Terry Jones Loses Congregation Over Koran Burning Stunt

Florida pastor Terry Jones, who sought to burn a Koran in 9/11 demonstrations against the proposed Cordoba House/Park 51 project, admits that he's lost his congregation because they would much rather hear that "God loves you, you're a good person" than what he says is the truth about Muslims.

Seems that not only do his former congregants get it but that God works in mysterious ways. Again.

On My Nightstand: After the Prophet: The Epic Story of the Shia-Sunni Split in Islam

My latest read has been Lesley Hazleton's After the Prophet: The Epic Story of the Shia-Sunni Split in Islam. It provides an excellent background resource into the way Islam developed in the years following Mohammad's death and how personal conflicts between his followers led to ongoing and deep seated conflict that has lasted more than a millennium. Central to this conflict is Aisha, Mohammad's youngest wife and Ali, one of Mohammad's earliest devotees and followers. Their conflicts and choices politically and religiously set Islam upon a course that we still live with to this day.

Of particular note is the rise of fundamentalist Islam as a response to the growing schism between the followers of Ali as Imam and the followers of the Sunni tradition that was based around Aisha's recitations of hadith - the sunnah. They rejected anyone who didn't follow the strict word of the Koran as being apostate and were the progenitors of the modern Wahabi/Salafist sects that now dominate Saudi Arabia and spawned the terror group al Qaeda as well as the Taliban in Afghanistan.

One flaw to this is an attempt by the author to infuse several areas of the book with not so veiled attacks on the Bush Administration and that had the Administration known their history they would not have gone and acted as they did. That glosses over nearly 1,000 years of conflict and subjugation and suppression of Shi'ites by Sunni Muslims, and that it was that suppression by Saddam Hussein that was genocidal in intent and deed.

Afghan Court Upholds Sentence In Koran Translation Case

The publication of a Koran that doesn't include the original Arabic will result in a lengthy prison sentence for two men in Afghanistan. This is just wrong, but this is how Islamic law rolls:

The controversial text is a translation of Islam's holy book into an Afghan language without the original Arabic verses alongside. Muslims regard the Arabic Quran as words given directly by God. A translation is not considered a Quran itself, and it is believed a mistranslation could warp God's word.

A host of Muslim clerics in this conservative Islamic state have condemned the translation - which was published in 2007 and handed out for free - as blasphemous and accused its publishers of setting themselves up as false prophets.

Critics have said the trial illustrates the undue influence of hard-line clerics in Afghanistan's fledgling legal system.

The appeals court found the men guilty of modifying the Quran - a crime punishable by death. However, the three-judge panel reiterated a lower court ruling giving the men 20 years each.

The prosecutor had asked for the death penalty for the two men - Ahmad Ghaws Zalmai, a former spokesman for the attorney general, and Mushtaq Ahmad, a Muslim cleric who signed a letter endorsing the translation.

Chief judge Abdul Salam Qazizada invoked Islamic Shariah law when reading out the sentence, saying death would not have been an extreme punishment.

The death sentence was considered an appropriate treatment for the crime since both men were accused of apostasy and leading other Muslims to consider apostasy.

Here's the thing.

Despite making the Koran more approachable and understandable for the people reading it - those that can read it in a country that has an incredibly high illiteracy rate - it is deemed a crime because the original Arabic was not included (even when most people don't know how to read it or understand it either).

The freedom of speech runs headlong into Islamic law and Islamic law wins again.

These two men are lucky that they didn't get a death sentence.

Fitna Finally Arrives

Geert Wilders film, Fitna, which has caused quite the controversy since it was announced, has been released to LiveLeak:



The opening scenes are going to be tough to watch as they recount the 9/11 terrorist attacks by the 19 Islamic hijackers, the Madrid bombings, and the words of the jihadi leaders exhorting their followers to conduct still more terrorist attacks with the intention of killing many more.

It traces the Koranic texts that underlie the Islamist ambitions and justifications for terrorism and violence against the West.

These are the jihadis in their own words, and how they've indoctrinated children to their cause - which is to instill hatred and violence against non Muslims around the world.

UPDATE:
Expect a full tilt blogstorm to erupt with the release of the 15 minute video. Already posting their thoughts and support of Wilders against the all too expected backlash from the Islamists: Hot Air, Michelle Malkin, Snapped Shot, Jammie, Ace of Spades, and the Jawa Report.

UPDATE:
While the Islamists and the mullahs around the world will whine and seethe over the portray of Islam in the movie, this movie has nothing to do with offending Islam. It is not about antagonizing Muslims.

It is, however, about showing the Islamists for what they are. Wilders uses their own words and deeds against them. The themes are similar to those found in the works of Daniel Pipes and Robert Spenser, both of whom the Islamists seek to silence by all means possible. The Islamists seek to silence Wilders, Pipes, and Spenser because they shed light on the Islamists dirty little secret - that they use the Koran to justify their violence against the West and that they will not stop until they accomplish those goals or are first stopped by a vigorous defense.

The publication of this video, and those like it, helps reveal the true face of the threat posed by the Islamists.

UPDATE:
LiveLeak issued the following statement:

LiveLeak.com has a strict stance on remaining unbiased and allowing freedom of speech as so far as the law and our rules allow. There was no legal reason to refuse Geert Wilders the right to post his film (Fitna) on LiveLeak.com and it is not our place to censor people based on an emotive response. We in no way endorse Geert Wilders, his views, nor the views expressed within Fitna. To many of us involved in LiveLeak.com some of the messages therein are personally offensive. That being said, our being offended is no reason to deny Mr Wilders the right to have his film seen. Pre-emptive censorship or a discriminatory policy towards freedom of speech are both things we oppose here on LiveLeak.com. A person has a simple, clear choice about whether to view this film. No one is being forced to view it and nor is it being broadcasted on every channel on their television set. If you click on media simply to be annoyed, it is pointless to blame others for your choice.

We do not intend on defending the content of Fitna, only our choice to allow it. Anyone has the full right of reply on LiveLeak.com. Any person or organizations are free to post their opinion and, dependent on said response falling within both the law and our rules, we will afford such responses equal exposure. There are undoubtedly better ways to spark a discussion but this film is now out there and we believe we should all grasp this opportunity to create an open dialogue and discussion on this subject.

Peace or Pieces

The Palestinian Authority, which represents the Palestinians and is comprised of terrorist groups Fatah and Hamas have no intention of recognizing Israel's right to exist.

They state as much time and time again.

They even cite the Koran in their candid moments as justification for the ongoing war against Israel. In other words, it is a religious obligation to destroy Israel.

So, with this overwhelming evidence that Israel does not have a partner in peace among the Palestinians, why do diplomats the world over believe that a peace process is possible and that Israel must make concession after concession in the name of peace?

The Palestinians want Israel in pieces, not peace with Israel.

And while the Palestinians are at it, they have no love for the US either. Indeed, they would much like to see the US destroyed as well.

Pace University Strong Arms Hillel

Another perfect example of free speech on college campuses, as well as Islam's inability to accept or hear critizism of itself.

January 9, 2007 -- Pace University administrators threatened to sic the cops on a Jewish-student club if it went ahead with plans to screen a critically acclaimed film about radical Islam, the head of the group charged yesterday.

Michael Abdurakhmanov, president of Pace Hillel, said two deans warned that showing the documentary film would implicate club members as suspects in two hate crimes involving the desecration of the Koran at the university's lower-Manhattan campus last fall.

In addition, Abdurakhmanov said an assistant dean physically restrained him as he attempted to defend the film and his group in a meeting with administrators.

"The message was pretty clear, if you show this film, you're going to incriminate yourself," Abdurakhmanov said.

Pace spokesman Chris Cory acknowledged that officials encouraged Hillel to postpone the screening until tensions over the hate crimes dissipated, but dismissed the accusations of coercion as "far-fetched," "implausible" and "unprofessional."

Hillel had planned to screen "Obsession" during Judaism Awareness Week in November. The school stepped in after receiving complaints from Muslim students that the film negatively portrayed Islam.

In September and October, copies of the Koran were found in toilets in men's rooms on the Manhattan campus. Those incidents were followed by the discovery of a swastika scrawled on a bathroom wall and a Hillel event poster.

Abdurakhmanov, a 20-year-old psychology major from Brooklyn, said neither he nor any member of his club had reason to believe they were suspects in the Koran incidents until the dean of students, Marijo Russell O'Grady, suggested it.

"Her words were if you show this film, the police will be looking into your records further," Abdurakhmanov said.

He added that he knew of no one who had been contacted by the NYPD's Hate Crime Task Force. An NYPD spokesman declined to say whether there were any suspects in the cases.

In a second meeting with university administrators, Abdurakhmanov claims an assistant dean, David Clark, twice pushed him into a seat when he tried to stand to speak.

I am sure if a group wanted to show The Passion of the Christ the school would have no problem letting them show it. This is another example of academia being hijacked by radical Islam, and stifling free speech. Instead of threatening Hillel (which I was a founding member of at SUNY Oneonta), the school could have provided follow events presenting the alternate side. Instead of embracing free speech and the free exchange of ideas, the school would rather threaten criminal sanctions on baseless charges. If the school has evidence that any member of Hillel committed a hate crime than come out with it. Do not threaten investigations and charges against students for participating in legitimate events.

Ellison to use Jefferson's Koran for Oath of Office

Rep.-elect Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress, found himself under attack last month when he announced he'd take his oath of office on the Koran -- especially from Virginia Rep. Virgil Goode, who called it a threat to American values.

Yet the holy book at tomorrow's ceremony has an unassailably all-American provenance. We've learned that the new congressman -- in a savvy bit of political symbolism -- will hold the personal copy once owned by Thomas Jefferson.

"He wanted to use a Koran that was special," said Mark Dimunation, chief of the rare book and special collections division at the Library of Congress, who was contacted by the Minnesota Dem early in December. Dimunation, who grew up in Ellison's 5th District, was happy to help.

Jefferson's copy is an English translation by George Sale published in the 1750s; it survived the 1851 fire that destroyed most of Jefferson's collection and has his customary initialing on the pages. This isn't the first historic book used for swearing-in ceremonies -- the Library has allowed VIPs to use rare Bibles for inaugurations and other special occasions.

Ellison will take the official oath of office along with the other incoming members in the House chamber, then use the Koran in his individual, ceremonial oath with new Speaker Nancy Pelosi. "Keith is paying respect not only to the founding fathers' belief in religious freedom but the Constitution itself," said Ellison spokesman Rick Jauert.

So he takes the oath on the Bible, then takes a fake oath on a Koran? Does that make sense? While I do not believe that the Koran should be used to swear an oath to this country (See Sharia, democracy and human rights, swearing a fake oath on the Koran (or the Bible for that matter) seems just plain wrong.

Others blogging this story Hot Air
Technorati: Sharia Koran Keith Ellison

Not An Issue

Keith Ellison, who will become the first Muslim member of Congress next month, has offended some conservatives with his plan to use the Quran during his ceremonial swearing-in. The decision by Ellison, D-Minn., to use the Muslim holy book for the ceremony instead of the Bible triggered an angry column by Dennis Prager on the Web site Townhall.com this week.

Headlined, "America, Not Keith Ellison, decides what book a congressman takes his oath on," Prager argued that using the Quran for the ceremony "undermines American civilization."

"Insofar as a member of Congress taking an oath to serve America and uphold its values is concerned, America is interested in only one book, the Bible," he wrote. "If you are incapable of taking an oath on that book, don't serve in Congress."

Conservative bloggers have picked up the criticism and run with it.

I know why people are trying to make a big deal about Keith Ellison and his intent to be sworn in on a koran instead of a bible. It's a big deal to be the first Muslim sworn into the House of Representatives.

But here's the thing. The Constitution addresses the issue quite adequately. No where does it make any religious qualification for the office of Representative or Senator. No where does the Constitution require the swearing in on a bible.

Indeed, the First Amendment states things quite nicely:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...

Note that this does not require the separation of church and state, but rather the prohibition of government interference in the exercise of one's religion or creating an official religion sanctioned by government action.

While once can have questions and doubts about Ellison's politics, his request to be sworn in is fully within his rights.

More to the point, there were quite a few conservatives who disagreed with Prager on the matter, including Mark Levin on his radio show on Friday. Levin, whose legal knowledge is quite considerable, broke down the Ellison matter into simple legal terms - outlining what I noted above.

The fact is that Prager is wrong and one of the reasons that this nation is so great is that we do not have religious tests for political offices. Indeed, there are no such tests at all other than the ability to win elections. Voters in Minnesota found Ellison worthy of their votes and that was sufficient.

It will be up to his constituents to determine whether he does a good job for them over the next two years, and whether he or someone else should represent them.

Omar Shahin Back in the News

Omar Shahin, one of the six imams at the center of the staged controversy on a US Airlines plane, has some more interesting commentary about world affairs and the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Shahin says the following:

Mr. Shahin says he cut ties to KindHearts after the Treasury Department began investigating the group, that “true Muslims” do not murder and were not responsible for the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center.

“If they claim they are Muslim, they are wrong,” Mr. Shahin said yesterday in a telephone interview. “Despite what religion they claim, even if they are all Arabs, to say they are Muslims is wrong, completely wrong.

“We have been asked by God and by the prophet Muhammad to respect all human life. The Koran is very clear, to save one life he saves all human life, and whoever kills one person, he kills all humankind, and that is what Islam is all about.”

Just as a refresher, let's not forget that Shahin also converted 1,200 of the WTC victims to Islam without any of the victims or their families knowing.

He's been spouting off these kinds of statements for quite some time now, and his ties to various groups linked to al Qaeda, Hamas and other enemies of the US have come into focus as a result of law enforcement investigations. Shahin knows exactly what he's doing - and it includes disinformation and purposefully lying about the nature of the 9/11 attacks.

Ahmadinejad Bans Foreign Words

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has ordered government and cultural bodies to use the modified Persian words instead of foreign words, turning pizzas into "elastic loaves," official and domestic media reported on Saturday.

The presidential decree, issued earlier this week, orders all governmental agencies, newspapers and publications to use words deigned more appropriate by the official language watchdog, the Farhangestan Zaban e Farsi or Persian Academy, the Irna official news agency reported.

The academy has introduced more than 2,000 words as alternatives for some of the foreign words that have crept into the Farsi vocabulary, mostly western. The government is less sensitive about Arabic words, because the Koran is written in Arabic.

Always the sign of an insecure regime is a move to ban those words that might show just how bass-ackward your society has become. How will they describe airplanes, Internet, cruise missiles, rockets, liberty, justice, freedom, and a whole litany of words that are foreign or antithetical to Islam.

Ahmadinejad's the Real Deal

If you thought that comparisons between Ahmadinejad and Hiter were far fetched, think again. He's going down the same path that Hitler took Germany, and we know how well that ended up for everyone around the world.

Human rights groups are raising alarms over a new law passed by the Iranian parliament that would require the country's Jews and Christians to wear coloured badges to identify them and other religious minorities as non-Muslims.

"This is reminiscent of the Holocaust," said Rabbi Marvin Hier, the dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles. "Iran is moving closer and closer to the ideology of the Nazis."

Iranian expatriates living in Canada yesterday confirmed reports that the Iranian parliament, called the Islamic Majlis, passed a law this week setting a dress code for all Iranians, requiring them to wear almost identical "standard Islamic garments."

The law, which must still be approved by Iran's "Supreme Guide" Ali Khamenehi before being put into effect, also establishes special insignia to be worn by non-Muslims.

Iran's roughly 25,000 Jews would have to sew a yellow strip of cloth on the front of their clothes, while Christians would wear red badges and Zoroastrians would be forced to wear blue cloth.

"There's no reason to believe they won't pass this," said Rabbi Hier. "It will certainly pass unless there's some sort of international outcry over this."

Bernie Farber, the chief executive of the Canadian Jewish Congress, said he was "stunned" by the measure. "We thought this had gone the way of the dodo bird, but clearly in Iran everything old and bad is new again," he said. "It's state-sponsored religious discrimination."

Ali Behroozian, an Iranian exile living in Toronto, said the law could come into force as early as next year.

It would make religious minorities immediately identifiable and allow Muslims to avoid contact with non-Muslims.

According to wikipedia, this religious edict has absolutely no basis in the Koran or hadith, although it has found its way into dhimmi dress codes through the centuries.

For those who don't know their 20th Century European history, Hitler enacted a series of laws that required Jews to wear special identifying marks - yellow stars. Other minority groups, including gypsies and homosexuals were also forced to wear identifying marks. Those marks often lead to concentration camps or the death camps, where millions perished in the systematic and pervasive genocide of entire racial and ethnic groups, with at least 6 million Jews murdered and countless tens of thousands of gypsies and homosexuals murdered.

Iran may use the oil weapon - withholding its oil from world markets, despite the fact that it would hurt the Iranian economy far more than it would countries like the US. Ahmadinejad simply doesn't care what his actions would do to the average Iranian citizen. He's got his delusions of grandeur and apocalpytic visions to secure.

This comes on the heels that we now know that China provided UH6 gas to help the Iranian scientists overcome problems with their UH6 gas production and enrichment process.

UPDATE:
Gay Patriot gets an email noting that Iran is going after gay and bisexual men under the claims that they're engaging in rape or kidnapping charges. Again, shades of Hitler's Nazi Germany. When will the so-called human rights groups wake up to the horror show that is militant Islamic fundamentalism and totalitarian regimes?

UPDATE:
Others blogging Ahmadinejad's pulling pages from the Nazi playbook: Michelle Malkin, Stop the ACLU, Hot Air, The Jawa Report, QandO, memeorandum.

UPDATE:
There are some questions over the veracity of this story. As more information becomes available, I'll post it. However, this story does tend to fit Ahmadinejad's modus operandi - overt threats towards Israel and Iran's neighbors, sabre rattling, and a da'wa to President Bush telling him to submit to Islam and this conflict could go away.

UPDATE:
Amir Taheri has more on Ahmadinejad's clothing color codes, and background on his decision to push this through.

Technorati: iran, uranium, enriched uranium, iaea, nazi, ahmadinejad.

No Surprise at All

Stalemate over Iran.

There can't be any action on Iran unless and until the big powers come to an agreement, and that's not going to happen anytime soon. Indeed, Iran is using this time to further enhance its nuclear capabilities - it plans on increasing the number of centrifuges enriching uranium to 3,000 by the end of the year.

And that letter sent to President Bush? One could have swapped Ahmadinejad's name for any of the leading leftists out there for the tone taken and smackdown on the concept of western democracy. Of course, al Qaeda sees things differently, but dictators are often the last to know when their time is at an end.

Hot Air incredulously notes that Debka claims to have gotten two drafts of the letter from its sources in Iran. Also, the NYT notes that the letter does nothing to dispel fears over Iran's nuclear intentions.

American officials said the letter, which was not released, was 16 pages in Persian and 18 pages in an English translation that Iran had provided. The officials said the letter had offered a philosophical, historical and religious analysis of Iran's relationship to the West, and asked questions about the cost to the world of the establishment of Israel, while another section asserted that Western-style democracy had failed humanity.

Some American officials said the letter appeared to be aimed at disrupting talks on Iran among top envoys of the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China. The United States ambassador to the United Nations, John R. Bolton, suggested that Iran was throwing "sand in the eyes" of diplomats.

Last time I checked, Islamic theocracies and/or totalitarian regimes had done wonders for the countries of the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa.

Scott Ott provides his own take on what was contained in the letter. Sadly, that's closer to the truth as Iran's intentions have been clear for quite some time. They're using the time spent on diplomacy to speed ahead on their nuclear ambitions, knowing that Russia and China will hold off US or EU efforts long enough that Iran will be able to have enough enriched uranium for weapons - and by which time it would be too late to act.

UPDATE:
Here's a copy of the letter, as published by the Wall Street Journal online. I'll join Hugh Hewitt and Scott at Powerline in noting that Ahmadinejad is off his rocker. The letter includes diatribes against Israel and chastizing the US and the West on the concept of democracy. Ahmadinejad claims to be a teacher, and this letter takes the tone of a teacher who thinks that white is black, up is down, right is left, and that totalitarianism and Islamism is better than democracy.

This letter isn't so much an exchange of ideas, but a lecture by someone whose worldview is totally warped by his religous views and rabid anti-Semitism. Amazingly, he even tosses in "What would Jesus (and Abraham, Issac, Ishmail, or Joseph) do if they were alive today" (page 13) in an attempt to bolster his dim view of US involvment in the region. Further, he tries to answer his own question by claiming that he knows what they would do - and it isn't what the US has done. He then writes about how the Koran respects other religions, all while practicing the art of deception - taqyia. The koran may have some passages that call for tolerance, but the mullahs have shown absolutely no such tolerance whatsoever. After all, Iran repeatedly calls for Israel's destruction - this despite the fact that Jews are People of the Book and whose early religious history laid the framework for Mohammad and Islam.

All in all, experts will pore over every word and try to figure out what the mullahs are thinking and provide an assessment of who Ahmadinejad is - as though we need more evidence proving that he's a complete nutter who wouldn't mind finishing the job started by the Nazis and has no problem trying to incite a global conflict.

UPDATE:
Robert Spencer calls this not the rantings of a lunatic mind, but a da'wa - a call to Islam, which if not heeded, could result in an attack. The NYT picks up on the fact that Ahmadinejad runs with the secret prisons claims, despite the fact that no one has actually found them to exist. Wonder where he got that idea from except from reading through the pages of the New York Times.

The Moderate Voice thinks Ahmadinejad is underestimating the US at his own peril. Blackfive thinks we're being poorly served by the folks who reported that this letter was a negotiating ploy. My reading concurs.

In the Bullpen notes Secretary of State Rice was absolutely correct in rejecting this letter despite the fact that experts were saying what a wonderful opportunity it was for dialogue.

Pejman Yousefzadeh also takes the so-called experts to task and wonders whether this is the kind of masterstroke that Bismarck, Castlereagh or Metternich would have employed. Here's a hint - the answer is no.

Also blogging: Indepundit. More to follow...

UPDATE:
Still more folks blogging the Ahmadinejad letter:

Blue Crab Boulevard and Gateway Pundit note that Ahmadinejad is parroting the usual leftist and Democrat banter. Pundit Guy thinks Ahmadinejad was brillant because the media outlets and the usual assortment of 'experts' bought the whole charade about compromise while avoiding the 800 pound gorilla in the room - the lecture/da'wa.

Cox and Forkum bring their usual wit to the table. Iranian Truth has some interesting thoughts about the letter, including:

1) its either intended to mock the US president and point out inconsistencies in his policy and faith, or 2) intended to articulate Ahmadinejad's policy position to the Western word, by which the letter was simply intended to fan the media. I'm intended to believe in the latter position then the former, although both objectives clearly could have been in mind.

Lileks takes the humorous approach.

Both the Counterterrorism Blog, which cites Steve Emerson, and Bullwinkle Blog, notes this letter buys Iran still more time.

Winds of Change notes that if this is diplomacy, it's not the kind of diplomacy we've come to know and love.

Taheriazar's Justification

The man who hit nine people with a sport utility vehicle on the University of North Carolina's Chapel Hill campus wrote a letter to a television reporter saying he read the Quran's 114 chapters 15 times and found that the Muslim holy book justified the attack.

''I did not act out of hatred for Americans, but out of love for Allah instead,'' Mohammed Taheri-azar, 22, wrote in a letter to Amber Rupinta dated March 10 posted on WTVD's Web site.

Funny, but it doesn't matter how many times you read a book, if your interpretation is wrong, rereading the same passages aren't going to give you any different result. Of course, the thornier response is that Taheriazar wasn't misinterpreting the Koran and that it indeed calls for jihad and justifies attacks on infidels. Front Page considers the problems dealing with Taheriazar's actions as a terrorist incident, including the legal hurdles.

Even if his statements trumpeting jihadist motivations are true, authorities can neither charge him with a terrorist offense, nor seek a sentencing enhancement based on his terrorist motives. This points to a significant blind spot in dealing with terrorism in the United States.

Taheri-azar is being prosecuted in state court, and North Carolina doesn't have an applicable terrorism offense that can be brought to bear against him. The state only has two statutory provisions dealing with terrorist incidents. One bans weapons of mass destruction, while the other amends the murder offense. The amendment to the murder offense doesn't apply here--not only because Taheri-azar didn't murder anybody, but also because it only applies when the murder was performed with a nuclear, biological, or chemical weapon.

The federal sentencing guidelines do contain a sentencing enhancement in §3A1.4 for offenses intended to promote a federal crime of terrorism. In turn, 18 U.S.C. § 2232b(g)(5) sensibly defines the predicate intention for a federal crime of terrorism as actions "calculated to influence or affect the conduct of government by intimidation or coercion, or to retaliate against government conduct." While this provision may seem at first glance to apply to Taheri-azar, it doesn't provide federal courts with independent jurisdiction. Rather, the terrorist intentions must be coupled with an independent federal crime.

And this situation isn't going to change anytime soon as more lone wolf jihadis come out of the woodwork and wreak havoc on American streets.

Taheriazar: It's In The Koran

The suspect in this month's attack on the UNC-CH campus has written a letter to ABC11 Eyewitness News. Eyewitness News received the letter Monday, in response to our request for an interview. It was sent from Central Prison in Raleigh and dated Friday, March 10. Addressed to ABC11 Eyewitness News anchor Amber Rupinta, the two-page letter includes Taheri-azar's explanation of what he was trying to accomplish in the attack.
"Allah gives permission in the Koran for the followers of Allah to attack those who have raged war against them, with the expectation of eternal paradise in case of martyrdom and/or living one's life in obedience of all of Allah's commandments found throughout the Koran's 114 chapters..."

"The U.S. government is responsible for the deaths of and the torture of countless followers of Allah, my brothers and sisters. My attack on Americans at UNC-CH on March 3rd was in retaliation for similar attacks orchestrated by the U.S. government on my fellow followers of Allah in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, and other Islamic territories. I did not act out of hatred for Americans, but out of love for Allah instead."

Again, we need to heed the words of this jihadist, who makes it abundantly clear that he justifies his actions because of his religious beliefs.

Taheriazar also must be rather myopic considering that the overwhelming number of deaths in the Middle East and South Asia are not caused by infidels killing Muslims, but by Muslims killing other Muslims who do not adhere to the same version of Islam as they do. Sunni killing Shi'ite. Shi'ite killing Sunni. Militant Islamists (Salafists and Wahabists) killing Sunni and Shi'a - to try and forment a civil war in Iraq. Ba'athists (who are Sunni Muslims) trying to kill their opponents (Kurds and Shi'a - both of whom are Muslims).

Also, there's the curious wording - "similar attacks orchestrated by the US"? We don't hear much about soldiers running down terrorists or civilian populations in Iraq or anywhere else for that matter, but we do hear plenty about Islamic terrorists using car bombs to blow up people waiting to get jobs or go to school or voting in elections.

Greyhawk has a roundup of views from Iraq on who's doing the killing - and by and large it's not the US doing the killing but Islamic terrorists killing other Muslims.

Others commenting on Taheriazar's statements: Charles at LGF, Ed Driscoll, and Small Town Veteran.

Stupid Is As Stupid Does

Big Pharoah calls the Palestinians stupid. He's being far too kind.

The Palestinians are colossally stupid on a level previously unknown.

Israel goes and deals with a festering situation in a Jericho jail - namely dealing with six terrorists being held there under a 2002 agreement because the Palestinians were not living up to the obligations of that agreement. Among the six prisoners is one Ahmed Saadat, who is accused of assassinating an Israeli member of the Knesset, Tourism Minister Rehavam Ze'evi. The Palestinians were threatening to release the six, in violation of the 2002 agreement.

There were US and British monitors at the jail to try and ensure compliance (namely that the Palestinians wouldn't simply leave the keys lying around for these six to head for the hills). The monitors left the jail for reasons that are still unclear, and Israel went in. After that, all hell broke loose at the jail and in Gaza.

The Palestinian response? They go after European aid workers in Gaza. Powerline writes:

Mr Saadat, who Israel blames for the assassination of a minister in 2001, has refused to surrender. [See the linked Jerusalem Post story below for the bacground: "Sa'adat, the secretary general of the Popular Front of the Liberation of Palestine is believed to have masterminded Ze'evi's assasination. He never stood trial but was included in the deal struck with the Palestinian Authority whereby he, together with five others involved in Ze'evi's murder would be transferred to Jericho jail where they would be supervised by British and US agents. Prior to their leaving Yasser Arafat's Mukata compound in Ramallah to be transferred to Jericho, Arafat held a kangaroo court in his office and sentenced the four cell members."]

Hamdi Koran, who pulled the trigger and was sentenced to 18 years hard labor, Basel al Amar, sentenced to 12 years hard labor, Majdi Rimawi to eight years and Ahed Gholam to one year.

A British cultural centre in Gaza has been set ablaze and an EU compound stormed, in what appears to be a response to events in Jericho.

A Palestinian official has said two French citizens have been kidnapped.

Hundreds of Palestinians in Gaza have been demonstrating against the Israeli operation in Jericho.

Palestinian militants from the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades in Gaza City have warned US and UK nationals to leave the Palestinian territories immediately.

Where's the logic in all this? There is none, except that it's the same thing that the Palestinians do time and time again. They rant, rave, rampage, and rage against those who have done nothing against them.

Oh, and the six prisoners who claimed that they would never surrender alive? Well, they surrendered alive. LGF reports that the PFLP threatens more assassinations of Israeli officials.

UPDATE:
See Meryl Yourish and Vital Perspectives for more on today's incident at the Jericho prison and the background on the terrorists who Israel sought to keep under lock and key and the terrorists' backers and fellow travellers who want to continue with the carnage. Laurence Simon blogging at Meryl's also weighs in on the value of Palestinian agreements. I think he's thinking the Palestinians are full of crap.

Nigeria's Nightmare Continues

Rioting in Nigeria continues unabated following the initial riots where Muslims attacked Christian churches and started a killing spree. Christians responded, not by turning the other cheek, but attacking Muslims who started this latest conflict.

Rioters have killed scores of people here, mostly Muslims, after burning their homes, businesses and mosques in the worst violence yet linked to the caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad first published in a Danish newspaper. The violence in Nigeria began with attacks on Christians in the northern part of the country last week by Muslims infuriated over the cartoons.

Now old ethnic and political tensions between Muslims in the north and Christians here in the south have been reignited, with at least 33 bodies still visible on the streets of Onitsha on Thursday and a local organization that has tried to collect the scattered corpses reporting that it has already picked up 80 others.

The cycle of tit-for-tat sectarian violence has pushed the death toll in the last week well beyond 100, making Nigeria the hardest-hit country so far in the caricature controversy.

The main thoroughfare leading into the city across the Niger River was covered in bodies of Muslim Hausas who had tried to flee rampaging bands of youths, witnesses said. Many of the victims appeared to have been beaten to death; most of the bodies had been doused with gasoline and burned.

It's curious that the Times focuses on the Muslim mosques that were destroyed, didn't have the photos of the Christian churches that were destroyed in the initial riots.

The most recent cycle began in Borno State, where riots broke out over the Danish cartoons, killing at least 18 people. Muslim rioters burned churches and the homes and businesses of Christians.

In Bauchi State, riots were set off last week when a Christian teacher took a Koran away from a Muslim student who was reading it without permission in class, according to Nigerian newspaper accounts. Muslims were incensed because it is considered a desecration to touch the Koran without performing ritual ablutions. Twenty-five people were killed.

So, what's the lesson learned in Bauchi State? A Christian teacher isn't allowed to control his class and can't touch a Koran because any attempt to do so will result in rioting. Gotcha.

Technorati: Buy Danish "jyllands-posten mohammed" "muhammad cartoon" embassy torchings "muhammad image archive",

Assessing Speech at Home

This is a must read editorial published in the Washington Post. Taking excerpts wont do it justice, but here's a sampling:

The press has had no problem with breaking a story using classified information on detention centers for captured terrorists and suspects -- stories that could harm our allies. And it disclosed a surveillance program so highly classified that most members of Congress were unaware of it.

In its zeal to publish stories critical of our nation's efforts -- and clearly upsetting to enemies and allies alike -- the press has printed some articles that turned out to be inaccurate. The Guantanamo Bay flushing of the Koran comes to mind.

But for the past month, the Islamist street has been on an intifada over cartoons depicting Muhammad that were first published months ago in a Danish newspaper. Protests in London -- never mind Jordan, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Iran and other countries not noted for their commitment to democratic principles -- included signs that read, "Behead those who insult Islam." The mainstream U.S. media have covered this worldwide uprising; it is, after all, a glimpse into the sentiments of our enemy and its allies. And yet it has refused, with but a few exceptions, to show the cartoons that purportedly caused all the outrage.

The Boston Globe, speaking for many other outlets, editorialized: "[N]ewspapers ought to refrain from publishing offensive caricatures of Mohammed in the name of the ultimate Enlightenment value: tolerance."

But as for caricatures depicting Jews in the most medievally horrific stereotypes, or Christians as fanatics on any given issue, the mainstream press seems to hold no such value. And in the matter of disclosing classified information in wartime, the press competes for the scoop when it believes the public interest warrants it.

What has happened? To put it simply, radical Islamists have won a war of intimidation. They have cowed the major news media from showing these cartoons. The mainstream press has capitulated to the Islamists -- their threats more than their sensibilities. One did not see Catholics claiming the right to mayhem in the wake of the republished depiction of the Virgin Mary covered in cow dung, any more than one saw a rejuvenated Jewish Defense League take to the street or blow up an office when Ariel Sharon was depicted as Hitler or when the Israeli army was depicted as murdering the baby Jesus.

So far as we can tell, a new, twin policy from the mainstream media has been promulgated: (a) If a group is strong enough in its reaction to a story or caricature, the press will refrain from printing that story or caricature, and (b) if the group is pandered to by the mainstream media, the media then will go through elaborate contortions and defenses to justify its abdication of duty. At bottom, this is an unacceptable form of not-so-benign bigotry, representing a higher expectation from Christians and Jews than from Muslims.

The authors of this piece? William Bennett and Alan Dershowitz. They may be on opposite ends of the political spectrum most of the time, but they are clearly on the same page regarding free speech, the First Amendment, and the media's duty to report the news.

UPDATE:
And abroad: Malaysia is sanctioning a paper that ran a syndicated cartoon from Non Sequitor. The Non Sequitor cartoon didn't even include any images of Mohammad, but instead castigates the rioters and those who resort to violence. Ed Morrisey has more.

The whole notion of curtailing speech actually fits the Leftist mentality as Mark Tapscott has a thorough review of what he thinks basically boils down to the fact that the liberals and leftists believe that free speech has limits, and they're the ones who want to decide where those limits are.

Technorati: Buy Danish "jyllands-posten mohammed" "muhammad cartoon" embassy torchings "muhammad image archive",

Thought Crimes In Germany

A German man was convicted of insulting Islam. By printing the Koran on toiletpaper.

The 61-year-old man, identified only as Manfred van H., was given a one-year jail sentence, suspended for five years, and ordered to complete 300 hours of community service, a district court in the western German town of Luedinghausen ruled.

The conviction comes after a Danish newspaper printed cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammad -- sparking violent protests around the world from Muslims who saw the images as sacrilegious and an attack on their beliefs.

Manfred van H. printed out sheets of toilet paper bearing the word "Koran" shortly after a group of Muslims carried out a series of bomb attacks in London in July 2005. He sent the paper to German television stations, magazines and some 15 mosques.

Prosecutors said that in an accompanying letter Manfred van H. called Islam's holy book a "cookbook for terrorists."

Germany's criminal code provides a prison sentence of up to three years for insulting someone's religion.

A Fair Trial

Former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark is fixated on fair trials. He doesn't think Saddam Hussein can get one in Iraq. Saddam is currently on trial for the reprisal executions of 140 Shiite Muslims after an assassination attempt against the former president in the Shiite town of Dujail in 1982.

Of course, what Clark thinks is a fair trial and what anyone in their right mind thinks is a fair trial are two separate things. For starters, Clark thinks that the only way Saddam gets a fair trial is if the Iraqis aren't involved in the prosecution. In fact, Clark would much prefer an international court deciding whether Saddam was guilty or innocent. And Clark would much prefer a stacked deck in favor of Saddam, rather than the hundreds of thousands of corpses that litter the Iraqi landscape due to Saddam's criminal behavior over the three decades of his tyrannical rule. Should this particular court find Saddam guilty, Clark will rail that this trial was fixed and that Saddam couldn't get a fair trial, plus the sentence of death is too harsh.

Clark is the founder of ANSWER, which is a radical leftist group that is dedicated to casting aspersions on the US at every turn. It has no problem defending the genocidal policies of Saddam, but criticizes the US for not being more sensitive to al Qaeda and terrorist groups that seek the destruction of the US and the mass murder of Americans.

And Clark's presence at the trial is a sideshow, considering that many of Saddam's defense attorney's did not want him there due to his showboating and the way he treated fellow counsel. Of course, Clark wants the attention focused on himself, and couldn't care less about Saddam's victims, which is at the heart of this trial.

Of course, Saddam himself is combative and 'feisty' as the New York Times puts it. Saddam, the genocidal dictator, is feisty. He challenges the legitimacy of the court, how the court operates, and seeks to undermine, coerce, threaten, and badger the court into doing Saddam's bidding as though he were still in charge of the country of Iraq.

And for someone who is always noted by the Times and other outlets as being a secularist, Saddam has no problem busting out the Koranic verses when it suits his needs:

Moments earlier, following a pattern he established during his initial court appearance 17 months ago, Mr. Hussein invoked a verse from the Koran, on this occasion one that seemed intended to suggest that the ultimate judgment on the events that occurred during Mr. Hussein's 24-year rule in Iraq would rest with God, not with the court. "Do you think that you will enter paradise without Allah judging those among you who fought hard in his cause, and remained steadfast?", Mr. Hussein said, reciting the verse from memory.

UPDATE:
Poca Dot at Basil's Blog wonders why the coverage of Saddam's depravities and criminal behavior, including the execution of the 140 Shi'ites in Dujail in 1982 has garnered a mere fraction of the coverage that the Abu Ghraib scandal. Is there something about mass-murdering dictators that suggests that we shouldn't get wall to wall coverage of their heinous actions, but abuses by the US military must be an open season for continuing media coverage?

UPDATE:
Michelle Malkin notes that Saddam's gone unhinged, and has Ramsey holding his hand. Stop the ACLU also notices the hand holding.

Bogus Stories, Redux?

Story 1
Mark Steyn demolishes any remaining arguments that certain members of the Democratic Party (Sen. Dick Durbin, D-irrelevant) who continue to claim that GitMo is akin to the death camps, concentration camps, the gulag archipelago, and the killing fields, has an agenda that isn't anything but anti-Americanism at its core.

No wonder the Democrat Party cannot win a national election. Most Americans do not buy their argument. Well that would be most Americans who do not live in what amounts to threetwo coastal enclaves - the LA to SF corridor, Seattle, Washington DC to NYC and Boston.

In Steyn's own words:

By now, one or two readers may be frothing indignantly, “That’s not funny! Bush’s torture camp at Guantanamo is the gulag of our time, if not of all time.” But that’s the point. The world divides into those who feel the atrocities at Gitmo “must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime — Pol Pot or others” (in the widely quoted words of Senator Dick Durbin), and the rest of us, for whom the more we hear the specifics of the “atrocities” the funnier they are. They bear the same relation to the gulags (15-30 million dead), the Nazi camps (nine million dead) and the killing fields of Cambodia (two million dead) as Mel Brooks‚ “Springtime For Hitler” does to the original. Nobody complained at Auschwitz that the guards were playing the 78s of The Merry Widow (the Fuhrer’s favorite operetta) with the volume knob too high. When that old KGB hand Yuri Andropov succeeded Brezhnev as the big guy in the Kremlin, he was reported in the western press to be a big Glenn Miller fan. But to the best of my knowledge no-one suggested he was in the basement of the Lubyanka torturing the inmates with “I Got A Gal In Kalamazoo”.

The first time the full-blast junk-pop treatment caught the eye of the media was a decade and a half back, when US troops bombarded the Panamanian strongman General Noriega with the Bobby Fuller Four’s “I Fought The Law (And The Law Won)”. In those days, nobody reckoned it was torture. But these days torture seems to be in the ear of the behearer. Because the jihadi find western culture depraved — and I’m not necessarily in disagreement on that, at least where Christina Aguilera’s concerned — we’re obliged to be extra-super-duper-sensitive with them.

Says who? Again, the more one hears the specifics of the “insensitivity” of the American regime at Guantanamo, the more many of us reckon we’re being way too sensitive. For example, camp guards are under instructions to handle copies of the Koran only when wearing gloves. The reason for this is that the detainees regard infidels as “unclean”. Fair enough, each to his own. But it’s one thing for the Islamists to think infidels are unclean, quite another for the infidels to agree with them. Far from being tortured, the prisoners are being handled literally with kid gloves (or simulated kid-effect gloves). The US military hand each jihadi his complimentary copy of the Koran as delicately as white-gloved butlers bringing His Lordship The Times of London. When I bought a Koran to bone up on Islam a couple of days after 9/11, I didn’t wear gloves to the bookstore. If that’s “disrespectful” to Muslims, tough. You should have thought about that before you allowed your holy book to become the central motivation for global jihad.

I’m not arguing the merits here so much as the politics. There’s certainly a discussion to be had about how to categorize these people. As things stand, they’re not covered by the Geneva Conventions — they’re unlawful combatants, captured fighting in civilian clothes rather than uniform, and, when it comes to name, rank and serial number, they lack at least two thereof, and even the first is often highly variable. As a point of “international law”, their fate is a matter entirely between Washington and the state of which they’re citizens (Saudi Arabia, mostly). I don’t think it’s a good idea to upgrade terrorists into lawful combatants. But if, like my namesake the British jurist Lord Steyn, you feel differently, fine, go ahead and make your case.

Where the anti-Gitmo crowd went wrong was in expanding its objections from the legal status of the prisoners to the treatment they‚re receiving. By any comparison — ie, not just with Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot — they’re getting better than they deserve. It’s the first gulag in history where the torture victims put on weight. Each prisoner released from Guantanamo receives a new copy of the Koran plus a free pair of blue jeans in his new size: the average detainee puts on 13 pounds during his stay, thanks to the “mustard-baked dill fish”, “baked Tandoori chicken breast” and other delicacies. These and other recipes from the gulag’s kitchen have now been collected by some Internet wags and published as The Gitmo Cookbook.

Story 2: The Downing Street Memos?
Are they bogus and does it even matter? Are they frauds replicated by someone who was associated with Mary Mapes, formerly of CBS's Rathergate?

My take, after being away from the blogosphere for a week is that it does matter. The chain of custody seems to be shaky. Why would someone have to destroy the original documents? To what end does destroying the originals and claiming to copying them on a typewriter have? It does not seem logical for someone to take the effort to replicate them on a typewriter because of the need to preserve someone's identity. Why did the publisher of the original story not include that bit of information when running the original story?

The whole situation seemed fishy from the start, and now smells like a rotten fish.