I'm not sorry, ha ha ha ha ha!

Here's a theme that's making the rounds lately: Haven't Muslims apologized enough already? Ismael Royer, the former civil rights coordinator for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, is a pretty solid essayist with an affinity for using school-days examples in his arguments. (See here and here .) In his article "The Futility of Apology," Royer says Muslims made a great effort to condemn, wave the flag, support the president, and so on, all for naught. This is a fair point: The condemnation game is always fixed because no matter how much condemning the other guy does, you can always say it's not enough.

Riad Saloojee, another CAIR official, drags out the old war horse about how Christians don't have to apologize for self-described agnostic/atheist Tim McVeigh, whose crime contained no religious motivation that anybody has ever discerned. (As an ex-Catholic and convert to atheism I'm going to go out on a limb here and say I sincerely apologize for the Oklahoma City bombing and fully accept the role my religious beliefs and national culture played in this terrible crime.) On more solid ground, Saloojee avers:

Many requests are so harsh, so venomous, that no amount of condemnation will ever suffice. We are witnessing, instead, the politics of ethical one-upmanship that asserts a quota on morality but, in reality, corners the market when it comes to moral chauvinism.

Rarely, for example, is the U.S. brought to task for creating the Bin Laden Frankenstein, supporting and arming him to the teeth.

Nor is Russia asked to apologize for invading Afghanistan, brutalizing it for a decade, and creating a climate of internecine warfare and extremism.

Or, for that matter, is Israel called on to rectify its brutal and morally unjustifiable occupation that provides fuel to these twisted conflagrations of hatred. Indeed, one detects through these omissions that the apportioning of blame to Muslims en masse has an ugly racial face.

Finally, Wael Abdelgawad also drags in McVeigh, and advises his brethren not to apologize at all. "So don't apologize. Especially if you are in a da'wah setting, don't be drawn into a discussion of Osama bin Laden or suicide bombers. Control the forum, direct the talk. Steer it into a discussion of the beauty and truth of Islam." Having been on the receiving end of more than a few of these "steered" discussions, I know they always end up with an attempt at conversion. Is it really so surprising that we infidels try to keep the conversation focused on the less offensive topics of hijackers and the stoning of rape victims?

Finally, God-boy Eric Barger asks "Should we apologize to Muslims?" (Eric's conclusion: Nope.)