Blast From The Past: Lamebrained Egghead Predicted Relations With Moslem World Would Improve Were Obama Elected

May 12, 2008

NY TIMES Op-Ed Contributor

President Apostate?

By EDWARD N. LUTTWAK

With few exceptions, the jurists of all Sunni and Shiite schools prescribe execution for all adults who leave the faith not under duress; the recommended punishment is beheading at the hands of a cleric, although in recent years there have been both stonings and hangings. (Some may point to cases in which lesser punishments were ordered — as with some Egyptian intellectuals who have been punished for writings that were construed as apostasy — but those were really instances of supposed heresy, not explicitly declared apostasy as in Senator Obama’s case.) 

It is true that the criminal codes in most Muslim countries do not mandate execution for apostasy (although a law doing exactly that is pending before Iran’s Parliament and in two Malaysian states). But as a practical matter, in very few Islamic countries do the governments have sufficient authority to resist demands for the punishment of apostates at the hands of religious authorities.

For example, in Iran in 1994 the intervention of Pope John Paul II and others won a Christian convert a last-minute reprieve, but the man was abducted and killed shortly after his release. Likewise, in 2006 in Afghanistan, a Christian convert had to be declared insane to prevent his execution, and he was still forced to flee to Italy.

Because no government is likely to allow the prosecution of a President Obama — not even those of Iran and Saudi Arabia, the only two countries where Islamic religious courts dominate over secular law — another provision of Muslim law is perhaps more relevant: it prohibits punishment for any Muslim who kills any apostate, and effectively prohibits interference with such a killing.

At the very least, that would complicate the security planning of state visits by President Obama to Muslim countries, because the very act of protecting him would be sinful for Islamic security guards. More broadly, most citizens of the Islamic world would be horrified by the fact of Senator Obama’s conversion to Christianity once it became widely known — as it would, no doubt, should he win the White House. This would compromise the ability of governments in Muslim nations to cooperate with the United States in the fight against terrorism, as well as American efforts to export democracy and human rights abroad.

That an Obama presidency would cause such complications in our dealings with the Islamic world is not likely to be a major factor with American voters, and the implication is not that it should be. But of all the well-meaning desires projected on Senator Obama, the hope that he would decisively improve relations with the world’s Muslims is the least realistic.

Edward N. Luttwak, a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, is the author of “Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace.”

First the idiot describes the moslem remedy for those who were born and raised moslems then converted to Christianity. Not very nice, as we all know.

Then the dolt offers that Obama would IMPROVE relations with islam; why? Well, just because, I guess. In reality, the islamic world has basically told us to go piss up a rope, as the single thing they fear is a strong United States, something impossible under Barry The Bowing Blowhard.

By their own laws, Barry should be summarily beheaded, forthwith. The single reason there isn't a price on his jug-head, is the fact that he's so impotent why in all hells would they want him out? To be replaced by someone who'd actually DO something about the moslem menace?

Hey kids, they're dumb but not that dumb.

And wanna know something else about this cult disguised as a religion...

ANY member can  lie, is in fact encouraged to lie, about his enrollment in the 1st Church of the Gooey Death and Discount House of Beheadment. Saying you're a Christian when you're really a moslem is all well and good, because it might allow you to weasel into their confidence and then of course behead them all.