Thursday, June 15, 2006
RELIGION ROUND-UP
Islamic theologians are always claiming to see evidence of Allah in such things as fish, ice cream, and waves. Now tremble in awe as the bomb that took out Zarqawi forms a perfect smoke crucifix. It’s a sign, people! Okay, let’s begin this religion round-up, beginning with Mark Steyn:
The other day, listening to an interview on America’s National Public Radio with the mayor of Toronto, I was laughing so much I drove off the road. David Miller warmed up with a bit of boilerplate Islamoschmoozing: “You know, in Islam, if you kill one person, you kill everybody. It’s a very peaceful religion. And they’re as shocked as Torontonians are. And ...”
Renee Montagne, the anchorette, instantly spotted the ghastly breach of PC etiquette and leapt in: “Well, they sort of are Torontonians,” she pointed out.
“Sorry,” gulped the mayor, hastily re-smothering Muslims within the great diversity quilt. “They’re shocked as every Torontonian is ...”
Thereafter, Ms. Montagne expressed bafflement that these allegedly alleged fellows would have wanted to commit a terrorist atrocity in what was, compared to the Great Satan next door, “a very open society, very liberal immigration policy, very good social services.”
Andrew Bolt notices a trend at Melbourne’s ABC radio:
It started with Virginia Trioli, who just after the September 11 attacks announced a plan for peace with Osama bin Laden.
Shouldn’t we be “sitting down with” the al-Qaida leader? Shouldn’t we “talk to him, understand their anger, listen to them?”
Last year, Libby Price filled in for Trioli and agreed we should make peace with “someone within the (al-Qaida) organisation that doubts what’s happening”.
When a listener reminded her that al-Qaida wanted the return of Spain and East Timor to Muslim rule, Price merely replied this could be a “starting point”.
Now the show’s new presenter, Lindy Burns, joins in.
On Monday she had regulars Philip Dunn, QC, a criminal barrister, and Robert Dean, former Liberal shadow treasurer, discuss the killing of al-Qaida’s Iraq boss, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Some excerpts:
Dunn: “He sounds like a horrible person, but we only know what we read.”
(Actually, on the web you can watch Zarqawi and his men cut off the heads of screaming hostages. Or you can see some of the thousands of Iraqi civilians they deliberately killed.)
Dean: “He’s been doing some pretty rotten things ... and to that extent that it’s a war you’re allowed to go and, you know, they’re killing you and you have to try to kill them, I suppose. It’s the American President coming out and saying ‘We’ve got him’ ... that official sanction to it that I worry about.”
Idiots. Jemaah Islamiyah spiritual leader Abu Bakar Bashir, now released from prison, offers religious advice to John Howard:
If he wants to be saved from hell, he needs to convert to Islam and God willing, he will be forgiven by Allah.
Whatever you say, surfboard mouth. Meanwhile, jailings in France:
A Paris court sentenced 25 Muslim militants yesterday for planning attacks against the Eiffel Tower and other targets with explosives in support of rebels fighting Russian forces in Chechnya.
The five main defendants, of Moroccan and Algerian origin, received prison terms of eight to ten years for planning terrorist acts. The others received lesser terms for criminal association. Two were acquitted in a trial which prosecutors said demonstrated the “globalisation of the jihad movement”.
Being in France, the prison food should be excellent. Unlike some places:
A Muslim prisoner successfully sued a state government in Australia $2,000 dollars because the halal meat he was given in jail was not fresh, authorities have said.
(Via Tom Pechinski)