Love Me I'm a Liberal
Benny Morris: 'There is a deep problem in Islam. It's a world whose values are different. Human life doesn't have the same value as it does in the West. They are barbarians ... something like a cage has to be built for them. I know that sounds terrible. It is really cruel. But there is no choice. There is a wild animal there that has to be locked up.'Martin Amis: 'The Muslim community will have to suffer until it gets its house in order.” What sort of suffering? Not letting them travel. Deportation—further down the road. Curtailing of freedoms. Strip-searching people who look like they’re from the Middle East or from Pakistan. . . . Discriminatory stuff, until it hurts the whole community.'
Christopher Hitchens: 'This is not to deny (Mark) Steyn’s salient point that demography and cultural masochism, especially in combination, are handing a bloodless victory to the forces of Islamization. His gift for the illustrative anecdote and the revealing quotation is evident, and if more people have woken up to the Islamist menace since he began writing about it, then the credit is partly his. Muslims in one part of England demand the demolition of an ancient statue of a wild boar, and in another part of England make plots to blow up airports, buses, and subway trains. The two threats are not identical. But they are connected, and Steyn attempts to tease out the filiations with the saving tactic of wit.'
posted by Brendan @ 10:57 AM
4 Comments:
Brendan, Cohen should be congratulated for growing out of the nonthinking herd group-think that so fatally condemned much of the left.
I said to lenin that Cohen's piece touched a nerve. No I seriously do. The left do like to go around believing they are good and moral people (you for instance never miss a chance to pretend you are the saviour of brown people) unlike those nasty Kissinger realpolitiker types, but Cohen outlines how you're no different, if not even worse. because of your hypocrisy and turn coat activites. His story, shared by many, at the genuine shock at seeing you people line up with fascism so comprehensively just to oppose the US, and your completely facile approach to Islamist terrorism, is very important and revealing. The fact that you can only attack him on his down to earth writing style speaks volumes.
You'll read the book and you'll like it.
Secondly, Blair is right that Saudi Arabia has a different culture which involves head chopping and otheer odious stuff. That doesn't mean it's equal to our culture, of course. Blair never said that either.
PS. There is a facility on blogger to stop spam by requring commentators to type in a code.
I agree with you that Bush and Blair should intervene much more in the middle east to root out opression and anti semitism - indeed the neocons have been calling for this - but the idea that the governments of Jordan and Egypt are more anti semitic than Iran and Syria is somewhat far fetched.
Actually, read further down that article and its clear a change has begun in his thinking. The first part of the article seems cover for him to make this point:
"To make matters much worse, they have a small point. Plenty of prejudices float in any self-respecting lefty's conversation. Hollywood has cretinised modern culture, the lefty says. All conglomerates are conspiracies against the public interest, though, oddly, arms manufacturers, European as well as American, are never protrayed as the most pernicious corporations, the lefty's fire being directed mainly at Monsanto (whose GM foods have never been proven to endanger public health) and McDonald's (which is just one supplier of industrial food among many others, including the local school's canteen). And, yes, a village in Texas advertised for a new idiot when George W Bush entered the White House.
I instinctively go along with a few of the above, but there's no use in pretending that they're ideas in which prejudice isn't a component, or that they are necessarily left-wing"....etc
'but Cohen outlines how you're no different'.
This may of course be true, but, ipso facto it also means (therefore) that Cohen et al are (even by your own logic) ALSO racists, and anti-semites etc. (If this is not true, your last comment has no meaning).
'Secondly, Blair is right that Saudi Arabia has a different culture which involves head chopping and otheer odious stuff. That doesn't mean it's equal to our culture, of course. Blair never said that either.'
'His story, shared by many, at the genuine shock at seeing you people line up with fascism'.
Blah blah blah. When have I, personally, ever lined up with fascism (and spare me the weaselly 'well maybe not you but people like you' answer).
No, but he did say it was a 'friend to the West'.
'but the idea that the governments of Jordan and Egypt are more anti semitic than Iran and Syria is somewhat far fetched.'
Of course you omit the West's oldest and best friend Saudi Arabia. Are you prepared to stand here and state that in your opinion Iran is more anti-semitic than Saudi Arabia?
'oddly, arms manufacturers, European as well as American, are never protrayed as the most pernicious corporations,'
Interesting use of the word 'never' there by Cohen.
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