One irony in the “free speech” movement that has emerged from the terrorist attack on the Hebdo office in Paris is how much the US media omits.
The United States, of course, funded and armed al-Qaida back in the Reagan years to counter Russian influence in Afghanistan. In addition, the US has had a long term “special relationship” with Saudi Arabia, the principal supporter of radical Islam in the world. 15 of the 19 hijackers in the 9/11 attacks came from Saudi Arabia.
Our media also left out a key piece of information about the last horrific terrorist attack based on radical ideology, the slaughter of 77 mostly teenagers by Anders Breivik in Norway. The students had been gunned down because they were supporters of Palestinian rights, and the crazed gunman was inspired by Islamophobia and right-wing Zionism.
Maybe any religion that supports violent killings in he name of God should be condemned, be it Muslim, Christian, or Jewish. Maybe governments should be condemned as well. The US should end its support for Saudi Arabia, a country that monthly beheads more in the name of Islam than IS does in a year. Then there is our government’s embrace of Israel while it slaughtered 500 Palestinian children in Gaza. President Obama even rushed additional high tech bombs to the Israeli Army in case there were more UN schools to be obliterated.
Let’s not cover up the truth in our newly found enthusiasm for free speech.
Fred Nagel