Freedom Go To Hell

If you haven't already, check out Pat Buchanan's column for this week. As expected, he addressed Bush's barbs against isolationism and protectionism during the State of the Union Speech.

While we're on the subject of foreign policy, let's talk about freedom and democracy. In the months leading up to the war in Iraq, talk radio pundits would redundantly outline the case for war. Those who doubted the wisdom of such an action were ostracized for belittling Arabs. After all, if we have freedom and democracy, why shouldn't they? How dare someone oppose giving freedom to others! It's a human right. This ignores the fact that while more free than the Islamic world, America is hardly an epitome of liberal democracy and civil rights.

I'm no freedom hater, but the question is a poor one. It's more important to know whether or not the Iraqis want freedom and democracy in the first place. Only a select few, drunk on sentimentality, actually want Saddam back in power, but framing the issue in an either/or format is evidence of a false dichotomy. If Saddam was as tyrannical as we have been told, it was only a matter of time before Iraqi citizens overthrew him. Matter of time here is notably ambiguous, and it would be foolish to claim that a revolution was imminent. However, one then wonders how we expected them to finish what we started if their interest was only tepid.

Over at the Drudge Report, there are some photos of the madness being unleashed in the Islamic world and throughout Europe after some Danes published cartoons starring Muhammad. Evidently, the religion of peace views this as heretical--which I can understand, holding some curious beliefs myself--and proceeded to protest by burning Danish flags. The newspapers are making sure that we know that it is only the fanatical Muslims who are demonstrating violently. Evidently the moderate and sensible Mulsims have yet to have an effect on their more zealous counterparts. Right now, Islam is fanatical just like the Republican party is neo-conservative. I guess journalists have made a disingenuous distinction to avoid the fate of the Danish cartoonists who are currently in hiding, fearing for their very lives.

Anyway, one of the pictures shows a Muslim woman in the traditional garb--that is, significantly less flesh showing than will be present by a variety of American females in the advertisments during tonight's Super Bowl. She is holding a sign which reads: "Freedom go to hell". Personally, I'm curious to know if she wrote the sign herself for that would be a sign of progress for women in the Middle East.

I don't think that it is imperative to understand the reasons why this woman would flip the proverbial bird to the Western god of freedom. It is enough to know that there are people who would rather live in an environment of strict attention to laws where certain freedoms are simply not desirable. This could seem to lead credibility to Bush's howler that "they hate our freedom". Properly understood, the woman's sign denotes that the West has different values than the Middle East. We certainly have an altogether conception of freedom. While we cannot comprehend how on earth Muslim women can live in such conditions, you can bet your bottom dollar that they wonder why we would push a democracy upon them, which is synonomous with our culture of moral depravity.

The War in Iraq has been a disaster because we forgot to listen to Sun-Tzu. While "know thy enemy" didn't seem necessary to Bush or the Danish cartoonists, the angry mobs throughout the Islamic world seem to suggest that "the enemy" is well aware that they are at war.