7.13.2005 | Muslims in the news

Reading today's Washington Post, I was struck by how much of the news and commentary(other than what Karl Rove may or may not have thought) has to do with Arabs and Muslims. We have the following samples:

• Baghdad Car Bomb Kills at Least 26 -- Many Children, U.S. Soldier Killed; More Than 50 Wounded in Attack
• Four Britons [sic] Tied To London Blasts --
  Police Say Men of Pakistani Descent May Have Been Suicide Attackers
• Arab Genocide, Arab Silence

It's a grim picture: Muslims killing children and other innocents; Muslims killing Muslims with darker skins in Darfur; Muslims living in a Western nation without truly joining in the commonweal.

There are two explanations. The politically correct, and guilty white liberal perspective, is that we in the West just don't understand these Arabs and Muslims. We ourselves must have caused this hatred by something we did, or did not do. Alternately, this heinous behavior must be caused by, take your pick, poverty, lack of economic opportunity, lack of health care, etc. etc.

The more likely explanation, and the obvious one, is that at least some fraction of the Muslim world is, simply, at war with the West. Every culture, every religion, has evildoers. We in the West know who and what our demons are, and we do an admirable job of controlling them. Not completely; just rather well in contrast with the past. And most certainly in contrast with the lack of control the Muslim world exerts on its demons.