Islam has a different definition of 'morality'. During the Cold War, the communists used words like 'peace' and 'freedom' to good effect, but as Orwell showed (and Hayek before him), they meanings of those words were completely different. 'Peace' in the communist lexicon meant 'the absence of opposition'. So, 'peace' equaled total communist victory forever. That's what their 'peace rallies' were about.
It's the same with Islam and one of their favorite words: Morality. To Islam, morality is following the orders set out by Mohammed as dictated to him by an Angel and set down in the eternal Koran.
So, when the Koran says to 'kill the infidels', who have refused the offer to become Muslim, that killing is not only moral, but a required religious duty. When the Muslims are weaker than the infidel, the Koran says it's OK to lie to the infidels about their true intentions. The Koran and Mohammed's examples says that it's moral to sign treaties with the infidels, until Muslims are strong enough to attack the infidels.
This is a long way around to comment on Mr Ajami's comment about the 'moral emptiness' of 'official Arab life'. From the Islamic point of view, this is absolutely true of the Islamicist or Islamo-fascist point of view, morality is the enforcement from the outside of the koranic rules of life. Women must dress in a certain way and be confined to their homes. Outside their homes, they must be escorted by husbands or male relatives. What is going on in the minds of this women is irrelevant to islamicist/islamic morality. The Taliban forbid women from working, so when a woman lost her husband, it was moral to have them absolutely penniless on the streets begging for scraps of food, rather than allow them to work and earn a living.
Of course, from my point of view, this Islamic Morality is the root of the problem in the entire Muslim world.
As Rush says, 'words mean things'. The Jabba the Tutt corollary is 'the same word can mean something completely different'. Our enemies, from the Nazis to the Commies to the Islamo-Fascists use our words to mean something entirely different.
There is a cliché that distinguishes between cultures of shame and cultures of guilt, and by that crude distinction, it has always been said that the Arab world is a "shame culture."...
The difference between the concept of "guilt" and "shame" also tells us much about the way Muslim cultures think. "Guilt" is about responsibility. It is introspective in that it results from the internal reconciliation of a person actions and thoughts to his ideal of himself. It requires an honesty with oneself and with one's God. The interaction of a person with his conscience (which is the purveyor of guilt) is what causes a person to grow in character and self-worth.
Shame on the other hand is an outward based concept. Shame and its polar opposite dignity/honor depend on how one is seen by others. Shame is appearance based. If one appears to have honor, one has honor, regardless of the truth behind the curtain. Therefore, in Islam, introspection has a substantially diminished importance. Morality is achieved by the adherence to the rules of the Prophet, however incompatible with modernity. And shame is reduced by hiding the truth from others.
Bottom-line...Islam robs its strict adherents of the tool needed for the maturity of character (the introspective wrestling with conscience) and supplants it with the belief that the goal of life is the minimalization of external shame and the maximization of the appearance of honor by whatever means possible. The truth is irrelevant and external appearances are supreme.
This appears to be the fly in Islam's ointment. This seems to be the reason Islam must expand by force and its adherents must forever push for world domination. Islam is based on a lie...it functions on a lie. The only way the lie can prevent its being exposed is if everyone accepts the lie as the truth. Hence, Islam by its very nature requires a world caliphate...and death to the infidel.
Anyway, just thinking out loud. Fascinating article.
That's all we need to know regarding the argument allowing Iran to possess and manufacture nuclear weapons.