Posted on 01/09/2005 8:03:42 AM PST by Timeout
WE have Agence France Presse to thank for both the most striking headline and photograph of the tsunami devastation. The headline was "Tsunami Devastates DiCaprio", and for a moment I couldn't quite place the island: DiCaprio? One of the lesser known Maldives? Wasn't there an old Gracie Fields song – "'Twas on the isle DiCaprio that I found you?" Has Kofi Annan been flown over the devastated DiCaprio so he can marvel rhetorically: "Where have all the people gone?"
Well, they're his agent and hairdresser and they've gone to lunch. The devastated DiCaprio turned out to be Leonardo of that ilk, making a few observations on the catastrophe during a promotional visit to Rome. And in his own way he was indeed devastated. He's believed to have given $US1 million ($1.32 million) to disaster relief, as has Sandra Bullock. Michael Schumacher has given $US10 million.
For purposes of comparison, Herr Schumacher's donation is the same as that of oil-rich Kuwait. As for even oil-richer Iran, its Government has earmarked $US627,000 for disaster relief.
For purposes of further comparison, that's barely a twentieth of what was raised at the Sydney Opera House concert this weekend. Today's all-star cricket match between a World XI and an Asian XI at the MCG will do more for the beleaguered Muslims of Banda Aceh than Libya, Syria and Egypt combined.
In fairness to the Saudis, they've just upped their pledge to $US30 million. But for purposes of one final comparison, consider this: a single Saudi telethon in 2002 managed to raise $US56 million. That was for widows and orphans of Palestinian suicide bombers, those deceased as well as those yet to blow. It seems nothing gets the wealthy elite of Riyadh and Jeddah adding the zeroes to the cheques like self-detonating on an Israeli bus.
As for the most striking photograph of this disaster, it's by AFP's Jimin Lai. I haven't seen it in any of the papers, oddly enough. It shows a tsunami-devastated village in Galle on the southwestern coast of Sri Lanka: a couple of rescuers are carrying away a body while, behind them, smack dab in the centre of the picture, a young man looks on. He's wearing an Osama bin Laden T-shirt.
I gave up worrying "Why do they hate us?" on the evening of September 11, 2001. But, if I were that Osodden bin Loser guy watching the infidels truck in water, food, medical supplies and emergency clothing for villagers whose jihad-chic T-shirt collection was washed out to sea, I might ask myself a more pertinent question: "Why do they like us?"
The path of the tsunamis tracked the arc of the Muslim world, from Sumatra to Somalia; the most devastated country is the world's most populous Muslim nation, and the most devastated part of that country is the one province living under the strictures of sharia.
But, as usual, when disaster strikes it's the Great Satan and his various Little Satans who leap to respond. In the decade before September 11, the US military functioned, more or less exclusively, as a Muslim rapid reaction force – coming to the aid of Kuwaiti Muslims, Bosnian Muslims, Somali Muslims and Albanian Muslims. Since then, with the help of its Anglo-Australian allies, it's liberated 50 million Muslims in Afghanistan and Iraq.
That's not how the West's anti-war movements see it. I found myself behind a car the other day bearing the bumper sticker, "War Is Costly. Peace Is Priceless" – which is standard progressive generic autopilot boilerplate, that somehow waging war and doing good are mutually exclusive. But you can't help noticing that when disaster strikes, it's the warmongers who are also the compassion-mongers. Of the top six donor nations to tsunami relief, four are members of George W. Bush's reviled "coalition of the willing".
What was it the Romans said? "If you seek peace, prepare for war." It's truer than they know. It's because Australia's prepared for war that it can do all the feelgood humanitarian stuff – such as landing 10 army engineers in Banda Aceh to attach a mobile filtration system to the decrepit mains pipes and thereby not merely restore the water supply but improve it.
But it goes beyond that, beyond even John Howard's spectacular billion-dollar pledge. Most citizens in the West look at the tsunami's victims and recognise our common humanity. When a chap is pulled down from a tree to survey the wreckage of his home and learn of the loss of his family, we see him first as our fellow man – a man in need. And if, afterwards, we happen to spot the sopping Osama T-shirt, we tactfully agree to overlook it – which is why I haven't seen that Sri Lankan AFP photo in any Western newspapers.
By contrast, Muslim leaders divide the world into the Dar al-Islam and everybody else. Yet the deaths of 100,000 members of the club in Banda Aceh alone isn't enough to catch the eye of the big shots in the Arab world. The Arab world's principal contribution these past two weeks has been the usual paranoia: "Was it caused by American, Israeli and Indian nuclear testing?" wondered Mahmoud Bakri in the Egyptian weekly Al Usbu. "The three most recent tests appeared to be genuine American and Israeli preparations to act together with India to test a way to liquidate humanity."
Colin Powell was foolish to suggest that, in its response to this crisis, the Muslim world would come to appreciate the true nature of the US. Fat chance. "It's OK that aid from the US is here," said Hilmy Bakar Almascaty, spokesman for the Islamic Defender Front. "But if they open bars, sell alcohol or open prostitution centres, then we will fight them." Almascaty also warned the Australian charity Youth Off the Streets that its plan to open homes for 35,000 Indonesian orphans was all very well, but on no account was it to try converting Muslim children. Jeez, man, would it kill you once in a while just to send a box of chocolates and a card saying "Thank you, you infidel sons of whores and pigs", and leave it at that?
But one day the smarter lads in the Osama T-shirts will begin to wonder what they're getting in return for their glorification of a multimillionaire whose followers these days spend most of their time killing Muslims – in Iraq, in Turkey, in Saudi Arabia, even in Indonesia. With friends like that, who needs tsunamis?
It shouldn't be necessary to point out the good deeds of Australia and its allies these past two weeks. But it is, because of the grand panjandrums of Western self-loathing. Peter Jennings, the smug Canadian who anchors America's ABC News (which is broadcast on Sky News Australia at 10.30am AEST), reported the other day that "in the oil-rich countries of the Persian Gulf, citizens are being urged to do more . . . Ironically, the controls on Muslim charities after 9/11 may be keeping contributions down."
Ah, yes. If it weren't for the US cracking down on Saudi money-laundering to terrorists, Sumatrans would be able to wallpaper their new homes with Arab cheques. Maybe it's time for the western self-loathers – Jennings, The Guardian, Melbourne Age cartoonist Bruce Petty – to ask themselves: Why do we hate us?
Mark Steyn: Priceless.
Looks like he's back Steyn ping.
Great article. Thanks for posting.
Moslem: "Why do they like us?"
Liberal: "Why do we hate us?"
Brilliant man!
Where does Steyn live these days? Didn't he start out in Canada? Is he still there?
**Why do we hate us"?
That's the question the Dems will have to answer
before Americans will ever give them power again.
They'll never do it.
Well, maybe I can.
If they don't, it means they're DONE forever!!! And that's a GOOD thing!!
Funniest line:
"Jeez, man, would it kill you once in a while just to send a box of chocolates and a card saying "Thank you, you infidel sons of whores and pigs", and leave it at that?"
If anyone out there knows how to get in touch with the Senior Senator from the State of Washington, one Ms. Patty Murray, kindly ask the lady how many schools, hospitals, and day-care centers Osama is going to help rebuild.
Another Steyn column I missed yesterday:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1317109/posts
****In Ukraine, the one side poisoned the other side's candidate. His face broke out and his hair turned gray. John Kerry's hair is fabulous and for much of the campaign his glowing moisturized skin looked like an orange revolution all by itself.***
LOL!
Islamofascist; Radical Islam is an insane death cult, and "moderate" Islam is its Trojan Horse in the West. Deroy Murdock writes for NRO: "After being released from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, former Afghan detainee Faiz Mohammed complained to the Washington Post : "The Americans treated me well, but they were not Muslims, so I didn't like them." The West should be so lucky as to confront nothing more than Mr. Mohammed's level of disdain. It gets worse. Asked what he would say to the loved ones of the 197 people killed in last month's Bali nightclub bombings, Abu Bakar Bashir, leader of Indonesia's radical Jemaah Islamiyah, replied: "My message to the families is, please convert to Islam as soon as possible." Amrozi, a mononymous suspect in the blasts, said the carnage "delighted" him. He also pointed to Western reporters covering his November 13 appearance with police. Amrozi said: "Those are the sorts of people I wanted to kill." Al Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf terrorists kidnapped six Jehovah's Witnesses in Jolo, Philippines on August 20. The next day, the decapitated heads of two of the male abductees were found. One victim also had his tongue severed. Military officials say that a note attached to one head said, "Those who do not believe in Allah will suffer the same fate." Beyond hatred of non-Muslims, such murderers also embrace a pathological appetite for self-destruction. As al Qaeda's Mualana Inyadullah put it in the London Daily Telegraph last year: "The Americans love Pepsi-cola, we love death." " We are more than determined to die here," Movsar Barayev, told Mark Franchetti of London's Sunday Times . "Our dream is to become shakhidi , martyrs of Allah." Barayev led the Chechen terrorists who seized a Moscow theater earlier this fall. He was killed when Russian authorities ended the assault October 26. And look for a while at the words of Dr. Adel Sadeq, chairman of the Arab Psychiatrists Association and chief of the Psychiatry Department Cairo's Ein Shams University. In an April 24 interview on Iqraa TV, a Saudi/Egyptian satellite channel, he spoke of suicide bombing as the height of mental health " When the martyr dies a martyr's death, he attains the height of bliss," Dr. Sadeq explained. "As a professional psychiatrist, I say that the height of bliss comes with the end of the countdown: ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. And then, you press the button to blow yourself up. When the martyr reaches 'one,' and then 'boom,' he explodes, and senses himself flying, because he knows for certain that he is not dead," He continued, in a translation by the , Middle East Media Research Institute : "It is a transition to another, more beautiful world, because he knows very well that within seconds he will see the light of the Creator. He will be at the closest possible point to Allah."
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Q: Where does he live?
A: He divides his time between Quebec, New Hampshire and London – though, after his recent trip there, he’s thinking of buying a vacation home in western Iraq. Very reasonable prices.
Yes....Mark Steyn is priceless....he is sooo good!!!
FMCDH(BITS)
Priceless!
Oh man! This guy kills me! I've got a broken rib and this is giving me such pain!
FMCDH(BITS)
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