Muhammad Idrees Ahmad

So Hollywood finally gets around to addressing an issue of grave contemporary relevance, and Guardian assigns the review to a half-wit wanker. The outcome is predictable: there is much obsessing with a single alleged weak link in the plot, and complete lack of comprehension regarding the larger issue. But what caught my eye is this passage:

It’s a structural device that implicitly carries the rational lesson that the US is not an island entire of itself, to paraphrase John Donne, that its actions have consequences for other people’s lives, and are themselves determined by factors outside its borders. It also asks the audience to consider that the natives of other countries have families and feelings, too. There’s a decency in this, but also a naivety and a moral equivalence…

Imagine that? Someone actually naive enough to ‘to consider that the natives of other countries have families and feelings, too’!

Given the general poor quality of the review, I am certain the poor fellow doesn’t even know where he lifted his phrases from. ‘Moral equivalence’ was a phrase invented by the neocon extremist Jeane Kirkpatrick to explain why only crimes of the ‘Other’ were worthy of condemnation, and those of one’s own side were by design benign.

Poor rendition, indeed.

Here on the other hand is the Independent‘s sensible and intelligent review.