On Cause and Effect
Jules Crittenden raised a very good point over the weekend, and I wanted to elaborate on it with some additional illustrations. The initial report leading to Jules' article was a wire story over the weekend that King Abdullah of Jordan sees three wars brewing in the Middle East, and somehow feels that the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is central to all of them.
This notion, as Jules points out, is repeated often by the intelligensia and media of every Western country, people who are ordinarily enthralled with the notion that somehow, somewhere, their ancestors are responsible for all of the evil in the world.
As usual, these people could not be more wrong.
When the more "intelligent" amongst us suggest that somehow, the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is the core issue leading to war between Islamic militants and the West, they are neglecting to mention other conflicts which don't so neatly fit into their ideological pit. Christian girls being beheaded in the name of Ramadan in Indonesia. Muslim warlords killing Christians and animists in Sudan. A Buddhist teacher being burned alive by Muslims in Thailand.
The list goes on and on, resulting in more than 1800 deaths in the past 23 months, all wholly unrelated to the Arab/Israeli conflict.
So why, then, do we continue to hear the same pack of lies about the "roots of conflict" in the world? The only thread common to all of these incidents that I can find is Islam.
Dare I say that the intelligensia amongst us are so blind in their own hatred of the West that they're predisposed to missing the obvious?
I dare.
I also dare to say that if there were more courageous editors running our wire services, as Jules runs the esteemed Boston Herald, we'd stand a chance of hearing some actual reporting, and I'd be willing to bet that the newspaper industry as a whole wouldn't be in such poor shape.
Keep taking it to the competition, Jules!
This notion, as Jules points out, is repeated often by the intelligensia and media of every Western country, people who are ordinarily enthralled with the notion that somehow, somewhere, their ancestors are responsible for all of the evil in the world.
As usual, these people could not be more wrong.
When the more "intelligent" amongst us suggest that somehow, the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is the core issue leading to war between Islamic militants and the West, they are neglecting to mention other conflicts which don't so neatly fit into their ideological pit. Christian girls being beheaded in the name of Ramadan in Indonesia. Muslim warlords killing Christians and animists in Sudan. A Buddhist teacher being burned alive by Muslims in Thailand.
The list goes on and on, resulting in more than 1800 deaths in the past 23 months, all wholly unrelated to the Arab/Israeli conflict.
So why, then, do we continue to hear the same pack of lies about the "roots of conflict" in the world? The only thread common to all of these incidents that I can find is Islam.
Dare I say that the intelligensia amongst us are so blind in their own hatred of the West that they're predisposed to missing the obvious?
I dare.
I also dare to say that if there were more courageous editors running our wire services, as Jules runs the esteemed Boston Herald, we'd stand a chance of hearing some actual reporting, and I'd be willing to bet that the newspaper industry as a whole wouldn't be in such poor shape.
Keep taking it to the competition, Jules!
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