An editorial from Thailand’s The Nation dares to point out the Islamic world’s “double standards about al-Qaeda and the Taleban.”
It points out that “the recent suicide attack by al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia was met with unusually loud condemnation from the Muslim world, apparently because virtually all the victims were Muslims and perhaps because Riyadh has been one of the most generous aid givers to poorer Muslim nations. In contrast, exactly the same heinous acts being carried out by Taleban terrorists in Afghanistan have hardly attracted any outrage from the Muslim world, perhaps because the country is a pauper state struggling to build itself up from total collapse.”
The conclusion: “Moderate and sensible Muslims everywhere who have too often been cowed into submission by the extremist elements in their societies must abandon the double standards that make a distinction between non-Muslim and Muslim victims of terrorists. After all, there is only one standard for humanity, which calls for the eradication of terrorism from the face of the earth.” Indeed.