Saturday, January 12, 2013

Hypocrisy and blasphemy

Hypocrisy:

So the French are intervening militarily in Mali.  The rationale behind this intervention is threefold:

a) It was requested by the President of Mali
b) It is to prevent 'al-Qaeda' from running over the country
c) It is to protect French citizens in Mali

Needless to say, the Anglosphere fully approves.

I can't help but wonder about another possibility:

Assad would request the military assistance of Russia to prevent "al-Qaeda" from running over Syria and Russia would sent its forces to protect Russian citizens in Syria.  Can you imagine the outrage that would create in the doubleplusgoodthinking West?

This reminds me of one of my favorite quote by Chomsky from his Distorted Morality speech:
The hypocrite is the person who applies to others standards that he refuses to apply to himself. So if you are not a hypocrite you assume that if something is right for us then it's right for them and if it is wrong when they do it, it is wrong when we do it.
Simple, basic, and yet constantly ignored.

As I have said many, many times here, the Russians will not intervene militarily in Syria, if only because they do not have the means to do so.  At the very most, they will use their forces to evacuate Russians citizens if things really go badly.  And they might agree to participate to a UNSC mandated peacekeeping force.

And yet I cannot help but marvel at the insane hypocrisy of it all.  The US, UK and France are arming 'al-Qaeda' in Libya and Syria, while fighting against the very same 'al-Qaeda' in Mali (or Yemen for that matter).  Crazy.

On another topic.

Blasphemy:

For centuries, the Papacy's Jesuits used to justify their most obscene and immoral actions with the ad majorem Dei gloriam (to the greater glory of God) motto.  Sadly, the modern equivalent appears to be the ubiquitous Allahu Akbar (God is greater).

As a religious person myself, I have no problem at all with the idea of acting for the greatest glory of God or with the idea that God is greater than anything else.  By as a religious person, I am deeply offended by the use of these otherwise pious mottos to accompany the most disgusting, brutal, cruel and perverted actions. 

The Internet is replete of videos of unspeakable atrocities committed by Muslim thugs and every single one of them is accompanied by a mantric repetition of Allahu Akbar by those committing the atrocity.  I find this sickening.

What these people are doing is defiling the name of God each time they utter it.  I can hardly imagine a worse blasphemy than the use of the name of the All-Loving God as a background to the worst kind of hateful atrocity!

These murderers claim to be followers of the Prophets, yet they completely ignore the commandment of the Decalogue which clearly states Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord thy God will not acquit him that takes his name in vain (Exodus 20:7).  If speaking God's name in vain is an offense, how much more of an offense is speaking His name during the commission of an atrocity!

May those who defile the name of God be accursed!

The Saker