Civilians! Civilians!

It looks like American, NATO, and Afghan forces are close to completely securing the Taliban-held city of Marjah in Afghanistan's southern Helmand province. This is, of course, great news, although not much is being said about it in the mainstream media. What makes this impending victory really impressive is that the Americans and other forces are achieving it while being handicapped by strict rules of engagement designed to protect civilians. Apparently, Barack Obama, the oh-so-apologetic American president, wants to show the Muslim world what considerate fighters American and American-led forces can be. Even if it puts his own soldiers at risk. This is insane.

We are at war with Muslim terrorists. There is no option but victory for us because without victory there is no survival. The lives we should be concerned with first and foremost are the lives of our troops, not those of Muslims, civilian or terrorist. Sound harsh? Consider this. The Muslim world always shrieks with sanctimonious outrage when Muslim civilians are killed by non-Muslims, but there's nothing but deafening silence from the 'ummah when the killing goes the other way.

When the horror of 9/11 took place, killing almost totally civilians, there was no outrage from the Islamic world. Instead, we saw Muslims cheering and dancing in the streets.

When three Christian girls in Indonesia were beheaded on their way to school, there was no outrage from the Muslim world.

When journalist Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and then beheaded in Pakistan, there was no outrage from the Muslim world.

When Leon Klinghoffer, a wheelchair bound Holocaust survivor, was shot and thrown overboard during the hijacking of the cruise ship "Achille Lauro", there was no outrage from the Muslim world.

When hundreds of thousands of Kurds were murdered by Saddam Hussein in his infamous Al Anfal campaign, there was no outrage from the Muslim world.

When hundreds of Russian adults and children were held hostage and brutalized in their school by Muslim terrorists, there was no outrage from the Muslim world.

Are you seeing the pattern here?

Muslims' concern for civilians is utterly hypocritical...and revealing. It exposes how Muslims selectively value human life. To the 'ummah, non-Muslim civilians being killed by Muslims is acceptable. Muslim civilians being killed by Muslims is acceptable. The only killing of civilians that's not acceptable is the killing of Muslim civilians by non-Muslims. That is the only killing of noncombatants that provokes rage in Muslims. And no one dares to call them on it.

I have no problem with trying to protect civilians in wartime if it's at all possible. I DO have a problem with trying to protect Muslim civilians when the Islamic world has never shown any concern for non-Muslim civilians. The American president is convinced that the West can stop terrorism by being respectful towards Muslim civilians--and even combatants--in war. Would that president Barack Obama had the courage to demand reciprocal respect for non-Muslim civilians from Muslims.

Only In The Kingdom

I first heard of this last year and thought it was a fluke, but now it's happened again. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has banned the celebration of Valentine's Day. Yes, you read that right. A holiday dedicated to honoring and celebrating love, especially romantic love, is verboten in the Kingdom. And to make sure every Saudi got the point, the Kingdom's police confiscated every item, every product, in the nation's stores that was connected in any way to the heinous holiday. Still, many love struck Saudis risked the wrath of the religious police to buy tokens of love for their significant others. Red roses, now contraband, were selling at very high prices for days before today.

Can you imagine? Roses as contraband?! Forget drugs! Forget porno movies! It's those damn roses that are destroying the Kingdom's morals!

What accounts for this absurd policy in the Kingdom? Well, last year the explanation was that Valentine's Day was a Western holiday and its celebration in Saudi Arabia was an unacceptable encroachment of Western Christian culture into the birthplace of Islam. I didn't believe that last year and I don't believe it now. I think the real problem with Valentine's Day is that Saudi officialdom's fanatical brand of Islam is just antithetical to love. Don't think so? Then consider this.

If Saudi Islam is opposed to Western cultural celebrations of love, but not to love itself, then why ban Valentine's Day? Why not just Islamize it? Why not call February 14 Aisha's Day, after Mohammed's favorite wife? On that day Saudi men could buy gifts rooted in Islamic culture and faith and give them to their wives to show they loved them as much as Mohammed was said to love Aisha. The Kingdom could even use Aisha's Day to counter the "stereotype" that Islam, especially its brand of Islam, is a misogynist faith. And changing Valentine's Day to Aisha's Day wouldn't be totally unprecedented. In the past Islam had no problem turning Christian churches into mosques, so changing a Christian holiday into an Islamic one shouldn't be hard or distasteful. This would be the best solution to the Valentine's Day "problem"...if the Kingdom's faith believed in love. It doesn't.

Saudi Arabia is ruled by the fanatically puritanical and fundamentalist version of Islam called Wahhabism. This faith can't stomach a celebration of love, whatever its origin, because it can't stomach love itself. For Saudi officialdom, love is the real problem, not Valentine's Day.

Only in the Kingdom, and I don't mean the magic one.