US Commits Murder--So Say The Usual Suspects

Late yesterday afternoon the White House issued a revision of the "Osama Meets The SEALs" narrative.  Almost instantly the usual suspects sprang into action with denunciations of the US as a criminal enterprise.  The High Minded and Lofty Thinking protectors of human rights ranging from the ever present UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, all the way to German ex-chancellor Helmut Schmidt and assorted human rights lawyers and activists have alleged that the US commandos engaged in flat out assassination in violation of international law.

One man, the UN Special Rapporteur for human rights and fundamental freedoms, Martin Scheinin, a Finnish lawyer who has leveled criticisms against the US and its war on terror in the past, swam against the prevailing current.  In Sheinin's view the US did not violate international law but rather strengthened it by having used a means which provided bin Laden with the possibility of surrendering.  Scheinin takes the rational position that had bin Laden "raised the white flag" he would have avoided being killed on the spot.

Scheinin is right and the others, the legions of those High Minded and Lofty Thinking folks whose hearts have been blighted by the idea that Osama bin Laden is dead, are wrong.  The SEALs are tightly disciplined and very highly trained professional warriors who would have accepted any affirmative sign of surrender on the part of bin Laden.  The mere fact that he gave no such signal--which need be no more complex than raising the hands--in the context of armed resistance by others is sufficient.  Absent a clear and unambiguous sign of submission (something at which any Muslim should be well accomplished),  the man or men present were well within the limits of legal requirement and mission briefing alike to push the delete key on the terrorist leader.

In one of the cited articles, the Asia director for Human Rights Watch demanded that "law enforcement" procedures should apply in situations such as that in the bin Laden compound.  It is unclear just what might be meant by the words chosen, but it is doubtful that any law enforcement personnel facing an identical situation with a known criminal gang engaged in armed resistance would have acted other than did the SEALs.  The HRW executive missed the point--in a context of armed resistance, when facing a man with known propensities for resistance, an individual is compelled to use deadly force unless there is a clear, unmistakable sign of surrender.

While it may bother those whose lives are so orderly and well protected that they have never had to make the sort of decisions made by either special forces troops or law enforcement personnel, the reality is as Mr Scheinin inferred in his assessment: The onus is on the person facing arrest to surrender.  In short, Osama bin Laden chose to die rather than submit, a course of action in keeping with his life philosophy and religious ideology.

Helmut Schmidt among others drew a series of incorrect analogies from history.  For example, opponents of the American action have invoked both the Nuremberg trials and that of Slobodan Milosevic as the paradigms for the handling of Osama bin Laden.  Neither is apposite.  The senior Nazi officials as well as the one-time Serbian jefe grande surrendered without a struggle.  There you have it.  Had Osama bin Laden simply held up his hands as the aforementioned war criminals did, he would be alive and well right now in US custody.

Other critics such as Geoffrey Robertson, a well known Australian human rights lawyer, alleged that justice was not done in the case of Osama bin Laden.  Mr Robertson is of the view that justice can only be done by the process of arrest, trial, conviction, and punishment.  He is wrong.  Justice came as a swift and shocking event to Osama in a way quite similar to the manner in which death came for some three thousand people on 9/11.  Actual justice would have required that Osama bin Laden experience the same horrid dread of the inevitable that afflicted the last moments of those on the doomed airliners.

One can only hope that he did.

Minarets Are Political Not Religious Symbols

A week ago nearly fifty-eight percent of the Swiss electorate defied the wishes of their government, their parliament, and voted to ban future construction of minarets. The vote was open, transparent, and in keeping with the long standing democratic practices of the multi-lingual, multi-religious federated republic.

Not surprisingly the solid nitrogenous waste product landed on the air impeller. Not simply in Muslim states ranging from Algeria to Malaysia but within the multi-cultural, ever-so-sensitive-and-tolerant elites of the US and Western Europe.

The Iranian foreign minister made dark and unspecified warnings of "consequences" to his Swiss counterpart. Not to be outdone, a leading Muslim cleric in Egypt, the Grand Mufti Ali Goma, declared the ban of new construction minarets constituted "an attempt to insult the feelings of the Muslim community in and outside Switzerland."

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, joined the chorus of condemnation. This bureaucrat, who seems never to be bothered by such bagatelles as the prohibition against the construction of any church or synagogue, or, for that matter, Buddhist temple, extant in Saudi Arabia and other Muslim states, weighed in with a statement deploring the Swiss voters' action.

In the US the denunciations from the political Left were every bit as robust as those emanating from the Muslim press overseas. In the HuffPost Cameron Sinclair characterized the Swiss exercise in vox populi, vox dei as "misguided at best, at worst downright racism." (Emphasis in original.) Ironically Mr Sinclair also states, "architecture is political."

How right he is! Architecture is political--and never more so than in the case of minarets. As much or more than the steeples on Christian churches, the towering minaret is today what it was centuries ago--a symbol of Muslim political presence. And, a visible sign of Muslim political domination.

Although typically described as being necessary for the summons to prayers which issues from mosques worldwide five times a day, the minaret was not only a late comer to Muslim religious practice it was also a product of the successful wars of conquest waged by Muslim armies following the death of Mohammad. The minaret was not a convenient elevated platform for the muezzin's summons. No. It was the phallic symbol of conquest, of the subjugation of the non-Muslim population.

Arguably, the spires crowning the cathedrals of Europe were designed to point to heaven or to summon the aspirations of the believers to the highest, most noble callings. This explanation has been given over the generations by historians and others seeking to explain the significance of the steeple which has so long been a visual signature of Christian communities. True or not a more fundamental reality exists: The steeple was never intended to be a mark of conquest or of subjugation.

The minaret is a different beast all together. Before Islam exploded out of the Arabian Peninsula carried on the scimitars of legions of highly motivated believers, the mosque was unadorned. No minarets were to be seen (nor have any foundations for such been excavated in recent years.) It was only after Islam came, saw, conquered new territory, new people, that the minaret came into existence. Even so, the progress from the low slung mosque to the towering minaret equipped version was slow and spotty.

Indeed, the historical and archaeological record points to an interesting correlation. Minarets proliferated most in those areas where the battles of conquest were most hard won and where the Muslims constituted a distinct minority, a thin ruling crust over a large and restive population of infidels. The minaret like the assorted regulations covering the second class folks of the Christian and Jewish communities was intended to impress, overawe, to remind all the non-Muslim "people of the book" of their humiliated position in the new Islamic order.

Yes, Mr Sinclair, architecture is political. In this case the politics were those of dominance and submission, of rulership and being ruled, of giving the orders and taking them. The minaret was the tallest building admissible. No church could surpass it just as no Christian, no Jew could speak to a Muslim while on horseback while the Muslim could sit on his animal and glare down at the inferior non-Muslim.

There is no justification for the minaret today. The hoary justification that its lofty heights were necessary so that the faithful would hear the calls to prayer has been set aside by the use of sound amplification systems. The minaret has only one utility--as a symbol of Muslim presence.

The Swiss vote expressed the desire, perhaps the need, to reclaim the skyline as Swiss, as European. There was no explicit threat to the practice of Islam, to the building of new mosques. There is not even an implicit threat to either. Nor does the vote indicate a desire let alone a need on the part of the Swiss hoi polloi to limit the rights of Muslims in any way let alone force the Muslims to return to Kosovo and other places of origin.

The Swiss merely said by their vote that they wanted their skyline, their traditional skyline. At worst it may be alleged that the Swiss are more comfortable with their traditional skyline as they are with their cultural and social traditions. It may be alleged that the Swiss "feelings" have been, if not insulted, at least discomfited by the intrusion of the alien minaret.

This means quite simply that the Swiss people as distinguished from their government, parliament, and the elite of Europe generally are like most people most everywhere--happiest, most comfortable, most at home as it were with the cultural and social traditions and features long known and accepted, even loved. It is ironic that the multi-cultural crew cannot or will not recognize this and accept it.

The multi-culti crowd with its celebration of "cultural relativism" holds that all cultures, all manifestations of cultural features are equally valid. They accept that it is OK for Muslims to have cultural features such as Shariah mandated punishments, the veiling of women, and the use of minarets. Why is it impossible for the high priests of multi-culti political correctness to accept that the Swiss hoi polloi to have their own shibboleths including a skyline free of minarets?

Well, the answer to that is simple. The vote reflected the views, the desires, and, yes, the fears of the common herd. This fact is enough in and of itself to outrage the self-defined "elites" of both Europe and the US. The basis of the outrage is equally simple: The damn fool lesser folks did not heed the "guidance" of their "betters" in the Swiss parliament and government.

That attitude can be understood, if not forgiven. It is, after all, no fun to be a member of the self-elected elite if the man and woman in the street can ignore your "guidance" and demands with impunity.

The Swiss electorate made two political statements in their vote. The first was the reclamation of their skyline--Islam is not dominant here! The second was equally blunt albeit implicit: The elite can take a hike.

Right on, Switzers!