Liberals getting left out of the debate on Islam

From James Button, The Sydney Morning Herald
"The left rightly points out that most Muslims are not extremist. Yet it is so afraid of appearing racist or asserting Western cultural superiority that it seems unable to acknowledge any problems associated with the Muslim faith at all. Take the case of Newsround, a BBC news program for children. Explaining the September 11, 2001, attacks, it said: "Al-Qaeda is unhappy with America and other countries getting involved in places like the Middle East. People linked to al-Qaeda have used violence to make this point in the USA, and in other countries."
In this script, al-Qaeda sounds like a group of freedom fighters. There is no mention of its hatred of homosexuals, Jews, unbelievers and democracy. The Financial Times columnist Philip Stephens calls it a "pseudo-liberalism that says we must be tolerant of the intolerant". It also implies moral equivalence between America's involvement in the Middle East, whatever faults lie there, and the slaughter of nearly 3000 people on September 11, 2001."
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