Posted 1/14/2005 05:32:00 PM by Douglas

Fascinating perspective on the tsunami, and it quite possibly could have only been written by an Australian. The largest Muslim country on earth suffers the worst natural disaster of the modern era, yet it's Christians from Western nations that provide the lion's share of relief, while the Saudis have given a mere $30 Million, less than a tenth of their daily oil exports.

I gave up worrying "Why do they hate us?" on the evening of September 11, 2001. But, if I were that Osodden bin Loser guy watching the infidels truck in water, food, medical supplies and emergency clothing for villagers whose jihad-chic T-shirt collection was washed out to sea, I might ask myself a more pertinent question: "Why do they like us?"

The path of the tsunamis tracked the arc of the Muslim world, from Sumatra to Somalia; the most devastated country is the world's most populous Muslim nation, and the most devastated part of that country is the one province living under the strictures of sharia.

But, as usual, when disaster strikes it's the Great Satan and his various Little Satans who leap to respond. In the decade before September 11, the US military functioned, more or less exclusively, as a Muslim rapid reaction force – coming to the aid of Kuwaiti Muslims, Bosnian Muslims, Somali Muslims and Albanian Muslims. Since then, with the help of its Anglo-Australian allies, it's liberated 50 million Muslims in Afghanistan and Iraq.

That's not how the West's anti-war movements see it. I found myself behind a car the other day bearing the bumper sticker, "War Is Costly. Peace Is Priceless" – which is standard progressive generic autopilot boilerplate, that somehow waging war and doing good are mutually exclusive. But you can't help noticing that when disaster strikes, it's the warmongers who are also the compassion-mongers. Of the top six donor nations to tsunami relief, four are members of George W. Bush's reviled "coalition of the willing".

Where is Saudi Arabia's Billion dollar contribution? Where's the hundreds of millions of petro-dollars from Oman, Qatar, and Kuwait? How dare they just stand idly by and let their misfortunate brethren be catered to by these heathen Christians? What are they waiting for? Aren't they going to do something to stop this blatant Christian proselytization? I think Mark says it best:

Colin Powell was foolish to suggest that, in its response to this crisis, the Muslim world would come to appreciate the true nature of the US. Fat chance. "It's OK that aid from the US is here," said Hilmy Bakar Almascaty, spokesman for the Islamic Defender Front. "But if they open bars, sell alcohol or open prostitution centres, then we will fight them." Almascaty also warned the Australian charity Youth Off the Streets that its plan to open homes for 35,000 Indonesian orphans was all very well, but on no account was it to try converting Muslim children. Jeez, man, would it kill you once in a while just to send a box of chocolates and a card saying "Thank you, you infidel sons of whores and pigs", and leave it at that?

Exactly. "Thank you, you infidel sons of whores and pigs." Is that too much to ask? It's OK to take our aid money while you openly hate our guts. Just do me one favor: Could you take off your "Osama bin Laden ain't done with his bombin'" T-shirt? At least while you're on you way to the bank to cash your American Red Cross Aid check.

Literally, it's the least you could do.