THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton compared the man who shot Gabrielle Giffords to Islamist terrorists and the 9/11 attackers and said the incident showed America and the Arab world faced similar problems.In a television broadcast filmed before students in Abu Dhabi, Mrs Clinton was asked why the 9/11 terror attacks, the work of a handful of men, had been allowed to colour American views of a whole people.
She replied that America was "proud" of its many Muslim citizens and public servants, and said that the media exaggerated the voices of those who presented hostile views of the Muslim and Arab worlds.
She then raised the shooting at the weekend of the Arizona Democratic congresswoman, Gabrielle Giffords.
"We have extremists in our country," she said. "A wonderful and incredibly brave young woman congress member was just shot by extremists in our country.
"We have the same kinds of problems, so rather than standing off of each other we should work to try and prevent the extremists wherever they are from being able to commit violence."
Ascribing the Arizona shootings to political extremism rather than the work of a mentally deranged loner has already proved controversial, and President Barack Obama avoided doing so directly in his address to the American people afterwards.
Mrs Clinton may be taking an even bigger risk in comparing the attack, even obliquely, to al-Qaeda's war on America. >>> Richard Spencer, Abu Dhabi | Monday, January 10, 2011
