Christiane Amanpour - Queen of Stereotypes

Christiane Amanpour, chief international correspondent for CNN, has come under withering fire for her series "Gods Warriors." Rightfully so, I say. Miss Amanpour is not a stranger to the fine lines of Middle Eastern thought and politics, but she cannot seem to help herself from blurring them over and over. Her latest report is more of the same old stuff.

Her series, supposedly an evenhanded treatment of fundamentalist driven terrorism in the Middle East, turned, instead, to a moral equivalence between Islamic, Christian and Jewish extremists.

As stated by Heather Robinson in the August 29, 2007 edition of The New York Sun

The moral equivalency begins with the opening sequence, in which an Orthodox Jewish woman appears on-screen saying, "God promised we would return to this land" and a Muslim woman appears saying, "This is the ultimate sacrifice, to give your soul as a gift to God the creator, and the country." Next comes a shot of Jerry Falwell saying, "I would like to see America become the nation under God again" and then Ms. Amanpour narrating, "They say, ‘God is the answer.' But their battle to save the world has caused anger, division, and fear."

Thus the message is that Jewish and Christian religious fundamentalism are as threatening to world peace as Muslim extremism of the variety voiced by the woman who romanticizes jihad martyrdom.

It is sad that a renowned journalist is trapped inside her own inability to issue a truly balanced report. We expect better from Christiane Amanpour, unfortunately, she does not deliver.

Queen of Stereotypes