Markos Moulitsas, influential founder of the Daily Kos leftist website, takes moral equivalency to new and sickening depths in his new book, American Taliban: How Sex, Sin and Power Bind Jihadists to the Radical Right.
According to a synopsis of the book that he wrote for the Huffington Post, Markos has decided that conservatives are not significantly different from the murderous gangsters who terrorize Afghanistan. Following are some of his elaborations on that equivalence, with clarifying questions I’d like to ask him:
Theocracy: Opposition to the Ground Zero mosque is apparently equivalent to a nation that has 48,000 mosques and zero churches. But Markos, New York City alone has a hundred mosques and the United States has 2,000 of them for its small Muslim minority. But you can’t tell the difference between 2,000 and zero? You need to work on Obama’s new debt commission.
Violence: Conservatives use violent rhetoric, wear intimidating T-shirts, and oppose illegal immigration. That’s equivalent to an American Muslim who guns down thirteen of his colleagues at Fort Hood? Without mentioning the ten Western missionaries systematically executed by the real Taliban for helping impoverished Afghanis with eye care? Without mentioning the tens of thousands around the world who have been murdered by the real Taliban? Here’s an experiment you can run, Markos, to test your thesis: For your next book, instead of trashing your right-wing countrymen, trash Islam. Run pictures lampooning the prophet. Cite sneeringly from the Koran. See if you notice any subsequent differences in the behavior of Jihadists and the American right who are supposedly just like them.
Sex and Women: Conservative Christians favor sexual chastity and oppose gay rights. The real Taliban share those views and add to them “arranged marriages, spousal abuse, subjugation of women by force, denial of education to females, and female genital mutilation.” (Source) See any difference here, Markos?
Truth: People who believe in Intelligent Design and deny Global Warming are as oppressive as the real Taliban who teach nothing but the Koran in tens of thousands of madrasas. Of course, the people who control higher education in America and deny access to those who disagree with them are Markos and his buddies.
As usual, the Left is far more guilty of the sins it finds in others. Markos is no exception. He can write this screed because he lives in a Western, Christian culture. If we were really like the Taliban Markos would have been a pile of warm ashes a long time ago. As it is, we grant him his right to speak because he has inalienable rights endowed by his Creator. And as a member of the American Taliban I will fight for his right to be wrong.
