years, the Iranian people have been kept hostage in their own county by a group of barbaric savages who despise anything Iranian and are slowly purging any remnant left of pre-Islamic Persia, as well as Persian textbooks. These pro-Arab invaders are not Iranians by any means. “Iranian” is defined by a state of mind, not by a place of residence. The barbaric mullahs and their mercenaries presently ruling Iran are not Iranians. They are Islamofascists who have enlisted themselves in the service of a most oppressive, discriminating, and demeaning ideology.
To most Iranians, including myself, the name of the Ayatollah Khomeini was unheard of until the Western policymakers decided to remove the Shah (the best friend of the West) and install the Ayatollah Khomeini and carelessly forced the Shah of Iran to leave his homeland. After 33 years, the U.S. is still making the same mistakes with respect to its policy regarding Iran.
Sher: When we talked a few days ago, you told me that prior to Iran’s ‘Islamic Revolution’ it had never been a Muslim country and that—until recently—Islam had never truly been part of Iran’s historical and traditional culture. Before the sudden and swift rise of Islam, what were the true cultural aspects of Iran and its people?
Amil: A quick answer: Iranians are Muslim in name only. We have a saying in Persian that the way you take your first step, points your path for the rest of your journey. To elucidate this, please allow me to elaborate and give a brief account of Islam.
Islam’s very first step was that of violence aimed at decimation of any people that stood in its path of conquest. It all started with Muhammad when his own Quraysh tribe chased him out of his hometown of Mecca. He was a troublemaker that earned the “crazed poet” epithet. He escaped from Mecca and settled in Medina where a large tolerant Jewish community lived. There he found enough peace to start his campaign of gathering a bunch of thugs with the promise of booty in this world as well as eternal pleasures of a sensual paradise if people followed his edict.
The rest is history. One of the very first things he did was to turn on the Jews of Medina – an easy and convenient target to kill, loot and enslave. Being amply rewarded for this thuggery, his followers expanded their range. To this day, the goal is the same. Destroying any and all people who refuse to surrender everything they are and have to this creed of savagery and slavery.
Nearly 1400 years ago, the followers of Muhammad from across the scorching Arabian Desert conquered Iran (Persia), the greatest empire known in the history of man. With that, they almost destroyed one of the most benevolent and beautiful religions of all humanity, Zoroastrianism, often called the mother of all revealed religions.
Originally, Iranians were forced to accept Islam to save their lives from the Arab invaders, but deep within the heart of every single Iranian alive today, exists a burning resentment of the Arab-Islamic invasion of their homeland and culture. The events in history have toughened present day Iranians. They have become great pretenders. But the totality of 1400 years of Islamic barbarity and savagery must and will end. Iranians no longer need to pretend that they are practicing Muslims; when in fact, they are not.
Before the Islamic invasion of 1979, most Iranians were unaware of true nature of Islam. But, the 1979 Islamic invasion quickly changed that. Nowadays, masses of Iranians are irreparably alienated from a corrupt and oppressive Islamic rule. The rule of the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) is crumbling. The previously solid edifice, or at least the appearance of it, is finally showing many cracks that continue to grow. There are just too many fault lines to list here. Many consider this, an era of Iranian awakening or Iranian renaissance. Islam has always been in contrast with Persian values as it is evident by the glorious pre-Islamic Iranian festivities and celebrations.
Embassies should be pulled out of all of the “Arab Spring” countries, absolutely. They are illegitimate dictatorships, for one thing, and we have absolutely nothing to gain from offering them legitimacy and the pretense of friendship, for another. None of those states will ever give us anything in return for our embassies, but they will use them as signs of their power over the weak West.
As for the military bases, I think Ann Coulter had it right the day after 9/11/01: invade their countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity. Instead we invaded their countries, killed their leaders, and then facilitated the burning of churches and building of mosques. We need to decide, are we going to honest-to-goodness colonize Afghanistan and Iraq, or are we going to abandon them? If the former, we need to actually give these nations the institutions that we know will make them prosperous: Christianity and rule of law at the top of the list. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth, and the history books will hate us for it. But history proves that it works. Alternatively, we should just get out and leave them to their fates. That seems cruel, especially to the women and children, but it’s better than giving weapons, legitimacy, and easy targets to their home-grown tyrants.