Carol--

Seems painful for you to admit you made a mistake, it appears.   (Obviously you were not ignoring me--since you responded.   I suspect you know you didn't really have to--so your claim to be above it all rings slightly hollow.)   I can't help thinking ego may be mixed up in this somewhere.

But we all make mistakes. I made a mistake recently in mixing up ESL and bilingual education. When a poster came on who knew a lot more about the subject than I did, I admitted I was wrong and backed right off.

You might want to try it sometime.

It does appear that neither you nor anybody else has yet managed to come up with one iota of evidence that the knighthood was given Rushdie in order to inflame Moslems.

It begins to look as if there is no such evidence. Not really surprising.

Just perhaps there is something to the idea that the West actually does try to do the right thing once in a while--that the committee really did hope the knighthood would result in better relations between Asia and the UK.

So they guessed spectacularly wrong? Even diplomats can guess wrong on the impact of what they may say or do.   Look at April Glaspie. Or do you think she said what she did in order to entice Moslems into a war?




It's clear--to me at least-- that, as I've said before, Mr. Bush belongs in the circle of Hell reserved for those who started unnecessary wars by choice--and by means of a despicable propaganda campaign. Mr Bush would be placed right next to Herr Hitler.

It's also clear that Mr. Bush is directly or indirectly responsible for much of the terrorism we now see all over the world--since the Iraq war has been a wonderful radicalizing element for Moslems ever since it started.

But that does not relieve individual Moslems from responsibility for what they do--or mean that the West is evil incarnate--that anything a Western group tries to do is meant to serve the interests of an all -powerful aggressive Western capitalist machine.

Not everything the West does is intended to serve the mythical $ystem we hear so much about on Mudcat--and it would be refreshing to hear left-of-center posters admit this once in a while. Yes, there are--many--abuses of capitalism--yes, capitalism needs a tight rein on it--and is not getting it in the US these days.

But the knighthood seems clearly to be an example of non-aggressive, non-acquisitive Western behavior. In fact, as I said earlier, a sterling example of "No good deed goes unpunished".

And so far there has been absolutely zero evidence that this is not the case.