Hot off the press from the AP’s Department of Double Standards we find this:

09/09/2010

AP Press Release

Memo to AP staff from Standards Center: Guidance – planned Sept. 11 Quran burning

Colleagues,

As you know, a group known as the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Fla., has announced that it intends to burn copies of the Quran on Sept. 11.
[...]
The concept of this planned event is offensive to many Muslims worldwide. National leaders and spokesmen for other religious denominations have also found the plan repugnant.

Should the event happen on Saturday, the AP will not distribute images or audio that specifically show Qurans being burned, and will not provide detailed text descriptions of the burning. With the exception of these specific images and descriptions, we expect to cover the Gainesville event, in all media, placing the actions of this group of about 50 people in a clear and balanced context.

Last year, the AP didn’t appear to think twice before showing pictures of burned Christian bibles:

Update: Koran burn called off, AP photo editors’ weekend just got less stressful:

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – The anti-Muslim leader of a tiny Florida church backed off his threat to burn the Quran, defusing an international firestorm Thursday after he said he was promised that a planned Islamic center and mosque would be moved away from New York’s ground zero. The imam planning the center, however, quickly denied such a deal.

Throughout this whole flap, did you feel like the lunch meat of sanity unwillingly trapped between two slices of kookbread in a wacko sandwich? “An exercise in over-reaction” doesn’t begin to sum it up.

(h/t WZ)

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

Sing along.

Previous: Intro, Overview, Sura 1.

At Hot Air, we’ve launched a new Sunday feature with Robert Spencer blogging the Koran.

Be informed.

Most of our readers are aware of Rep. John Conyers’ efforts to pass a congressional resolution against the desecration of the Koran. One of the highest priorities of Muslim interest groups in the United States is to get this legislation and similar initiatives passed. They are following multiple strategies on these issues, lobbying for legislation that bans airport profiling, agitating for rules protecting Islamic practices in the schools, and pushing for non-legislative regulations in addition to laws and resolutions. They are seeking the expansion of the definitions of “hate crime” and “hate speech”, and a blurring of the distinction between the two…The next skirmish in this war is taking place next week, on Thursday March 29th, in Kansas City, under the auspices of the Department of Justice. The event sounds innocuous enough — “A First Freedom Project Seminar: Federal Laws Protecting Religious Freedom — but the significance of the occasion is revealed by the inordinate interest in it displayed by MPAC and other Muslim advocacy groups.

…The upshot is that Justice Department policy on religious discrimination is being guided by leaders from CAIR, ISNA, MAS Freedom Foundation (co-sponsors with ANSWER of the March 17 demonstration against the war), and MPAC…I’m asking members of the Counterjihad, especially bloggers, to travel to Kansas City if they possibly can and attend this meeting in order to offer a counterweight to MPAC, ISNA, and all the rest of the alphabet soup that fronts for the Umma here in the USA.

Copenhagen – The Danish newspaper editor who chose to publish controversial cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in 2005 was on Monday awarded a free press prize for his “determination and courage”.

The Danish-based Free Press Society awarded Flemming Rose the inaugural international Sappho Prize, which comes with 20 000 kroner ($3 568).

The publication of the 12 cartoons in the daily Jyllands-Posten in September 2005 prompted an international storm.

Lars Hedegaard of the Free Press Society said the prize honoured a “journalist who combines excellence in his work with courage and a refusal to compromise”.

Kudos.

Another free speech prize recipient last week: Daniel Pipes. Cheers:

On March 10th 2007 Dr. Daniel Pipes was awarded the Danish Free Speech prize by the Trykkefrihedsselskabets [Free Press Society]…Professor Hedegaard lauded Dr. Pipes for his “unwavering defense of free speech” pointing out that “where too many others are willing to bend to pressure to take the easy way out…Daniel Pipes has stood firm.”

He said that Dr. Pipes book “The Rushdie Affair – The Novel the Ayatollah and West” was the reason for the award adding that “his achievement in writing this book will always stand out.”

[The book was published in 1990, one year after the fatwa and analyzed the historical significance of the edict by Ayatollah Khomeini against The Satanic Verses' author Salman Rushdie as the opening gambit for imposing Shari'a on the West an event that came full circle 16 years later with the Danish cartoon jihad.]

The theme of Dr. Pipes’ acceptance speech was “The Rushdie Rules” and addressed the question, “Will the West accept Islamic law…is the Enlightenment over or will Western civilization survive?”

Over the course of half an hour [and two standing ovations] he explained the nature of the threat the West was facing, asserting that free speech was the key to establishing the immutability of our core values over Islamism.

Dr. Pipes said that the Ayatollah Khomeini’s edict set a precedent because it was “the first time a Muslim religious figure [was] involving himself in Western cultural affairs [where] a head of state [was] calling for the execution of a writer in another country.”

Most importantly Pipes stated, “it was an attempt to apply Islamic law to non-Muslims.”

…He reiterated what is at stake, explaining that, “this recurrent pattern of Muslim uproar, of threats of violence, has a goal that goes well beyond prohibiting criticism of Islam” that it “implies special privileges for Islam” instead of being subject to “the same discussion, as any other religion.”

To illustrate this point Pipes quoted Flemming Rose, the cultural affairs editor of the Jyllands-Posten who made the decision to run the cartoons in his paper and who said that Muslim censorship of the cartoons meant that he as a non-Muslim, was being expected to submit to their taboos, thus “they are seeking my submission.”

Dr. Pipes pointed out the paradox, that while demanding the acquiescence of non-believers to their rigid norms, Muslims themselves “routinely say and do things that are far more offensive to Westerners than “what we do to them.” To illustrate the point he quoted an Algerian leader who referred to Western civilization as “syphilization” adding that “they murder Jews just for being Jews like Daniel Pearl and Ilan Halimi” [the French Jew tortured to death by Islamists in 2006].

Dr. Pipes then questioned the “one-way street” by which Muslims are “allowed to offend and attack while themselves being protected from any such verbal and cultural indignities.”

He went on to state:

“Accepting this imbalance means that Westerners accede to a double standard. [Whereby] Muslims can freely insult and assault others while keeping Islam, Muhammad, and the Qur’an free from insults. Should this position, this imbalance, this double standard continue then we will see the emergence of the ancient Islamic notion of the dhimmi status…a historic phenomenon which lives on in the minds of Islamists…The pressure coming from the Muslim world had taken three forms, threats of violence actual violence in the West and in the Muslim world.”

He then posed two of the most urgent questions of our time, “Are Westerners ready to acknowledge Islam as superior” and “are we about to accept second class citizenship in our own countries?”

The answer:

A former Navy sailor is accused of supporting terrorism by disclosing secret information about the location of Navy ships and the best ways to attack them.

The secrets wound up with a suspected terrorism financier, FBI investigators say.

During an initial appearance Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Phoenix, Ariz., Hassan Abujihaad, 31, accepted removal to Connecticut.

He has been charged with supporting terrorism with intent to kill U.S. citizens and transmitting classified information, reports David Moskowitz of CBS radio affiliate KFYI.

The case reveals a wide, intricate jihad web. The man he is accused of spilling secrets to is Babar Ahmad, “a British computer specialist arrested in 2004 and accused of running Web sites to raise money for terrorism. Ahmad is scheduled to be extradited to the U.S. to face trial.”

Abujihaad, a former enlisted man, exchanged e-mails with Ahmad while on active duty on the USS Benfold, a guided-missile destroyer, in 2000 and 2001, according to an affidavit released Wednesday. He allegedly purchased videos promoting violent jihad, or holy war.

“In these e-mails, he supported Osama bin Laden and the attack on the USS Cole” in Yemen in 2000, said special agent Deb McCarley of the FBI’s Phoenix office.

In those e-mails, Abujihaad discussed naval military briefings and praised those who attacked the USS Cole in 2000, according to the affidavit by FBI Agent David Dillon.

The documents retrieved from Ahmad show drawings of Navy battle groups and discuss upcoming missions. They also say the battle group could be attacked using small weapons such as rocket-propelled grenades. The ships were never attacked.

Authorities discovered Abujihaad’s military e-mail address among the computer files, and he had a secret security clearance that would have allowed him access to that material, according to the affidavit.

The investigation was run out of Connecticut because Ahmad allegedly used an Internet service provider there to host one of his fundraising Web sites.

Ahmad was last heard from in the U.K. claiming the police there had fabricated evidence against him and desecrated his Koran by placing it on the floor during a search of his home. They’ve got the victim card game down pat. Here’s the warrant for Ahmad’s arrest–pdf file. The Washington Post has a few more details:

[Abujihaad ] allegedly sent money to order videos and corresponded with the now-defunct Web site — http://www.azzam.com– from a private e-mail account and his official military account.

“Abujihaad described a recent force protection briefing given aboard his ship, voiced enmity toward America, praised Usama bin Laden and the mujahideen, praised the October 2000 attack on the U.S.S. Cole — which Abujihaad described as a ‘martyrdom operation’ — and advised the members of Azzam Publications that such tactics were working and taking their toll,” according to a news release from U.S. Attorney Kevin J. O’Connor’s office in the District of Connecticut. The response from the Web site allegedly encouraged Hall’s efforts.

And remember the terrorist mall bomb plot from December involving Chicago-area jihad supporter Derrick Shareef, who made a martydom video and is accused of planning to use firearms and explosives to attack a local mall during the holidays? Shareef and Abujihaad are tied together, according to law enforcement:

According to the affidavit, Shareef and Abujihaad lived together in 2004 when Ahmad was arrested. After reading news reports of the case, Abujihaad became upset and said, “I think this is about me,” Shareef told investigators.

Authorities then taped a phone conversation between Abujihaad and an informant in which Abujihaad appeared nervous. Though Abujihaad didn’t say outright that he was involved in the leak of classified information, the affidavit provided enough evidence for an arrest warrant.

WaPo quotes from the taped conversation:

In a recorded conversation, Hall played down his contact with the Web site, according to charging documents.

“I corresponded with an e-mail site,” Hall allegedly said. “It wasn’t nothin’ top secret like these people are saying, you know what I mean? I was just talking about, like the Cole . . . whatever.”

Uh-huh. Whatever.

***

Andrew Cochran at The Counterterrorism Blog has more and points out:

Abujihaad allegedly communicated with Ahmad while he was an enlisted Navy man with a “Secret” security clearance after the September 11 attacks. This raises questions in my mind whether the U.S. armed forces have sufficiently reviewed and revised their procedures for granting and renewing security clearances for active duty personnel. See this Lorenzo Vidino post in 2005 discussing the Abujihaad-Ahmad connection and other infiltrations by Islamists of Western armed forces. Political correctness is the enemy here.

***

Flashback: Muslim soldiers with attitude

Related: The enemy within

There’s a new member of the Banned By YouTube club. He’s Nick Gisburne, an atheist who posts videos criticizing religion. He had no trouble uploading anti-Christian monologues to YouTube. But when he criticized Islam by quoting the Koran?

YouTube account deleted. (You can seen the banned video at his site.)

Here’s Gisburne’s latest video (not yet banned) recounting the banning of his video slideshow that simply displayed violent quotes from the Koran:

Yup, been there and done that.

Ragnar, a fellow Banned By YouTube club member, writes:

YouTube : They’re at it Again

First, YouTube banned Michelle Malkin’s video “First, they came for…”

Then, they banned several of our own videos (including “Rocket Ride”) and disabled searches for certain anti-jihadi user accounts (including SOUTALKUFFAR).

Along they way, they banned CRUSADER18 and a number of other anti-jihadi YouTube users.

They pulled our video “Flight Club” and Stuck Mojo’s video “Open Season” from the rankings, just to prevent them from showing up on YouTube’s front page.

Not having been banned in a while, I was beginning to think that YouTube had given up on the censorship game.

No such luck.

Glenn Reynolds observes:

Christians who want similar consideration from Google will presumably have to start blowing things up and beheading people. As I’ve noted before, it’s quite unwise to create this kind of incentive structure. I thought the Google people were supposed to be smart.

As Eugene Volokh points out, of course YouTube is “a private company that is entitled to choose what it carries.”

Yes, but as I told Neil Munro, who covered the YouTube wars in the National Journal last month:

YouTube is a private company, and it can do whatever its wants. But it has an obligation to their users to be transparent about their standards, to be responsive to their millions and millions of users, and to be consistent about it.

***

By the way, YouTube continues to falsely label the open letter video about my banned video as being “removed by the user.”

That’s false. Untrue. Wrong.

***
Previous:

Gangs using YouTube to recruit
YouTube: Time’s invention of the year
YouTube and the cyberjihad
Google plus YouTube equals…
YouTube’s slippery slope
Fighting jihad at YouTube
Banned on YouTube
YouTube goes Dhimmi Pt I/ Pt II

Students:

Michael Abdurakhmanov, president of Pace Hillel, said two deans warned that showing the documentary film would implicate club members as suspects in two hate crimes involving the desecration of the Koran at the university’s lower-Manhattan campus last fall.

In addition, Abdurakhmanov said an assistant dean physically restrained him as he attempted to defend the film and his group in a meeting with administrators.

“The message was pretty clear, if you show this film, you’re going to incriminate yourself,” Abdurakhmanov said…

Hillel had planned to screen “Obsession” during Judaism Awareness Week in November. The school stepped in after receiving complaints from Muslim students that the film negatively portrayed Islam.

In September and October, copies of the Koran were found in toilets in men’s rooms on the Manhattan campus. Those incidents were followed by the discovery of a swastika scrawled on a bathroom wall and a Hillel event poster.

Pace University administrators:

Pace spokesman Chris Cory acknowledged that officials encouraged Hillel to postpone the screening until tensions over the hate crimes dissipated, but dismissed the accusations of coercion as “far-fetched,” “implausible” and “unprofessional.”…

“The bottom line is the university never told them not to show the film,” said Cory, the Pace spokesman. “This was a good-faith effort by the deans to mediate between the Muslim Students Association and Hillel.”

They “encouraged” Hillel? Vee-haf-vays-of-makeeng-you-tolerant kind of “encouragement?” Even if the administration isn’t actively threatening him and others, as Abdurakhmanov says it is, it is collapsing big-time in the face of Muslim criticism, which I think is now officially a major at most U.S. universities. I hope an investigation of Abdurakhmanov’s serious allegations will be as quick and thorough as the investigation of the Koran “hate-crime.” Ha, let’s not hold our breath.

The Muslim Student Association at Brown managed to get a speech by anti-jihad critic Nonie Darwish cancelled this fall before Brown reconsidered the knee-jerk and re-invited her.

Check out the Pace administration’s fold to MSA criticism in the wake of the Koran incident in the fall. According to the MSA, the administration was not conscientious enough in its dealings with the matter even though an investigation had started and a properly P.C. e-mail had been sent within hours (emphasis mine):

In his email, Caputo alerted the community about the issue and condemned the act, calling it “despicable,” asking for tolerance and respect throughout the University. Caputo also said the Quran was “water damaged but not defaced in any other way,” prompting shock throughout the student body, including the Muslim Students Association (MSA), who demanded a vigorous investigation and rejected the notion that the act only resulted in water damage.

Members of the MSA said Caputo’s email was misleading, noting the act was indeed one of defacement and the letter “added insult to injury (…) and the act must be documented as a hate crime and penalized to the fullest extent.”

Just one meeting with students later (emphasis mine):

After students spoke, Caputo addressed the town hall guests and community by saying, “I apologize. We were trying to handle this situation the best we could.” He also said he wanted to further efforts to promote tolerance and respect, and to reassure the community that the incident was being taken seriously.

Pace later collaborated with CAIR in its healing “Campaign Against Hate:” (emphasis mine)

In addition, the sessions will provide an open forum for dialogue about the recent incidents and an opportunity for questions about different cultures, groups, or practices. Information on Islam has been developed in consultation with the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Well, isn’t that special?

Democracy Project reported on this back in November. At the time, a letter from Abdurakhmanov about the incident claims he asked the Muslim Student Association about collaboration:

I am President of Hillel, a Jewish club at Pace University. Part of our Judaism awareness week (week long full of events relating to Judaism- Nov 13 – 17th) we wanted to show the film “Obsession.” Three weeks before the day of the event I contacted MSA– Muslim Student Association, and notified them that I was going to show the film and have a panel of speakers discuss the film before and after it was viewed. I asked MSA if they would like to collaborate with us on and offered them a chance to bring a speaker of their choice.

“Obsession” is a movie– a serious, well-made movie about the No. 1 political issue of the day. There is no speaker, concern for whose safety can allow Pace to weasel out of standing up for academic freedom in the Columbia-approved fashion.

It’s a political movie. On a college campus. How whiney-baby lame can these guys get? Make no mistake about it, the tolerance fetishists are not pro-free speech. Pace administrators and the MSA: Suck. It. Up.

Update: LGF says, “Notice that doing something to a book is now being routinely labeled a “hate crime.”

***11:30pm Eastern update…CNN and Arab media reporting that pictures/video expected soon…Iraqi state TV reporting it will air images…11:46pm Eastern…CNN correspondent says a witness reports there was “fear in Hussein’s face” as he headed to execution…Celebration…more execution witness details…refused to wear a hood…had a Koran…shouted “Allahu Akbar!”…FNC reports that a witness says Saddam struggled when taken from his cell…***

***
10:09pm Eastern. Fox News reporting that al Arabiya has announced that Saddam has been executed.

Allah Pundit: “Al-Hurra is reporting it too. I’m monitoring Al Jazeera in the expectation that they’ll have the video before American media does.”

Reuters:

U.S.-backed Iraqi television station Al Hurra said Saddam Hussein had been executed by hanging shortly before 6 a.m. (0300 GMT)
on Saturday.

Still and video cameras were in the chamber at the time of the execution. How long before it’s on YouTube?

Celebrations are on in Sadr City, according to Arab media and Fox News.

Sic Semper Tyrannis.

***

Bryan Preston sums up the tyrant’s bloody resume. Mark Coffey draws on Thomas Jefferson.

Lots of readers are peeved by CNN’s memorial tribute to Saddam. Reader Roger writes, “Did Gerald Ford get this much respect on CNN’s home page?”

Reader Jake e-mails: “A very telling CNN screenshot on your post about Saddam’s death…I noticed the page of “Family Photos” and had to browse them earlier…family snapshots of Saddam’s. Where are the pictures of the tens of thousands (or hundreds of thousands) of Saddam’s victims and their families?!? [Update] As of 11:20pm EST, the “Family Photos” post is now removed from the page.”

The New York Times, to its credit, does better:

Brian Maloney notes hand-wringing over at HuffPo.

The execution occurred outside the Green Zone, according to FNC. Two of Hussein’s co-defendants have also been put to death.

Lots of talking-head heat over the fairness and integrity of the Iraqi war tribunal. The Case Western Reserve University Law School has a blog and website with tons of key original docs related to the trial. Go here and judge for yourselves.

CNN reports Husssein’s hometown of Tikrit is in lockdown. Curfews elsewhere in Iraq will end sooner than anticipated.

President Bush issues written statement…standby. Here it is via LATimes:

Today, Saddam Hussein was executed after receiving a fair trial — the kind of justice he denied the victims of his brutal regime.

Fair trials were unimaginable under Saddam Hussein’s tyrannical rule. It is a testament to the Iraqi people’s resolve to move forward after decades of oppression that, despite his terrible crimes against his own people, Saddam Hussein received a fair trial. This would not have been possible without the Iraqi people’s determination to create a society governed by the rule of law.

Saddam Hussein’s execution comes at the end of a difficult year for the Iraqi people and for our troops. Bringing Saddam Hussein to justice will not end the violence in Iraq, but it is an important milestone on Iraq’s course to becoming a democracy that can govern, sustain, and defend itself, and be an ally in the War on Terror.

We are reminded today of how far the Iraqi people have come since the end of Saddam Hussein’s rule – and that the progress they have made would not have been possible without the continued service and sacrifice of our men and women in uniform.

Many difficult choices and further sacrifices lie ahead. Yet the safety and security of the American people require that we not relent in ensuring that Iraq’s young democracy continues to progress.

11:45pm Eastern. CNN Iraqi correspondent reporting first details about the execution. A witness says there was “fear in Saddam’s face.” Dancing and celebration around his body after execution.

Iraqi-Americans celebrate.

First British Airways goes dhimmi on a stewardess who wore a crucifix on the job. Now, British Midland bans a Bible-carrying stewardess (via London Telegraph):

A second airline is embroiled in a religious row after a stewardess decided to take bmi to an employment tribunal because it refused to allow her to carry a Bible on flights to Saudi Arabia.

The stewardess, who has not been named, claims that she has been subject to discrimination because of her faith.

She is understood to have deep religious convictions and carries a Bible with her at all times.

But bmi, which is the only British scheduled carrier to fly to the country after British Airways pulled out of the route, insisted that it was only following Foreign Office advice.

The dispute has erupted as British Airways seeks to settle its own dispute with Nadia Eweida, a Heathrow check-in worker, who has been banned from wearing a cross on a necklace while on duty.

A spokesman for bmi said the airline was complying with Saudi law and added that the stewardess had been offered the opportunity to switch to working on its short-haul routes. It could not, however, alter its long-haul rosters to accommodate her.

The Foreign Office website informs travellers to Saudi Arabia: “The importation and use of narcotics, alcohol, pork products and religious books, apart from the Koran, and artefacts are forbidden.”

A spokesman said last night that the Saudi authorities would automatically confiscate a Bible from anybody trying to bring one into the country and it would not be returned.

Is it too late to give them special recognition in the Dhimmi Awards?

LUCKNOW, India – Muslim clerics at a leading seminary in India have asked people to refrain from using verses from the Quran as ringtones for their mobile phones, saying the practice was un-Islamic.

Quran verses “are not meant for entertainment,” said Mohammed Asumin Qazmi, an official at the Dar-ul Uloom seminary in the northern Indian town of Deoband. “Anyone who persists in using these should be ostracized from society.”

Ringtones with Quran verses or calls to prayers are popular among Muslims in Uttar Pradesh, India’s largest state.

Mufti Badru-Hasan, a leading cleric in Uttar Pradesh capital of Lucknow, said he supported a ban on such ringtones.

“One should hear the complete verse of the Quran with a pious mind and in silence. If it is used as a ringtone, a person is bound to switch on the mobile, thus truncating the verse halfway,” he said. “This is an un-Islamic act.”

I needn’t remind you of what happens to those who insult Islam.

***

P.S. So, Koran ringtones are out, but where’s the clerics’ uproar over using cell phones to commit terrorism in the name of Islam?

Alberto Fernandez, director of public diplomacy in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs at the US State Department, is al Jazeera’s favorite pet tool. He has been praised as “sassy” and is a fixture on Arab TV. From a Newsweek profile published in August, which proclaimed him “the face of the United States in the Middle East:”

On paper, at least, Fernandez’s job is basically that of a high-powered booker, coordinating appearances of high-level State Department officials on Arab media. But in reality, he’s the main act. According to his own conservative estimates, he has done about 200 interviews with Arabic media in the past year—with almost 60 media appearances in July alone. “As far as I am aware, he is the only Arabic speaker from the U.S. government who appears on Al-Jazeera says Abderrahim Foukara, managing editor at the network’s Washington offices. “Sometimes we’ll even have him on three or four days in a row.”

Well, last night, he appeared on the Arab news network to condemn America’s arrogance and stupidity in Iraq (hat tip: LGF). Your tax dollars at work:

A senior American diplomat has told Aljazeera that the United States has shown “arrogance” and “stupidity” in Iraq, but warned that failure would be a disaster for the entire region.

“We tried to do our best [in Iraq] but I think there is much room for criticism, because, undoubtedly, there was arrogance and there was stupidity from the United States in Iraq,” Alberto Fernandez, director of public diplomacy in the bureau of Near Eastern affairs at the US state department, said in the interview, aired on the Arabic channel late Saturday.

International media outlets are eating up Fernandez’s rant.

We shouldn’t mince words about what’s going right and wrong in Iraq, Afghanistan, or any other front in the battle against global jihad and Koran-thumping violence and repression. (See, for example, Diana West’s sober assessment: A vote for civil war.)

But place, time, and manner matter. And this feckless State Department bureaucrat has lousy judgement on all three. It’s one thing to be self-critical. It’s another to lambaste your own country as “stupid” on the terrorists’ favorite propaganda outlet–just moments after a jihadi spokesman, Abu Mohammed, proclaimed:

“The resistance, with all its factions, is determined to continue fighting until the enemy is brought down to his knees and sits on the negotiating table or is dealt, with God’s help, a humiliating defeat.”

If Fernandez’s name sounds vaguely familiar, you may recall his boneheaded comments about violet jihadist and terror theologian of the Muslim Brotherhood, Sheikh Yusuf al Qaradawi. Andrew McCarthy reported on NRO in February:

Reminiscent of Michael Corleone’s protestations to Kaye, the Brotherhood claims it is going legit any day now, so naturally it has become a favorite Islamic organization of the State Department and the CIA, at whom it bats one winsome eye while winking at suicide bombers with the other.

Months after the original, uneventful publication of the cartoons, Qaradawi used his ready platform at al Jazeera to issue one of those fatwas he’d researched at that European Council of his. This one called for a “Day of Rage.” It worked so well that, by the end of last week, the media were reporting, with a straight face, that Qaradawi was now “condemning” the savagery he’d quite consciously started. (See The Muslim Brotherhood Playbook, p.1.) The poor, misunderstood imam, it seems, had only meant to provoke “logical” rage, like boycotts of Havarti cheese and the like. After all, he’s a “moderate” who opposes violence … whenever he’s not stirring it up.

Qaradawi, it turns out, is not just a moderate. He is, in addition, “a respected scholar and religious leader worthy of the deepest respect.” Says who? Says the State Department, that’s who.

It was only last October, you see, when Alberto Fernandez, newly minted by Secretary Condoleezza Rice as director for public diplomacy at State’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, made one of his obligatory “live dialogue” appearances on Islamonline.net. After cooing about the new Iraqi constitution, taking pains to stress that it expressly “recognizes the role of Islam” (thanks in no small part to State’s labors), Fernandez proceeded straight to the required gushing over Qaradawi.

But wait a second. Hasn’t Qaradawi has been banned from the U.S. for promoting terrorism? Surely the State Department can mount a full-throated defense of that, right? After all, isn’t our moral compass supposed to be the Bush Doctrine — the one that says “you’re either with us or with the terrorists”? Is it really that hard for State to say Qaradawi is a disgusting character promoting a noxious agenda, rather than a model of moderation?

Apparently. Such a choice, our chic-sensitive public-diplomacy pirector opined, was “for the Muslim Umma to decide.” As for the rest of us, Fernandez would brook no denying that it is “important to listen to intelligent and thoughtful voices from the region like Sheikh Qaradawi, … an important figure that deserves our attention.”

You can still see Fernandez’s endorsement of Qaradawi right here.

You want to know how Fernandez responded to criticism of his reckless jihadi suck-up remarks? He sniffed that they were “minor” comments, which he made just to be “polite,” and were much ado about nothing. Look:

He’s still surprised how minor comments get amplified when he does grant a rare English interview. Take the way right-wing pundits singled out one response from a 50-question live forum he did on the English-language Web site Islam Online. Fernandez referred to revivalist Sunni Muslim scholar Yusuf al Qaradawi—the founder of Islam Online—as “a respected scholar and religious leader worthy of the deepest respect.” The National Review denounced Fernandez for being a “chic-sensitive” apologist “gushing over Qaradawi,” who is banned from U.S. soil for his alleged links to terrorist groups. “It was just some BS answer, just to be polite, and they picked up on that one thing,” says Fernandez

If this is “the face of the United States in the Middle East,” we need to withdraw all State Department bureaucrats from the region, find out what else Fernandez and his Arabic-speaking colleagues have been telling the Arab media, and boot them off the airwaves. Permanently. If showing “politeness” towards suicide bomb-embracing jihadi clerics and showing contempt for our country on enemy airwaves is how we plan to win “hearts and minds,” we’re screwed.

It was the day that a host of BBC executives and star presenters admitted what critics have been telling them for years: the BBC is dominated by trendy, Left-leaning liberals who are biased against Christianity and in favour of multiculturalism.

A leaked account of an ‘impartiality summit’ called by BBC chairman Michael Grade, is certain to lead to a new row about the BBC and its reporting on key issues, especially concerning Muslims and the war on terror.

It reveals that executives would let the Bible be thrown into a dustbin on a TV comedy show, but not the Koran, and that they would broadcast an interview with Osama Bin Laden if given the opportunity. Further, it discloses that the BBC’s ‘diversity tsar’, wants Muslim women newsreaders to be allowed to wear veils when on air.

At the secret meeting in London last month, which was hosted by veteran broadcaster Sue Lawley, BBC executives admitted the corporation is dominated by homosexuals and people from ethnic minorities, deliberately promotes multiculturalism, is anti-American, anti-countryside and more sensitive to the feelings of Muslims than Christians.

One veteran BBC executive said: ‘There was widespread acknowledgement that we may have gone too far in the direction of political correctness.

‘Unfortunately, much of it is so deeply embedded in the BBC’s culture, that it is very hard to change it.’

Acknowledging the truth is the first step.

More stunning testimonials:

Political pundit Andrew Marr said: ‘The BBC is not impartial or neutral. It’s a publicly funded, urban organisation with an abnormally large number of young people, ethnic minorities and gay people. It has a liberal bias not so much a party-political bias. It is better expressed as a cultural liberal bias.’

Washington correspondent Justin Webb said that the BBC is so biased against America that deputy director general Mark Byford had secretly agreed to help him to ‘correct’, it in his reports. Webb added that the BBC treated America with scorn and derision and gave it ‘no moral weight’.

Former BBC business editor Jeff Randall said he complained to a ‘very senior news executive’, about the BBC’s pro-multicultural stance but was given the reply: ‘The BBC is not neutral in multiculturalism: it believes in it and it promotes it.’

Randall also told how he once wore Union Jack cufflinks to work but was rebuked with: ‘You can’t do that, that’s like the National Front!’

Quoting a George Orwell observation, Randall said that the BBC was full of intellectuals who ‘would rather steal from a poor box than stand to attention during God Save The King’.

None of this is news to Biased BBC, which tracks p.c. at the Beeb 24/7/365.

Remember Abdul Rahman, the Christian convert who fled Afghanistan and found safety in Italy after Muslim mobs demanded he be killed for abandoning Islam?

Well, while the rest of the world has forgotten about Rahman, the sharia-embracers and Koran-thumpers who believe all apostates should be murdered have not forgotten Rahman’s “insult.”

They’ve kidnapped an Italian journalist and are demanding that Rahman be handed over to them in exchange for the journalist’s life:

The kidnappers of an Italian journalist in Afghanistan have offered to free him in exchange for a Christian convert who fled the country, an aid agency says.

Photojournalist Gabriele Torsello was seized last week while travelling on a bus in southern Afghanistan.

The kidnappers will free Mr Torsello, a Muslim convert, if Abdul Rahman returns from Italy where he was granted asylum earlier this year, the aid agency says.

Mr Rahman had escaped a possible death sentence for becoming a Christian.

He had been charged with rejecting Islam and released this March after being deemed mentally unfit to stand trial on a charge of apostasy.

Fearless truth-teller Robert Spencer excoriates the ignorant and the deceivers on the apostasy issue:

Abdul Rahman, you may recall, converted from Islam to Christianity and was spirited to Italy when Afghanistan’s brave new democratic government determined to obey Muhammad’s command to kill those who leave Islam (cf. Bukhari 4.52.260). Now jihadists in Afghanistan are demanding his return in exchange for a kidnapped Italian journalist.

And meanwhile, Islamic apologists in the U.S. blandly claim that Islam has no death penalty for apostasy, and call me “Islamophobic” for pointing out that it actually does (Salam Al-Maryati of MPAC did this to me on the Medved show not long ago, and it has happened elsewhere also). This illustrates the hollowness of the arguments we hear all the time about how we must support self-proclaimed moderate Muslims by refraining from noting the flimsiness and weakness of their presentations. While we’re being polite to alleged “reformers,” Muslim hardliners are cheerfully implementing the elements of Islamic law that we’re nodding our heads and agreeing don’t exist.

Spencer’s Truth About Muhammad, like all his books, is an absolute must-read. Clueless members of Congress and our intelligence agencies ought to be forced to read them all.

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Previous:

Many more Abdul Rahmans
Abdul Rahman update
Abdul Rahman has landed
Abdul Rahman: Safe for now
Abdul Rahman “vanishes”
Abdul Rahman seeks asylum
Abdul Rahman to be released
Steyn on Rahman and Islam
What are you praying for?
The religion of pieces
Condi Rice calls Karzai
Free Abdul Rahman
Canada supports Abdul Rahman
Rally for Abdul Rahman
Bush: “Deeply troubled”
Video: “I am not an apostate”
Who will save Abdul Rahman?
“We will cut him into little pieces”
Save Abdul Rahman
A Christian on trial