THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume XIII, Issue # 90, April 8, 2011
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
DESTROYING ONE KORAN VERSUS DESTROYING MANY CHRISTIANS:
WHICH IS WORSE?
By Raymond Ibrahim
THE SURREAL & INCREASINGLY IRRATIONAL WORLD IN WHICH WE LIVE: A WORLD IN WHICH IRATE RADICAL
MUSLIMS & GROVELING WESTERN APPEASERS OBSESS OVER THE DESTRUCTION OF ONE BOOK, WHILE IGNORING THE
DESTRUCTION OF MANY HUMAN LIVES -- A WORLD WHERE EXERCISE OF A GUARANTEED & HARD-EARNED AMERICAN
RIGHT, FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION, RESULTS IN A LOT OF CONDEMNATORY HUFFING & PUFFING FROM THOSE CHARGED
WITH THE DUTY OF PROTECTING THAT RIGHT, WHILE MURDEROUS & BARBAROUS (I.E., EVIL) BEHAVIOR ON THE PART OF
ISLAMIST ENEMIES OF THE U.S.A. & THE WEST IS DEVOUTLY IGNORED
FULL STORY:
The now infamous Koran burning by a Florida pastor, Reverend Terry Jones, of the Dove World Outreach Center,
Gainsville, Florida, has created hysteria in the Muslim world. In Afghanistan alone, some twenty people, including U.N.
workers, have been killed and beheaded to screams of "Allahu Akbar!" Western leaders around the globe — including
U.S. President Barack Obama and members of the U.S. Congress — have unequivocally condemned Jones' actions
(without bothering to point out that freedom of expression is a prized American liberty). Many are even blaming the
deaths in Afghanistan directly on Jones; Bill O'Reilly says he has "blood on his hands."
Yet, as Western leaders rush to profess their abhorrence at what one American did to one inanimate book, let's take a
quick look at what many Muslims are doing to many living and breathing Christians around the Islamic world — to
virtually no media coverage or Western condemnation:
Afghanistan: A Muslim convert to Christianity was seized and,
according to Sharia's apostasy laws, awaits execution.
Bangladesh: A Christian man was arrested for distributing Bibles
near Muslims. Since Wednesday, April 6, thousands of Muslims
have been rioting, injuring dozens — not because of Jones, but
in protestation of women's rights.
Egypt: A Muslim mob burned down another Coptic church and
dozens of Christian homes; when Christians protested, the
military opened fire on them while crying "Allahu Akbar," killing
nine. Another mob cut a Christian man's ear off "according to
Sharia."
Ethiopia: Muslims went on a rampage, burning down nearly 70
churches, killing at least one Christian, and dislocating as many
as 10,000. Christians living in Muslim majority regions are being
warned to either convert to Islam, abandon their homes, or die.
Malaysia: Authorities detained and desecrated thousands of
imported Bibles.
Pakistan: Two Christians were shot to death as they exited
church; a Christian serving life in prison for "blasphemy" died
in his cell under suspicions of murder.
Saudi Arabia: An Eritrean Christian has been arrested for
sharing his faith with Muslims and is facing the death penalty;
other missionaries continue to languish in Saudi prisons.
Somalia and Sudan: Christian girls — including a mother of
four — were recently abducted, raped, and killed for embracing
Christianity.
It should be borne in mind that none of these atrocities were performed in retaliation to Jones' Koran burning;
they're just business as usual in the Muslim world. Moreover, the above list is but a quick and cursory sampling of
the very latest in Christian suffering under Islam. Were one to include persecution from just a few months back, one
could also mention the jihadist attack on a Baghdad church, killing 52 Christians; the New Year's eve Coptic church
explosion, killing 21; Muslim rampages that destroyed several churches in Indonesia, Nigeria, and the Philippines;
Iran's "round up" of some 70 home-worshipping Christians; and rejection by Kuwait — an Arab nation-state that
owes its very existence to U.S. war sacrifices — of a plan to build a church in the Emirate.
Then there are the countless atrocities that never make it to any media — the stories of persistent, quiet misery that
only the victims and local Christians know.
One would have thought that all this was at least equally deserving of media attention and Western condemnation as
the burning of a Koran. This is especially so, considering that, whereas only Jones is responsible for his
actions, many of the aforementioned savageries — arresting and executing Christian missionaries and Muslim
apostates, destroying or outlawing churches, seizing and desecrating not one but thousands of Bibles — are carried
out at the hands of Muslim authorities and governments that are deemed "friends and allies of the U.S.A."
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.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Islamism & Jihadism -- The Threat of Radical Islam
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
Middle East -- Arabs, Arab States,
& Their Middle Eastern Neighbors
American Foreign Policy -- The Middle East
American Foreign Policy -- Political & Psychological Warfare
International Politics & World Disorder:
War, Peace, & Geopolitics in the Real World:
Foreign Affairs & U.S. National Security
Page Two
Page One
Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.
Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization
Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
Counterterrorism & U.S. National Security
U.S. National Security Strategy
Raymond Ibrahim, a historian of Islam, Islamism and the Middle East, is the Associate Director of the Middle East Forum,
a guest lecturer at the National Defense Intelligence College, and the editor of The Al-Qa'ida Reader, a collection
of tranlations of key texts and documents of the Islamist movement. Ibrahim's translations of the religious texts and
political propaganda comprising this collection help readers comprehend the origins, development, history, and serious
danger of the Islamist war doctrines of Usama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, the Founders of Al-Qa'ida and
implacable enemies of the U.S.A. and the West.
The foregoing article by Raymond Ibrahim was originally published in Front Page Magazine, April 8, 2011, and
can be found on the Internet website maintained by the Middle East Forum, a foreign policy think tank which seeks to
define and promote American interests in the Middle East, defining U.S. interests to include fighting radical Islam,
working for Palestinian Arab acceptance of the State of Israel, improving the management of U.S. efforts to promote
constitutional democracy in the Middle East, reducing America's energy dependence on the Middle East, more robustly
asserting U.S. interests vis-à-vis Saudi Arabia, and countering the Iranian threat.
(URL: http://www.meforum.org/2872/koran-christian-persecution)
Republished with Permission of the Middle East Forum
Reprinted from the Middle East Forum News
mefnews@meforum.org (MEF NEWS)
April 8, 2011
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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