Belated Replies to Readers To Letters About The Shoe Thrower and Concerning Anti Muslim Violence

If I get a friendly comment, it is a fairly simple matter to print it. I have learned in my short time blogging that a reply is desirable.

Sometimes, when I disagree with a comment, I will pair it off with a reply. Since I am a procrastinator, this can take some time. I am now going to print three comments and reject a fourth. I will put the fourth up in this posting with the profanities appropriately bleeped out, along with my reply.

I expressed the opinion that it was unwise for American opponents of George Bush to be happy that he had shoes thrown at him. I felt that the disrespect was also intended towards America .I got one reply from Tundra Tabloids in Finland agreeing with me. It read as follows.

In full agreement. Obama should have expressed his outrage. what do you think is going to happen to him once the Muslims abroad figure out that he's actually an apostate?

The other reply was quite angry in its disagreement with me . It was anonymous and reads as follows. The first sentence is an excerpt from my article, followed by a rebuttal.

"Traditions of Arab hospitality demand that guests be protected."
What would you do if the person who killed your wife/children/parents and is still torturing the rest of your family comes to your home as a guest? Prepare the best food you can and entertain him? I will not throw shoes at him. Neither will I make food for him. I will kill him. Or hand him to the cops and ensure he is hanged!

I was a bit confused by the commenter's rebuttal. Because his rhetorical question could have easily described Saddam Hussein. Additionally, a large percentage of events fitting that description since America went into Iraq are committed by rogue militias, some loyal to the old regime.

Although it is true that American troops sometimes committed crimes against Iraqis, they still had to face public exposure and a military trial. Under Saddam Hussein, prisoners had their tongues cut out. Some dissidents were sent videos of their family members being raped and tortured. I will not belabour the point that America is held to a higher standard. What is admirable is that we actually try to live up to that higher standard.

The next comment was from someone who felt that I was one sided in my coverage of anti Christian violence by Muslims in Nigeria. He wrote as follows.

Stop lying and tell the truth!!

381 Muslims Massacred in Jos, Nigeria With Complete Black Out of International Media
Written by www.daily.pk
Monday, 01 December 2008 21:06
While US main corporate media units, particularly CNN and Fox TV stations, were 24-7 covering the Mumbai attacks, Muslims were massacred in the city of Jos, in Nigeria. In terms of the number of the victims, Nigerian Muslim victims were double of the number of the Indian victims.
In Iraq, dozens were also killed, and scores were injured, in addition to protests against the US-Iraqi security pact, which allows US forces to stay in Iraq three more years, meaning that the Iraq war may continue for the same period.

In Afghanistan, 61 Afghanis were massacred in just two days by US-led NATO and Afghani forces.

The Israeli brutal siege of Gaza Strip continues, punishing about 1.8 million Palestinians, who began to starve and who are living in darkness after the severe shortages of food and fuel supplies as a result of the Israeli occupation government siege.

The CNN-Fox continuous coverage of the Mumbai attacks for the last five days was a golden opportunity to run away from the news they do not want the American people to know.

It has been a perfect example of how certain news are focused upon and others are ignored completely even if they are more important.

It is also an attempt to impose the defunct 'war on terror' on the Obama administration.

America is in need of a publicly-funded and independent TV network, which tells the American people the truth as it is, not as the special interest groups want it to be.

I checked out Akhter's letter. He brought up the legitimate point that there are indeed instances of anti Muslim violence in Africa. Whether it is also tribal in nature does not excuse it. I thank Akhter for pointing this out. I intend to write about this. My support of religious freedom is non partisan. If Muslim missionaries reached a particular village before the Christians did, it does not diminish the humanity of the villagers.

The violence in Iraq and Afghanistan is in a context of enemy attacks. I need more facts and a lot less reasonable doubt before I can concur with Akhter on that one.

Akhter then goes and plays a numbers game, saying that the Mumbai massacre got more attention than it should have. He pointed to the Gaza strip, complaining that it is being economically strangled by the Israelis, who are stopping the traffic of needed commodities.

I would like to note that the Palestine Authority has declared war on Israel. It permits rockets to be launched from its territory. It tolerates and encourages suicide bombings, even sending in women and children to do it. I agree with Akhter. Israel should lift the blockade on the Gaza strip. They should then annex it using deadly force against any area that sends rockets into Israel. Any celebration of a suicide bombing should be brutally suppressed. The families of suicide bombers should have their property impounded and given over to their victims. There should be no terrorists alive to exchange for Israeli bodies. Yes Akhter, blockading is wrong.

While we are playing numbers games Akhter, why doesn't the world care more about four to six million dead in the Congo wars since the late nineties. What about Liberia and Sierra Leone? The body count in Israel, Jordan and Lebanon is a miniscule fraction of that in sub Saharan Africa. I think that the UN is racially biased against Africans, whether they are Christian or Muslim. And while we are on the subject, let's blow the lid off of the Muslim world's dirty little secret. They have a caste system. Arabs are on top. Indians and Pakistanis are a lot lower. And African Muslims are on the bottom. Maybe if you scream loud enough about the Jews, the world will forget Muslim racism. By the way Akhter, if you are Pakistani or Indian, this means that you are not considered quite top shelf. But don't feel bad. They don't like me much either.

Akhter, you have shined some light on some of my blind spots. For this I thank you. But I hope you will look at a country by country body count and start asking some tough questions. Thank you for coming to my site