A Historical Parallel

Pieter Dorsman of the moderately right-of-center Canadian blog Peaktalk dissects the Maher Arar affair, and atones for an old mistake.

[M]any commentators — and that includes me — while being aware of the problematic behavior of both Canadian and US officials either neglected to defend Mr. Arar or at least presume his innocence. There always was a whiff of jihadist guilt associated with the man, so why bother? Looking away was the better option.

Dorsman resolves to do better, and makes an observation that many critics of Islam, including me, ought to take to heart.

We can't under any circumstance allow jihadist terror to put us in a position where the lives of Muslims in general are deemed to be of lesser value. We may not realize it, but the very necessary break with politically correct multiculturalism has gone to an extreme where exactly that is happening. Muslim minorities in western societies need to be assisted and compelled to become the Jews of 17th-century Amsterdam, not the Jews of 20th-century Warzaw.

Read it all.