Britain's Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, reassures the United Nations Assembly in this report from the BBC:

Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has said there is no fundamental difference between the Islamic world and the West. He told the United Nations Assembly, meeting in New York, that Arab peoples developed the mathematical foundations on which the digital world is based.

Mr. Straw's historical views are skewed. His hyping of Islam's contribution to the sciences continues unabashedly, despite evidence  to the contrary.

He said only "terrorists and the preachers of hate" wanted people "to believe that Islam and the West are fundamentally different." Theirs was a "philosophy of mistrust and despair", which he rejected.

However, Mr Straw said poor economic prospects and stunted political freedoms had led to widespread disillusionment among young and talented Muslims.

Here again Mr. Straw displays his historical revisionism, one based on a multiculturalism so saturated with extreme politcal correctness that it permeates the minds of our elites, despite the Qur'anic evidence and Islamic tradition.

Mr Straw said poor economic prospects and stunted political freedoms had led to widespread disillusionment among young and talented Muslims. And he said Arab nations were now behind in the technological revolution. "The answer however does not lie in easy stereotypes about some clash of civilisations," he added.

Thank you for your insightful analysis Mr. Straw. Please don't mind if we conduct our own investigation into the matter.

Eric Schwappach  9 18 05