The Facts Will Just Confuse Them.

There's a terrific Op-ed piece ("Moslems Deserve Better Than Stereotyping") in today's News Leader, in which Nick Patler reminds us that most Moslems alive today are NOT in the Middle East, do not speak Arabic, and that only a tiny percentage of Moslems can be considered terrorists. And yet many among us in America would have us believe that all Moslems want to destroy us and that the solution to that problem is to destroy them first. Fact-filled articles like Patler's are important, but I'm afraid that until they hear it from Rush Limbaugh (the NewsLeader, after all, is part of the hated "Mainstream Media"), the truth just won't sink in. (Patler doesn't mention Indonesia, a country in which I've spent a lot of time. The population is over 250 Million and predominantly Moslem, making it the largest Moslem country in the world. Except when America is waging war against Moslem countries for no reason--i.e., now--Indonesia is our friend.)

Here's my take: while the current clash of cultures today isn't only about religion, religion isn't helping. Radical Christians and Radical Moslems are raising their rhetoric to deafening volumes and the rest of us are caught in the middle. What most conservative Americans don't seem willing to hear is that America's own behavior is what has earned us the hatred of the terrorists--our military presence in the Middle East, our exploitative economic policies toward developing and underdeveloped countries, our arrogance in general. It has only gotten worse since the collapse of the Soviet Union as America has tried to push its agenda onto people who are capable of making their own decisions. It is our Arrogance they hate--not our Freedom.

While I'm at it, one of our local arch-conservatives (I like to use the term "Reactionary Right" but this guy is even beyond that) has been critical of Nancy Pelosi's visit to Syria. Okay, Bush wasn't happy about it so I can understand that his apologists would be critical. That's fair. But let's remember that Pelosi's visit and her meeting with the President of Syria were preceded by a delegation of Congressional Republicans, yet Bush singles out Pelosi and Mr. Arch-Conservative Blogger totally ignores that others have made the same trip. He makes it worse by using vulgur terms to refer to Pelosi, making it clear that this guy is not just a nutty extremist, he's also a misogynist. Just what the world needs--another gun-toting, Moslem-bashing, liberal-bating, woman-hater. Where are the re-education camps when you need them?