Those Ridiculous Clerics!
The nerve of these people!
We are outraged. We are livid. This kind of barbarity cannot be permitted in civilized society.
Mahmoud Shaaban is an “ultraconservative” Islamic cleric in Egypt. “Hard-line,” “orthodox” – whatever. In the name of his great religion, he and his fellow cleric Wagdi Ghoneim have issued fatwas (edicts) calling for the deaths of Egypt’s opposition leaders. Shaaban said on a recently aired TV show that political opponents of the President should be punished. By death.
The reason? According to the Mullahs, Egypt’s opposition leaders, including former Atomic Energy Commission chief Mohamed ElBaradei, are seeking to “bring down” a publicly elected leader, the deeply religious Mohamed Morsi.
Ergo: these political opponents deserve to be eliminated with extreme prejudice.
Composing “kill lists” without judicial oversight — without any oversight — is an offense to human decency. Who do these Islamic clerics think they are, deciding who should live and who should die? God? Judge, jury and executioner?
Who do these crazy Muslims think they are, encouraging the murder of non-combatants solely because of what they think and say?
Who do these power-mad leaders think they are? Barack Obama?
News flash to Cairo: you’re not. You’re no Barry Obama, and you never will be. So you might as well just stop trying to emulate him. Don’t assume you have his executive powers.
Sure, extra-judicial assassinations are sort of sexy at the moment, but only when you use unmanned drones equipped with life-extinguishing missiles, not wooden clubs and machetes.
Also, sorry to be a jerk, but when all you do is read the Koran and service your wives, you’re not exactly well-informed. You’re certainly not as well-informed as Barack Obama, who reads all sorts of educational materials, including CIA briefings that help him understand who’s been thinking and saying bad things and who are therefore an “imminent threat” to the United States of America.
Also, our President kills people on foreign soil. Not his own. Big difference.
Unlike us Americans, the Mullahs of Egypt aren’t at war with anyone. We are. We’re at war with Terror. Them? They have some ideological grievances with political opponents and call it a war, the “War on Islamic Values,” or something. But it’s not a real war, like ours.
There are evil people out there who would like nothing better than to hurt American citizens, American property, and American overseas business interests. Some of them may in fact even be American citizens! We trust our perfectly reasonable President – or his special advisor, or someone from the CIA, or whatever – to know who the malefactors are and keep us safe.
No one is safe in Egypt. How can Egyptians trust supposedly infallible Islamic clerics who confuse themselves with the Leader of the Free World?
