A few years back, I had a mission in support of the Royal Saudi Army. My mission was to ready the Royal Saudi Army to receive a form of military support from the US (best not described here). That mission required me to get the Saudis up to snuff on things like security, property accountability, sensitive item checks and reports, and a few other areas along those lines. For eight months straight I had to report up through my chain that I had achieved absolutely no movement towards that goal. Finally, in my eighth monthly briefing where I reported I was still months away from completion, my CG demanded to know what, exactly, the problem was keeping me from getting the job done. I told him matter of factly, “Fourteen hundred years of islam."
I got my ass chewed for the next fifteen minutes, or so it seemed. I was told that there was no reason for me to treat the Saudis as "little brown brothers" and that it was me, not the Saudis, who had a cultural problem. As is normal for Majors getting chewed out by Major Generals, I stood there and took it. I had to. There was no defense; you either believe that islam has set back the societies in which it has taken root, or you don't. If your level of acquaintance with islamic society is at the general officer level, as was my CG's, or if your level of acquaintance with islamic society is at the university professor level, as is most of the current "experts" you see on TV or read in the papers, then you get one view of that society. If your level of acquaintance is more like mine, where I worked with the eska'ans and jundis, or more like my wife's, who worked with the Bedouins, you get another view of islamic society. It is very hard to reconcile the two, as they are very disparate; though they do share the same land, the same history, and the same religion.
However, when you read stories like this one, you begin to see the islamic society that I dealt with daily. And you begin to see why there are those of us who understand that strict adherence to the belief that all cultures are equal can lead to horrific consequences such as judges saying it’s okay for a mother to shake her child into mental retardation. Read the article and see if the statement I got my ass chewed over couldn’t have just as easily come from the mouth of Judge Rodney McKinnon. This is not just the soft racism of reduced expectations. This is acceptance that some cultures will produce members who do not think or act like us, and who are incapable of doing so, no matter their location.
What is the reason this judge thinks that the rule of law needs to be pushed aside for the rule of man, in this case, one man, Muhammed?
Fourteen hundred years of islam.
(via Michelle Malkin)
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