Greg Sheridan - articles of interest

A well constructed article:

http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com...comments/extremists_winning_war_of_words_too/

Well Snake Id'e like no more of those future nightmares comming here !

What to do ?

Regards Bobby..

couple of very important points here...

1. Extremism will be defeated only by recognising that we have not created it ... pandering to its sense of grievance will only encourage it.”

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Spot on... this is a Muslim issue, and it needs Muslim intervention to sort itself out... just like Christianity had to go thru the same process 300 or so years ago.

2. Rand recommends that the US, and by implication allied governments such as Australia’s, should consciously support, materially and morally, and where necessary create, networks of moderate Muslims across the world who reject Islamist extremism.

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100% agree.
The Iraq war certainly is not helping matters, and makes we wonder whether our governments would rather have these extremists... After all, its a lot easier to govern when there is a ready made enemy waiting at the gates

I think this is where we all can do more... and one of the best ways to do this, is to not isolate Muslims into a corner... doing so, only drives moderates further towards extremist.

Regardless of the above 'excuses', its time for Muslims to sort this out, if indeed they actually want to... if the wanton slaughter of innocent people, both muslim and non-muslim can be justified by their religion their religion needs some serious re-interpretation!

Without getting involved with the topic, I notice that there are already 101 comments posted on the "Australian" newspapers website for that article - as at 4pm (about 15 or 16 hours after Sheridan posted it - approx 1am this morning presumably).

(By comparison his French President article has 24 comments after 3 weeks).

Certainly a big percentage of the early replies / comments on that website seemed to be critical of his article. Haven't taken the trouble to review them all.

Just a guess, but Joe would probably be happy to let people go there if they want to give each other black eyes. lol

But certainly it's an important matter for us all to come to terms with (imo).

And you'll find the full spectrum of pro-(Bush/Blair/Howard) to anti.

I notice one there ...

Mad Monk of Adelaide... posted 5.10am...
Hallo "Australias Leading Foreign Editor"
Trying to stir up some pre-election action are we? One of these days, we'd like to actually see a bit of real insight from you".

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My own preliminary comment, Sheridan seems happy to quote stats from USA opinion polls on such matters as if they also apply in Aus - and I would personally hope that that isn't the case. (refer the Chaser for starters)

PS Maybe a review of those 101 posts would be a starter to checking what an equivalent Australian poll would produce (?)

It is also worth noting that Sheridan adds ...

It is important to emphasise that the US survey does show that most American Muslims are moderate and reject extremism, and that American Muslims tend to be more moderate than European Muslims or Muslim populations in most majority Muslim nations.

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But he goes on to make some sweeping assumptions (guesses?) about Australia.

Do you know what Sheridan's ethnicity is,or his historical ancestry?
I say this because I heard him and a talk back host in Adelaide,an unlikely Catholic priest named John Fleming,having a hateful diatribe about Palestinians.There was no attempt at objectivity. I got the impression that they were talking about animals.(this was about three years ago late one Sunday night)
I subsequently heard one commentator say that Sheridan's trips to the US are paid for by the Bush administration.Is that money for comment ?
Can anyone remember his writings during the WMD's in Iraq inculcation?No objectivity there!
I cannot take Sheridan seriously ...too much baggage and conflict of interest.

Just saw this post and without reading the blog

Expect it's the typical right wing crap that the Australian has been posting

Someone let me know if I'm wrong!

To be fair , plenty of balance in the cartoon section - in fact (as usual I guess) the govt are usually in the hot seat in the eyes of cartoonists

plenty more
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/index/0,29221,20581,00.html

I think this is what Mad Monk was saying ...(drumming up security as an issue)
Having said that, the cartoon with the kid being loaded up with explosives is pretty sobering
As are the prospects for Lebanon - the family returning to Aus etc.

Summary:- You could argue that Cartoonists seem to be the most truthful of all reporters.

Shame Mr Sheridan doesn't acknowledge that this sort of thing is a modern reality that can ONLY take the world situation downhill.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200706/s1940636.htm

Military court hears US Marines shot Iraqi civilians as revenge
A military court in California has heard that United States Marines in Iraq, seeking revenge for the killing of a colleague, shot dead a number of unarmed Iraqi civilians at close range.

The commander of the Marines is appearing before the military equivalent of a US grand jury to decide whether he will be court-martialled over the killings in the Iraqi town of Haditha.

Lieutenant Colonel Jeffrey Chessani is accused of dereliction of duty and failure to follow an order for not launching an investigation into the killings.

A total of 24 Iraqi civilians including three women, seven children and several elderly men died in the incident.

Three other officers are also charged with dereliction of duty and three marines face murder charges. - BBC

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The basic tenet of Greg Sheridan's article is that the institutions of modern democracy are tolerant of difference, to the point that intolerant opponents of democracy such as followers of a muslim caliphate are allowed to propogate their opinions unhindered in the West.

Thats all he is saying in this article.

Whether you are pro or anti American, he reminds his readers to remember the experience recently of democracies bitten by this tolerant attitude.

Garpal

Garpal, He (Sheridan) covers a hell of a lot of topics

1. "Pew Research Centre" says that half the USA Moslems dont think that 9/11 was carried out by Arabs. [If that's true they are in some sort of denial surely - as are some of the subsequent comments eg Noah somebody of Melbourne posted 10:10pm on 01Jun07. AQ brags about it, they dont accept it, what the??? - probably in keeping with those stupid videos that have explosives on the columns yada yada]

2. 25% + of muslim youth (in USA) think that suicide bombing is ok. - a serious worry (if correct!! - which I suspect it isn't)

3. etc -

I started to wonder what the questions they asked in their poll actually said. Also whether Pew Research Centre might have a barrow to push. Maybe a religious slant itself. I suspected - apparently foolishly, that it might have originated in a church pew . Checked out their website. http://people-press.org/ I'm no expert, but my first impression was ...pleasantly surprised, it seemed pretty reasonable. (imo)
Dowloaded the full Pew report. Anyway here are 4 jpeg extracts from that report (see below). Summary:- I came away thinking Mr Sheridan's article was something of a beat-up.

Interesting that there is very little prejudice against Moslims in the employment stats in USA - I suspect that the equiv AUS stats would not be something to brag about. - just a guess.

Of course ( as with all such "Market research polls") - people could be saying what they think the interviewer wants to hear
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PS. They have a "News IQ test". I got 3 questions incorrect, scored 60% (compared to national US average of 50%) - the questions I got wrong involved how much the basic wage had increased in USA etc (didn't have a clue) But the fact that I did better than the average American on THEIR news is a bit of a worry.
http://pewresearch.org/newsiq/

Also
Sheridan says that "a majority of US Moslems say that 9/11 was not carried out by Arabs". I'm not sure that's true.

What the report really says is " Relatively few US Moslems believe that the US led war on terror is a sincere effort to reduce terrorism, and many doubt that Arabs were responsible for the 9/11 attacks. Just 40% of Muslem Americans say groups of Arabs carried out those attacks".

Given that most of their questions have a sizeable percentage of responses under "Didn't know or didnt respond" - that may not mean that the converse applies, i.e. that
100-40 =
"60% (or a majority as Sheridan claims) believe that Arabs DIDN'T."
And so much would depend on the actual questions asked.

But I concede it doesn't have to be 50% or whatever to be a concern. Perhaps it can more be explained as a "self-defence mechanism" - some sort of natural psychological process , even potential shame - rather than anything sinister.

(Almost the same might explain the high percentage saying they were well off and/or unconcerned about unemployment for instance)