As a person who follows the war on terror and radical Islam, I have read many stories like this:
In the weeks before the New Year’s Day suicide bombing of an Egyptian church, al-Qaida-linked websites carried a how-to manual on “destroying the cross,” complete with videos on how to build a bomb and the locations of churches to target — including the one that was attacked.
They may have found a receptive audience in Alexandria, where increasingly radicalized Islamic hard-liners have been holding weekly anti-Christian demonstrations, filled with venomous slogans against the minority community.
This is not news to me, but the fact is this story didn’t come from my normal haunts. This story comes from MSNBC. What a shocker. I don’t know how much they are promoting this story but it is quite a change.
Of course to us old hands this news is as unsurprising as this story from Palestinian Media Watch:
A glimpse of the world of education in Sur Baher in East Jerusalem was recently made available by Hamas TV. A broadcast showed how the Jerusalem children in the Islamic Riyad (Gardens of) Al-Aqsa School were taught to sing about desiring death: “May our blood be shed.”
They also sang the following in front of the cameras:
“How strong is the army of Al-Aqsa.
I am a soldier, defending its protected area.
How precious is the land of Al-Aqsa.
I shall give up my life for its sake.”
This footage of young children singing and being taught these lines in the Islamic Riyad Al-Aqsa School in Sur Baher appeared in a documentary program entitled “The Shahids’ (Martyrs’) Wedding” on Hamas’s Al-Aqsa TV.
This is the same thing people like Pam Geller and Robert Spencer have been trying to warn folks about for years
Of course maybe these “Palestinians” have a point they have to defend against the evils of Israeli spy vultures and Sharks and Squirrels (yes those are real stories).
Then again yesterday’s news out of Pakistan of the murder of the Governor of Punjab by his own bodyguard makes it impossible to pretend that radical Islam is not the driving force here.
Taseer’s apparent killer cited his boss’s stance against a controversial anti-blasphemy law in justifying his actions.
And the reaction of to the killings has been frankly disgusting:
Hundreds of Facebook users welcomed the killing of liberal Pakistani politician Salman Taseer as a strike against reformers of the country’s tight blasphemy laws. The Punjab governor was shot on Tuesday by one of his guards, 26-year-old Mumtaz Qadri, who confessed to the murder because of Taseer’s vocal opposition to the law that was recently used to sentence a Christian woman to death.
You might remember that story, the woman got water for a group of people who refused to drink from the bucket because it was fetched by a Christian and therefore unclean. After the woman’s objection she was arrested and sentenced to death for blasphemy.
But that’s only facebook, it’s not as if the papers were backing this guy up:
Pakistan’s leading Urdu-language newspaper, Jang, ran a front-page story declaring: “There should be no funeral for Salman Taseer and no condemnation for his death.”
“A supporter of a blasphemer is also a blasphemer,” said a sub-heading, reporting that 500 religious scholars and clerics had paid tribute to Qadri.
and remember the murdered man was a Muslim! Sarah Memom is confused:
Islam never preaches for one Muslim to kill another Muslim, then why are all these atrocities happening?
The worst part is that his own guard killed him, after seeing this, how is one suppose to trust another, how is one suppose to have a sense of security.
Apparently Sarah hasn’t been paying attention. These guys have a history of going after their fellow Muslim’s if they preach peace:
Taseer lamented the power of the religious mob in an interview last summer following bombings of mosques belonging to the Ahmadi sect, whose members identify themselves as Muslims but are barred by the constitution from “posing” as such.
The Ahmadi sect has a mosque in Fitchburg, I’ve interviewed the Iman and visited his Mosque, he is a good man and they are a credit to both the city, their religion. Then again I suspect they would be targeted for the very things we celebrate about them.
While commentators opine I suspect this man is next on the list so to speak:
Pakistan’s Federal Minister for Minorities Affairs Shahbaz Bhatti condemned Saturday the recent announcement of a reward for killing the jailed Christian woman on death row for blasphemy.
Bhatti said the call is unjust and irresponsible and should be discouraged in the strongest possible manner because no one has the right to issue a decree to kill someone else, according to Pakistan’s Daily Times newspaper. He also added that Pakistan is a civilized country and violation of the rule of law is not allowed.
“Every legal and constitutional means will be adopted in the Asia Bibi case,” assured Bhatti, who was in charge of investigating the case and reported that Bibi was innocent to President Asif Ali Zadari.
If the media is starting to notice this then there is hope, now if they can only make the connection between this stuff and the people we are fighting (and the voices in Islam we should support such as the Ahmadiyya Muslim community) then the worm may finally be turning!
