Reality Is Not Easy, But All This

There Can Only Be One Answer To This Hideous Act Of Jihad Against The Staff Of Charlie Hebdo. It Is The Obligation Of The Western Media And Western Leaders, Religious And Lay, To Protect The Most Basic Rights Of Freedom Of Expression, Whether In Satire On Any Other Form. The West Must Not Appease, It Must Not Be Silenced. We Must Send A United Message To The Terrorists: Your Violence Cannot Destroy Our Soul.

The Mistake That The Bush Administration Should Admit To Is Not So Much That They Made The Wrong Choices. They Made The Right Analysis; They Made The Right Choices. But What They Did Wrong Was The Execution Of Those Choices. That Was Wrong.

I Grew Up In Somalia, In Saudi Arabia, In Ethiopia, And In Kenya. I Came To Europe In 1992, When I Was 22, And Became A Member Of Parliament In Holland.

Infuriatingly Stupid Analysts - Especially People Who Called Themselves Arabists, Yet Who Seemed To Know Next To Nothing About The Reality Of The Islamic World - Wrote Reams Of Commentary [after 9/11]. Their Articles Were All About Islam Saving Aristotle And The Zero, Which Medieval Muslim Scholars Had Done More Than Eight Hundred Years Ago; About Islam Being A Religion Of Peace And Tolerance, Not The Slightest Bit Violent. These Were Fairy Tales, Nothing To Do With The Real World I Knew.

However, Some Things Must Be Said, And There Are Times When Silence Becomes An Accomplice To Injustice.