“We became brothers in love.”

“Now we are united. We became brothers in love,” said Mustafa Khalil, (Mustafa Abdul Jalil) chairman of the National Transitional Council.

Well then.  That explains this, I guess:

Homa Arjomand of the International Campaign Against Sharia Court in Canada said the wives of men who worked under the Gadhafi regime as pharmacists, teachers and other occupations are already being targeted for rape.  "According to Shariah law, enemies' wives should be raped and they have started raping these women already," Arjomand said.

Seems that freedom of the Libya nation only applies to half its population.  Less than half, in fact since children are chattel as well as women.

(Mustafa Abdul Jalil) urged Libyans (employ) “honesty, patience and tolerance” as the nation moves toward reconciliation.

Except when it comes to women, children, and people you just don’t like.  But needing the stamp of legitimacy on their desire to commit horrible atrocities, the interim government simply wipes out all laws and human rights by leaving such things in the hands of the vague interpretation – by men – of a barbaric set of religious laws constructed by men for men.

The top leader of NTC also reiterated that the Islamic sharia would be the main source of the law of new Libya, and any law contradicts with the Islamic sharia would be suspended.  The future of Libya will be created by the Libyan people, Jalil stressed.

So NATO goes in, helps remove a brutal tyrant, and a brutal regime takes over.  It is tempting for some people to throw up their hands and say the hell with such countries, you can’t save them from their own ignorance and cruelty, all we are doing is arming them so that they can then use our own weapons against us and continue to violate the human rights of their own citizens.

A  part of why we fail is that we approach such countries and cultures with a very patronizing, self-righteous, and ignorant attitude, wrongfully assuming that our ways are the best ways for everyone and  that we are somehow entitled to force our values and ways on everyone else.

Another reason – and it’s a big one – why we fail is that our governments – and many of our citizens – freely violate  the very same laws they want to impose on others.  We talk about fairness, equality, international laws applied to all by all in the same way, but our actions do not reflect those ideals we claim to be committed to.

We pick and choose which cases we will defend, which we will ignore, and whose rights we will violate arrogantly believing in our great, superior wisdom and enlightenment and that this entitles us to bend the rules in a case of the ends justifying the means.  But just for us.   All those who are not us are law breakers and savages if they attempt to justify their actions as we do. 

So what can we do to help further the human rights of other human beings?  Bombing the crap out of their country won’t do it, as we have seen over and over.  Some other brutal regime can easily move back in and the people whose homes, families, and workplaces we have destroyed will not likely want to embrace our way of life.

The only way to help spread human rights is to start here, at home, and spread out through example and by providing platforms where women, children, an y other suppressed folks, and human rights activists can speak freely and safely.

Why would any people look to Western societies and believe we are free of corruption, we are fair, all are treated equally?  We violate human rights, we shape our laws to suit the small percentage of wealthy people, we pick and choose who will be punished, we stifle free speech.

We need to make sure that what we ask of others, we can follow ourselves and rather than tell them these methods produce a happier, healthier population, show them by example, then let them decide.  Our governments should keep pressure on other governments to allow access to outside sources of information so that people everywhere have an opportunity to become informed and make decisions on their own behalf.

Rather than bludgeon people into implementing our policies, we should help them gain access to platforms where they can speak freely, exchange ideas, and discuss what policies of their own they would like their government to put in place. 

And we should set an example here that separation of church and state is absolute.  If we allow any religion to enter into our system of forming policies, laws, and legislation, how can we tell others that their laws must not be based on religious beliefs?  That means that here at home, religious based morality cannot be deciding factors in whether or not injection sites should continue, whether or not gay marriage should be allowed, whether or not women have the right to make their own reproductive choices.