The NYT, proving yet again that it's the most "liberal" paper of the whole "liberal" media, produces the opposite meme of "Obama is the Hamas candidate."
Yes, folks, it's "Obama is an apostate Muslim!" and therefore Hamas won't ever trust him! You can't make this up!
Senator Obama is half African by birth and Africans can understandably identify with him. In Islam, however, there is no such thing as a half-Muslim. Like all monotheistic religions, Islam is an exclusive faith.
As the son of the Muslim father, Senator Obama was born a Muslim under Muslim law as it is universally understood. It makes no difference that, as Senator Obama has written, his father said he renounced his religion. Likewise, under Muslim law based on the Koran his mother’s Christian background is irrelevant.
Of course, as most Americans understand it, Senator Obama is not a Muslim. He chose to become a Christian, and indeed has written convincingly to explain how he arrived at his choice and how important his Christian faith is to him.
His conversion, however, was a crime in Muslim eyes; it is "irtidad" or "ridda," usually translated from the Arabic as "apostasy," but with connotations of rebellion and treason. Indeed, it is the worst of all crimes that a Muslim can commit, worse than murder (which the victim’s family may choose to forgive).
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.
And therefore?
Who cares?
Even if all the above were true (which it's not), 1) it's absurd to think that any minor has any religion in the first place; can they comprehend what all that entails? and 2) why should we limit our own freedom of conscience and belief based on what some fundamentalist of any stripe dictates?
And who's this Luttwak guy anyway?
Edward N. Luttwak, a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, is the author of "Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace."
Or, as Wikipedia helpfully explains...
He argued that humanitarian intervention should not happen at all. He claimed that it might be best for all parties to let minor wars burn themselves out. Getting in the way can make things worse because you perpetuate war itself. In order to have peace, we have to have the end of war, in order to have the end of war we can't have peace keeping forces stimulating the war. Many NGOs that operate in order of sanctity routinely supply active combatants.[citation needed]
* During the Rwandan genocide a lot of NGOs went in with a lot of food and medicine. But there were thousands of people and NGOs cannot distinguish between who is a legitimate refugee and one that is a killer. The Red Cross has an explicit principle of neutrality. They are able to do what they do with a flag of neutrality with the permission of two opposing sides. This is a problem for intervention in its legitimacy because they are feeding people who commit the atrocities and thus prolonging the war.[citation needed]
Nice guy, that Luttwak...