The gutless ostrich known as the Washington Post comes out against the nomination of Daniel Pipes to the U.S. Institute of Peace: Fueling a Culture Clash.

MANY MUSLIMS received the news that the White House had nominated scholar Daniel Pipes to, of all places, the U.S. Institute of Peace as sort of a cruel joke. The institute is a quasi-governmental think tank dedicated to international “peace and conflict resolution”; one of its latest projects is the Special Initiative on the Muslim World, begun after Sept. 11, 2001, as a bridge between cultures. Mr. Pipes has long been regarded by Muslims as a destroyer of such bridges. And it takes only a glimpse at the latest column posted on his Web site to see why. The column, written for the New York Post, is about Hasan K. Akbar, the U.S. soldier in Kuwait charged with throwing a grenade at his fellow soldiers: “No one yet knows Akbar’s motives, but ignoring that it fits into a sustained pattern of political violence by American Muslims amounts to willful self-deception. When will officialdom acknowledge what is staring it in the face?”

Aaarrrrggghh!

The editors of the WaPo do not even bother to argue against this quote from Pipes, which is plainly true on the very face of it; they seem to believe that simply quoting the statement proves their point. Why are they so afraid of honest dialog about this vitally important subject?

The appeasement reflex of these people is unbelievable, coming from a city that was under vicious attack from Islamic militants on September 11. WaPo is just as guilty of head-in-the-sand willful blindness as the French government. Is it going to take another atrocity like 9/11 to get them to wake up? Will they wake up even then?

Again I urge all LGF readers to write to their representatives and express strong support for President Bush’s nomination of Daniel Pipes to the USIP.