Murder for Fun and Prophet

IN "THE TRUST" by Susan E. Tifft and Alex S. Jones, a fawning historical account of the New York Times and the family behind it, the authors describe how the Newspaper of Record conspired to hide information about the Holocaust:

"A July 2, 1944, dispatch citing 'authoritative information' that 400,000 Hungarian Jews had already been deported to their deaths and an additional 350,000 were to be killed in the next three weeks received only four column inches on Page 12, while that same day a story about Fourth of July holiday crowds ran on the front page."

To find out what the enemy is up to in the current war, you keep having to turn to obscure little boxes at the bottom of Page A-9 of the Newspaper of Record.

That story was squirreled away in small box at the very bottom of Page A-9 of the Times. In the entire Lexis Nexis archives, only three newspapers reported the incident. Not one mentioned that the attacker was a Muslim. It was a rather captivating story, too. Earlier in the flight, the Muslim responded to the stewardess's offer of refreshments by saying, "I'd like to drink your blood." (Not that there's anything unpeaceful about that.)

Also last week, another practitioner of the Religion of Peace, this one with ties to al-Qaida, tried to board a plane in Switzerland with a gun. This story did not merit front-page coverage at The New York Times.

On July 4 this year, an Egyptian living in California -- who had complained about his neighbors flying a U.S. flag, had a "Read the Koran" sticker on his front door, and expressed virulent hatred for Jews -- walked into an El Al terminal at the Los Angeles airport and started shooting Jews. (Not that there's anything unpeaceful about that.)

The Times casually reported the possibility that his motive was a fare dispute. Four days after the shooting, the story vanished amid an embarrassed recognition of the fact that any Muslim could snap at any moment and start shooting.

Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary (generally found around Page A-12 of the Times), Americans have been cowed into perseverating that Islam is a "religion of peace." Candid conversations about Islam are beyond the pale in a country that deems Screw magazine part of our precious constitutional freedoms.

If the 9/11 terrorists had been Christians, the shoelace strangler a Christian, the gun-toting Swedish Muslim a Christian, the Los Angeles airport killer a Christian and scores of suicide bombers Christians, I assure you we would not be pussyfooting around whether maybe there was something wrong with Christianity.

In a fascinating book written by two Arab Muslims who converted to Christianity, Ergun Mehmet Caner and Emir Fethi Caner give an eye-opening account of Islam's prophet in "Unveiling Islam: An Insider's Look at Muslim Life and Beliefs."

Citing passages from the Hadith, the collected sayings of Muhammad, the Caners note that, by his own account, the founder of Islam was often possessed by Satan. The phrase "Satanic Verses" refers to words that Muhammad first claimed had come from God, but which he later concluded were spoken by Satan.

Muhammad married 11 women, kept two others as concubines and recommended wife-beating (but only as a last resort!). His third wife was 6 years old when he married her and 9 when he consummated the marriage.

To say that Muhammad was a demon-possessed pedophile is not an attack. It's a fact. (And for the record, Timothy McVeigh is not the founder of Christianity. He wasn't even a Christian. He was an atheist who happened to be a gentile.)

Muslims argue against the Caners' book the way liberals argue against all incontrovertible facts. They deny the meaning of words, posit irrelevant counterpoints, and attack the Caners' motives.

Ibrahim Hooper, with the Council on American-Islamic Relations, says that by "6 years old" the Hadith really means "16 years old" and "9" means "19" -- numbers as similar in Arabic as they are in English. Hooper also makes the compelling argument that the Caner brothers -- who say they wrote their book out of love for Muslims whom they want to see in heaven -- are full of "hate."

Other Islamic scholars concede the facts but argue that Muhammad's marriage to a 6-year-old girl was an anomaly. Oh, OK, never mind. Still others explain that Muhammad's marriage to a 6-year-old girl was of great benefit to her education and served to reinforce political allegiances.

So was she really 16, or was it terrific that he had sex with a 9-year-old to improve her education? This is like listening to some Muslims' earlier argument-in-the-alternative that the Zionists attacked the World Trade Center, but America brought the attack on itself anyway.

Muhammad makes L. Ron Hubbard look like Jesus Christ. Most people think nothing of assuming every Scientologist is a crackpot. Why should Islam be subject to presumption of respect because it's a religion? Liberals bar the most benign expressions of religion by little America. Only a religion that is highly correlated with fascistic attacks on the U.S. demands their respect and protection.

Well, actually, Louis Freeh issued several bulletins during clinton's last year in office saying that the worst terrorist threat to the U.S. came from Conservative Christians. Yes, Christians. "Christian fundamentalists," "religious zealouts," and "the Christian Right" are familiar terms of liberal abuse. No good liberal thinks anything of saying that they are dangerous specifically because they are Christian, yet they would be horrified to say the same thing about Muslims.

Yet the record is clear. Violence, slavery, conquest, and aggression are built right into Islam and were practiced from the beginning by Muhammed. That was not true of Jesus. Unlike Muhammed, Jesus was not in the habit of breaking his oath, enslaving people, cutting off people's heads, or marrying multiple wives, some as young as six years old.

Christians can misbehave like anyone else, but their misbehavior is not a product of their religion as such. Muslims are a different matter, as 1,500 years of history (with a brief pause for the past couple of hundred years) and the story of Muhammed clearly reveal. Muslims are peaceful only in those periods when they see no plausible chance to conquer, enslave, forcibly conver, or exterminate their enemies. That's Islam, not any particular brand of politics.

The Muslims did a pretty good job of conquering and forcefully converting all of North Africa except for a handfull of remnant persecuted Copts, forcefully converting the Middle East, Persia, and Anatolia. They also made a good stab at forcefully converting Spain, Portugal, southern France, Sicily, the Balkans, most of the Mediterranean basin, southern Ukraine, and India.

Slavery has long been an Islamic specialty. Musilms practised it from their inception - on a large scale- and continue to enslave people in Africa to this very day - read about the southern Sudan.

Either you have some reason the hate Christianity, Al Philbin, or you are yourself a Muslim.

Not a Muslim, nor a Christian, nor a Jew.

While we are painting history in broad strokes, i'd argue that Christians have had greater or equal success in conquering (imperialism? Africa, India, China...), forcefully converting (South America), and even enslaving, certainly more of a constant in Muslim history, but refined by Christians into the ocean-crossing slave trade to the U.S.

I don't feel any particular affinity for Islam, certainly less than for Christianity or Judaism, which I know a great deal more about. As an atheist, though, I find this my-religion-is-more-righteous-than-yours stuff to be silly. Most religions come out poorly when you examine their influence on the events of history. We haven't even mentioned the Crusades.

In a little-noticed story almost exactly one year after Muslims staged the most horrific terrorist attack the world has ever seen, a Muslim en route from Germany to Kosovo emerged from the airplane bathroom and tried to strangle a stewardess with his shoelaces. (Not that there's anything unpeaceful about that.)

That story was squirreled away in small box at the very bottom of Page A-9 of the Times. In the entire Lexis Nexis archives, only three newspapers reported the incident. Not one mentioned that the attacker was a Muslim. It was a rather captivating story, too. Earlier in the flight, the Muslim responded to the stewardess's offer of refreshments by saying, "I'd like to drink your blood." (Not that there's anything unpeaceful about that.)

If the Times was one of three newspapers to report it, shouldn't it be commended for that? Coulter leaves a few things out. Only three newspapers (and many, many more websites)carried the Reuters article which didn't mention that the ethnic Albanian man was Muslim (and I can't find proof of that anywhere). So the blame, for that one at least, can't be placed solely on the Times. She also fails to mention that he was being deported. Perhaps that had something to do with the incident? His faith is likely incidental to the story.

Also last week, another practitioner of the Religion of Peace, this one with ties to al-Qaida, tried to board a plane in Switzerland with a gun. This story did not merit front-page coverage at The New York Times.

Actually, Ann, it was Sweden. At least that guy is actually a Muslim. And The New York Times did carry the story: here it is reprinted in The Arizona Republic. I think Ann Coulter confuses the New York Times' Op-Ed section with its News section. She's an Op-Ed pundit, or a particularly lazy journalist.

On July 4 this year, an Egyptian living in California -- who had complained about his neighbors flying a U.S. flag, had a "Read the Koran" sticker on his front door, and expressed virulent hatred for Jews -- walked into an El Al terminal at the Los Angeles airport and started shooting Jews. (Not that there's anything unpeaceful about that.)

The Times casually reported the possibility that his motive was a fare dispute. Four days after the shooting, the story vanished amid an embarrassed recognition of the fact that any Muslim could snap at any moment and start shooting.

The Times reported, accurately, that the FBI agent in charge of the investigation thought there were three possible motives. I don't know if The New York Times' Op-Ed page indulged his ridiculous speculation.

Ann Coulter is not afraid to speak the truth.

To those who may be offended by her statements, I say go to any Islamic country, even "our good friends" Saudi Arabia and see how they treat Christians. See what happens to one who freely converts from Islam to Christianity.

Yet in our country, our leaders tell us Islam is a "great religion" and anyone who expresses a different opinion is called "hateful".

Regards,

What you are correctly imputing to Christianity is ancient history. What Ann Coulter and I have pointed out about Islam is here and today. There IS a qualitative difference betwen Islam and Christianity, and Islam and every other religion I know of. Islam is the ONLY language whose founding documents and chief engineer advocate violence against non-believers and forcible conversion. If you compare the Koran with the New Testament, you will realize that the "gentlemen" who operated the Inquisition were NOT following the teachings of the founder of their faith, while the Hijackers of 9/11 WERE, as is Mr. Bin Laddin.

As for the crusades, it was a violent age and the Muslims were guilty of equal atrocities against Christians, so they should stop whining about past history in which THEY were EQUALLY culpable, and take alook at the difference between THEIR societies and ours.

If you are an atheist, you are living in a country which is inhabited predominantly by Christians and Jews. If you were living in any Islamic Country and openly declared your beliefs, I think you would realize better than most of us, the qualitative differences between Islam and other faiths in the modern world.

The fact that Ann Coulter is reading my "Breaking News" posts about the Balkans is such a turn on.

Kosovo Albanian tried to strangle flight attendant with his shoelaces on deportation flight

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