Posted on 08/31/2009 8:40:07 PM PDT by jazusamo
Britain's release of Abdel Baset al-Megrahi — the Libyan terrorist whose bomb blew up a plane over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988, killing 270 people — is galling enough in itself. But it is even more profoundly troubling as a sign of a larger mood that has been growing in the Western democracies in our time.
In ways large and small, domestically and internationally, the West is surrendering on the installment plan to Islamic extremists.
The late Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn put his finger on the problem when he said: "The timid civilized world has found nothing with which to oppose the onslaught of a sudden revival of barefaced barbarity, other than concessions and smiles."
He wrote this long before Barack Obama became President of the United States. But this administration epitomizes the "concessions and smiles" approach to countries that are our implacable enemies.
Western Europe has gone down that path before us but we now seem to be trying to catch up.
Still, the release of a mass-murdering terrorist, who went home to a hero's welcome in Libya, shows that President Obama is not the only one who wants to move away from the idea of a "war on terror" — as if that will stop the terrorists' war on us.
The ostensible reason for releasing al-Megrahi was compassion for a man terminally ill. It is ironic that this was said in Scotland, for exactly 250 years ago another Scotsman — Adam Smith — said, "Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent."
That lesson seems to have been forgotten in America as well, where so many people seem to have been far more concerned about whether we have been nice enough to the mass-murdering terrorists in our custody than those critics have ever been about the innocent people beheaded...
(Excerpt) Read more at jewishworldreview.com ...
tagable
Very powerful and so true.
Amen and Amen, Dr. Sowell !!!!!
He hit every salient point with a minimum of words. Great writing, greater thinking.
Thanks for the ping jaz.
“But getting other people killed so that you can feel puffed up about yourself is profoundly immoral. So is betraying the country you took an oath to protect”
Typical of the Leftist mental disorder which is based totally upon themselves, and their power.
Were you a con, would you want the pickens limited to your City, State, Nation, or the World? These sorts have their eye on the prize now. They think they have the Nation, and now they are working on the World.
Hopefully we can pull the rug out from under their dreams.
Not only that,but also: The timid civilized world has found nothing with which to oppose the onslaught of a sudden revival of barefaced barbarity, other than concessions and smiles.” Wow. Love his stuff!
Well said and with Zer0 it’s him and the degenerates he’s surrounded himself with, he really is reminiscent of the little corporal.
“He hit every salient point with a minimum of words. Great writing, greater thinking.”
Sowell is a national treasure. But do to the perverseness of our culture, appreciated by far too few.
DUE TO, THAT ARE ;-)
I have an imaginary list of who I would like to run the country, and he’s on it, along with John Bolton.
Nice shootin’, Thomas.
I tried to get interested in Mark Steyn’s book, *America Alone*, but I couldn’t buy the premise that we might stand firm when the rest of the West folds. European nations with muslim minorities at or above 10% of their poulations are in for hellacious civil wars or Sharia law. With our mid-east imports plus our home grown black muslims, we’re not in much better shape.
I encounter frequent “rumors” of Obama working to import jihadists intentionally. I’ve seen no credible documentation, and I can’t believe *anyone* would be crazy enough to bring in psychopathic killers, but I’ll listen to any rumors, however nutty.
the West is surrendering on the installment plan to Islamic extremists.
In classic Christian political theory, the leader or governor of a state or group of people has the responsibility to defend his people, not to forgive attacks on them (which is not his to do, anyway...) and tell them to lie down and wait for the enemy to overrun them.
But Obama knows that. What nobody wants to admit is that he goes one step further: he’s actually on their side. Why do you think his first televised address after inauguration was to the “Muslim world” and not to the American people? Why did it consist of apologies and the attempt to make it sound as if the US was a Muslim country?
It’s not simply misguided niceness or even leftwing naivete that makes him want to let these people go. It’s hatred of us, the people of the United States, and our political structure, majority religion, and freedom.
Brilliant article, Sowell nails it. ‘Barefaced barbarity’ of the enemy to the concessions and moral preening’ of the PC crowd. We’re living in a Monty Python movie, and it’s horrible.
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