Al-Qaeda, Prostitution, & Baghdad

Al-Qaeda, Prostitution, & Baghdad

This April 18, 2009 New York Times article discusses how the relative peace and calm of Baghdad is allowing traditional vice problems, such as gambling, alcohol, and prostitution, to return. An interesting point:

One police detective said he would not dream of enforcing the law against prostitutes. “They’re the best sources we have,” said the detective, whose name is being withheld for his safety. “They know everything about JAM and Al Qaeda members,” he said, using the acronym for Jaish al-Mahdi or Mahdi Army, a Shiite militia.

It is an article of faith among liberals that every person who disapproves of homosexuality is actually a closeted homosexual, or one who is fighting those urges. There are certainly enough really embarrassing examples of this, such as Ted Haggard. Can we be surprised that members of two zealous Islamist groups, JAM and Al-Qaeda, would be frequenting prostitutes? Is it surprising that Democrats, the party of raising taxes, and calling the paying of taxes a patriotic duty, seem to have some trouble actually following through? What about gun control advocates breaking lots of gun control laws?

I think there's actual a bit more than just hypocrites screaming about vices to distract attention from their own failings. There are people who genuinely consider action X to be sinful--but are so deeply attracted to it that they can't stop themselves. When they preach against X, it isn't because they don't consider X a sin, but because they are trying to prevent others from going down the same destructive path that they are traveling.

In other cases, such persons may be decrying X in the hope that they will receive absolution for their own actions. "Maybe God will forgive me a little for what I did, because I tried to prevent others from doing this."

Some of the 9/11 terrorists spent the night before in strip joints. I suspect that since they were headed off a martyrs' death, that whatever sin they were involved in, would be straightened out by their part in causing thousands of innocent deaths. (My, that's twisted logic.)

Of course, opposition to X sometimes just means...opposition to X. We don't assume that every person who advocates for the environment is secretly running a strip mine in the Appalachians, or even that they have that desire.