A study in contrasts

In the Australian today, there are 2 very contrasting opinion pieces on the Islamist problem. One by Phillip "let's not talk too harshly about premeditated murder least we offend" Adams, and the other by Mark "why doesn't the West believe them when they say they want to rule the world" Steyn.

The Phillip Adams column deserves strong attack. He hears only what he wants to hear, in that he ignores John Howard's oft-repeated line that the majority of Muslims are fine, upstanding, peace loving members of the community. Explicitly, when Howard talks of how Muslims "hate" the West, he is talking of the murdering extremists. Phillip claims:

" The chill of fear that passed through mainstream Australia at the PM's words would have been nothing to the dread felt within Muslim suburbs such as Sydney's Lakemba. Another nail in the coffin of co-operation. It's more encouragement for the sort of angry, alienated kids who turned themselves into bombs in London."

Only if, like you Phillip, they DO NOT LISTEN TO WHAT JOHN HOWARD AND KIM BEASLEY SAY.

Read this (from the other side of the world, where they have better hearing than in Phillip's office in Sydney) in the Gulf Times in Qatar:

"SYDNEY: Prime Minister John Howard assured Australian Muslims yesterday that they should not be frightened in the wake of the latest Bali bombings as they were seen as friends, not enemies.
Howard, whose government has been accused of targeting Muslims in tough new counter-terrorism laws, said that he wanted to reassure the nation'’s 300,000-strong Muslim minority that they should not feel alienated.
'“We see them as friends, we don'’t see them as enemies,'” Howard said.
'“We see them as here in the struggle, not as a group of people who should feel frightened and isolated and alienated.
'“This is as much of an attack on the way of life that a majority of them hold dear as it is the way of life that I hold dear and you hold dear,'” he told reporters."

Phillip Adams, like much of the Left, has a compulsion to encourage victimhood, and if there is a chance that someone will be slighted (however mistakenly) by anyone to the right of Adams, he will rush to hold their hand and sympathise with how misunderstood they are.

Mark Steyn's column, by comparison, makes the realistic point that semi-apologists (who try to find a way of turning the blame for attacks on the West) simply refuse to listen to what radical Islamists say. (Christopher Hitchens makes this point repeatedly too.) As usual, Steyn displays the type of bracing common sense that the Left has trouble coming to grips with.