Bauer’s simply wrong that Jones is an “impediment”…he’s done more to illuminate the evil of Islam in 20 minutes than Bauer has done in 20 years.
B http://conservativeamericaonline.blogspot.com/2011/04/radical-islam-not-pastor-is-problem.html April 4, 2011 From: Gary L. Bauer Radical Islam, Not Pastor, Is The Problem The Florida pastor of a tiny church who burned a Koran on March 20th is making headlines again. You may recall that Terry Jones dominated the news for a brief period last year after threatening to burn Islam's holy book. Ultimately, he backed down. But last month he followed through with his threat. Last week riots erupted in Afghanistan, leaving 20 people dead, some decapitated and scores injured. For those of us battling radical Islam, Jones is an impediment to our work, not an aid. Americans do not like book burnings, whatever the book is. As I suggested last year, Jones should have read passages from the Koran out loud. That would at least be educational, helping to explain why the jihadists decapitate babies and blow up busses in the name of Allah. Having said that, we must not surrender to liberal political correctness. Jones is not responsible for the riots and deaths in Afghanistan. His actions merely provided an excuse for the Islamic radicals to go on yet another rampage of death and destruction. There is no moral equivalence whatsoever between the two acts. Jones is stupid; the Islamists are evil. I understand why General David Petraeus would condemn the burning of the Koran. He has a war to fight and his soldiers are on the front line facing the jihadists, who are eager to kill the infidel. But President Obama and other politicians so ready to bow to Islamic demands are betraying America's traditions. On CBS' "Face The Nation" Sunday, Senate Democrat Leader Harry Reid suggested that Congress would "look into" the Koran burning. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) added, "I wish we could find a way to hold people accountable. Free speech is a great idea, but we're in a war. During World War II, we had limits on what you could say if it would inspire the enemy." I think the senator is confused. No one during World War II was worried about insulting the feelings of the Germans or Japanese. Any World War II movie would demonstrate that fact. In this country we let people burn the American flag. We allow extremists to demonstrate at the funerals of our fallen heroes. We permit these offensive things because all speech is protected in America. Reid and Graham are suggesting that things dear to the Islamists should somehow receive a special exemption. They are essentially embracing one of the essential demands of Sharia law -- no insults of Islam. I'd like to remind Senators Reid and Graham of a few facts: In the past month, a Jewish family in Samaria was slaughtered in their sleep by Palestinian Muslims. Coptic Christians in Egypt have been murdered and their churches torched. The only Christian serving in the Pakistani cabinet was assassinated. Ethiopian Christians have been driven out of their villages. I don't recall Senators Reid or Graham rushing to a microphone to denounce these deadly attacks on Christians and Jews. But I do recall not many years ago when a cross, one of the most cherished Christian symbols, was submerged in a vat of urine. There were no riots or beheadings. In fact, liberals told us that not only should we not condemn it, but we should celebrate and subsidize it as "art." If Jones were smarter, he might have requested a subsidy from the National Endowment for the Arts! Then Harry Reid, patron of cowboy poetry, would be rushing to his defense. If congressional liberals try to condemn Jones' burning of the Koran, I hope a Republican member of Congress will demand an amendment condemning the many acts of violence committed by Muslim extremists. Our Clueless Elites Sometimes I marvel at the ignorance of our liberal elites. Consider this example of Big Media attempting to make excuses for the Islamic extremists in Afghanistan. This will take your breath away. On MSNBC's "Hardball" Friday, Chuck Todd, sitting in for Chris Matthews, had Time's Bobby Ghosh explain it all for us. Ghosh, the deputy international editor for Time, broke the story about the Marine massacre of Iraqi civilians in Haditha. Of course, the Marines were all exonerated, but why should that affect Mr. Ghosh's credibility? Here is Mr. Ghosh's explanation of what happened in Afghanistan: "The thing to keep in mind that's very important here is that the Koran to Muslims, it is not -- it is not the same as the Bible to Christians. 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." So, the Bible is just a biography of a man, nothing more. But wait…there's more. Ghosh continued: "But the Koran, if you are a believer, if you're a Muslim, the Koran is directly the word of God, not written by man. It is transcribed, is directly the word of God. That makes it sacred in a way that it's hard to understand if you're not Muslim. So the act of burning a Koran is much more -- potentially much, much more inflammatory than -- than if you were to burn a Bible." I don't know where Mr. Ghosh got his understanding of Christianity, but the Bible is no less the inspired word of God to believing Christians than the Koran is to believing Muslims. But here's the difference: Christians believe that God's greatest gift was life, whereas Muslim extremists believe they are commanded by Allah to take life. They will use any excuse to kill innocent people who had nothing to do with a Koran burned in Florida! GITMO Detainee Leads Libyan Rebels This weekend the Wall Street Journal presented more evidence of Al Qaeda's link to the Libyan rebels. According to the Journal's report, yet another rebel leader is known to have worked with Al Qaeda. In fact, he spent six years at the terrorist detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba! Sufyan Ben Qumu, a Libyan Army veteran, is training rebel recruits in the city of Darna. Years ago, Ben Qumu worked for Osama bin Laden's holding company in Sudan and for an "Al Qaeda-linked charity in Afghanistan." He was arrested in Pakistan in 2001 and sent back to Libya in 2007. Ironically, President Obama has committed U.S. airpower to Ben Qumu's latest cause -- the overthrow of Col. Qadhafi. Last week, the president of Chad, on Libya's southern border, warned that Al Qaeda was taking advantage of the chaos in Libya to seize weapons. Reuters reports today that security officials in Algeria, to Libya's west, are expressing the same concern. Meanwhile, officials here continue to debate whether we will send weapons to the rebels -- weapons which could well end up in the hands of Al Qaeda terrorists. As facts like these continue to emerge, it's not surprising that the American people are growing increasingly uncomfortable with Obama's "kinetic military action" in Libya. A new poll by The Hill finds that just 25% of likely voters believe the Libyan operation is worth the cost. When asked whether the U.S. should arm the Libyan rebels, even fewer (19%) think that is a good idea. But don't worry -- Big Media wants you to know that Obama prayed first before going to war in Libya. George W. Bush was mocked for his faith, but during a recent interview, Obama was invited to talk about the role his faith played in taking us to war. That double standard is the subject of my Human Events column this week, which you can read here. <http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=42694> Goldstone Says "Sorry" Back in 2009, the United Nations released a report condemning Israel for war crimes in Gaza. In the time since the report, authored by South African jurist Richard Goldstone, it has been used as a bludgeon against Israel and to smear U.S. support for Israel. It has been used on college campuses to generate sympathy for Hamas and Palestinian extremists at the expense of the Jewish state. This weekend Goldstone said "whoops." Writing in the Washington Post, Goldstone stated, "We know a lot more today about what happened in the Gaza war of 2008-09 than we did when I chaired the fact-finding mission appointed by the U.N. Human Rights Council that produced what has come to be known as the Goldstone Report. If I had known then what I know now, the Goldstone Report would have been a different document." Goldstone now admits that Israel did not intentionally attack civilians. The original report did so much damage to Israel because so many elites were so willing to believe anything bad about Israel. They gleefully amplified its mistaken conclusions portraying Israel as the villain and the Palestinians as the victims. I predict Goldstone's retraction won't get a tenth of the coverage his 2009 report garnered. And where does Israel go to undo the damage? GOP On The Right Track; Obama Declares For 2012 I know there is a lot of grousing on the right about the status of budget negotiations in Congress. But let me add some encouraging comments to this debate. On "Face The Nation" yesterday, Senate Democrat Leader Harry Reid said that he and Speaker John Boehner had agreed to $73 billion in spending cuts. While Boehner denies any agreement with Reid, and that figure is highly questionable, congressional Republicans, with control of just the House, have changed the terms of the debate in Washington. Harry Reid is now talking about spending cuts. Sure, you can quibble about the size of the cuts, but thankfully we're no longer talking about new, big Obama stimulus programs. We're not talking about increasing spending on Planned Parenthood; the debate is about defunding Planned Parenthood. And this week, Rep. Paul Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee, is expected to release a budget that cuts spending by $4 trillion over the next decade. This change in focus is a miracle for Washington! I know Boehner has his critics on the right, but I hope everyone is working hard to achieve the most important goal. Is that cutting $100 billion out of the 2011 budget? Is it cutting $4 trillion from next year's budget? Or is it defeating Barack Obama in November 2012? As important as those first two items are, I would argue that without retaking the Senate and the White House, our budget cuts won't matter because they would be repealed by a Democrat Congress and a reelected Obama. And speaking of Barack Obama, he released a web video announcing his reelection campaign this morning. The video continued the theme of community organizing, but it has been widely panned as uninspiring. Even one liberal pundit observed, "It's nothing more than a tacit acknowledgment that the magic of '08 is gone; even the true Obama believers need to be energized." That may be true, but we cannot afford to underestimate the advantages an incumbent president has. The stakes are too great and America simply cannot afford four more years of Obama's socialism. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? 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