Posted on 09/29/2006 4:46:58 PM PDT by Grig
Did you see that video of the two Fox journalists announcing they'd converted to Islam? The larger problem, it seems to me, is that much of the rest of the Western media have also converted to Islam, and there seems to be no way to get them to convert back to journalism.
Consider, for example, the bizarre behavior of Reuters, the once globally respected news agency now reduced to putting out laughably inept terrorist propaganda. A few days ago, it made a big hoo-ha about the Israelis intentionally firing a missile at its press vehicle and wounding its cameraman Fadel Shana. Shana was posed in an artful sprawl in a blood-spattered shirt. But it had ridden up and underneath his undershirt was spotlessly white, like a summer-stock Julius Caesar revealing the boxers under his toga. What's stunning is not that almost all Western media organizations reporting from the Middle East are reliant on local staff overwhelmingly sympathetic to one side in the conflict -- that's been known for some time -- but the amateurish level of fakery that head office is willing to go along with.
Down at the other end of the news business, meanwhile, one finds items like this snippet from the Sydney Morning Herald:
"A 16-year-old girl was tailed by a car full of men before being dragged inside and assaulted in Sydney's west last night, police say . . .
"The three men involved in the attack were described to police as having dark 'mullet-style' haircuts."
Three men with "mullet-style" hair, huh? Not much to go on there. Bit of a head scratcher. But, as it turned out, the indefatigable Sydney Morning Herald typist had faithfully copied out every salient detail of the police report except one. Here's the statement the coppers themselves issued:
"Police are seeking three men described as being of Middle Eastern/Mediterranean appearance, with dark 'mullet-style' hair cuts."
That additional detail narrows it down a bit, wouldn't you say? The only reason I know that is because the Aussie Internet maestro Tim Blair grew curious about the epidemic of incidents committed by men of no known appearance and decided to look into it. One can understand the agonies the politically correct multicultural journalist must go through, distressed at the thought that an infelicitous phrasing might perpetuate unfortunate stereotypes of young Muslim males. But, even so, it's quite a leap to omit the most pertinent fact and leave the impression the Sydney constabulary are combing the city for mullets. The Boston Globe's Jeff Jacoby wrote the other day about how American children's books are "sacrificing truth on the altar of political correctness." But there seems to be quite a lot of that in the grown-up comics, too. And, as I've said before, it's never a good idea to put reality up for grabs. There may come a time when you need it.
It's striking how, for all this alleged multiculti sensitivity, we're mostly entirely insensitive to other cultures: We find it all but impossible to imagine how differently they view the world. Go back to that video in which Fox's Steve Centanni and Olaf Wiig announced their conversion to Islam. The moment the men were released, the Western media and their colleagues wrote off the scene as a stunt, a cunning ruse, of no more consequence than yelling "Behind you! He's got a gun!" and then kicking your distracted kidnapper in the teeth. Indeed, a few Web sites seemed to see the Islamic conversion routine as a useful get-out-of-jail-free card.
Don't bet on it. In my forthcoming book, I devote a few pages to a thriller I read as a boy -- an old potboiler by Sherlock Holmes' creator, Arthur Conan Doyle. In 1895 Sir Arthur had taken his sick wife to Egypt for her health, and, not wishing to waste the local color, produced a slim novel called The Tragedy of the Korosko, about a party of Anglo-American-French tourists taken hostage by the Mahdists, the jihadi of the day. Much of the story finds the characters in the same predicament as Centanni and Wiig: The kidnappers are offering them a choice between Islam or death. Conan Doyle's Britons and Americans and Europeans were men and women of the modern world even then:
"None of them, except perhaps Miss Adams and Mrs. Belmont, had any deep religious convictions. All of them were children of this world, and some of them disagreed with everything which that symbol upon the earth represented."
"That symbol" is the cross. Yet in the end, even as men with no religious convictions, they cannot bring themselves to submit to Islam, for they understand it to be not just a denial of Christ but in some sense a denial of themselves, too. So they stall and delay and bog down the imam in a lot of technical questions until eventually he wises up and they're condemned to death.
One hundred ten years later, for the Fox journalists and the Western media who reported their release, what's the big deal? Wear robes, change your name to Khaled, go on camera and drop Allah's name hither and yon: If that's your ticket out, seize it. Everyone'll know it's just a sham.
But that's not how the al-Jazeera audience sees it. If you're a Muslim, the video is anything but meaningless. Not even the dumbest jihadist believes these infidels are suddenly true believers. Rather, it confirms the central truth Osama and the mullahs have been peddling -- that the West is weak, that there's nothing -- no core, no bedrock -- nothing it's not willing to trade. In his new book The Conservative Soul, attempting to reconcile his sexual temperament and his alleged political one, Time magazine's gay Tory Andrew Sullivan enthuses, "By letting go, we become. By giving up, we gain. And we learn how to live -- now, which is the only time that matters." That's almost a literal restatement of Faust's bargain with the devil:
"When to the moment I shall say
'Linger awhile! so fair thou art!'
Then mayst thou fetter me straightway
Then to the abyss will I depart!"
In other words, if Faust becomes so enthralled by "the moment" that he wants to live in it forever, the devil will have him for all eternity. In the Muslim world, they watch the Centanni/Wiig video and see men so in love with the present, the now, that they will do or say anything to live in the moment. And they draw their own conclusions -- that these men are easier to force into the car than that 16-year-old girl in Sydney was. It doesn't matter how "understandable" Centanni and Wiig's actions are to us, what the target audience understands is quite different: that there is nothing we're willing to die for. And, to the Islamist mind, a society with nothing to die for is already dead.
Fabbrizio Quattrocchi. One of the great heroes of my life.
I knew there was something really amiss and troubling in the Centanni conversion story, and the way it was re-hashed and described by them in the interviews that followed.Leave it to the brilliant insights of Steyn to lay it open like this and really put it in perspective. Yes, they received nearly unanimous sympathy and praise, and their "acting" was seen to be commonsensical and the only rational way to get out of their dilemma. Their captors thereby get seen as , if not "the good guys", then just very easily satisfied historical actors who only need us to perform this little symbolic playlet with them in order for them to show us "mercy". It was as though it was all an "act", and the Muslims figured out a way to come out on top. The unspoken assumption is that the guys wouldn't have killed these Media Infidels anyway, if that's all it took to spare them. It is really hard to gauge the depth of this sickness and dysfunction.
Convincing the enemy that Americans are cowards and caitiffs who will do anything rather than die, including renouncing their religion, is worse.
I hope I would be given the strength and courage to stand by Jesus in the hour of trial -- you know, if we deny Him, He will deny us. He said so, explicitly. Matthew 10:32-33.
But if I failed in the test, I would know that I had given up my self-respect, my courage, and probably my soul.
"No, maybe I can't win. Maybe the only thing I can do is just take everything he's got. But to beat me, he's going to have to kill me. And to kill me, he's gonna have to have the heart to stand in front of me. And to do that, he's got to be willing to die himself." -- Rocky Balboa (in Rocky IV)
Bing, bang, boom! Wonderful article.
The "Voice of the Martyrs" newsletter this month is about North Korea. Wake up, Christians! If you won't die for your faith, you don't believe.
Now, I don't know whether the Fox News reporters in question even claimed to be Christian, but I do, and I hope I'll die before I'd take the oath to a false god.
These were reporters not soldiers and their dying would have meant nothing to the muslims. If we are serious about showing them we are not weak then our military needs to do that not unarmed citizens under duress.
I think people expect a little too much from these men to compensate for the lackluster butt whooping our soldiers are allowed to do.
It seems like at least half the danged reporters, stringers, and photographers are supporting the terrorists anyhow.
Peter denied Jesus out of fear...his soul was not lost. Jesus is so much bigger than you aparently give him credit for.
Once Pentecost occurred, Peter (and the rest of the apostles) were different men.
But I would have failed in a very, very serious matter and committed a mortal sin.
It is not "just nothing" as many people seem to think.
I don't know what I would do under the threat of apostasy or death. I hope I'd have the courage to die a martyr.
You gotta admit our military has been declawed. Shock and awe...please, it petered out as soon as someone cried of an 'innocent' death.
We are more concerned with the opinion of the world than of defending oureselves against the oppressive muslims bullying and killing Christians,Jews and Hindus the world over.
But instead of saying we need to put a real hurt on the muslim community so they weep for generations to come, we instead speak of how kidnapped victims need to die in vain so the ego of some Americans aren't offended by the weakness of those wanting to live to see another day with their family.
I agree, we're fighting hamstrung by a handwringing press and a bunch of liberal whingers who hate George Bush so much they don't care if they destroy our country in the process of trashing him.
But we're talking about self-respect, ones immortal soul, and the influence on the jihadists' view of Americans.
It was their view of Americans as powerless to respond and hamstrung by popular pacifist opinion that led to 9-11 in the first place.
Their view is a composite made up of the conduct of every American they come in contact with. We are all responsible for our individual conduct, and that conduct has consequences.
It's a hard choice, but converting at gunpoint is not a no-consequences action. It encourages the jihadis. And they do NOT distinguish between kaffir in uniform and out.
Are you kidding me? by those standards men should no longer need Jesus if we have the Holy Spirit and sin no more. There is only so much we can do as flawed men we will sin until the second coming of Christ, it is our nature. Peter sinned and all men after him have sinned.
"Deny your God!" they ringed me with their spears;
Blood-crazed were they, and reeking from the strife;
Hell-hot their hate, and venom-fanged their sneers,
And one man spat on me and nursed a knife.
And there was I, sore wounded and alone,
I, the last living of my slaughtered band.
Oh sinister the sky, and cold as stone!
In one red laugh of horror reeled the land.
And dazed and desperate I faced their spears,
And like a flame out-leaped that naked knife,
And like a serpent stung their bitter jeers:
"Deny your God, and we will give you life."
Deny my God! Oh life was very sweet!
And it is hard in youth and hope to die;
And there my comrades dear lay at my feet,
And in that blear of blood soon must I lie.
And yet . . . I almost laughed -- it seemed so odd,
For long and long had I not vainly tried
To reason out and body forth my God,
And prayed for light, and doubted -- and denied:
Denied the Being I could not conceive,
Denied a life-to-be beyond the grave. . . .
And now they ask me, who do not believe,
Just to deny, to voice my doubt, to save
This life of mine that sings so in the sun,
The bloom of youth yet red upon my cheek,
My only life! -- O fools! 'tis easy done,
I will deny . . . and yet I do not speak.
"Deny your God!" their spears are all agleam,
And I can see their eyes with blood-lust shine;
Their snarling voices shrill into a scream,
And, mad to slay, they quiver for the sign.
Deny my God! yes, I could do it well;
Yet if I did, what of my race, my name?
How they would spit on me, these dogs of hell!
Spurn me, and put on me the brand of shame.
A white man's honour! what of that, I say?
Shall these black curs cry "Coward" in my face?
They who would perish for their gods of clay --
Shall I defile my country and my race?
My country! what's my country to me now?
Soldier of Fortune, free and far I roam;
All men are brothers in my heart, I vow;
The wide and wondrous world is all my home.
My country! reverent of her splendid Dead,
Her heroes proud, her martyrs pierced with pain:
For me her puissant blood was vainly shed;
For me her drums of battle beat in vain,
And free I fare, half-heedless of her fate:
No faith, no flag I owe -- then why not seek
This last loop-hole of life? Why hesitate?
I will deny . . . and yet I do not speak.
"Deny your God!" their spears are poised on high,
And tense and terrible they wait the word;
And dark and darker glooms the dreary sky,
And in that hush of horror no thing stirred.
Then, through the ringing terror and sheer hate
Leaped there a vision to me -- Oh, how far!
A face, Her face . . . through all my stormy fate
A joy, a strength, a glory and a star.
Beneath the pines, where lonely camp-fires gleam,
In seas forlorn, amid the deserts drear,
How I had gladdened to that face of dream!
And never, never had it seemed so dear.
O silken hair that veils the sunny brow!
O eyes of grey, so tender and so true!
O lips of smiling sweetness! must I now
For ever and for ever go from you?
Ah, yes, I must . . . for if I do this thing,
How can I look into your face again?
Knowing you think me more than half a king,
I with my craven heart, my honour slain.
No! no! my mind's made up. I gaze above,
Into that sky insensate as a stone;
Not for my creed, my country, but my Love
Will I stand up and meet my death alone.
Then though it be to utter dark I sink,
The God that dwells in me is not denied;
"Best" triumphs over "Beast", -- and so I think
Humanity itself is glorified. . . .
"And now, my butchers, I embrace my fate.
Come! let my heart's blood slake the thirsty sod.
Curst be the life you offer! Glut your hate!
Strike! Strike, you dogs! I'll not deny my God."
I saw the spears that seemed a-leap to slay,
All quiver earthward at the headman's nod;
And in a daze of dream I heard him say:
"Go, set him free who serves so well his God!"
--- Robert Service
It's not given to every one. I hope I would have the strength, if not, I hope for pardon and forgiveness.
But, as I said, it is not nothing. It is a very, very serious matter indeed to deny God in the face of pagans.
You can't blame everything on the press and liberals. Bush was reelected to fight this fight, those of us who voted for him did not expect him to cow to the press and opinions of those who did not even vote for him. We expected him to lead us to victory, he is the one who is in authority and yet chooses to continue with his ROP nonsense and allows our service members to be charged with unthinkable crimes for doing their job.
He had most of us behind him with this war and yet he furthered the notion our soldiers were killing innocents with his peaceful muslims bullchit.
Speaking out about the wonderful religion of islam and how muslims were a peace loving people while we are at war with them and you blame the press for how people think we are world bullying murderers killing innocent people in a land we are occupying.
As a Christian President Bush should not have 'given in' and renounced Christ by affirming a religion who denies Christ and intentionally kills those who follw him.JMO
We are as bold as our leaders.
He doesn't have a strong enough coalition in the Congress, or enough support in the country at large for that matter, to visit fire and brimstone indiscriminately on the heads of all Muslims. The "Religion of Peace" schtick is just that -- saying "Nice doggie" while looking for a large rock.
The Middle East is like a huge cancerous sore that has been allowed to grow and fester unchecked for generations. How, when, and where to attack what portion of that huge ugly growth -- without actually killing the patient -- is a judgment call. You may disagree with the time manner or method as they say, but it can't be done by nuking Mecca.
As far as prosecuting soldiers, a Court Martial is about as fair a shake as you can get anywhere. I wish that that foolish woman that they stuck in command of the prison had not been such a coward and incompetent -- they probably figured they HAD to have a female in theater somewhere, and she could do the least harm there (how wrong they were) -- but without the press booming the whole thing from the housetops, it would have been dealt with, the resonsible parties would have been disciplined, and that would have been the end of it.
Isn't that exactly what those reporters were just attacked and called cowards for doing. Saying one thing and meaning another?
btw Bush had more than enough support when he was first elected before he got a little weak in the knees on iraq and fell in love with the illegal voters.
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