Sunday, February 19, 2006

Islamofascist thuggery and the US Media

Jeff Jacoby notes the effects of Islamofascist thug tactics on the US media -- in contrast to more than two dozen papers in Europe that have published the Danish cartoons in a show of solidarity with Jyllands-Posten, only a handful or so in the US have published the pictures. Many more have used weasel logic or vapid idiocies (i.e., they wouldn't print anti-Semitic or anti-black cartoons -- complete rubbish as Jacoby notes). At least the Boston Phoenix had the honesty to admit it had been terrorized into silence.

The impact is clear, as Jacoby notes:

Like the Nazis in the 1930s and the Soviet communists in the Cold War, the Islamofascists are emboldened by appeasement and submissiveness. Give the rampagers and book-burners a veto over artistic and editorial decisions, and you end up not with heightened sensitivity and cultural respect, but with more rampages and more books burned. You betray ideals that generations of Americans have died to defend.

And worse than that: You betray as well the dissidents and reformers within the Islamic world, the Muslim Sakharovs and Sharanskys and Havels who yearn for the free, tolerant, and democratic culture that we in the West take for granted. What they want to see from America is not appeasement and apologies and a dread of giving offense. They want to see us face down the fanatics, be unintimidated by bullies. They want to know that in the global struggle against Islamist extremism, we won't let them down.

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