Mark Steyn observes that the current Archbishop of Canterbury is having trouble understanding the difference between good (i.e., us) versus evil (terrorists), despite being a guest at the home of the British Consul in Instanbul, Roger Short, only a few hours before Short's death at the hands of jihadist bombers.
One reason why George W Bush comes on a bit strong about "evildoers" and the like is that the Archbishop of Canterbury and any number of the great and the good have rendered less primal language meaningless in this sphere: when Dr Williams condemns terrorism as "vicious and senseless", that's just the mood music of the evening news. When he says "these acts of violence achieve nothing", what he means is that his "shock" stops at the end of the soundbite; whether or not the terrorists "achieve nothing", he intends to do so.Posted by Alan at December 2, 2003 12:15 PMWe got used to these muzak formulations in Ulster for 30 years: Paddy Ashdown and others liked to turn it into a Danny Kaye routine about how we mustn't let the bomb and the bullet win out over the ballot and the bollocks, or whatever it was. It was just words. In last week's Northern Ireland elections and the obliteration of moderate nationalism, we saw the logical consequence of enhancing the prestige of terrorists. It's the same in the Palestinian Authority.
Will the archbishop's recent run-ins with reality shake him from his equivalist pap? Islamic terrorism is a beast that has to be killed, not patted and fed. The Palestinians use children as human shields and as human bombs.
Would it be too much to expect the archbishop, instead of bleating about "serious moral goals", to dust off, say, Matthew 18:6 and offer up something about how it would be better if these fellows shoving their kids into the suicide bomber belts hung the old millstone round their necks and drowned in the sea? Or will we have to wait for such Bushesque "self-referential morality" till His Grace is brushing the plaster from his cassock after his next close shave?
via The Telegraph (UK)
Matthew 18:6