Sticks and Stones

The other day I noticed that the Right was all up in another one of their panic fits because a new Libyan leader stated that Sharia law would be the basis for law in the new Libyan republic. Uh-oh, that means it's a future terrorist state, they are saying.

Juan Cole points out that the constitutions of Afghanistan and Iraq, both drafted under the guidance of the Bush Administration, each explicitly provide that all laws must conform to Islamic law:

But there is no hand-wringing about those two “liberated” countries and Islamic law or sharia. I guess if secular, communist Afghanistan was made fundamentalist by Reagan and Bush, or if the relatively secular Baath Party of Iraq was overthrown by W. in favor of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq and the Islamic Call Party and the Bloc of Ayatollah Sadr II, that is unobjectionable and not even reported on. But if there’s a Democratic president in the White House, all of a sudden it is a scandal if Muslims practice Muslim law.