From the source of all knowledge, Wikipedia:

In 711 AD, a Muslim army from North Africa had conquered Visigoth Christian Iberia. Under their leader Tariq ibn-Ziyad, they landed at Gibraltar and brought most of the Iberian Peninsula under Islamic rule in an eight-year campaign. The Iberian Peninsula was called Al-Andalus by its Muslim rulers. When the Umayyad Caliphs were deposed in Damascus in 750, the dynasty relocated to Córdoba, ruling an emirate there; consequently the city gained in luxury and importance, as a center of Iberian Muslim culture.

Once the Muslims conquered Iberia, they governed it in accordance with Islamic shariah law. Christians and Jews were treated as dhimmis or "protected" persons subject to a poll tax allowing them to live in peace and security under the Islamic state. Under shariah, blasphemy against Islam, whether by Muslims or dhimmis, and apostasy from Islam are all grounds for the death penalty.

Though four Christian basilicas and numerous Christian monasteries mentioned in Eulogius’ martyrology remained open, the Christian population was gradually becoming converted to Islam in the process driven by taxation, legal discrimination and other indignities imposed on the Christians, and the marriage laws assuring Muslim offspring from mixed marriages. Notably Reccafred, Bishop of Córdoba, taught the virtues of toleration and compromise with the Muslim authorities, which did nothing to slow the process. To the scandal of Eulogius, whose texts are the only source for these martyrdoms, and who was venerated as a saint from the 9th century, the bishop sided with Muslim authorities against the martyrs, whom he regarded as fanatics. The closures of monasteries begins to be recorded towards the middle of the 9th century. The monk Eulogius encouraged the martyrs as a way to reinforce the faith of the Christian community. He composed tractates and a martyrology to justify the self-immolation of the martyrs, of which a single manuscript, containing his Documentum martyriale, the three books of his Memoriale sanctorum and his Liber apologeticus martyrum, was preserved in Oviedo, in the Christian kingdom of Asturias in the far northwestern coast of Hispania. There the relics of Saint Eulogius were translated in 884.

Cordoba refers to a time of ascension of the Caliphate and conquest, especially conquest of Christians.  Today, writing in The Ottawa Citizen, two Muslims, Raheel Raza and Tarek Fatah, condemn the idea of building an Islamic mosque very near to Ground Zero, to be built by "The Cordoba Initiative".

New York currently boasts at least 30 mosques so it’s not as if there is pressing need to find space for worshippers. The fact we Muslims know the idea behind the Ground Zero mosque is meant to be a deliberate provocation to thumb our noses at the infidel. The proposal has been made in bad faith and in Islamic parlance, such an act is referred to as "Fitna," meaning "mischief-making" that is clearly forbidden in the Koran.

The Koran commands Muslims to, "Be considerate when you debate with the People of the Book" — i.e., Jews and Christians. Building an exclusive place of worship for Muslims at the place where Muslims killed thousands of New Yorkers is not being considerate or sensitive, it is undoubtedly an act of "fitna"

So what gives Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf of the "Cordoba Initiative" and his cohorts the misplaced idea that they will increase tolerance for Muslims by brazenly displaying their own intolerance in this case?

Do they not understand that building a mosque at Ground Zero is equivalent to permitting a Serbian Orthodox church near the killing fields of Srebrenica where 8,000 Muslim men and boys were slaughtered?

There are many questions that we would like to ask. Questions about where the funding is coming from? If this mosque is being funded by Saudi sources, then it is an even bigger slap in the face of Americans, as nine of the jihadis in the Twin Tower calamity were Saudis.

Legally, I’m sure they have a right to build it.  But their actions belie their stated intentions. 

Meanwhile, a church actually destroyed in the 9/11 attacks, St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, still has roadblocks before it can be rebuilt.

Two weeks of links to catch up!

Closing Guantanamo; big priority during the campaign, not so much now.  (Well, especially since even Democrats don’t even want to do it.)

The Obama administration turned down using Dutch oil skimmers because they couldn’t meet our stringent government environmental regulations on how pure the decontaminated water was that they dumped back into the Gulf of Mexico, right on-sight of the spill.  Instead, we transport the oily water to facilities and decontaminate it there.  Huge efficiency drop during a major catastrophe because, ironically, of environmental regulations.  Read the whole article for more things we turned down that could have averted a lot of this problem.

Our own Treasury Secretary is ignorant of economic history.  Timothy Geithner said this at the latest G-20 summit:  “One of the mistakes made in the 1930s was that countries pulled back their recovery efforts too soon, prolonging the Great Depression.”  However, precisely the opposite happened.  Recovery efforts failed, lasted too long, and that’s what prolonged the Great Depression.  NewsBusters has the charts.

School vouchers improve graduation rates. Now we have a government study to prove what common sense already told us.

Sharia Law in the UK:  Dogs barred from buses so as not to offend Muslims.

Democrats have decided that there will be no budget this year.  Hey, at least (this time) they’re being honest about it.  I guess they’ll just spend until it doesn’t feel good anymore.  Or until they’re voted out.  Whichever comes first.

In Venezuela’s socialist paradise, the government’s Food Ministry rounds up 120 tons of rice because it might be sold above regulated prices.  At the same time, 80,000 tons of food was found rotting in government warehouses.  Government efficiency at its finest.

Another example of bait-and-switch in the passage of ObamaCare.  Obama rejected the idea that the individual mandate was a tax increase, but in defending it from state lawsuits, the administration does classify it as a tax increase.  This way, the mandate falls under a law that forbids the states from interfering in tax collections.  In addition, “an early draft of an administration regulation estimates … a majority of workers—51 percent—will be in plans subject to new federal requirements….”

If your 11-year-old asks a particular Massachusetts school for a condom, they’ll get it, no questions asked.  Also, parents objections will not be taken into consideration.  Actually, there’s no real age limit on the policy; any kid can get one.  Only in Massachusetts.  For now.

And finally, all that hard work pays off, but not the way you thought it would.  (From Chuck Asay.  Click for a larger version.)

Or maybe not.

Via HotAir, NY mayor, and staunch anti-gun proponent, Michael Bloomberg recently speculated* that the bomber was someone upset about the healthcare [sic] bill. From the article,

Law enforcement officials don’t know who left the Nissan Pathfinder behind, but at this point the Mayor believes the suspect acted alone.

“If I had to guess, twenty five cents, this would be exactly that,” Bloomberg said. “Homegrown maybe a mentally deranged person or someone with a political agenda that doesn’t like the health care bill or something. It could be anything.”

Yet word comes in that Faisal Shahzad, a naturalized American citizen recently returned from a trip to Pakistan, has been arrested after he attempted to flee to Dubai.

No word yet on whether any Tea Partiers were involved.

* actually, “speculate” is too generous.

For giving his opinion on some tenets of Islam, he’s apparently too intolerant for the Army.

The U.S. Army on Thursday withdrew an invitation to a Christian evangelist to speak at a Pentagon prayer service next month following an outcry over his references to Islam as a violent religion.

Franklin Graham, the son of famed evangelist Billy Graham, said in a statement he regretted the Army’s decision and would keep praying for U.S. troops.

The invitation prompted a harsh reaction, including from a prominent U.S. Muslim group that said Graham’s appearance before Pentagon personnel would send the wrong message as the United States fights wars in Muslim countries.

In an interview last year with CNN, Graham said "true Islam" was too violent to be practiced in the United States.

"You can’t beat your wife. You cannot murder your children if you think they’ve committed adultery or something like that, which they do practice in these other countries," he said.

"I don’t agree with the teachings of Islam and I find it to be a very violent religion."

The interview can be seen here

The Army said it did not invite Graham to the May 6 event organized through the Pentagon Chaplain’s office. The invitation was instead extended by the private, Colorado-based National Day of Prayer Task Force.

"Once the Army leadership became aware that Reverand Graham was speaking at this event, we immediately recognized it as problematic," said Colonel Tom Collins, an Army spokesman.

"The bottom line here is that his presence would be inappropriate. His past statements are not consistent with the multi-faith emphasis and inclusiveness of this event."

Graham acknowledged the decision, saying in a statement: "I will continue to pray that God will give them guidance, wisdom and protection as they serve this great country."

The National Day of Prayer Task Force called the Pentagon’s decision part of an "assault on religious freedom and people of faith" driven by groups including the government and media.

"The Pentagon, representing the most powerful military in the world, melted like butter and withdrew the invitation," it said, citing opposition by "a small group of naysayers."

I was on Spring Break vacation with the family last week, so other than my post-dated blog posts, I didn’t write much … well, anything.  But I did surf the web and kept track of some articles I wanted to highlight when I came back.  Here they are, in mostly chronological order of when I found them.

Amnesty International decided that jihad was not antithetical to human rights so long as it’s "defensive". 

The bump in polling numbers after passing health care "reform" was supposed to go to Democrats.  Instead, while it’s just a measure of emotion at this point in time, you’d think that all the promises of the bill would give Democrats a few higher point.  Instead, they’re at an 18-year low.  It’s quite possible that people are only now understanding what they supported all along, because the "free" stuff isn’t materializing right now.

What was the point of the resurrection on Easter?  Don Sensing has (had) some thoughts.

The Tea Party’s ideas are much more mainstream than the MSM would like you to believe.  And Tea Partiers are much more diverse that the MSM realized.  Turns out, they did some actual journalism and found out the real story.  Imagine that.  Has the liberal slant of the press become a problem of corruption, especially with, first, the willful ignoring of the Tea Party story, and second, the willful misreporting of it?

Toyota cars have killed 52 people, and got a recall for it.  Gardasil, a cervical cancer vaccine, has had 49 "unexplained deaths" reported by the CDC and it’s still required in some states.

Changing the names to protect the guilty, the words "Islam" and "jihad" are now banned from the national security strategy document.  When the next terror attack Islamic jihadists happens, it’ll be interesting to find out how they describe it.

Cows have been exonerated of helping to cause global warming.  No, really.

Rep. Bart Stupak’s reversal of his principles is having the proper effect; he’s decided not to seek re-election.  Likely, he couldn’t get re-elected anyway, after betraying his constituents, but let this be a lesson about trusting "conservative" Democrats too much.

And finally, media scrutiny of church vs. state (click for a larger picture):

Oh, that liberal media.

No, not as in golfing.  I’m going to be quite busy this week, so blog posts this week will consist mostly of a collection of links that I happen across.

John Mark Reynolds, writing at the Evangel blog, wonders about that prediction that Christians would become a fringe political force if they stuck with their position on same-sex marriage.  This after Maine, of all places, upheld traditional marriage.  Not mentioned is that the House of Representatives barely squeaked out a health care bill (passing it with only 2 votes to spare) only after a provision was added that prevented abortion from being covered by it.  Wasn’t that supposed to be a losing issue, too?

October, 2009 was the 3rd coldest October recorded in the US.  Can we officially chuck those computer climate models and just admit we don’t really know what’s going on with climate, and thus should refrain from making pronouncements on what is or isn’t changing it?

Racist graffiti, and Al Sharpton isn’t all over CNN denouncing it?  Oh, wait, it’s anti-white graffiti.  Well then, nothing to see here.

Attorney General Eric Holder is endorsing extending provisions of the Patriot Act including roving wiretaps.  It’s one thing to talk it down when you’re not in the hot seat.  It’s another thing entirely when it’s your responsibility, eh?

The European Union, as a whole, could sink underneath the waves of debt very soon, having total debt equaling 100% of its annual gross domestic product.  A special commission "discovered" that a major reason is the socialist pensions and healthcare that the government guarantees.  And we want to follow them into this whirlpool?

And finally, the legacy of Major Nidal Malik Hasan, and a musing about whether or not political correctness will allow a candid and honest public discussion, or if more people will die at the PC altar.

A few thoughts, stemming from the murderous rampage at Fort Hood.

***

While some are cautioning us to not immediately make a radical Muslim connection with the fact that the alleged killer is an Arab American, one has to wonder at how quickly the label “Right-Wing-Extremist” would have been applied had the mass murderer been white.

***

It appears that the alleged killer was stopped by shots fired from a civilian police officer. Per CNN,

A civilian police officer who shot the Fort Hood gunman four times during his bloody rampage stopped the attacker cold, a U.S. Army official said Friday.

Officer Kimberly Munley of the Fort Hood Police Department is a “trained, active first responder” who acted quickly after she “just happened to encounter the gunman,” said Lt. Gen. Robert Cone, Fort Hood’s commanding general.

Cone said the officer and her partner responded “very quickly” to the scene of the shootings — reportedly in around three minutes.

One point of clarification, if Officer Munley was on duty, and responded quickly to the situation, she was a second responder (which in no way diminishes from her courageous actions). First responders would be those initially and directly under fire.

***

President Obama continues, unfortunately, to approach serious issues in amateur fashion. In the video below, consider the fact that Obama took nearly two minutes to actually get to the topic of the shooting at Fort Hood. Evidently, he thought that giving various “shout-outs” had a higher priority.

***

Update: More on courageous Officer Munley who, in addition to responding to the scene quickly, immediately engaged the situation, thereby stopping the killer.

Munley’s toughness and grace under pressure were on display Thursday when she and her partner responded within three minutes of reported gunfire, said Army Lt. Gen. Bob Cone.

Munley, who had been trained in active-response tactics, rushed into the building and confronted the shooter as he was turning a corner, Cone said.

“It was an amazing and an aggressive performance by this police officer,” Cone said.

Some remarks on the President’s address.

• “For over a thousand years, Al-Azhar has stood as a beacon of Islamic learning; and for over a century, Cairo University has been a source of Egypt’s advancement.” Hmmm. That seems a stretch.
• “I also know civilization’s debt to Islam. It was Islam — at places like Al-Azhar — that carried the light of learning through so many centuries, paving the way for Europe’s Renaissance and Enlightenment.” This is indeed a persistent fallacy. In the last five or ten years, I think the maxim that “Every commonly held belief about historical events and motivations is exactly wrong” is a turning out to be a fine rule. From WWI trench warfare to this one, all these notions … all wrong. That “light of learning” was carried by Byzantium and a lot of it came west at the sack of Constantinople by the crusaders and the carting off of the libraries, marble, gold and so on to Venice. If you think that’s wrong, ask yourself where, when, and how the intellectual exchange of documents and teaching between the crusaders and the West occurred? (hint: it didn’t in any meaningful way … and what little did was came via Byzantium)
• “And I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.” How about to highlighting the negative realities?

If we compare the responses of this speech from two esteemed bloggers from both sides of political spectrum there is, on offer, an interesting comparison (besides the nearly identical title). The pseudonymous “hilzoy” offers that this “broke the mold” and offered praise and criticism to both “sides” and that each side might take away from the lesson learned from the criticism. Richard Fernandez on the other hand, similarly comments that there is in fact praise and criticism that both sides might note … but that the effect will be the reverse. That each “side” will key on the criticism of the other and like Eris with her golden apple this will only serve to inflame each other, with each ignoring the faint mentions of their own and inflame their own image of the other’s flaws? Given human nature … which will be the more likely response. I’d offer that the ‘hilzoy’, in part because of the shared assumptions, might closely match the intention of the President and his speechwriters … but that the effect will be the more pessimistic realistic appraisal of Mr Fernandez.

But … like his remarks on the hijab a similar response might be made about the tepidity of his allusion. In a similar vein, examine this response.  Reflect for a moment on the discord vs self-examination as posed our two bloggers and examine those remarks in that light. Would you characterize these responses as self-critical or the reverse? Bringing together or apart?

Solzhenitsyn coming to the West gave four significant of addresses and spoke from a position of utter political weakness, he was after all no President and weilded no power. His words were rejected but were right in many ways and pulled no punches. Mr Obama on the other hand came to Cairo and told honeyed lies filled with calculated misdirection all intended to move people closer. His words, being fiction, have a better chance of not being rejected outright … but their effect it seems has a not unlikely chance of moving people in the direction he did not intend.

Fertility rate demographics deftly explained…

The Strategy Page calls it “an image problem”, but they’re description of the result of the problem goes deeper.  I think the next generation is embarrassed by them.  So much so that they are becoming less convinced of the religion behind it.

Hamas has an image problem, and it’s getting worse. It’s gotten so bad that the 30 year old son (Mosab Yousef) of one of the Hamas founders (Hassan Yousef) has not only renounced Hamas, but has become a Christian. Mosab is fed up with the terrorism/”destroy Israel” approach the Arab world has embraced over the last sixty years. Mosad notes, as have many other Arabs, that this has not worked.

The conversion angle is something Moslems are trying to keep quiet. Mosab Yousef’s father pleaded with his son to keep quiet about the conversion (which took place 18 months ago). The elder Yousef knows that this is not an isolated incident. Many young Moslems are abandoning Islam. Most do so quietly. In Iran, the clerics that run the country are shocked at secret police reports about a growing number of young Iranians who have, in effect, abandoned Islam. This sort of thing is happening all over the Moslem world, but especially in Arab countries. The people who switch to Islamic radicalism get all the headlines, not the larger numbers who just walk away from Islam are largely ignored. In the Palestinian territories, there is also a growth in the number of Sunni Moslems who are switching to the Shia version (as championed by Iran). But many other Moslems are openly distancing themselves from the conservative forms of Islam (like the well funded Saudi Wahhabism). One reason this trend is kept quiet is because Islamic militants are inclined to kill such traitors, if the switch is done too openly. Thus the elder Yousef’s plea that his son keep quiet, lest he attract the murderous attention of Islamic radicals out to impose the death sentence on apostates.

The move to Christianity, and even moves just away from the more radical versions if Islam, can only be a good thing for the Middle East, and frankly the rest of the world, too.

Often on the Shire Network News podcast, we’ll satirize extremist Islam by reading a new story and replacing the word “Muslim” with the word “Christian”. Upon hearing this, the listener (it is hoped) understands how really extreme extremist Muslims are because, for all the similar and worse treatment Christians are accustomed to, you never hear about mass groups of extremist Christians beheading someone who drew an unflattering cartoon of Jesus.

Indeed we have our Eric Robert Rudolphs, our lone gunmen outside abortion clinics, but the very fact that we know the first, middle and last names of these guys says there aren’t nearly as many of them as there are mobs of extremist Muslims killing teachers, killing anyone over cartoons, and burning churches.

But the BBC, not content to sticking to the “art imitating life” method of fiction, decided to try to paint a little non-existent moral equivalence on their TV canvas.

A recent episode of the series Bonekickers displayed a graphic scene depicting a moderate Muslim being beheaded by a supposed “extremist Christian”.

It’s being reported that BBC1 has received several telephone complaints from it’s viewers over the episode and earlier this week the corporation stated they ‘regret’ viewers had found the scene ‘inappropriate’, but defended their decision to show it.

Viewers were apparently shocked when actor Paul Nichollswas was seen using a sword to hack off a moderate Muslim’s head in an unprovoked attack.

Nichollswas plays a member of the fictional group called the White Wings Alliance. The fictitious group is far-Right evangelical group of Christians inspired by the Crusades.

Instead of being “ripped from the headlines”, as some TV episodes like to advertise, this seems to be the result of a late-night session of “Mad Libs”, mixing what’s really happening with nouns and adjectives describing Christians. “Give me an angelic adverb.”

The BBC, responding to criticism, insists that the story, in and of itself, is internally consistent, because…well…this sort of thing is believable.

We regret that some viewers felt the beheading scene was inappropriate. It appeared half way through episode one of Bonekickers, by which time the character’s ‘extreme fundamental belief’ had been revealed, providing the audience with a good build up to the scene in question.

This storyline looked at religious fundamentalism within a fictional Christian group, and one character in particular who took his beliefs to an extreme. His ignorance and misguided behaviour lead to the beheading of a peaceful Asian Muslim character in the drama. His actions are clearly condemned by leading Muslim and Christian clerics. The drama also has the balance of a Christian character that has a deep faith which she uses humbly and only for good.

In a media world where folks are falling all over themselves to not portray Muslims as the bad guys (as they did in the movie version of “The Sum of All Fears”, for example), the BBC goes out of its way to concoct a truly unbelievable scenario. Might some extreme group identifying itself with Christians someday behead somebody? It’s not out of the realm of possibility, but right now beheadings are pretty much a signature of extremist Islam. Even revealing a character’s “extreme fundamental beliefs” is not nearly enough to explain this, as there are plenty of extremist Christians, and yet no Muslims have lost their head over it.

Read the rest of this entry

Speaking about one’s religion is both a free speech and religious freedom issue.  Both are being chipped away at in England.

A police community support officer ordered two Christian preachers to stop handing out gospel leaflets in a predominantly Muslim area of Birmingham.

The evangelists say they were threatened with arrest for committing a "hate crime" and were told they risked being beaten up if they returned. The incident will fuel fears that "no-go areas" for Christians are emerging in British towns and cities, as the Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, the Bishop of Rochester, claimed in The Sunday Telegraph this year.

The Bishop’s charges were denied vehemently, but it turns out he was right.

The "police community support officer" who accused them of the crime threatened to arrest them.

A police community support officer (PCSO) interrupted the conversation and began questioning the ministers about their beliefs.

They said when the officer realised they were American, although both have lived in Britain for many years, he launched a tirade against President Bush and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Mr Cunningham said: "I told him that this had nothing to do with the gospel we were preaching but he became very aggressive.

"He said we were in a Muslim area and were not allowed to spread our Christian message. He said we were committing a hate crime by telling the youths to leave Islam and said that he was going to take us to the police station."

The police department wouldn’t apologize, and just gave the PCSO training in hate crime and communication.  One would have hoped this training would have come before putting hit out on the street.

Unmentioned in the Telegraph article but picked up by the Daily Mail; the PCSO himself was Muslim.  In addition, there was a threat of violence, and the actual constable on site backed up the PCSO

The community officer is also said to have told the two men: ‘You have been warned. If you come back here and get beat up, well, you have been warned.’

A police constable who was present during the incident in the Alum Rock area of Birmingham is also alleged to have told the preachers not to return to the district.

Presumably, this is not a Jihadi, just a (literal) Muslim-on-the-street (PCSOs are not official police officers) saying that Christians talking about their faith in a Muslim area are, in general, going to get beat up, in a "that’s just the way it is" attitude.  If this is the kind of "law enforcement" that the police themselves are backing up, I fear for the freedoms in Britain.

[tags]England,freedom of religion,freedom of speech,Islam,Christianity[/tags]

Mark Steyn’s book, America Alone, isn’t a call for more war, more bombing, or more killing, but for more will. Herein follows a series of posts either highlight Steyn quotes, or listing current events which, indeed, indicate that America is alone in her fight against Islamic terror.

Re: the West’s rabid belief in pluralism and the fantasy of co-existence –

One Step Forward, Several Back, in Efforts to Define the Enemy, Counterterrorism Blog,

As my colleague Jeffrey Imm has recently noted, there has been a alarming few steps back in identifying the Salafist/jihadist threat we face in any way with a growing current of Islam.

The new threat assessment, the State of the Union, (as noted by Andrew Cochran here) both fail to mention Islamism by name.

Our government is not alone. The British government has has decided the Islamist radicals are now to be called criminals so Muslims won’t be offended.

and a consequence,

Chad’s Future Taliban enters capital while the West is asleep,

As Americans are debating who among their candidates for the primaries can best confront the Jihadists or at least preempt their offensives worldwide, future Jihadi forces have in one day invaded an African country (under European protection), a key location for the Darfur forthcoming Peace missions. In less than 12 hours the so-called armed opposition of Chad, crossed the entire country from its Eastern frontiers with Islamist-ruled Sudan to the capital N’Djamena across from Northern Nigeria. The latest reports mention fierce battles around the Presidential Palace and back and forth inside the city. But at this stage the geo-political consequences are crucial for the next stages locally, regionally and internationally. The bottom line is that in one day, what could become the future Taliban of Chad have scored a strategic victory not only against the Government of the country (which was supposed to back up the UN plans to save Darfur in Sudan) but also against the efforts by the African Union and European Union to contain the Sudanese regime and stop the Genocide.

[tags]al qaeda, america alone, aq, iran, iraq, islamic terror, islamist, jihad, mark steyn, multi-culturalism, radical islam[/tags]

From the Belmont Club,

Al-Qaeda is mining Facebook to unearth personal details of coalition military personnel. “The MI5 analysts have seen that many thousands of servicemen and women had posted personal details on those websites and had included news of their careers, pictures of themselves in uniforms and details of past postings. “Those details in the hands of al-Qaida operatives offer invaluable information,” Evans warns.”

From HotAir,

Islamist extremists have infiltrated Government and key public utilities to pass sensitive information to terrorists, the security services have warned…

The development is detailed in intelligence reports circulated to the Home Office, police and Whitehall officials.

The London Underground, Gatwick airport and BT are cited as examples of organisations which have been targeted by individuals linked to terrorists…

From Counterterrorism Blog,

The SITE Intelligence Group has released an announcement from Al Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb, in which it stipulates demands for the release of two Austrian tourists taken hostage this week. The demands provide three days for the Tunisian and Algerian governments to release prisoners…

Earlier today, the NEFA Foundation translated the AQIM communique in which it first claimed the kidnapping. AQIM warned Austria against attempting any military action to free the hostages and warned Western tourists to stay away from Tunisia: “The hands of the mujahideen can reach you wherever you are in the country of Tunisia…”

Charlemagne spread his rule by a combination of military force and evangelism. The religious network of churches, monasteries, and ecclesiastic hierarchy served as a fundamental building block of the pacification and spread of his control.

Today’s multicultural sensitivities insist that we respect the religious practices of the Middle East and other countries as we interact with them. This might be wrong, or at the very least, not the best approach in the long run. We believe and practice religious freedom. Perhaps the best way to push religious freedom on those parts of the world that don’t think that is a good thing, is not to respect their religion but to push our religion into their region.

The proposal at hand is the following: We believe in our government in a separation of church and state. However, if we admit internally that the Middle East and other regions might be better off with more Christian influence, might it not be a bad secular idea to figure out what ‘denomination’ gets the most traction/success at conversion of Muslims and assist/push them into extensive evangelism in those troubled regions?

Two notes: See the prior post … and recall what “A Modest Proposal” means, i.e., that the suggestion is less than serious.