Wednesday, February 08, 2006
Schadenfreude
I've read in a month of Sundays, really can't stand Europeans:It's hard not to feel a certain amount of Schadenfreude after enduring endless lectures from Europeans about how the Middle East's problems were all made in America. It will be fascinating to watch the Europeans attempt to come to grips with fanaticism.
Even a French philosopher can't forever glorify a civilization that puts more energy into calling for death to cartoonists than it does into human rights, education or good government.
For once, we Americans can sit back and watch the fight (pass the popcorn, please). The Europeans are going to get a few more teeth knocked out. As for the Islamist bigots intent on destroying what's left of their own decayed societies, they'll lose at least a few of their European apologists — the sort who make excuses for terrorists, as long as they only kill Americans (or Muslims).
I don't with everything in this essay, insofar as elswhere in it Peters calls the Europeans to task for continuing to publish these cartoons. You have to read him, though, because he is enormously perceptive and entirely unafraid of writing his version of hard truth. And unlike most columnists, Peters' hard truth is actually, er, hard. Not like Paul Krugman, who might declare "the hard truth is, our President is an incompetent totem-worshipping illiterate," but like this little beauty:
War is not a game of tit-for-tat. The correct proportional response to any attack on the United States or its interests is to strike back with such devestating force that even friendly nations are shocked.
(New Glory
Which probably explains why he is anti-European.
5 Comments:
By 
, at
Wed Feb 08, 06:27:00 AM:
Peter's truth is not actually that hard. But Peter's take on this is just what appeaser's would like.
I, on the other hand, feel that this is what is needed.
Radical and not so radical Muslims, those who believe the Koran and Sura is the only way, have been pushing for change within the political system for years (Read Lewis, Bat Year, and others for a description of the insideous coopting of Western values.)
The manufactured outrage has shown up the radicals for what they are at a time when they are not fully ready to exploit the situation.
I just hope that the West (is there a better word to describe that portion of the world not fully paying obeisance to Islam) take's note of the warning it has received.
By 
PeterBoston, at
Wed Feb 08, 08:06:00 AM:
I've had it trying to exract the "moderates" by shaking Islam through a civilizational sieve. Certainly some Muslims are good people but it's despite the ideology and not because of it.
By , at
Wed Feb 08, 04:27:00 PM:
French Resistance MAY BE RISING!
And they have a " bigger set" than the NYT's who only picks
on those who do not make habit of behaving badly.
French Print New Cartoon - Muslims Outraged! - Chirac Sweats
Muslim Leaders lose court battle to stifle free speech in France,
VIDEO HERE
The French weekly, Charlie-Hebdo, adds new fuel to "cartoon controversy" willing to go to where most US papers would not dare.
Charlie-Hebdo takes it up a notch...
The French Paper Charlie-Hebdo bears the headline "Mohammed stressed out by the fundamentalists" and a cartoon of the prophet in tears uttering the words "It's hard to be loved by fools." (AFP)
Click here: Gateway Pundit: French Print New Cartoon - Muslims Outraged! - Chirac Sweats
http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2006/02/french-print-new-cartoon-muslims.html#comments
dung-clotted “Holy Virgin Mary” photo in today's NYT'S
Today in TimesWatch:
(Headlines link to online postings with links to cited articles & sources)
Hypocrisy on Parade: Times Runs Photo of Dung-Clotted “Virgin Mary”
Just yesterday the Times wrote in an editorial on the Danish cartoons of Mohammad that “The New York Times and much of the rest of the nation's news media have reported on the cartoons but refrained from showing them. That seems a reasonable choice for news organizations that usually refrain from gratuitous assaults on religious symbols, especially since the cartoons are so easy to describe in words.”
Apparently the Arts pages didn’t get the memo, because it runs a photo of Chris Ofili’s dung-clotted “Holy Virgin Mary” in Wednesday’s Arts section story by Michael Kimmelman, who calls the Danish cartoons “callous and feeble.”
This is the most striking example yet of the double standard by the Times when it comes to art that offends religious sensibilities.
Gateway Pundit also post on the NYT's.
Any chance that the NYT's is also rising - trying to get Christians
to burn news stands - to prove all cultures are equal!
By , at
Wed Feb 08, 09:37:00 PM:
I think that the double standard is actually a manifestation of the same double standard that condemns American troops for violating rules of engagement but ignores the egregious crimes of their Muslim enemies. Namely, the MSM believes that Muslims are not capable of being civilized, or, at least, that they are much less capable of doing it than other groups. As you point out, the NYT knows that Christians aren't going to start a worldwide, violent protest over a sacriligious depiction of their holy symbols, but they apparently fell that it's not possible to hold Muslims to that same standard. Perhaps they're right, or perhaps they're right because they've said it so often that it's become the truth. Sort of a chicken and egg situation at this point.
By SeekerBlog.com, at
Thu Feb 09, 07:48:00 AM:
Wretchard just posted a bit of a shocker, based on two Egyptian blogs: Rantings of a Sandmonkey, and Freedom for Egyptians. As Amir Taheri wrote in today's WSJ, not only is the current 'firestorm' a result of orchestration by the Egyptian Brotherhood, but the troublesome pics were published in Egypt October 2005!
Freedom For Egyptians reminded me why the cartoons looked so familiar to me: they were actually printed in the Egyptian Newspaper Al Fagr back in October 2005. I repeat, October 2005, during Ramadan, for all the egyptian muslim population to see, and not a single squeak of outrage was present!
