An Afghani who was Moslem converted to Christianity and was recently on trial for his life in an Afghan court because the Koran prescribes the death penalty for apostates, even though the new Afghan Constitution guarantees freedom of religion. The Afghan Constitution also calls for compliance with Islamic law, and even though the Afghani is now free and in exile in Italy, the Afghan Parliament protested the release and the most important issues remain unresolved.

        The Bush administration, together with other western governments, put extreme pressure on the Afghan government to permit freedom of religion and to release the accused apostate Afghani. Western public opinion, of course, was solidly in favor of the apostate’s right to practice Christianity and was generally horrified at the intolerance of Islamic law, while western governments found themselves in the embarrassing position of explaining to their constituents why they sponsored the creation of such an intolerant state. The fundamental conflict between Islamic and Christian morality was profoundly illustrated by this case and points out a series of questions which must be answered in regard to our relations with all Islamic states, as well as between individual Christians and Moslems.

        The first question, it seems to this writer, is which takes priority, our economic and security interests, or our basic moral values? What values are we willing to compromise in order to maintain our prosperity? How far are we willing to go to remain the richest civilization in the history of the world? Saudi Arabia, a Sunni Moslem state where Mecca is located and where women are chattel, has more than half of the world’s oil reserves. We can not maintain our economy without Saudi oil, and without exploiting their oil resource one way or another, Saudi Arabians will have to go back to living in tents and eating goat. And as a corollary, the Saudi royal family will have to leave the country, quickly. They are also considered apostates by Moslems, because of their life styles, and oil revenues, which they control, are the only source of their security.

        If we forgo purchasing oil from the Islamic states, the Chinese and North Koreans will be only too happy to take up the slack, while the oil states themselves, especially Iran, will use oil internally to catch up with the economies and technology of the west. Iraq and Palestine have already clearly shown us to what lengths Moslems are willing to go in their Jihad against Crusaders. And by the way, oil is the primary reason why Israel’s wall to separate themselves from Palestine will not work, in the long run. Oh yes, and Russia, with their oil and gas surplus, will finally have an economic advantage over us.

        Should we fall back on history to give us a solution? Should we practice genocide on the Moslems while we still can, the way Protestants and Catholics murdered each other in the British Isles a few hundred years ago and, come to think of it, continued to do until just last year? Should we begin another Crusade, as our ancestors in Europe did a thousand years ago, with the full support of the Roman Church, I might add? Or should we junk our cars and return to a subsistence economy? How romantic would pioneers and cowboys be if we had to use steam power again, instead of the internal combustion engine, had to walk to wherever we need to go and had to churn our butter by hand? And how long would we be allowed to continue this lifestyle, without fuel for our planes and tanks?

        I’m sorry. I believe I must have exhausted your attention span before I got to the second question. But I hope we can already agree that we need some seriously competent people to address the problems created by Bush and Blair, and that we can’t expect altruism from oil barons who have made their obscene fortunes by exploiting the Arabs and their oil, nor can we expect the current administration to repent their arrogance and suddenly adopt a respect for intellect. As I have said before, it’s not my fault. I didn’t vote for the ~!@#$%^&*())_+`{}|:”<>?! But then, John Kerry showed his disdain for “red state” voters, while Al Gore didn’t have the courage or skill to defend his presidency after he won it, and Bill Clinton could run the government but couldn’t control himself. Pray for God’s intervention and look for brave leaders of wisdom and honor. There’s got to be another Roosevelt, Churchill or Jackson out there somewhere.