“For what lies behind the fervour with which we are expected to view these masterpieces of Islamic art in Paris is a simple idea: that Muslims are not all raving, bearded, hand-chopping ambassador-killing head-bangers, but inheritors of one of the world’s greatest cultures, entwined within a tolerant religion, enhanced by learned men (alas, few women) who admitted Jews and Christians into their Islamic society and who produced some of the finest art in history.”
Robert Fisk
(Source: independent.co.uk)
“Why, only a few years ago, the Bush administration was sending Muslims to Damascus for Bashar’s torturers to tear their fingernails out for information, imprisoned at the US government’s request in the very hell-hole which Syrian rebels blew to bits last week.”
Robert Fisk
(Source: independent.co.uk)
I urge everyone to read something quite amazing: Mehanna’s incredibly eloquent, thoughtful statement at his sentencing hearing, before being given a 17-year prison term.
http://www.salon.com/2012/04/13/the_real_criminals_in_the_tarek_mehanna_case/singleton/
The Great Syrian Divide
http://www.cfr.org/syria/great-syrian-divide/p27707
Interview
Interviewee: Joshua Landis, Director, Center for Middle East Studies, Associate Professor, University of Oklahoma
Interviewer: Bernard Gwertzman, Consulting Editor, CFR.org
March 22, 2012
“Might one say the same for Muslims and the Koran? Along those lines, just imagine what would happen if a Muslim army invaded the U.S., violently occupied the country for more than a decade, in the process continuously killing American children and innocent adults, and then, outside of a prison camp it maintained where thousands of Americans were detained for years without charges and tortured, that Muslim army burned American flags — or a stack of bibles — in a garbage dump. Might we see some extremely angry protests breaking out from Americans against them? Would American pundits be denouncing those protesters as blinkered, primitive fanatics?”
Glenn Greenwald
(Source: salon.com)
