Muslims and the Media

Last fall, the world commemorated the twentieth anniversary of 9/11, revisiting the shock and horror of the massacre of 2,977 innocent people on that fateful day but offering ­little or no reflection on the countless horrors that America then inflicted on others. The list includes at least 800,000 killed in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in the ten other countries where the $3-trillion war on terror has been waged overtly, and in another seventy-five nations where it has played out more covertly. Further calamities: The 38 million people displaced, according to Brown University’s Costs of War Project. The environmental disasters caused by the unprecedented bombings over a wide swath of the earth. The extrajudicial killings, including of people slaughtered by drones, which have frightened millions more. The torture chambers, including at the Guantanamo Bay detention ­centre, which remains open. The suspension of civil liberties. The distortions of public policy and, indeed, of secular...