Appeasement and creeping sharia

For an update on how artists, journalists, police and other government officials are continuing to appease Islamists, see Bruce Bawer's article in City Journal. His conclusion: "We need to recognize that the cultural jihadists hate our freedoms because those freedoms defy sharia, which they're determined to impose on us. So far, they have been far less successful at rolling back freedom of speech and other liberties in the U.S. than in Europe, thanks in no small part to the First Amendment. Yet America is proving increasingly susceptible to their pressures."

As an excellent example of the intellectual fog that produces this susceptibility, see the front page article in today's New York Times by Andrea Elliott on the Khalil Gibran International Academy. Here's her explanation why people such as Daniel Pipes have opposed the opening this school: "In the aftermath of September 11, critics of radical Islam focused largely on terrorism, scrutinizing Muslim-American charities or asserting links between Muslim organizations and violent groups like Hamas. But as the authorities have stepped up the war on terror, those critics have shifted their gaze to a new frontier, what they describe as law-abiding Muslim-Americans who are imposing their religious values in the public domain." In other words, the only real problem is critics inventing new issues to make themselves important. Elsewhere she quotes Georgetown University's John Esposito as an expert, neglecting to point out the Saudi funding his university receives.

I don't know the details of the Khalil Gibran case. Unfortunately, reading Elliot's lengthy article brought no enlightenment - only fog.