The Guardian (UK)
January 13, 2003

The West, Not Islam, is the Real Enemy of Democracy

by Faisal Bodi

"Five years ago, the Iranian president Mohammed Khatami called for a "dialogue of civilisations" before a meeting of the UN. The speech was an encomium to liberty, articulating what progressive Islamists have been advocating for years as the key to peace: emancipation from despotism. The major obstacle to peace, goes the theory, is not terrorism or religious obscurantism but the enslavement of hundreds of millions of Muslims, who continue to be denied the fundamental right of being free to choose their own leaders and systems of government."

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["Let this great Freedom Tower show the world that what our enemies sought to destroy - our democracy, our freedom, our way of life - stands taller than ever."

But Sept. 11, 2001, wasn't really about any of that.--Gwynne Dyer, "Terrorism: We've got them right where they want us," St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 8, 2004]

Nir Rosen, "The fighting poets," Asia Times Online, July 17, 2004