Today’s “Outlook” section of the Washington Post has two most interesting articles. One, by Robin Sheperd, details the submission of the BBC, the Manchester Guardian, and other arbiters of opinion to anti-liberal Islamic radicals who brook no criticism of their agenda of killing Jews, Christians, Hindus, atheists, homosexuals, uncovered women, Islamic apostates, Americans, and anyone else whom they consider ungodly.
In contrast to the attitude of most European (and American) intellectuals, who are unwilling to defend the freedom they enjoy, Adnan Pachachi, a distinguished Iraqi diplomat who returned to his country after 35 years of exile to become a member of the Iraqi Governing Council, courageously asserted,
“We are trying to do something in Iraq which is quite new for the region and that’s why people are rather doubtful that we can succeed, that it is somehow against the whole culture — which is, of course, nonsense. I don’t think that democracy and supremacy of law are the possession of only the Western countries, the Western people, no.
People forget that France was ruled by absolute monarchs for almost a thousand years, so you can’t say the French and the Europeans and the Americans are somehow fit for democracy, but the people of our region are not.
You see, these values are universal. Values of freedom, democracy, of human rights, equality before the law, you know, all these things belong to the whole world.”
The BBC and others are afraid to assert the universal value of freedom and surrender when faced with renewed anti-Semitism, hate-mongering, violent attacks on the innocent, and a frontal assault on civilization itself. Contrast their willingness to surrender to the enemies of civilization with the courage of an 80 year old man who left comfort and safety to risk death in the service of the universal values of freedom, democracy, human rights, and equality before the law: “I’m nearing the end of my life, obviously, so if I can do something in the few years left, at least I will have done something that would make me happy and would feel that life can be useful sometimes.”
Adnan Pachachi’s interview with Scotland on Sunday posted July 27 2003 entitled “Future Iraqi leader spurns US” adds more to the picture painted by Tom.
“Unlike the Americans and the British, who refer to their military presence in Iraq as the ‘Coalition Authority’, Pachachi talks about the occupation of his native country.”
“”If the US still has a large army in Iraq in 2004, it will create problems for the re-election of President Bush,” he warned.”
I see no hope that the Bush administration will take heed of these words.
Aside from the two extreme quotes addressed in the Sheperd article, the castigation of only one being, of course, inconsistant for an “objective” news agency, the BBC is here made out to be hate mongers. It is a typically American thing to see those who side with the Islamic people, like the Europeans now tend to do, as those who side with terror. How selective this country’s vision is.
The United States’ support of Israel is as short sighted as Europe’s alliance with Islamic people. To bring up one without mentioning the other implies that the unmentioned is not worthy of comment, and therefore not as deplorable.
While the BBC may not support freedom as you see it, the American media is just as bad, and without state sponsorship at that.