matching tracksuits

So I recently admitted to reading the Washington Times.

Sure, it’s a rough-and-tumble mouthpiece of the right wing, but it’s so much fun. Just look at this stuff from the op-eds:

• The French irritation with America grows out of wounded pride, a sense that France is not as important in the world as it once was, but a President Sarkozy might restore some of that lost pride and with it an appreciation for stronger links with America. (Suzanne Fields)
• The following are the chamber remarks of the fictional Lord Harold Reid (whose fictional grandson, in the 21st century would become leader of the fictional Democratic Party in the U.S. Senate).I regret to have to stand up tonight, on the day of defeat at the hands of the Germans of our French ally’s armies at Sedan and on the Meuse River to observe that on this solemn occasion Prime Minister Winston Churchill has chosen to politicize and cheapen the moment. (Tony Blankley)
• Just as the mainstream media is fond of Bush bashing and calling all Republicans right-wingers — even when there is no conspiracy — the local press view politicians through biased eyes. They demonize pro-life politicians as anti-abortion rights; they view advocates of school choice as opposing public schools; they write profusely about a Jewish Democratic candidate Ben Cardin beating Kweisi Mfume, who has a African name, in Maryland with only 44 percent of the Democratic vote, and practically ignore the fact that Michael Steele, a black Catholic Republican, bested his primary run with 87 percent of the vote — nearly twice that of Mr. Cardin. (Deborah Simmons)
• Yet the ephemerality of the sense of solidarity, to me, seems more an indication of its artificiality than of squandered sustainability. The United States, in the post-September 11 world, would be going places where few would be able to follow even if they were inclined to do so, starting with Afghanistan. Because Afghanistan was a quick success in terms of ousting the Taliban government and scattering al Qaeda to the four winds, people tend to forget the “graveyard of empires” analysis that swirled around the notion of dispatching the U.S. military to undertake “regime change” there. People also tend to forget the early reports of a bogged-down operation. (Tod Lindberg)

Good stuff…

Seriously, though, I find it difficult to understand folks who say, for example, “Oh, I never read the New York Times — too much liberal bias.” How would one know, then?

“I don’t watch CNN because it’s owned by Ted Turner.” “I don’t read the Washington Times because it’s owned by Sung Yung Moon.” I don’t see much difference.

Occasionally I’ll even find myself somewhat agreeing with the WT — but that’s for another day.

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Thud is right: it’s not fair to compare reactions of well-fed Westerners to those of poverty-stricken Middle Easterners. To boil it down to Islam is overly simplistic.

Yet I could be a lot more sympathetic to the anger of Muslims about Benedict XVI’s statements if it were not so hypocritical. Apparently it is alright for Muslim clerics to call Jews apes and pigs, to say Christianity is a twisted religion, to dismiss the spirituality of Hindism with the blanket term of “idolatry.” Below are a few quotes from sermons delivered in Saudi Arabia between 1997 and 2000, collected in Hatred’s Kindom: How Saudi Arabia Supports the New Global Terrorism:

• Christianity is a “distorted and twisted religion.”
• “The idea of intertwining religions and the claim that the Jews and the Christians believe in religions of truth … are sinful arguments and deceitful ideas unacceptable to the religion of [Islam]. … It is forbidden for man to bring together Islam and blasphemy, monotheism and polytheism … Allah’s straight path of righteousness and the satanic path of heresy.”
• “There is no similarity between Christianity and Islam. Islam is a pure and clean religion believing in the oneness of Allah … whereas Christianity is a deviation from the right path.”
• The Talmud is “the holy book of the Satanish Jews.”
• “The idol-worshiping Hindus indulge in their open hatred against our brothers in Muslim Kashmir.”
• Jews are the “brothers of apes and pigs.”
• “The present behavior of the brothers of pigs and monkeys, their treason, their violation of agreements, the ritual impurity they bring to places of worship … are connected to the deeds of their fathers’ fathers that lived at the beginning of Islam.”

And what’s being taught in the Saudi schools? A few quotes from textbooks:

• “Jews and Christians are the enemies of believers[;] they will never approve of Muslims, beware of them.”
• “Muslims will kill all the Jews.”
• “It’s allowed to demolish, burn, or destroy the bastions of the kufar — and all that constitutes their shield from Muslims — if that was for the sake of victory of the Muslims or the defeat of the kufar.”

More examples are available here.

The pope is being painted as a Crusader who wants to suppress Islam in the West, indeed, in the whole world. Yet what happens to Christians in Saudi Arabia? From the State Department’s “International Religious Freedom” report:

The Government prohibits public non-Muslim religious activities. Non-Muslim worshippers risk arrest, imprisonment, lashing, deportation, and sometimes torture for engaging in overt religious activity that attracts official attention. The Government has stated publicly, including before the U.N. Committee on Human Rights in Geneva, that its policy is to protect the right of non-Muslims to worship privately; however, it does not provide explicit guidelines–such as the number of persons permitted to attend and acceptable locations–for determining what constitutes private worship, which makes distinctions between public and private worship unclear. Such lack of clarity, as well as instances of arbitrary enforcement by the authorities, force most non-Muslims to worship in such a manner as to avoid discovery by the Government or others. Those detained for non-Muslim worship almost always are deported by authorities after sometimes lengthy periods of arrest during investigation. In some cases, they also are sentenced to receive lashes prior to deportation.

The Government does not permit non-Muslim clergy to enter the country for the purpose of conducting religious services, although some come under other auspices and perform religious functions in secret. Such restrictions make it very difficult for most non-Muslims to maintain contact with clergymen and attend services. Catholics and Orthodox Christians, who require a priest on a regular basis to receive the sacraments required by their faith, particularly are affected. (Source)

Of course, now the pope has apologized and all this is a moot point. Probably people in Gaza saying things like this had nothing to do with it:

During one rally gunmen in Gaza city opened fire at the Greek Orthodox church; no injuries or damage were reported. An unknown organization named “The sword of Islam claimed responsibility for the incident.

“We want to make it clear that if the pope does not appear on TV and apologize for his comments, we will blow up all of Gaza’s churches,”� the group said in a statement. (Source)

Nor did his apology have nothing to do with peaceful Western Muslims saying things like “Pope Benedict go to Hell” “Pope Benedict you will pay, the Muja Hadeen are coming your way” “Pope Benedict watch your back.” (Source)

Still, one has to wonder when the Muslim clerics who called Jew monkeys and Christianity a twisted religion will apologize…

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