What Bush has Wrought

Tom Friedman is still in recovery mode from his peace through mass murder vision, but his new Op-Ed Column in the NYT has some good bits. One of my favorites:

Both girls I interviewed wore veils and one also wore a full Afghan-like head-to-toe covering; one was of Egyptian parents, the other of Tunisian parents, but both were born and raised in France. What did I learn from them? That they got all their news from Al Jazeera TV, because they did not believe French TV, that the person they admired most in the world was Osama bin Laden, because he was defending Islam, that suicide "martyrdom" was justified because there was no greater glory than dying in defense of Islam, that they saw themselves as Muslims first and French citizens last, and that all their friends felt pretty much the same.


If this attitude should become prevalent in the huge French Muslim community, it's hard to see much alternative to a bitter civil war resulting in tragedy for France and catastrophe or annihilation for the French Muslims. I wonder how things stand in the US? Thanks to George Bush, it certainly looks like Osama has gotten a start on his war of civilizations. We have already had a small taste of the loss of liberty this will entail for ourselves.

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