Murder For Fun And Prophet

Again a service for our readers in a hurry, Speed Coulter...

Title: Murder For Fun and Prophet
Slur on the New York Times.
Some Muslims do bad things.
Islam is a bad religion.
Mohammed did some odd things.
Islam is a bad religion.
Liberals love Islam because it's bad.
Bad liberals, bad.

Now if you still feel the need to read more, here it is:

Murder For Fun and Prophet
by Ann Coulter
September 4, 2002

IN THE TRUST by Susan E. Tifft and Alex S. Jones, a fawning historical account of the New York Times and the family behind it, the authors describe how the Newspaper of Record conspired to hide information about the Holocaust:

A July 2, 1944, dispatch citing "authoritative information" that 400,000 Hungarian Jews had already been deported to their deaths and an additional 350,000 were to be killed in the next three weeks received only four column inches on Page 12, while that same day a story about Fourth of July holiday crowds ran on the front page.

To find out what the enemy is up to in the current war, you keep having to turn to obscure little boxes at the bottom of Page A-9 of the Newspaper of Record.

And what is the point of this quote? That the New York Times, like most other papers, did not give enough prominence to the Holocaust? True enough, but the blame here spreads everywhere (and includes many conservatives who were sympathetic to the Nazis and their anti-Semitism during the 1930s). "Conspired to hide"? Why? Did they hate Jews (a Jewish-owned newspaper) ? Or did they, like almost everyone else in the west, find it hard to believe the horror of the Nazi crimes until the evidence of the camps themselves was revealed in 1945? This is pointless mudslinging by someone with no understanding of history.

In a little-noticed story almost exactly one year after Muslims staged the most horrific terrorist attack the world has ever seen, a Muslim en route from Germany to Kosovo emerged from the airplane bathroom and tried to strangle a stewardess with his shoelaces. (Not that there's anything unpeaceful about that.)

That story was squirreled away in small box at the very bottom of Page A-9 of the Times. In the entire Lexis-Nexis archives, only three newspapers reported the incident. Not one mentioned that the attacker was a Muslim. It was a rather captivating story, too. Earlier in the flight, the Muslim responded to the stewardess's offer of refreshments by saying, "I'd like to drink your blood." (Not that there's anything unpeaceful about that.)

Uh, one crazy guy tries to kill a stewardess and fails. This is major news? (Although since she thinks it's so important, Coulter should be praising the New York Times for being one of only "three" newspapers to mention it--even if her numbers are wrong, using Nexis I find eight newspaper mentions.) Yes, the guy was a Muslim crazy guy. So? Should Coulter have mentioned that Clinton was a Christian every time she attacked his presidential playing around? ("Clinton, a Christian, is guilty of betraying his country etc. etc...")

Also last week, another practitioner of the Religion of Peace, this one with ties to al-Qaida, tried to board a plane in Switzerland with a gun. This story did not merit front-page coverage at the New York Times.

And how does Coulter know about all these stories? Because she read about them in the, yes, New York Times. Not a very effective cover-up, when you print the stuff you're supposed to be covering up.

On July 4 this year, an Egyptian living in California--who had complained about his neighbors flying a U.S. flag, had a "Read the Koran" sticker on his front door, and expressed virulent hatred for Jews--walked into an El Al terminal at the Los Angeles airport and started shooting Jews. (Not that there's anything unpeaceful about that.)

The Times casually reported the possibility that his motive was a fare dispute. Four days after the shooting, the story vanished amid an embarrassed recognition of the fact that any Muslim could snap at any moment and start shooting.

"Any Muslim could snap at any moment and start shooting." That's a gem. And vaguely accurate, in the same sense that any blonde pundit could snap and start shooting at any moment.

(Thanks to the Ann Coulter web site for providing this nice photo.)

Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary (generally found around Page A-12 of the Times), Americans have been cowed into perseverating that Islam is a "religion of peace." Candid conversations about Islam are beyond the pale in a country that deems Screw magazine part of our precious constitutional freedoms.

First, Americans don't think Islam is a religion of peace or war. They, sensibly enough, think it is simply a religion. Nasty fanatics can use it to justify mass murder (just as nasty fanatics have used the peaceful teachings of Christ to justify mass murder throughout history). Second, bringing Screw magazine into this discussion is a trifle, well, odd, but Coulter can rest assured that all across the country people support her denunciation of Screw and fervently wish to see the evil magazine banned. All across the country of Saudi Arabia, that is.

If the 9-11 terrorists had been Christians, the shoelace strangler a Christian, the gun-toting Swedish Muslim a Christian, the Los Angeles airport killer a Christian and scores of suicide bombers Christians, I assure you we would not be pussyfooting around whether maybe there was something wrong with Christianity.

Most of the murders committed in the United States are committed by Christians. Most of the murders committed in Morocco are committed by Muslims. And this proves nothing about either religion.

In a fascinating book written by two Arab Muslims who converted to Christianity, Ergun Mehmet Caner and Emir Fethi Caner give an eye-opening account of Islam's prophet in Unveiling Islam: An Insider's Look at Muslim Life and Beliefs.

Citing passages from the Hadith, the collected sayings of Muhammad, the Caners note that, by his own account, the founder of Islam was often possessed by Satan. The phrase "Satanic Verses" refers to words that Muhammad first claimed had come from God, but which he later concluded were spoken by Satan.

Muhammad married 11 women, kept two others as concubines and recommended wife-beating (but only as a last resort!). His third wife was 6 years old when he married her and 9 when he consummated the marriage.

To say that Muhammad was a demon-possessed pedophile is not an attack. It's a fact. (And for the record, Timothy McVeigh is not the founder of Christianity. He wasn't even a Christian. He was an atheist who happened to be a gentile.)

Yes, there are some odd things in Islam. Just as there are some odd things in the Bible and the history of Christianity. Or the Book of Mormon and the history of the Church of the Latter Day Saints. Which, again, doesn't prove much of anything. No religion is free from some pretty ugly history.

As for McVeigh, you'd think Coulter would stay away from that one. About a week ago she stated that: "My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building." Talk about your murderous blonde Christians.

Muslims argue against the Caners' book the way liberals argue against all incontrovertible facts. They deny the meaning of words, posit irrelevant counterpoints, and attack the Caners' motives.

Liberals argue against "all" incontrovertible facts? It's true. Next week, I dust off my essay proving that gravity is a myth and the sun is actually a giant lollypop.

Ibrahim Hooper, with the Council on American-Islamic Relations, says that by "6 years old" the Hadith really means "16 years old" and "9" means "19" - numbers as similar in Arabic as they are in English. Hooper also makes the compelling argument that the Caner brothers - who say they wrote their book out of love for Muslims whom they want to see in Heaven - are full of "hate."

Other Islamic scholars concede the facts, but argue that Muhammad's marriage to a 6-year-old girl was an anomaly. Oh, OK, never mind. Still others explain that Muhammad's marriage to a 6-year-old girl was of great benefit to her education and served to reinforce political allegiances.

So was she really 16, or was it terrific that he had sex with a 9-year-old to improve her education? This is like listening to some Muslims' earlier argument-in-the-alternative that the Zionists attacked the World Trade Center, but America brought the attack on itself anyway.

Muhammad makes L. Ron Hubbard look like Jesus Christ. Most people think nothing of assuming every Scientologist is a crackpot. Why should Islam be subject to presumption of respect because it's a religion? Liberals bar the most benign expressions of religion by little America. Only a religion that is highly correlated with fascistic attacks on the U.S. demands their respect and protection.

All in all, this is a uglier than average Coulter essay. I know she bristles at accusations of racism, but this really is religious prejudice of the worst sort. All Muslims belong to a twisted violent faith that can make them snap at any moment? We're talking one of the world's great faiths that kept civilization alive for a few hundred years while Europe languished in the dark ages. We're also talking about a billion people around the globe, most of them decent, honest, and peaceful.

Does that mean I'm defending all of Islam? Of course not. I agree, it contains some odd elements in history. And some nasty followers today. But this does not condemn all Muslims. Just as the fact that Christianity contains some odd elements in its history and some nasty current practioners does not condemn all Christians. If you want Bible oddities, check out Leviticus 20, where the Bible orders death for all adulterers and homosexuals (although only exile for those who have sex while a woman has her period). A lot of politicians, Democrat and Republican, would be getting stoned if we kept that one on the books. And does Coulter want her gay friends (she claims to have a few) to get killed? Or should we just avoid targeting entire religions and focus on murderous fanatics, whatever their religion.

Finally, it's a bit odd that Coulter attacks only liberals for their support of Muslims (a degree of support she grossly exaggerates). What about the Bushes and their close ties to the Saudi royal family? What about the alliance America has with Saudi Arabia, one of the most conservative and repressive Muslim states on the planet? If you're going to attack people for supporting Muslims, you really ought to start at the top.

©2002 Carl Skutsch. All rights reserved.
All opinions expressed herein are those of the author unless otherwise noted
(and it goes without saying that they make more sense than Coulter's opinions.)

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