MARILYN PENN: SELF INFLICTED WOUNDS
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In its most flagrant example of Orwellian language inversion, the Times of Feb. 24th refers to the murder of two American soldiers as “self-inflicted wounds.” Not that the soldiers themselves chose to court their own killings, but that the military’s decision to burn discarded copies of the Koran was “shockingly insensitive.” Of course the Times knows better than any of us that religious insensitivity is only one of many infractions that merit murder in the Muslim world. Four Muslim men were publicly decapitated this week for the shocking crime of carrying satellite phones; young girls have been murdered for the shocking crime of going to school and females of all ages have been killed for the shocking crime of being raped. The Times might recall that American journalist Daniel Pearl was beheaded for the shocking crime of being a Jew and Dutchman Theo Van Gogh was murdered for the shocking crime of making a film criticizing the Muslim treatment of women. On 9/11, almost 3,000 Americans were killed for the shocking crime of being citizens of The Great Satan. What the Times should have editorialized is that it was shockingly dangerous for the army to burn the Korans, knowing that they were vulnerable to the retaliation of primitive, savage people mired in the fanatical religious mindset of the dark ages.
At the same time that these events are unfolding in Afghanistan, not to mention what is happening across the Arab world and in Nigeria, Somalia and Sudan, local Muslims and American liberals are offended by the decision of the NYC police to have its anti-terrorist task force monitor Muslim student groups, mosques and other suspected hotbeds of radical activity in New York and New Jersey. Though it is true that many terrorists worldwide have been stimulated to action after being steeped in the wellsprings of radical Islamic groups, liberals, like the Times itself, are more worried about our “shocking insensitivity” to people of the Muslim faith. Profiling is apparently a worse crime than terrorism itself. One would think that peaceful Muslims would be the most interested people in preventing Muslim violence since nothing confirms that stereotypical conflation more than repeated incidents, but common sense gets lost in the morass of political correctness.
President Obama has already apologied to Afghanistan for the Koran burnings and Commissioner Kelly has apologized to American Muslims for screening “The Third Jihad,” a film about radical Islamic intention and activity in the U.S. These will be interpreted as signs of weakness by those people who threaten our security and will be incentives for them to step up their demands and demonstrations. In Afghanistan, we have an obligation to protect our troops from local harm which may necessitate conforming to customs and rules that are antithetical to our own. On homeground, we have the same obligation to protect our citizens and if we allow political correctness to compromise the extent of surveillance deemed necessary by security experts, we will certainly be guilty of inviting ever more treacherous “self-inflicted wounds.”
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