Madam Secretary, Ideas Know No Borders

The other day Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made a statement about her visit to Somalia. In it she expressed her concern that the al-Shabab group was not only importing foreign weapons to the country, but also "foreign ideas." This is appalling. Since when do ideas have a nationality? If I condemn the ideology of al-Qaeda, it's because their beliefs are inhuman, not "un-Somali" or "un-American." Secretary Clinton's rhetoric harkens back to the worst traditions of American nativism and xenophobia. It's not what one might have expected from an administration that's supposed to represent a more enlightened element of this country's rulers.