18 November 2004

Islamic tolerance

[source]

Mimount Bousakla, a female, socialist Belgian senator of Moroccan origin has gone into hiding. Already in hiding is a female Dutch politician of Somali Muslim origin who is now a critic of Islam, Ayaan Hirsi Ali. (Her first name is also sometimes spelt Ayan or Ayann.) She helped Theo Van Gogh make the film Submission. They got him, now they hope to get her too.

What other religion has national legislators hiding in fear? Doesn’t it strike any of the EUlite as a problem? But it’s not just Europe.

[source]

UQAM has cancelled a planned speech by U.S. ambassador Paul Celucci because of - you guessed it - “security concerns”.

If you’re not willing to defend your nation externally, soon enough you won’t be able to protect it internally either.

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A failure to communicate

[source, source]

“Given that [the president] heads the most powerful nation in the world but that it has the worst reputation of all time, there is a paradox,” says Stanley Symington, a retired marketing executive in England. “He should pay more attention to restoring America’s reputation in the world, rather than to guarding its security.”

How can one even discuss issues with a person like that? It’s the same thing as suggesting that women spend their efforts on looking pretty for house invaders, rather than spending the time at the shooting range.

But even high ranking officials are almost as clueless:

A more productive approach, suggests Karsten Voigt, a top adviser to German Chancellor Gerhard Schrööder, would be to pay more attention to America’s friends.

“In the end even the world superpower USA needs allies and they can’t get any better ones than the Europeans,” he told German radio on Wednesday. “And in order to have Europe on their side they need to keep an open ear to our arguments.”

The USA is paying attention to its friends. You’re just not working for one of them. Morever, the idea that European allies are the best available doesn’t pass the laugh test over here across the pond. Once the EUlite grasp that fact, they may have a chance at understanding current USA foreign policy.

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Old Media Bias Watch

[source]

A Reuters dispatch on Time magazine’s “person” of the year notes that among those under consideration are Mel Gibson and Michael Moore:

Gibson was proposed for directing “The Passion of the Christ,” a controversial film seen by many as anti-Semitic. Moore made “Fahrenheit 9/11,” a film highly critical of the Bush administration which was a huge box office hit.

According to RottenTomatoes.com, the box-office take from “Fahrenheit” is just over $119 million, less than one-third the $370 million “Passion” has made. Yet the “news” service describes “Fahrenheit” as the “huge box office hit” and says nothing about what critics have said about it.

At least Reuters didn’t put sneer quotes around “film”.

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