We already know that al Qaeda and other Islamists listen closely to the MSM. The recent Osama tape demonstrates that the terrorist chief pays attention to US polling data as well as the talking points of the Democrat-Left (see Tom McGuire and Link Mecca for examples, and Peter Daou for a hyperventilating denial that doth protest too much). We think Osama’s talking points were very instructive because he misinterprets Bush Derangement Syndrome to be synonymous with anti-Americanism, which takes matters too far. That is a serious mistake on his part.

Now we have an opportunity for al Qaeda and our current number one foe, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to make a further miscalculation, because of the cartoon controversy. The MSM have succumbed to fear of the Islamists and will not show the cartoons, as we and others have noted. Iran may take the obsequiousness of the MSM and spineless bodies seeking to codify media censorship, like the EU in Brussels, to be an indication of popular sentiment and popular will. That would be mistake that could lead to serious consequences, in our view, because the power of the MSM is limited, as is its value as a measure of public opinion.

The MSM have been kowtowing to dictators, thugs, and bully boys at least since the NYT’s Walter Duranty kissed Stalin’s boots in the 1930′s, so their current behavior should be no surprise to anyone. For example, Eason Jordan had CNN cover up for Saddam and Kim Jong Il, as did boss Ted Turner. Similarly, according to Wretchard, Europe’s elite and its leaders have now fallen “too far behind the curve of popular opinion” in their failure to recognize and respect the anger of ordinary Europeans at the shenanigans being tolerated from the Islamist bullies. So Iran may be getting a false sense of how far it can push matters, based on EU elites and MSM coverage of the West. To put matters another way, demographics may be destiny, but 2050 has not arrived yet — by a long shot:

We constructed this chart with numbers from the CIA Factbook. It shows that Muslims still account for quite small minorities in the US, the UK, France and Germany. There are under 10 million Muslims in France, Germany and the UK, which together have a combined population of over 200 million people. A number of these millions are in fact well assimilated into their countries, and in any event are not radicals, though the troublemakers tend to attract most of the attention. In each of those countries the radical Imams and the Brownshirts have so far been pretty much tolerated, with some notable exceptions, over the last couple of years. But what will happen in the event of provocative and dangerous actions by Iran, a nuclear threat, for example? Is Iran making a miscalculation that the Muslim street in Europe would rise up in solidarity with Iran, based on past appeasement and the current passivity of the non-Muslim populations and governments in Germany, France and the UK? Is Iran overestimating the power of the Muslim Brownshirts because of the coverage and deference afforded them by the MSM, despite the inherent implausability of 5% of the population dictating to the other 95% through threats and intimidation? We would not be surprised if the answer is yes.

It may well be true that Eurabia will emerge as something real in the course of this century, but we wonder if the hyperactive and apocalyptic Ahmadinejad may overestimate his current power to influence events in Europe, based on the bowing and scraping of the MSM. If so, that could be very good news for the West, whose interest lies in confronting this maniac sooner rather than later.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 9th, 2006 at 2:27 pm and is filed under EU, General, Left of Left, MSM, Religion, War. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.