Posted on 05/19/2005 5:50:50 AM PDT by veronica
IT WAS front-page news this week when Newsweek retracted a report claiming that a US interrogator in Guantanamo had flushed a copy of the Koran down a toilet. Everywhere it was noted that Newsweek's story had sparked widespread Muslim rioting, in which at least 17 people were killed. But there was no mention of deadly protests triggered in recent years by comparable acts of desecration against other religions.
No one recalled, for example, that American Catholics lashed out in violent rampages in 1989, after photographer Andres Serrano's ''Piss Christ" -- a photograph of a crucifix submerged in urine -- was included in an exhibition subsidized by the National Endowment for the Arts. Or that they rioted in 1992 when singer Sinead O'Connor, appearing on ''Saturday Night Live," ripped up a photograph of Pope John Paul II.
There was no reminder that Jewish communities erupted in lethal violence in 2000, after Arabs demolished Joseph's Tomb, torching the ancient shrine and murdering a young rabbi who tried to save a Torah. And nobody noted that Buddhists went on a killing spree in 2001 in response to the destruction of two priceless, 1,500-year-old statues of Buddha by the Taliban government in Afghanistan.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
You pretty much self destructed that argument!
READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE!!
Good advice. But, the lead in did point us to the wrong mindset . . . :-)
Jumping from the first few sentences to this would have worked better, methinks.
. . . But what ''Muslims in America and throughout the world" most need to hear is not pandering sweet-talk. What they need is a blunt reminder that the real desecration of Islam is not what some interrogator in Guantanamo might have done to the Koran. It is what totalitarian Muslim zealots have been doing to innocent human beings in the name of Islam. It is 9/11 and Beslan and Bali and Daniel Pearl and the USS Cole. It is trains in Madrid and schoolbuses in Israel and an ''insurgency" in Iraq that slaughters Muslims as they pray and vote and line up for work. It is Hamas and Al Qaeda and sermons filled with infidel-hatred and exhortations to ''martyrdom."
But what disgraces Islam above all is the vast majority of the planet's Muslims saying nothing and doing nothing about the jihadist cancer eating away at their religion. It is Free Muslims Against Terrorism, a pro-democracy organization, calling on Muslims and Middle Easterners to ''converge on our nation's capital for a rally against terrorism" -- and having only 50 people show up.
Yes, Islam is disrespected. That will only change when throngs of passionate Muslims show up for rallies against terrorism, and when rabble-rousers trying to gin up a riot over a defiled Koran can't get the time of day.
Point well taken. However, the role of demogogues and sensationalist journalism exacerbates weaknesses and inflames the mob. Newsweek didn't just print the story, it hyped it in emails to the world media. Whatever we can do to restrain the sensationalist tendencies of the press and get it to act soberly we should do.
Although Muslims can certainly take legitimate exception to Western cultural excesses, they appear to use any excuse to justify their hate and commit violence against Western Democracies.
Perhaps one day, we will be forced to demonstrate to them what a western style jihad is really like.
Another clue: read some of the other posts before making a reply.
Great piece by the reliable Jacoby.
What am I missing? Americans are under no obligation to treat the Koran (or Bible, etc.) with respect.
The Western media is focused inward in its self-perceived role as a check on everything bad that its own culture might produce. The same is true of "human rights" organizations. Neither calls to task abuses in other cultures.
---Yes, Islam is disrespected. That will only change when throngs of passionate Muslims show up for rallies against terrorism, and when rabble-rousers trying to gin up a riot over a defiled Koran can't get the time of day.---
I won't hold my breath! Violence, lying, and hypocrisy are the coins of their realm.
Only he seemed to have given Condoleeza Rice a pass.
Islam can't be "Fixed"
and weather You all like it or not, it is not the jihadists
Who are wrecking a religion of "Peace" it is a Muslim Mainstream attitude that they will Rule the World some day.
The Koran says that for now, the Infidels will be tolerated...and Christians and jews are called "people of the Book" the Book being the Torah and the New Testiment.
But eventualy if they (The People of the Book") do not convert to Islam...then they will be put to the Sword.
The extreamists just want to push things along a little faster...But This is the Teaching in the Koran..Period
The Torah and the Bible never say anywhere to Put people to the Sword...Today. it says Live in Peace, The Torah and the New Testiment are the Religion of Peace. and the koran is Not. It's as simple as that.
Thank you.
Funny how Muslims have to go all the way back to the Crusades and the Inquisition to criticize Christianity; all we have to do is go back 24 hours at most to criticize Islam.
I believe his point is that the MSM is all in a lather over the "fake outrage" story, offending the ROS believers. Yet the stories of the Catholic outrages made the poor desecraters the victims. Artistic freedom being stifled by those dangerous Christians.
Of course, in the print edition there is a column directly underneath this one by Joan (whiny liberal baglady) Vennochi that says that Newsweek screwed up but.......(wait for it)......
It was all Bush's fault!
More disinformation brought to you by the NYT's minor league affiliate... the Boston Globe.
Just more proof that they don't want peace, they want any non-muslim to be dead.
Satan is in charge of the world now. And he knows how to use the media very well. How else do you explain all this sympathy for Blood thirsty, vicious God-hating,Christian-Jew-Bathed-educated- civilized-hating, unbelievers.
A Chicago Sun-Times article quoted the general manager of the Al-Arabiya television network as saying, “It is a certain fact that not all Muslims are terrorists, but it is equally certain, and exceptionally painful, that almost all terrorists are Muslims.”
If we can't connect the dots by now...we never will.
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