Without saying anything positive about Amir Taheri's conclusions, or agreeing with anything Amir Taheri has to say about ... well, pretty much anything, I would like to direct my Gentle Readers' attention to this article in the National Post, which is, in the arrogant opinion of Your Humble Blogger, well-written and persuasive. In fact, it is an admonishment to me, and my recent note, where I spoke simply and simplistically, in my sudden anger. That's the blogworld, of course, and I stand by what I said, but I ought to have added what I know and what Mr. Taheri's commentary reminded me, that sweeping statements about the Muslim World or the Arab World are not only potentially offensive, but can easily obscure what the World is actually like. My perception of the universe (by necessity incomplete) can only get worse when I get in my own way.
While I'm at it, my buddy David links in a comment to an article by Alan Dowd in the National Review. This is, as he rightly said, scary stuff; if I occasionally slip in my fight to keep my blinkers off, there are those who seem to want ever narrower blinkers. The scary thing is not that there are nutballs who want Armaggedon, but that some of the nutballs appear to have the ears of decisionmakers.
Thank you,
-Vardibidian.