http://www.nationalreview.com/node/418139/print Cultural Sensitivity Does Not Win Wars
When it comes to gaining or losing allegiance, the sword is mightier than the pen.
By David French — May 8, 2015
Those who argue against publishing Mohammed cartoons — like the ones featured in Pamela Geller’s now-famous “Draw Mohammed” contest — often claim that the cartoons don’t just provoke terror, they also alienate Muslim friends and allies. Thus, even if one wishes to be defiant in the face of jihadist aggression, publishing the cartoons is still foolish because of the effect on our friends.
For example, writing in the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo killings, Gregory Aftandilian, a senior fellow for the Middle East at the Center for National Policy, wrote that “the decision [to publish Mohammed cartoons] is counter-productive to the fight against Islamist extremists, as such depictions alienate many mainstream Muslims — the very allies we need to discredit the extremist ideologies of ISIL and Al-Qaeda.” Responding to Geller, Haroon Moghul, a fellow at the Institute for Social Policy and Understandings, claimed that Mohammed cartoons “alienate Muslims, who are American citizens and often first in line to report planned terrorist attacks.”
Going even further, former New York Times correspondent Stephen Kinzer wrote in The Guardian (after the Danish Mohammed-cartoon controversy) that nominating former Danish prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen as secretary-general of the U.N. would threaten the mission in Afghanistan. Why? Because when he was prime minister, he refused to meet with Muslim ambassadors protesting the Mohammed cartoons. As a result, his nomination was foolish:
It would do more to alienate Muslims from Nato than almost any other step the alliance could take. What can Nato be thinking? Proceeding with this appointment would suggest that it has lost all contact with reality. Rasmussen’s qualifications are not the issue — what matters is the way his appointment would be perceived in the world’s most explosive region.
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