Mark Steyn On "Why Do We Hate Us?"

Mark Steyn is dead on as usual. Here are some selected quotes:

In fairness to the Saudis, they've just upped their pledge to $US30 million. But for purposes of one final comparison, consider this: a single Saudi telethon in 2002 managed to raise $US56 million. That was for widows and orphans of Palestinian suicide bombers, those deceased as well as those yet to blow. It seems nothing gets the wealthy elite of Riyadh and Jeddah adding the zeroes to the cheques like self-detonating on an Israeli bus.

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The path of the tsunamis tracked the arc of the Muslim world, from Sumatra to Somalia; the most devastated country is the world's most populous Muslim nation, and the most devastated part of that country is the one province living under the strictures of sharia.

But, as usual, when disaster strikes it's the Great Satan and his various Little Satans who leap to respond. In the decade before September 11, the US military functioned, more or less exclusively, as a Muslim rapid reaction force - coming to the aid of Kuwaiti Muslims, Bosnian Muslims, Somali Muslims and Albanian Muslims. Since then, with the help of its Anglo-Australian allies, it's liberated 50 million Muslims in Afghanistan and Iraq.

That's not how the West's anti-war movements see it. I found myself behind a car the other day bearing the bumper sticker, "War Is Costly. Peace Is Priceless" - which is standard progressive generic autopilot boilerplate, that somehow waging war and doing good are mutually exclusive. But you can't help noticing that when disaster strikes, it's the warmongers who are also the compassion-mongers. Of the top six donor nations to tsunami relief, four are members of George W. Bush's reviled "coalition of the willing".

What was it the Romans said? "If you seek peace, prepare for war." It's truer than they know. It's because Australia's prepared for war that it can do all the feelgood humanitarian stuff - such as landing 10 army engineers in Banda Aceh to attach a mobile filtration system to the decrepit mains pipes and thereby not merely restore the water supply but improve it.

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It shouldn't be necessary to point out the good deeds of Australia and its allies these past two weeks. But it is, because of the grand panjandrums of Western self-loathing. Peter Jennings, the smug Canadian who anchors America's ABC News (which is broadcast on Sky News Australia at 10.30am AEST), reported the other day that "in the oil-rich countries of the Persian Gulf, citizens are being urged to do more . . . Ironically, the controls on Muslim charities after 9/11 may be keeping contributions down."

Ah, yes. If it weren't for the US cracking down on Saudi money-laundering to terrorists, Sumatrans would be able to wallpaper their new homes with Arab cheques. Maybe it's time for the western self-loathers - Jennings, The Guardian, Melbourne Age cartoonist Bruce Petty - to ask themselves: Why do we hate us?

Read the rest here. (Hat tip to ?No Pasaran!.)