Edward Luttwak writes about some potential complications of an Obama Presidency:

Because no government is likely to allow the prosecution of a President Obama [for apostasy]— not even those of Iran and Saudi Arabia, the only two countries where Islamic religious courts dominate over secular law — another 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.

The New York Times:

To Nader and Enad, prayer is essential. In Enad’s view, jihad is, too, not the more moderate approach that emphasizes doing good deeds, but the idea of picking up a weapon and fighting in places like Iraq and Afghanistan.

“Jihad is not a crime; it is a duty,” Enad said in casual conversation.

“If someone comes into your house, will you stand there or will you fight them?” Enad said, leaning forward, his short, thick hands resting on his knees. “Arab or Muslim lands are like one house.”...

The Times is spending too much time studying the government's new language purge guidelines. 

In Willful Blindness: A Memoir of the [INSENSITIVE TERM DELETED], and in this white paper for the upcoming Bradley symposium, I note Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman's explanation that jihad is “the peak of a full [embrace] of Islam….  There is no work that equals” it.  Contrary to our government's assiduous efforts to ignore the evidence of sense and deny that terrorists are representative of any legitimate interpretation of Islam, Abdel Rahman (aka "the blind sheikh") is a doctor of Islamic jurisprudence graduated from al-Azhar University in Egypt, the seat of Sunni learning.  Why we should think the Department of Homeland Security knows more about Islam than he does, I do not know.  In any event, he has recounted that since the concept was developed over a millennium ago, jihad has unambiguously and unapologetically called for the aggressive application of brute force against oppressors and infidels.  It “means fighting the enemies,” he said, no good works or internal betterment.  Nor, he instructed, can it be accomplished such everyday practices as prayer, mosque attendance, alms giving, or living a virtuous life.  At such suggestions, he scoffed:

Jihad is jihad…. There is no such thing as commerce, industry and science in jihad.  This is calling things . . . other than by [their] own name. If God . . .  says, “Do jihad,” it means do jihad with the sword, with the cannon, with the grenades and with the missile.  This is jihad.  Jihad against God’s enemies for God’s cause and his word.

He is unquestionably right about this.  The effort to portray jihad as a peaceful, virtuous, internal striving to become a better person by good works is no doubt motivated by the best of intentions when engaged by our bureaucrats.  But it's important to understand that it is a revisionist project — and it is thus doomed to fail given the premium liberals have taught us we must place on authenticity.  When it comes to jihad, it's the crazies who are authentic and the well-meaning reformers who are dancing on the head of a pin.

Conventionally translated “holy war” [jihad] has the literal meaning of striving, more specifically, in the Qur'anic phrase “striving in the path of God” (fi sabil Allah). Some Muslim theologians, particularly in more modern times, have interpreted the duty of “striving in the path of God” in a spiritual and moral sense. The overwhelming majority of early authorities, however, citing relevant passages in the Qur’an and in the tradition, discuss jihad in military terms.

In fact, the erudite former Muslim of the nom de plume Ibn Warraq points out that even

[t]he celebrated Dictionary of Islam defines jihad as ‘a religious war with those who are unbelievers in the mission of Muhammad.  It is an incumbent religious duty, established in the Quran and in the Traditions as a divine institution, enjoined specially for the purpose of advancing Islam and of repelling evil from Muslims.”

It is no wonder that this should be so.  The Qur’an repeatedly enjoins Muslims to fight and slay non-Muslims.  “O ye who believe,” commands Sura 9:123, “Fight those of the disbelievers who are near you, and let them find harshness in you, and know that Allah is with those who keep their duty unto him.”  It is difficult to spin that as a call to spiritual self-improvement.  As it is, to take another example, with Sura 9:5:  “But when the forbidden months are past, then fight and slay the pagans wherever ye find them.  And seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war),” relenting only if they have accepted Islam. The hadith, lengthy volumes recording the words and traditions of the prophet, are even more explicit, as in Mohammed’s teaching that “[a] single endeavor (of fighting) in Allah’s cause in the afternoon or in the forenoon is better than all the world and whatever is in it.”

We can kid ourselves that this is not so.  But recognize, then, that we are kidding ourselves.

And like Hezbollah, he's probably taking advice and funding from Iran. From the Miami Herald (with thanks to Jeffrey Imm):

BAGHDAD -- When Ali Ateya was killed last month at the age of 23 -- a victim of an American airstrike on a block of concrete tenements in Baghdad's Sadr City slum, according to his family -- there was no money for his burial.

Within days, two officials from Sadr City's main humanitarian organization showed up at the family home. Unsolicited, they offered to pay for Ateya's Shiite Muslim burial service and provide food for three days of ritual mourning.

Then they handed the parents an envelope. It was stuffed with 500,000 Iraqi dinars -- about $400 -- and on it was printed: ``A gift from Sayyid Muqtada al Sadr.'

Sadr, the fiery anti-American Shiite cleric, has again emerged as the U.S. military's No. 1 problem in Iraq, as his followers wage an increasingly bloody struggle with American soldiers for control of impoverished, militia-infested Sadr City.

But for the slum's 2.5 million predominantly Shiite residents, Sadr plays a different role, one of humanitarian-in-chief -- gifting money to families of the dead and injured, resettling displaced families free of charge and, every month, helping to feed tens of thousands of Sadr City's most impoverished people. Sadr offers the funds for any victim of American weapons in Sadr City.

Evoking comparisons with Hezbollah -- the far better established militant Shiite group in Lebanon that's often called a state within a state -- Sadr's movement 'has established itself as the main service provider in the country,' concluded a recent report by Refugees International, a Washington-based nonprofit.

Analysts point out that Hezbollah's military wing is much more disciplined than Sadr's younger and more fractured movement. But Sadr's charity work helps to maintain popular support for his movement even as its confrontations with U.S. and Iraqi forces plunge places such as Sadr City deeper into chaos...

New Duranty reports on more fighting in Lebanon where the Druse appear to be split and the government is capitulating on Hezbollah's communications network.

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Fierce clashes broke out on Sunday in the mountains east of Beirut between supporters of the Western-backed government and followers of Hezbollah, the militant group backed by Iran...

Supporters of the Druse leader, Walid Jumblatt, who is allied with the government, and Hezbollah gunmen and their Druse allies exchanged machine gun fire and rockets in several villages, a day after Hezbollah accused Mr. Jumblatt’s followers of killing two of its members and kidnapping a third. There was no word on casualties.

Several hours after the clashes erupted, Mr. Jumblatt urged Talal Arslan, a rival Druse leader allied with Hezbollah, to mediate an end to the mountain clashes and allow the safe deployment of the Lebanese Army in villages where there was heavy fighting.

Mr. Arslan agreed to a cease-fire, but sporadic fighting continued on Sunday night.

“I tell my supporters that civil peace, coexistence and stopping war and destruction are more important than any other consideration,” Mr. Jumblatt said in a brief television interview.

In Beirut, Lebanese Army troops patrolled the streets, setting up roadblocks and taking positions after Hezbollah fighters pulled back from areas they had seized on Friday.

However, many streets in western Beirut, including the one leading to the airport, remained blocked by opposition supporters.

Hezbollah had agreed Saturday evening to withdraw its militants from the streets after the government said it would reconsider a decision it made last week to challenge the group’s private telephone network.

The government and the Hezbollah-led opposition have been locked in a stalemate that has prevented the election of a president, leaving the country without one since November...

Describing conflicts as between "government" and "rebel" is extremely confusing and misleading in conflicts involving Islam which account for the vast majority of the world's hot spots today. Jeffrey Gettleman writes in New Duranty:

NAIROBI, Kenya — The day after the Sudanese government quickly dispensed with an attack by Darfurian rebels on the capital, Khartoum, the question that many people are asking is, “What were the rebels thinking?”

In several years of fighting, the rebels have largely confined their attacks to government positions in Darfur, never once attempting an assault on the capital.

And with good reason.

Khartoum is heavily fortified, with bunkers at the airport and .50-caliber machine guns on the streets. It has been spared the messy conflicts that have been raging in Sudan’s hinterlands because the central government, dominated by a tight cadre of Arab military men with a history of support for Islamic militants, has used oil profits and Chinese weapons to build a formidable defense force.

Beyond the fact that the rebels, part of the Justice and Equality Movement, also known as JEM, tried to attack at all, the most surprising aspect of the attack was how far they got. After steaming across the desert in a phalanx of battered pickup trucks on Saturday, they came within a few miles of Khartoum.

“What was JEM trying to do?” asked David Mozersky, a Sudan analyst for International Crisis Group, a research institute that follows conflict zones throughout the world. “It’s hard to imagine they thought they could capture the capital with 50 to 100 cars.”

John Prendergast, a founder of the Enough Project, which campaigns against genocide, said he thinks the attack was a ploy to gain leverage. The rebels wanted “to slap” the governing National Congress Party, he said, “then cut a power sharing deal with the ruling party, without the other Darfur factions.”

“We’re seeing in part a continuation of the internal battle between Islamist factions,” he said, referring to the fact that both the Darfurian rebels of the Justice and Equality Movement and Sudanese government officials, though sworn enemies, share an Islamist agenda...

Thank you for finally telling us in paragraph 8 who these particular "rebels" are.

Sudan has long been a hornets’ nest of bitter, warring factions. To begin with, the government is an awkward fusion of two warring parties, the National Congress Party and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement. These two sides fought a civil war for more than 20 years in southern Sudan that killed an estimated 2.2 million people, almost 10 times as many as in Darfur.

After a landmark peace deal in 2005 that the Bush administration helped broker, the National Congress Party became the senior partner, but the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement , which represents the Christian and animist south, won some powerful posts, like the foreign ministry and first vice presidency; it also commands its own military...

But on Sunday, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement leadership made clear whose side it was on.

Salva Kiir Mayardit, the president of South Sudan and the first vice president of the national unity government, condemned the attack, saying it would not help resolve the Darfur crisis...

One might mention, but it was not mentioned, that the Christians and Animists in South Sudan have been subjected to a sustained genocide with the dead topping 2 million. All the focus is on Muslim Darfur.

The Sudanese government had its own theory about the attack, which bore an uncanny resemblance to a recent strike on Sudan’s equally troubled neighbor, Chad. In February, Chadian rebels who had been using Sudan as a base nearly overran the presidential palace in Ndjamena, Chad’s capital. And it was fighters from the Justice and Equality Movement, which has close ties to Chad, who helped protect the palace.

So it was no surprise that the first thing the Sudanese government did on Sunday was to break off relations with Chad, which Sudanese officials accused of backing the rebels and trying to pull off a coup. “The return favor was bigger than expected,” Mr. Prendergast said.

Geert Wilders was in Las Vegas - who knew? Paul Belien has an interesting post at Brussels Journal:

Geert Wilders, the leader of the Dutch Freedom Party PVV and the maker of Fitna, a controversial movie about the Koran, is back in the Netherlands after a two-week vacation in Las Vegas. In an interview published today in the Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf, the largest newspaper in the Netherlands, Wilders said that his party will stand for election in the 2009 European elections and must consider allying itself with like-minded European parties. He also called for a reunification of Flanders, the Dutch-speaking northern part of Belgium, and the Netherlands.

Wilders went to Vegas, but not to gamble. The 44-year old politician told De Telegraaf he only spent 10 dollars in a casino. He asked the local police if he could join them on their patrols, and he did. Wilders is very impressed by the LVPD. Apparently, the feeling was reciprocal. The policemen had seen Fitna and liked it a lot. They told Wilders: “You should run for president here!”

The politician said he is happy with the way Fitna was received in the Netherlands. “I do not seek controversy, I want to foster debate. […] Nor was I looking for electoral gain. I knew the movie would lead to a lot of personal and political misery. But I have a mission! I felt I had to do this. […] A politician must lead. We are the most critical voice on immigration, Islam and integration issues [in the Netherlands}, we defend the average Dutchman.”

He told the paper that multiculturalism does not work. He referred to neighbouring Belgium as an example. Belgium is a country made up of 6 million Dutch-speaking Flemings in Flanders, the northern half of the country, and 4 million French-speaking Walloons in Wallonia, the southern half. Belgium was part of the Netherlands until 1830, when a revolution instigated by Walloons and French agents tore the country apart. The revolutionaries occupied Flanders, too. The Flemings have always been second-class citizens in Belgium and are still politically underrepresented. The current Belgian government has more French-speaking members of cabinet than Flemish. Wilders said he is in favour of reuniting Flanders and the Netherlands...

Wilders emphasized that he has no contacts with the Vlaams Belang, the major party in the Flemish regional parliament. The VB wants to dissolve Belgium and establish an independent Flemish Republic, though some of its members favour reunification with the Netherlands. The VB is also the most outspoken anti-Islamisation party in Belgium.

“I have no contacts with Vlaams Belang,” Wilders said. “I have no contacts with foreign parties whatsoever. But we will have to establish them with regard to the European elections next year. […] We are trying to decide which European group to join. This is not an easy exercise. However, we want to have nothing to do with the Mussolinis and Le Pen and others like them.”

Wilders is opposed to the project of establishing the European Union as a super state. He said his party wants to stand for the European elections in order to help abolish the European Parliament from within.

As I understand it, monotheistic religions believe in an exclusive God; most monotheistic religions today do not, however, hold their faith(s) to demand exclusivity:  most tolerate other religions (including conversion to other religions) but differ with them about ultimate truth.  Only Islam is an exclusive faith.  That's why the rest of Luttwak's article is about the wages of Muslim apostasy.

In The News:

On the weekend there was a pseudo-coup in the Sudan and a Sudoku Competition in Sioux City, Iowa. And after the  cyclone (not a tsunami) reports from Myanmar tell us that the flooding has played havoc with sewage.

Today we read that in Lebanon, hopes are raised that President Siniora will be replaced by the present head of the army, General Suleiman. Meanwhile, outside the World Bank headquarters in Washington, African demonstrators, demanding that the bank make fewer gigantic loans for capitalist corporations and replace them with green-and-grameen micro-loans, carry signs that read “Not Voodoo, But Susu Economics.”

There’s a moral here. It goes without saying. It’s sous-entendu.

The problem with Barack Obama's supposed Muslim connection is that he has not shown any inclination to ponder the nature of Islam at its essence, and not in the modified unrepresentative form in which he may have, fleetingly and personally, encountered it. And a greater problem is a lack of historical knowledge, and a naiveté (without the viciousness) about the world that rivals that of Jimmy Carter, and a trust in such obviously disturbing "advisers" as the vicious, and naively realpolitiking, Zbigniew Brzezinski.

There's plenty to worry about with Barack Obama and his more-than-sufficient display, so far, of all the wrong foreign-policy instincts, including his dreamy belief that meeting and talking, with representatives of Iran (what could be the harm in merely meeting and talking? say some). The harm could be great. It would justify, it would dignify, it would  give a boost in the minds of its own disaffected subjects, to the Islamic Republic of Iran. it would encoil us in useless, protracted discussions with those who are past masters at deception and deliberate delay, and who treat such meetings not as occasions for the exchange of views that we are expected to believe have not already, and repeatedly, been exchanged, but rather as instruments of war, the propaganda war that Muslims engage in, and we, alas, do not.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FvJvcZMn3U&feature=related

Since the coal country of West Virginia votes tomorrow and seeing as how we featured Merle Travis earlier, here is a song written by Travis that was a big hit for Tennessee Ernie Ford in 1955.

Sixteen Tons

The description of Barack Obama as an apostate was briefly entertained as a possibility, and then subsequently dismissed, at JW. In that subsequent discussion, it was pointed out that to be considered an apostate in Islam one must have been practicing Islam beyond the age of puberty in order to subsequently be considered, if one abandons Islam, to be a true apostate; Barack Obama doesn't meet that criterion.

Of course, to primitive masses of Muslims there need not be alarm and offense taken at his being an apostate, but merely a kind of disappointment that someone once exposed, even in childhood, to the True Path of Islam, somehow nonetheless chose to become a Christian.

That, however, is quite a different point from the one that Luttwak was attempting to make, in which he raises a matter that had been raised, discussed, and disposed of long before.

There is, however, a problem  with the perception, by non-Muslims as well as Muslims, that there is Islam in his, Barack Obama's background. Next to getting out of Iraq, and connected to that getting out of Iraq, the most important thing for the next American President to do is to begin to discuss with NATO allies, and others in Western Europe, how to handle the non-terrorist instruments of Jihad, including the continued deployment, by rich Arab governments (and especially Saudi Arabia) of the Money Weapon, continued seemingly unstoppable but in-fact-most-stoppable, campaigns  of Da'wa, and demographic conquest. There will have to be signs of mutual encouragement for strong measures on both sides of the Atlantic. And it will take a lot to get the leaders of Western European nations to slough off decades of timidity, rigidity, cupidity.

Now, will they be able to assemble, either in group meetings, or one-to-one, heads of state meeting with someone named Barack Obama, and candidly discuss their fears of Islam? Or will they come to believe that Barack Obama is in fact, if not a Muslim, at least someone to whom they cannot speak candidly about the meaning, and menace of Islam -- possibly because they fear his obvious residual affection for it (an affection that may be based on some quest-for-personal-identity psychic need, but cannot be pooh-poohed for all that)?

That's the real  worry. That's the thing to ponder.: the suspicion that Obama has a personal stake in seeing Islam as more benign than it is. And furthermore, as someone who does not feel keenly the meaning of, and therefore the loss of, Western culture, the Western civilizational legacy, that is the legacy created over time by -- let's face it -- white people in Western Europe, and by others,descendants of them, in the New World -- can Barack Obama feel as keenly the need to protect and preserve that legacy?  He's trans-racial, post-racial, he's all "international community" and Aid-To-Africa. He isn't someone who worries about the survival of Italy as Italy, of France as France, of England as England.

That's the deeper problem of Barack Obama and Islam. Not the "apostate" business.

In this interview with Jeffrey Goldberg at The Atlantic, Barack Obama seems to play into the suggestion of Edward Luttwak's that he wants to be perceived as one who could smooth relations with the Muslim world.

OBAMA:  It’s conceivable that there are those in the Arab world who say to themselves, “This is a guy who spent some time in the Muslim world, has a middle name of Hussein, and appears more worldly and has called for talks with people, and so he’s not going to be engaging in the same sort of cowboy diplomacy as George Bush,” and that’s something they’re hopeful about. I think that’s a perfectly legitimate perception as long as they’re not confused about my unyielding support for Israel’s security. ...

I welcome the Muslim world’s accurate perception that I am interested in opening up dialogue and interested in moving away from the unilateral policies of George Bush, but nobody should mistake that for a softer stance when it comes to terrorism or when it comes to protecting Israel’s security or making sure that the alliance is strong and firm...

He goes on to say more troubling things that reflect, as Hugh Fitzgerald said earlier (here and here), a mind that has failed to come to grips with Islam in any way.

JG: If you become President, will you denounce settlements publicly?

BO: What I will say is what I’ve said previously. Settlements at this juncture are not helpful. Look, my interest is in solving this problem not only for Israel but for the United States.

JG: Do you think that Israel is a drag on America’s reputation overseas?

BO: No, no, no. But what I think is that this constant wound, that this constant sore, does infect all of our foreign policy. The lack of a resolution to this problem provides an excuse for anti-American militant jihadists to engage in inexcusable actions, and so we have a national-security interest in solving this, and I also believe that Israel has a security interest in solving this because I believe that the status quo is unsustainable.

This is a mystery to me - why is the status quo unsustainable? The only guarantor of peace is undeniable, overwhelming strength on the Israeli side and necessity, darura, on the Muslim side. Islamically speaking, the "Palestinians" can only cease attacks if they do not serve them. Now the attacks are working, so they have no reason to stop them.

BO: I am absolutely convinced of that, and some of the tensions that might arise between me and some of the more hawkish elements in the Jewish community in the United States might stem from the fact that I’m not going to blindly adhere to whatever the most hawkish position is just because that’s the safest ground politically...