Western Free Speech and Rewarding Murder
by Andre Zantonavitch
On February 8th, Mullah Dadullah -- the chief Taliban military commander of Afghanistan -- offered a reward of 100 kilograms of gold (about 1.8 million dollars) to anyone who killed one of the twelve Danish cartoonists of the newspaper Jyllands-Posten. The West responded by doing nothing. On February 17th, Maulana Yousef Qureshi -- the head cleric of the Mohabet Mosque in Peshewar, Pakistan -- issued a formal "fatwa" to murder them as well. He backed up this call to slaughter with a million dollar bounty for each innocent slain. The West responded by doing nothing.
This horrific public crime and brazen conspiracy to commit mass murder is reminiscent of Ayatollah Khomieni's 1989 death threat to British novelist Salman Rushdie. At the time, the Iranian dictator also offered a multi-million dollar reward to anyone who would commit this god-awful crime. This reward and fatwa was reaffirmed on February 12th by the Revolutionary Guards of the Khordad Foundation. The recent Iranian president, Mohammed Khatami (1997-2005), mocked the West saying: "They talk of respect for all religions but they support an apostate worthy of death like Rusdie."
In all these cases, freedom and free speech are being directly attacked. In all cases, Western governments and leaders are doing nothing. Even prominent intellectuals, writers, and artists -- those most wantonly violated and threatened -- are essentially doing nothing. There is nothing close to a loud, ringing condemnation of such an international outrage, nor anything like an emphatic, principled, public defense of Western liberty and free expression. In every instance a craven, terrorized, morally depraved, and intellectually bankrupt West has essentially apologized to the Islamic militants for these obscure, anodyne cartoons.
It seems the lowest elements of the Islamo-fascists -- from a position of hilarious economic, military, and philosophical weakness -- now rule the world. Western civilization couldn't be more amoral, unprincipled, feckless, and impotent. And every day that passes without a military reprisal or display of moral outrage on the part of the supposed good guys is another victory for jihadi savagery and raw evil.
I think Denmark, Britain, America, and others need to do nothing less than launch some type of military attack on Iran and Pakistan (among others). At the least, they need to break diplomatic relations, impose an economic and social embargo, enforce a "no fly" zone, and demand that this open call to massacre Westerners be rescinded. We should also tell them in no uncertain terms that we want that bastard Qureshi's head on a platter. Or there's going to be hell to pay. And certainly -- as a bare minimum -- the West should smart-bomb all the mosques involved, and then offer a counter-reward of five million dollars to anyone who eliminates some of those malicious imams or any of their close associates.
In response to this barbarism and shameless assault on Western freedoms, all the relevant governments should vigorously encourage the re-publication of all twelve cartoons at the heart of this controversy. Plus they should commission another 120 which are even more mocking, contemptuous, and insulting to Islam. The heads of government of Denmark, Britain, and America should also hold exquisite, genteel cocktail parties in which humongous versions of these twelve drawings are featured. And there should even be special games featured in which Westerners use brightly-colored water pistols to "shoot the Prophet," as well as fun-filled "Wack an Allah" games in which comically oversized mallets are used to repeatedly bop "the most Gracious, the most Merciful" on his insolent head.
It's also important that the various Western heads of state make clear -- at long last -- that the world's problem is not with Islamic "extremists" or "radicals" but with mainstream Muslims. Western leaders need to emphatically, energetically, bitterly denounce the majority of Muslims, most of which worldwide support or heavily sympathize with 9/11, Osama, the Rushdie fatwa, and the new cartoonist fatwas.
The Western government heads should also proclaim unambiguously that they value political liberty far more than religious "sensitivity." And they should state that they proudly defend and champion free expression of political and cultural criticism over murderous intimidation by low, scurvy, reprobate primitives who make it their business to be continually, religiously "insulted" and "offended."
It's long past time for the still somewhat liberal West to address this "insult to Islam" issue and bring it to a head. All quasi-civilized states which aren't complete insects and traitors to freedom should resoundingly affirm that the values of free speech and free expression are absolute. They should state that these things are sacred, and that as such they trump the values of "respecting Mohommed and Allah" completely and infinitely. And we shoud announce the intent to repeat the above public demonstrations and displays forever -- or at least until the West's unrestricted right to mock religion and ideology is granted and fully respected.
The practical result of the current passive acceptance and submissive surrender to murderous jihadism is almost certain to be significantly increased levels of anti-Western violence. Muslims are sure to issue ever more fatwas and bounties to writers and publications. This will continue until Western politicians and high leaders themselves are openly, directly targeted. So eventually the depraved, cowardly, self-hating, weakling West will have to respond. It's just a matter of how bad we'll let the situation get before we finally find it intolerable.
And while we're at it: Bill Gates, Paul Allen, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Richard Branson, George Soros, Donald Trump, and Ted Turner should do their part and offer private, multi-million dollar rewards to anyone who manages to deep-six any similar-type, wisenheimer, arrogant, Muslim cleric or militant.
In the end, the most shocking, appalling, and terrifying thing about this whole anti-Western, anti-freedom, multi-million dollar public bounty scheme is the utter silence of the civilized parts of the planet some six weeks (and counting) after the initial death threats. This act of immense pacifism and defeatism is more eloquent than any words. It shouts to the whole world:
"We surrender! We Westerners are weak, impotent cowards, and scaredy-cat, sissy-boy wimps! We give in to your brazen evil! Freedom of speech for Western thinkers, writers, and artists is nothing to us! We surrender our Western virtue to your naked Islamic evil! Allah Akbar!"
George Bush once said "You're either with us -- or you're with the terrorists." Well, the current governments of Denmark, Britain, and America are with the terrorists.
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