Unable to Choose Between Good and Evil

Richard Fernandez:

The physical weapons of al-Qaeda are objectively puny. It is the sheer monstrosity of their malice that raises them above the ordinary; a malice so concentrated and intense that it constitutes the litmus test of character of this age. From time to time evil sets up a shrine and tests humanity by commanding it to bow down before it. In the day of William Tell, it was the Landburger Gessler’s hat upon a pole; sixty years ago it was European civilization’s turn to be tempted by the smoking altars of the Nazi concentration camps. Today both the Left and the Right are asked to choose where they stand in relation to the ideology of al-Qaeda; whose part they will take in the act of the murder. A disappointingly large number of Western intellectuals have chosen to keep silent before this crime; or worse, to excuse it. It’s their choice; and a shameful one.