Free Republic

The darkest hour is just before dawn. A huge swath of this planet, from the Straits of Gibraltar to the Philippine Sea, has been held in a synthetic,forced nightfall for nearly fourteen centuries. But the sunrise is coming, it is coming sooner rather than later, and this light will be the life of men. Everywhere in the western world, people look at the savage violence that is a daily occurrence in the Muslim world and shake their heads in stunned disbelief. A pastor of a very small Christian flock in Florida burns a Koran. Weeks later at literally the global...

... Such is the surreal and increasingly irrational world we live in, where irate Muslims and groveling Westerners obsess over the destruction of one book while ignoring the destruction of many human lives; where a guaranteed and hard-earned American right -- freedom of expression — receives a lot of condemnatory huffing and puffing from those charged with protecting it, while murderous and barbarous — in a word, evil — behavior is devoutly ignored.

Given the preoccupation of the American media with the possible shutdown of the American government, and the preoccupation of American and world media with Japan’s travails and the revolts in the Arab world, many Americans may have missed the news about the April 1 massacre of United Nations employees in Afghanistan. That is unfortunate because it was as significant as it was instructive. It began on Sunday March 20, when a pastor named Terry Jones burned a Koran at his small church in Florida. To their credit, almost no American media covered the event, and a mere 30 people came...

Two dissidents, an Iranian and an Afghan, have posted a video to YouTube in which they burn a Koran. In the United States, the act would spark a debate about freedom of speech versus tolerance. In their countries, it is a criminal offense that could bring a death sentence. In the American context, some say burning a Koran is a legitimate act of free expression, while others charge it is an act of bigotry that needlessly incites anger and violence abroad. Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican, went so far as to say that, “anytime we can push back here...

Two anonymous young men in Iran, one Iranian and one Afghan, have burned a Koran in protest. This seven-and-a-half minute long video shows the two men, their faces obscured, holding the Muslim holy book and reading prepared statements. Afterwards they stand the Koran on a flat rock, douse it alcohol and light it. The book burns fiercely, and after a few moments one of them sprays more alcohol into the flames. The video ends with them warming their hands over the blazing book.

So let me get this straight. Florida preacher Terry Jones burns the Koran as part of a religious protest and is promptly condemned by General David Petraeus? Jones’ act, the general says, “was hateful, it was intolerant and it was extremely disrespectful and again, we condemn it in the strongest manner possible.” Meanwhile, the United States military condones and participates in the burning of the Christian Bible. As CNN reported in May of 2009: Military personnel threw away, and ultimately burned, confiscated Bibles that were printed in the two most common Afghan languages amid concern they would be used to...

General David Petraeus on quran burning: "Ambassador Sedwill and I have just released a statement on behalf of NATO and ISAF forces in Afganistan. In that statement we condemn the action of an individual in the United States who burned a holy quran. That action was hateful, it was intolerant and it was extremely disrespectful. And again, we condemn it in the strongest manner possible."

Once again a mere flicker—in this case burning a copy of the Koran in Florida—has ignited the inferno of deeply seated infidel-hatred that pervades the contemporary Muslim world, precipitating violence, death, and general mayhem amongst our Afghan “ allies.” This eruption was hardly pastor Terry Jones’ fault. The insane orgy of murderous Muslim violence in Afghanistan was a direct result of Islamic doctrine. Jones’ simple non-violent act effectively administered a diagnostic societal stress test revealing—yet again—the pathological mindset engendered by an Islam that remains ossified in its Medieval fortress, defiantly unreformed and unrepentant. Kansas-born Ann Barnhardt was raised on a...

Should the burning of Islam’s holy book, the Koran, be banned? This is the question many in Washington are asking, following last weekend’s deadly rampage in Afghanistan. On March 20, Pastor Terry Jones, who heads the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Fla., presided over a Koran-burning. The actions of this crazy church leader set off cascading demonstrations across Afghanistan. Afghan President Hamid Karzai publicly denounced it, fanning the flames of religious hatred.

... Who is morally to blame for these deaths [in Afghanistan after the Koran burning], Jones or the Islamists who seek to apply the laws of Islam in their entirety and as severely as possible? ... However distasteful, Jones' act is both legal and non-violent. He is not responsible for the 43 deaths; the repugnant, barbaric ideology of Islamism is to blame. When will U.S. politicians realize this basic fact and stand up robustly for the civil liberties of American citizens? Critiquing Islam, tastefully or distastefully done, is a Constitutional right. Indeed, done intelligently it is a civilizational imperative.

It must have come as a disappointment to the mullahs of Mazar-e-Sharif—who sent the faithful out on Friday with instructions to avenge the recent insult to the Quran—and to the mobs who consequently went forth to slaughter 12 people at U.N. headquarters, nine more in Kandahar the next day, and two more the next, that their bloody enterprise had counted for so little in the eyes of Western military leaders. So it would appear at least from the response by Gen. David Petraeus, who delivered an impassioned rebuke of a publicity-hungry Florida pastor who had presided over the mock trial...

To make my point, let me ask a question: How would other religious or cultural groups be judged if they frequently exploded into murderous rages when irritated? ● How would Christians be viewed, if a group of them murdered innocent bystanders to protest a museum exhibiting at public expense a photo of an actual crucifix immersed in urine, or an image of the Virgin Mary covered with dung? Covering sacred images with excrement is more blasphemous, and more revolting, than burning a book. ● How would Jews be viewed, if a group of them went on a killing spree to...

HAVE YOU EVER WONDERED why millions of Muslim men are dedicated to killing Americans? Or why so many are willing to blow themselves up to kill Israelis? Or why they are so committed to blowing up random people in Bali, London, Madrid, etc.? Islamic supremacists are doing this all over the world, attacking Westerners and their own fellow Muslims alike. Why? Because of a doctrine. A doctrine is a collection of ideas. These could be customs, words, beliefs, etc. A religion is not a single idea; it is a collection of ideas. The collection of ideas that make up the...

Ann Barnhardt of Colorado, who made a video response to General Petraeus and Senator Lindsey Graham, after the two called for restraint of the First Amendment with regard to Islam. Barnhardt blasts both men with fury and righteousness, then reads hateful passages from the Koran, just before ripping out the offending page and burning it. Her readings show why the Koran is such an evil book and why it deserves the flames -- it calls for murder, deceit, torture, rape and homosexual pedophilia. This young woman does indeed have more balls than most men. Her two videos are embedded below.

More On Koran Burning In his response to Jonah Goldberg's comments on the Koran burning, Andrew McCarthy makes interesting observations, and, rather appropriately I believe,says that he doesn't find the burning of a Koran any more offensive in principle than its opposite extreme - the bizarre hyper-reverence with which the Koran is handled by the Defense Department. Personally, I'm amazed to learn of the "bizarre lengths" our military goes to in order to appease Muslim sensitivities, which surely serve to only re-enforce Islamists' beliefs and anti-non-Muslim behavior: [...] Down at Gitmo, the Defense Department gives the Koran to each of...

Curt pointed out the "unrepentant" Terry Jones to us here. Jones held a mock trial and burned a Quran on March 20. The reaction in the Muslin world has been as uncivilized, vicious and barbaric as it was predictable. This was the reaction in anticipation of the Quran burning in September: Muslims around the world called for Barack Obama's death at protests to denounce a US church's plans to burn the Islamic holy book on the anniversary of 9/11 Violent protests have broken out in Afghanistan. At least twenty people are dead in their wakes, including two UN workers...

  The Face Of Cowardice And Dhimmitude With thanks to Diana West, I received a couple of links to YouTube videos that feature a brave Colorado woman named Ann Barnhart.  Thomas Jefferson would have loved this lady.  In the first one, she pretty well grinds Senator Lindsey Graham to little pieces for his suggestion that Congress should pass a law that outlaws burning of the Koran.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qeyrp-V3Jvc&feature=player_embedded  From Barnhart’s oration, we learn that Senator Graham’s position is that during times of war (he had the unbelievably audacity to cite World War II to bolster his argument) there must be limits...

A young woman in Colorado named Ann Barnhardt watched Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) holding forth on television yesterday about the necessity for rolling back the First Amendment in order not to anger Muslims. This did not sit well with her, and she made a two-part video for YouTube expressing her outrage, and vigorously affirming her right to patriotic dissent. She declares herself strongly at the beginning of the first video: Hello, my name is Ann Barnhardt, and I am apparently one of the very, very last people left in Western Civilization who possesses any quantity of brains and balls simultaneously....

Years ago, I picked up a tattered but serviceable edition of the great Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Published in 1910, the twenty-eight-volume monument to human curiosity about the “arts, sciences, literature and general information” is a testament to scholarly industry. Compared to the mealy-mouthed reference works that clutter library shelves today, which typically compete to outdo one another in the exhibition of moral relativism, the Eleventh Edition (the common shorthand by which the work is known) is also a testament to a neglected virtue: robust cultural confidence. For a Westerner, it is refreshing to dip into its unembarrassed...

WORLD EDITOR DISPLAYS HIS IGNORANCE OF CHRISTIANITY - According to Time Magazine editor Bobby Ghosh, burning the Koran is “much more inflammatory than burning a Bible” because the Koran comes directly from God and the Bible doesn’t. Appearing on MSNBC’s Hardball, (where else?) Ghosh continued to display his ignorance of Christianity: “The Bible is a book written by men. It is acknowledged by Christians that it is written by men. It’s the story of Jesus.” “If you’re a Muslim, the Koran is directly the word of God, not written by man. It is transcribed, it is directly the word of...