Friday, November 18, 2005

A dog is a dog is a dog......



From Matt Taibbi's story on the Pakistan earthquake in The Rolling Stone.....

Even at the level of the individual earthquake victims, there was a perception that the West was uninterested in helping Muslims. Time and again I was asked by quake victims why America hates Muslims, is always making war with Muslims, etc. Two refugees insisted that Osama bin Laden did not exist; one college-educated Muslim aid worker asked me if it was true that Americans called Muslims "dogs.

This sentiment is so widespread that it made it relatively simple for Islamic fundamentalists, in the wake of this accident, to connect three obvious dots. Just like the Falwells after 9/11, local Islamic political groups were quick to ascribe the quake to divine punishment by a politically active God -- in this case one angry with Pakistan's West-leaning policies. They then quickly settled on a rhetorical formula that went something like this: The quake was brought upon Pakistan as punishment for the pro-American policies of Musharraf, who was too corrupt and busy helping the infidel war on terror to help the victims, the proof of which you can see in his incompetence and sloth in sending aid

Taibbi was on MSNBC and the woman interveiwing him on this point had an air of how could Pakistani's buy this crazy notion. Ahhh the irony of it all. Islamic fundamentalists in Pakistan ascribe divine political power to God the Smiter just as Christian fundamentalists do in the US. Maybe we're more alike than people think. As for fundamentalists ...a dog is a dog is a dog.

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