Friday, September 29, 2006

Islam = Religion of Peace? Riiiggghhhhtttt...

Daniel Pipes has an enlightening article in NY Sun 9/26, also posted on his website, entitled: "Intimidating the West, from Rushdie to Benedict." [NY Sun title: "A Look at Islamic Violence"]

In the article, Mr. Pipes chronicles six major events that have occurred since 1989, where the religion of peace™ has been set off by an incident with the west. Clear evidence that United States involvement in Iraq is not the cause of terrorism, but Islam itself is the cause.

  • 1989 – Salman Rushdie's novel, The Satanic Verses prompted Ayatollah Khomeini to issue a death edict against him and his publishers, on the grounds that the book "is against Islam, the Prophet, and the Koran." Subsequent rioting led to over 20 deaths, mostly in India.
  • 1997 – The U.S. Supreme Court refused to remove a 1930s frieze showing Muhammad as lawgiver that decorates the main court chamber; the Council on American-Islamic Relations made an issue of this, leading to riots and injuries in India.
  • 2002 – The American evangelical leader Jerry Falwell calls Muhammad a "terrorist," leading to church burnings and at least 10 deaths in India.
  • 2005 – An incorrect story in Newsweek, reporting that American interrogators at Guantánamo Bay, "in an attempt to rattle suspects, flushed a Qur'an down a toilet," is picked up by the famous Pakistani cricketer, Imran Khan, and prompts protests around the Muslim world, leading to at least 15 deaths.
  • February 2006 – The Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten publishes twelve cartoons of Muhammad, spurring a Palestinian Arab imam in Copenhagen, Ahmed Abdel Rahman Abu Laban, to excite Muslim opinion against the Danish government. He succeeds so well, hundreds die, mostly in Nigeria.
  • September 2006 – Pope Benedict XVI quotes a Byzantine emperor's views that what is new in Islam is "evil and inhuman," prompting the firebombing of churches and the murder of several Christians.

The very people who need to understand what's going on in islam won't read this article. You should read it in its entirety so you can accurately discuss the issue of "islam good, west bad" with the lefty nutjobs.

Religion of peace. Riiggghhhttt.