No good deed goes unpunished by the envious. The French find it easier to forgive the Germans for conquering them, than the Americans for saving them, twice. When David Marash resigned as editor in chief of Al-Jazeera English because it was so anti-American, he commented that it was the British, not the Arabs, who were the worst – and by that he meant the products of a media elite that clusters around a BBC-Guardian nexus.- Richard Landes, Daily Telegraph, By reacting to 9/11 with self-recrimination, the Western elites have strengthened the hand of brutal Islamismhttp://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/richardlandes/100104166/by-reacting-to-911-with-self-recrimination-the-western-elites-have-strengthened-the-hand-of-brutal-islamism/

Among the many memes widely circulating in Western circles, one of the most absurdly noxious is “Who are we to judge?” All the great progressive victories of demotic polities – equality before the law, freedom of religion and dissent, respect for those disadvantaged by “might makes right,” women, workers, weak – arises from harsh value judgments on the authoritarianism that exploits them: patriarchy, exploitation, cruelty. Not judging too quickly – admirable; not judging at all – folly. We end up ferociously judging ourselves, and giving others, whose values and motives are far more base, a free pass. In doing so we illustrate Pascal’s warning, “the more we want to be angels, the more we become beasts.”
So when, in order to seem peaceful, we abandon non-westerners to brutal political cultures in the name of some quasi-religious commitment to cultural relativism, we betray everything we claim we support. Such attitudes seem particularly inadvisable when facing an apocalyptic foe dedicated to the destruction of all our progressive values.- Richard Landes, Daily Telegraph, By reacting to 9/11 with self-recrimination, the Western elites have strengthened the hand of brutal Islamismhttp://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/richardlandes/100104166/by-reacting-to-911-with-self-recrimination-the-western-elites-have-strengthened-the-hand-of-brutal-islamism/

If the only people who fight Islamic triumphalism are really on the Right, their solutions will obviously favour harsh responses. Liberals and progressives would, presumably, struggle harder to come up with more creative and less violent forms of effective resistance. So it constitutes a catastrophic loss of creative energy to have a “Left” that believes that somehow, if only we were nicer to Muslims, they’d be nicer to us, one that views as an alarming embarrassment anyone who points out the Islamic contribution to the problem, as a saboteur of this effort at placation, an “enemy of peace.” It also represents a colossal betrayal of genuine Muslims moderates who really do want to live in a vibrant civil society that respects everyone; where Muslims respect infidels, and infidels respect Islam.- Richard Landes,Daily Telegraph, By reacting to 9/11 with self-recrimination, the Western elites have strengthened the hand of brutal Islamism http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/richardlandes/100104166/by-reacting-to-911-with-self-recrimination-the-western-elites-have-strengthened-the-hand-of-brutal-islamism/