Many years ago, Polimom got very tired of the bloated, self-serving rhetoric that flies from pulpits. Millions of people have died in the name of one god or another, which long-since led me to conclude that fanatics simply can’t read their own “good books” - which invariably exhort their followers to not kill.
Recent events surrounding the caricatures of Mohammed have not only confirmed Polimom’s thinking, they illustrate how far Islam has yet to travel to arrive at anything resembling “civilized”. From the Brussels-Journal:
Yesterday (Thursday) Mullah Krekar, the alleged leader of the Islamist group Ansar al-Islam who has been living in Norway as a refugee since 1991, said that the publication of the Muhammad cartoons was a declaration of war. “The war has begun,�? he told Norwegian journalists. Mr Krekar said Muslims in Norway are preparing to fight. “It does not matter if the governments of Norway and Denmark apologize, the war is on.�?
Islamist organizations all over the world are issuing threats towards Europeans. The Islamist terrorist group Hizbollah announced that it is preparing suicide attacks in Denmark and Norway. A senior imam in Kuwait, Nazem al-Masbah, said that those who have published cartoons of Muhammad should be murdered. He also threatened all citizens of the countries where the twelve Danish cartoons […] have been published with death.
As it happens, I like the cartoon about the virgins (which has always struck me as a really stupid reward for suicide).
Freedom of speech, thought, and expression - the very foundations of democracy - are foreign concepts, apparently, to those imbued with righteousness, and although the madness seems to be centered on Europe thus far, I’m relieved to read that the LA Times will be publishing those controversial cartoons this weekend.
And just in case anyone is concerned that Polimom is somehow biased against Islam, I’d like to take just a minute to mention that fundamentalist Christians are every bit as loony, particularly when they seem to think “their” god gives them the right to blow up clinics or public buildings.
This is okay (I’ll be avoiding the show just because Brittany is on it - ::shudder::).
Islam has no monopoly on terrorism. They just haven’t polished the veneer.
Update: The US apparently has an official position on the cartoons. Unfortunately, the Reuters story makes no mention of how the State Department views extremist threats to kill everyone involved.
Good post. It is indeed a fundamental clash between Western civilization itself and a 12th century religion that refuses to grow and evolve. Instead it demands the rest of the world respect its backwardness, provinciality, and self-righteousness. Either Western civilization must surrender, and be absorbed, or Islam must change–with force as the change agent, if necessary.
So in the end, WW III may be started, not by 9/11, not by the invasion of Iraq, not by Israel and the Palestinians, but by a dozen cartoons in a Danish newspaper . . . .
It sounds funny, but no doubt people in 1914 were incredulous that the assassination of a minor Balkan princeling could start WW I, too, but it did.
Be afraid . . . be very afraid.
the master said:
So in the end, WW III may be started, not by 9/11, not by the invasion of Iraq, not by Israel and the Palestinians, but by a dozen cartoons in a Danish newspaper . . . .
Maybe - but if it is to be WWIII, I’d much rather have it happen now, BEFORE Iran has “the Bomb”.
I’d like to take just a minute to mention that fundamentalist Christians are every bit as loony
ALL of them?
That seems overly broad.
Reminder: It was fundamentalist Christians in the US that helped to start a war in Iraq that has killed more 30,000 (and perhaps more than 100,000) persons during the past 3 years.