September 2011
U.N. “Anti-Racism” Conference Attacks “Islamophobia”
Ten years ago, a UN conference in Durban, South Africa, featured “racism, xenophobia, and related intolerance.” The conference was a hate fest with only two targets: Israel and “Western Imperialism.” It was so ugly that most Western ambassadors walked out, past banners that equated Israelis with Nazis and much worse: posters illustrating the Koranic claim that Jews are descendants of pigs and apes.
Durban II, held in Geneva in 2009, keynoted that famously “toler more...
How Did the Media Cover 9/11?
Ten years after the most horrific foreign attack on America (the British in I812 and the Japanese in 1941), we are looking back to see how this attack affected our national character. Considering the horrific nature of 9/11, we responded with astonishing nobility and some expected missteps. We are a nation that habitually underestimates an enemy-and then overestimates this same enemy. It takes a while to get it right.
Watching how people in New York, especially the first r more...
Let Us Put the 10th Anniversary of 9/11 In Context.
Ten years ago, Al Qaeda attacked New York and Washington (and more if they could have pulled it off). How could we not see this coming? And are we lulling ourselves into sleep again?
o Failed Awareness. After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1989, no other credible enemy appeared on the horizon. To us, an enemy was a superpower with nuclear weapons. Not even China appeared to be a viable menace to us-at least, not for a long time.
Some of us, however, were more...
Which “Defamation of Religion” Does the UN Human Right Commission Dislike?
Some people claim that the Norwegian mass murderer was inspired by “Islamophobes,” people critical of Militant Islam. They say that warnings by such scholars as Robert Spenser and Brigitte Gabriel about Islamists infiltrating European culture fostered Mr. Breivik’s rampage. Perhaps, they may think, if nobody said anything unpleasant about Islam, the European Right Wing might have gone after their usual target, Jews, rather than Muslims, and nobody would care. But the problem of integrating more...