I’m so confused.
By Edward N. Luttwak, a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and über concern troll:
As the son of the Muslim father, Senator Obama was born a Muslim under Muslim law as it is universally understood. It makes no difference that, as Senator Obama has written, his father said he renounced his religion. Likewise, under Muslim law based on the Koran his mother’s Christian background is irrelevant.
Of course, as most Americans understand it, Senator Obama is not a Muslim. He chose to become a Christian, and indeed has written convincingly to explain how he arrived at his choice and how important his Christian faith is to him.
His conversion, however, was a crime in Muslim eyes; it is “irtidad” or “ridda,” usually translated from the Arabic as “apostasy,” but with connotations of rebellion and treason. Indeed, it is the worst of all crimes that a Muslim can commit, worse than murder (which the victim’s family may choose to forgive).
With few exceptions, the jurists of all Sunni and Shiite schools prescribe execution for all adults who leave the faith not under duress…
…[A]nother provision of Muslim law is perhaps more relevant: it prohibits punishment for any Muslim who kills any apostate, and effectively prohibits interference with such a killing.
At the very least, that would complicate the security planning of state visits by President Obama to Muslim countries, because the very act of protecting him would be sinful for Islamic security guards. More broadly, most citizens of the Islamic world would be horrified by the fact of Senator Obama’s conversion to Christianity once it became widely known — as it would, no doubt, should he win the White House. This would compromise the ability of governments in Muslim nations to cooperate with the United States in the fight against terrorism, as well as American efforts to export democracy and human rights abroad.
That an Obama presidency would cause such complications in our dealings with the Islamic world is not likely to be a major factor with American voters, and the implication is not that it should be. But of all the well-meaning desires projected on Senator Obama, the hope that he would decisively improve relations with the world’s Muslims is the least realistic.
So by this logic, there could never be a Jewish president, either (what self-respecting Muslim is going to associate with a Jew?). And I guess there’s no point in Israel trying to negotiate with any of the Arab states, either.
How about a president that converted from Christianity to Islam, Herr Luttwak? Would that be okay? Of course, then “hard-working Americans, white Americans” might have a problem voting for him (or her), but what the hell, it’s all in the name of world peace and assassination avoidance, right?
I can’t believe the New York Times would publish such an obvious piece of race baiting garbage on their op ed page (little Billy Kristol notwithstanding).
It’s a classic concern troll gambit: we can’t elect Barack HUSSEIN Obama because he’s not a MUSLIM but he was born a MUSLIM so he really is a MUSLIM even if he’s converted to Christianity (and who cares about the fact that he was never a practicing MUSLIM to begin with, we’re still going to call him a converted MUSLIM because we get to say MUSLIM again), and since he’s a natural born MUSLIM the MUSLIMS will be mad he doesn’t call himself a MUSLIM, and they’ll kill him, or refuse to talk to him, so we have to save him from himself and not elect him, even though he’s not really a MUSLIM.
The writer is a Jew, and should know better. But unfortunately there is an underground email and whispering campaign, particularly among older Jews on the Eastern seaboard, that Obama is the Muslim Manchurian Candidate and the whole thing with Reverend Wright was either a smokescreen or proof that Obama is the secret candidate of the Black Panthers. And Hillary’s just helping it along with her comments that Sen. Obama is not a Muslim “as far as I know” and her more recent statement that crackers won’t vote for Obama.
But crackers don’t generally read the New York Times – Eastern Seaboard Jews do.
And this might be just the thing to give those Democratic Jews a rational justification for voting against Obama – something to paper over the bigotry and fear that both the Clintons and the freepers have been preying on.
So the Boogie Man wins again.
UPDATE – Jill has a few words for Clinton’s crackers:
Well, you know what, Mr. Horton? You go right on listening to the Republican dog whistles. You go right on voting for people who send your job overseas and who want to throw your Social Security into the giant sucking maw of the stock market and want to eliminate the Medicare you’re going to rely on when you’re old. You go on voting for these people because you grew up with blacks at the back of the bus.
But when you find yourself without so much as a pot to piss in, don’t come crying to me. And don’t you DARE blame those black people you still think belong at the back of the bus.
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