Fanning the Flames

by Steve on September 19, 2006

As expected, the radicals continue to escalate the rhetoric surrounding their interpretation of the Pope’s speech, using it to agitate the volatile Muslim populace. From AP:

Al-Qaida in Iraq warned Pope Benedict XVI on Monday that its war against Christianity and the West will go on until Islam takes over the world, and Iran’s supreme leader called for more protests over the pontiff’s remarks on Islam.

Yesterday I commented that all this uproar was quite likely a smoke screen designed to draw our attention away from the real threat at hand. We need to ignore the smoke and concentrate on putting out the fire. If we continue to react to these irrational outbursts the beast will learn that it can affect western policy simply by behaving badly. Any parent or dog trainer has seen this same phenomenon on a smaller scale: the “student” continues to push and test boundaries until he perceives that he has indeed reached the limit beyond which undesirable consequences will occur. If the teacher caves, the limit moves ever outward.

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