Ending tyranny while protecting Islam
By Bruce Walker
web
posted November 19, 2001
The mass murderers who profess to submit to God's will by crimes against humanity have made it clear that they will crouch behind the Koran, Mohammed, and Muslims in an attempt to encourage pious people to slaughter each other for religion. Bin Ladin and his goons do not trust in the tenets of any religious ethics (just consider how often and how well they lie). Instead, they trust in all the worst aspects of cultural, religious, and political bigotry.
The questions today are not whether, but when, the democracies will have to remove Hussein in Iraq and perhaps some other terrorist rulers of Muslim states. al-Qaida and bin Ladin are counting on this old war between Christendom and Islam to fan the fuels of religious war. That is precisely the sort of war for which a fragile coalition of democracies is ill suited to win.
Many commentators have noted that nations like Bangladesh and Turkey are Muslim nations that embrace peaceful relations with neighbors and wish to enter into the "modern" world of Western Europe, the Pacific Rim, and America. Men like bin Ladin are counting on something, somewhere to combust the old grievances of Islam against the West. President Bush is doing a decent job of choosing words carefully and making symbolic gestures, like "Food for Afghan Children."
This sort of strategy, however, has the weakness of reaction and defense. There is another approach that President Bush could take which would cause confusion and recriminations within militant Islam, and which would throw America-haters like bin Ladin and Hussein back on their heels: liberate Cuba.
Using the ancient Middle Eastern maxim "The friend of my enemy is my friend" bin Ladin and his pals have made common cause with many who not only reject Islam but reject religion entirely. Mohammed made it quite clear that the world was filled with three classes. Muslims, of course, are first. Second class citizens include Jews, Christians, Hindu, and Zoroastrians - People of a book - who accept a metaphysical moral order, but simply have not grasped the final statement of that divine message.
These other religions, however, are not the legal and theological bottom of the barrel. Those who reject any divine order are distinctly inferior, in the Koran and in the teachings of Islam, to religious peoples. Communism, which as a matter of state policy embraces atheism, is consequently the least acceptable form of government to those Muslims who are acting out of religious faith.
Liberating Cuba would, of course, end a brutal regime that contributes mightily to illegal drug trafficking in America. The drug trade of terrorist nations use Cuba as a safe house for their illegal operations, and ending that illegal drug trade would dry up money that al-Qaida needs as much as Columbian drug lords.
Cuba has long been a supporter of terrorism in America. It is not that important whether Castro has coordinated this terrorism with Muslim extremists. The more different terrorist threats, the harder it is for us to figure out who is doing what. Access to what Cuba has been doing will doubtless provide American intelligence agencies with a lot of missing pieces to the puzzle.
Exposing the prisons of Castro's gulag and the deprivation of the Cuban people would be yet another nail in the coffin of Communism, and it would open doors for greater hemispheric economic and political cooperation. It has been awhile since the world was reminded of the true horrors of Communism. Tiananmen Square and the demolishing of the Berlin Wall have been followed twelve years of unthreatening behavior and cozy business deals with companies in the West. Now would be an ideal time to show the world the stark depravity of Communism.
It is also entirely possible that the intelligence organs of Cuba may provide some very interesting information about the shenanigans of some Americans, which ought to prove a well- earned embarrassment to pals of totalitarianism. There is much soft evidence that Communists worked closely with radical leftists in Congress.
This sort of victory for America-lovers would be loathsome to those virulent America-haters (like bin Ladin) who hide behind Islam and use the Koran to mix their noxious blends of tribalism, nationalism, envy, and xenophobia. Yet there is almost nothing that bin Ladin, Hussein, or al-Qaida could say to condemn the liberation of Cuba.
Even more, the new free government of Cuba could promote the building of mosques and Islamic community centers in Cuba. The suppression of all freedom of expression - including the preaching and the practicing of Islam - would be evident and the benefits to serious Muslims (who are still a distinct minority in this world) or promoting genuine toleration would be clear.
The government of Free Cuba should then invite all the leaders of the
Muslim world - and many nations like Turkey, Bangladesh, and Kuwait would
gladly come - to come to open these new mosques, where thanks can be given
to Allah for the good work of the champion of Muslim rights: the United
States of America and its President George W. Bush. 
Bruce Walker is a senior writer with Enter Stage Right. He is also a frequent contributor to The Pragmatist and The Common Conservative.
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