Eamonn Fitzgerald's Rainy Day

MEMRI! FFS! at least when you quote steyn, we all know what to expect. but for those who aren't aware of the colonel's spin machine, they really are a zionist conspiracy. invaluable only to those determined to spread ignorance, i'd say.

enda johnson: so MEMRI is invaluable only to those dedicated to spreading ignorance. The only way to construe your remark in this context is to take it as asserting that, by presenting the translations of statements on the tsumani by clerics,journalists, and government ministers, they have made people more ignorant than before. So, now that I know that Sheik Mudeiris, Ibrahim Al-Bashar, Sheikh Fawzan Al-Fawzan, Muhammad Al-Munajjid, and the Al-Usbu' newspaper have said, in precisely what way am I more ignorant than before? In exactly what way has MEMRI spread ignorance in this case? Are you saying that I would be better off not knowing that these people had said these things?

Do you think most Americans and Canadians would be surprised to read these things, or would they expect that such opinion is propagated in the Muslim world? I think they would. Even if, as Cole seems to think, these opionions are not characteristic of the Muslim world, the fact that they have any currency at all is itself a fact of substantial importance. You seem to be saying that, when people learn that this kind of opinion is held in the Muslim world through the MEMRI website, they are becoming more ignorant. Perhaps you prefer the ignorance of ignorance of this kind of opinion, while I prefer the ignorance of knowing about this kind of opionion.

Regarding Steyn, are you saying that he has his facts wrong concerning the lukewarm tsumani response of oil-rich nations? Or are you content to invoke the genetic fallacy?

enda johnson: BTW, your choice of Juan Cole postings is itself ironic in my view. He accuses MEMRI of cherry-picking the wierd stuff from the Arab and Muslim press to create a distorted impression of the Muslim world in the West. And yet Jeff Jarvis makes a case that Cole himself does precisely this:

Ever since America engaged in Iraq, Cole has spent every day on his blog doing nothing but collecting bad news -- never good news. And people looking for bad news -- chicken liberals -- celebrate him for that. I'm a liberal but I don't celebrate Cole. I haven't bothered reading him for months, because he never had anything new to say.

I recommend the whole of Jarvis's post. Unless of course you prefer to cherry-pick the blogosphere.

Of course, if Indymedia or a similar outlet did what Cole does (and, implicitly, you do), you would simply call it reporting the under-reported stories and bless it.

chuck,
i admit to being more likely to reject the arguments of a pompous buffoon than from a normal person, but i hardly think this qualifies as the genetic fallacy, as the "arabs are selfish bastards about tsumani aid" meme spread by turds like steyn is simply untrue.

as for the main point of my post, i'm glad we agree that MEMRI does indeed distort the truth in a most perncious fashion in order to present muslims as a bunch of lunatics.

i'm not that concerned by what you think of Cole, but he seems to know a lot about Iraq.

I recall that 500,000 people died in Bangladesh floods in 1983. The Islamic world did little then, so I’m hardly surprised that government of Ireland is donating 20 million Euro and the Saudi less in the present Asian disaster. After all, death by disaster is simply the Will of Allah.

And the Irish donate millions while their parents and children are sitting on trolleys in hospital wards, there being no beds for them!

Say what you want about MEMRI, but the fact is you simply do not hear about Southern Baptists and Hindus telling their congregations the same lunacy as these imams and mullahs. In the modern world most Christians, Jews, Hindus, et cetera regard their own fundamentalists as bigoted, close-minded nutcases who do not represent the whole, and constantly speak out against them. It is not so in the Islamic world. It is not a "tiny minority" of extremists as so many wish to believe; it is widespread, and even if it is a minority, its a pretty huge one with vast influence, and worse yet, they believe what they preach and few, if any, of their followers dare to challenge them. Its no surprise that the Saudi people have donated nearly 9 times more than their own government. MEMRI is right to expose Islamic extremists ; this sort of savagery and fanaticism from the Middle Ages still being spouted from official positions so widely in the 21st century is very disturbing. Like Don said, "Death by disaster is the will of Allah." So, apparently, is dying in preventable accidents that the Saudi government takes no initiative to prevent, as we see all the time at the Hajj. BTW, Juan Cole may know a lot about Iraq, but I think that Zeyad, Omar, Ali, Mohammed, Fayrouz, Ays, Alaa, Alaamary, Ghaith, Firas, Sarmad, and other Iraqi bloggers may know more.

patrick,
you are correct. we do not hear about Southern Baptists and Hindus telling their congregations the same lunacy as these imams and mullahs. but rest assured, those nutjobs are out there, spouting their hatred and poisining minds with their medieval superstition. perhaps MEMRI could avoid the accusations levelled against it if it broadened its scope to provide translations into arabic of the loonier fringes of western and indian philosophy. i doubt it would serve anyone's interests though, for the arabs to think the americans and indians are all a bunch of savages.