Yesterday was the day the Defense Department, under court order, was supposed to release the rest of the Abu Ghraib photos and videos – the really bad ones (which we all just can’t wait to see). But the government refused to turn them over and is filing new appeals, arguing that their release will threaten the safety of individuals pictured therein.
What. A. Surprise.
You have to wonder how long it’ll be before the photos and videos find their way onto the internet in spite of Donald Rumsfeld’s increasingly frantic efforts to contain them. Not very long, I suspect.
And now Muslim terrorists have killed more than 80 innocent civilians in Sharm el-Sheikh, an Egyptian Red Sea resort. Almost all the dead are Egyptians, and Egypt is a Muslim country. Since I’m thinking in terms of how long, I wonder how long it’ll be before Muslims turn on the jihadists and run them out of town. Hasn’t happened so far in Iraq, which should be setting off alarms. Do rank-and-file Muslims support the jihadists? I can’t believe they do.
I won’t link to people who put up racist web sites and blogs, but a bunch of them are beginning to call for repatriation of Muslims, both here and in the UK. And some are calling for worse.
“It is usually when men are at their most religious that they behave with the least sense and the greatest cruelty.” -Ilka Chase
Amen, sister.
Dick 07/25/05 7:23 AM
Re: your earlier comment about living in interesting times. It is indeed a curse. Re: rank and file Muslims. A recent pole in the UK held that 25% of Muslims in the UK were in sympathy with the terrorists. If true, OUCH!
More and more, we are realizing that the solution to terrorism lies in the Muslim community. If they are to save their religion, and establish any sort of relationship with the modern world, they must condemn terrorism and terrorists. So far that hasn’t happened. If the Muslims won’t solve the problem, then, eventially, we will. Exactly how is worrisome.
Paul Woodford 07/25/05 5:21 PM
Dick,
I suspect most Muslims totally reject terrorism and terrorists, and that many prominent Muslim leaders have spoken out against it. But what gets reported are the comments of jihadists, praising terrorism. I’m really worried that everyone’s getting whipped up into a racial/religious froth, and it’s going to be hard to prevent bad things from happening. But like I said in my original entry, what the hell do I know?
Unfortunately, given the sorry state of American print, radio, and television reporting, that’s about all any of us can say: what the hell do we know?