The BBC's Aamer Ahmed Khan in Karachi says the blocking is unlikely to turn into a major freedom of expression issue in Pakistan as there seems to be a consensus against allowing such freedom to extend to irreverent treatment of religious figures....
Pakistan, meanwhile, is seeking an internationally applicable law against blasphemy.
Posted by Robert at March 5, 2006 12:51 AM
------------------

Just what freedom of speech in Pakistan are they restricting?

Last time I looked, international law doesn’t apply to American Constitutional Freedoms.

And if passed by what body, the UN, who is going to enforce it in America, UN Troops or better yet Muslims enforcing blasphemy laws.

Posted by: Texican at March 5, 2006 1:23 AM

Only ONE Blogspot site was a problem? That in itself is kind of surprising. Oddly enough, more from a sense of irony and comedy than any prophetic instinct, I posted on pretty much this possibility just last week. Nevertheless, my prophesy having come so close, I think I should warn everyone not to make any cartoons of me. There could be trouble.

Blogspot bloggers: archive your prophet posts, while you still can!

Posted by: AbbaGav at March 5, 2006 1:24 AM

Pakistan, meanwhile, is seeking an internationally applicable law against blasphemy.

Gotta love it when throw in something major like that at the end, that could be another article in itself, and don't elaborate on it.

As for the "internationally applicable law," that sounds like a job for John Bolton.

Posted by: Shinoliite at March 5, 2006 1:25 AM

There's no need for the freedom to criticize Mohammed in the Land of the Pure because the country was created precisely for those who have no problem with Mohammed!

Posted by: kamala at March 5, 2006 1:28 AM

How do the muslims suggest this law be policed?,with an international criminal court.

I hope the worlds leadership tells muslims to go to hell because this is another case of them trying to impose there will.

Posted by: stevenz at March 5, 2006 1:34 AM

What is internationally applicable law ?

Can we ban polygamy under this internationally
applicable law ? Can we ban child marriage under
this internationally applicable law ? Can we ban
calls for genocide of jews under this internationally applicable laws ? Can a testimony of a hindu woman have as much value as a testimony of
a muslim male under this internationally applicable
law ? Can we stop cutting people's hands under
this internationally applicable law ? Can we stop
stoning rape victims under this internationally applicable law ? Can we stop honor killing under
this internationally applicable law ? Can we ban
theocratic states under this internationally applicable law ?

What else can we do under this internationally applicable law ?

Posted by: Naresh C. at March 5, 2006 1:40 AM

Naresh - of course not. The internationally applicaple law they want is called Sharia.

Posted by: Lilith at March 5, 2006 1:45 AM

Naresh - of course not. The internationally applicaple law they want is called Sharia.

Posted by: Lilith at March 5, 2006 1:45 AM

.. and right after the 'International Law aganst blasphemy' is passed, the 'International Court' can be moved to Riyadh!

Posted by: Alert at March 5, 2006 2:16 AM

How many countries would need to support this for it to become applicable? If this is an Islam-only protection, would non-members of the OIC be likely to support it? China? Russia? Angola?

There are some 150 infidel counties. While enough of them may be dhimmi, would they acquiesce that anti-blasphemy laws apply only to Islam? Some interesting questions:

- Would blasphemy against Judaism - which is what Islam is - be included here? I doubt it, since Israel and the US are the only 2 who could conceivably support it.

- Would dhimmi countries like India support laws that outlaw blasphemy of Islam, but not include, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist and other religions based in India? If this is done, expect the Indian government to be pilloried by Hindu parties.

- Would France and much of Europe - today heavily athiest - support this for Christianity? That would force much of mainland EU to revert to Catholic laws, since the Roman Catholic church couldn't be blasphemed

- Would Communist countries - some of which may be de facto capitalist today, like China and Vietnam, but which are still athiestic - would countries like China, N Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia all sign on to this?

- Even for the OIC, a lot of Shia traditions are considered blasphemy by Sunnis. Would the practice of Shia Islam be illegal? Imagine Iran being referred to the UN security council for blasphemy against Sunni Islam.

Posted by: Infidel Pride at March 5, 2006 2:24 AM

International blasphemy laws? Holy crap, literally.

THAT'S IT. I'm getting a t-shirt made. It'll have the bomb-turbin mo on the front with the words... "YOUR PROPHET SUCKS" And on the back... "AND SO DO YOU" That might get me killed by some deranged orcs, but LIBERTY OR DEATH.

Posted by: mistyhymen at March 5, 2006 2:31 AM

The most offensive blasphemy in any religion is denying the existence of its deity(ies). Yet one fourth of the world's (to the best of my memory from some statistics I say last week) population claims to be atheist. Atheist therefore blaspheme all other religions.

Will a UN anti-blasphemy law automatically make every atheist a blasphemer? If, so what are the penalties, civil fine or criminal sentence? And if you are to force an atheist to believe, in whose deity must the belief be in? Ridiculous questions, I know, but an intenrational anti-blasphemy could never be enforced, except in Islamic states that already enforce Sharia.

Should the UN general assembly pass an anti-blasphemy resolution, it could be one more nail in its coffin. How could the US, even the EU, keep funding that rot?

Posted by: Lisa at March 5, 2006 2:38 AM

This is the kind of thing that makes an argument for figuring out national average IQs. If your nation's per capita IQ is below a certain number, when you propose an international law your country is given shiny things or rings of keys to play with. That way the grown ups can get back to serious work.

Posted by: Eisenhund at March 5, 2006 2:53 AM

Posted by: mistyhymen
It'll have the bomb-turbin mo on the front with the words... "YOUR PROPHET SUCKS" And on the back... "AND SO DO YOU" That might get me killed by some deranged orcs, but LIBERTY OR DEATH.

Exactly, give me liberty or give me death. That should be the call for us all. We will not bow down, (big knot on Al-juawawa's forehead)to Islam. Live free and keep a loaded shotgun.

Posted by: watcher at March 5, 2006 3:04 AM

There's an old saying "truth hurts" The truth about Mo is bubbling to the surface and these barbaric Muzzies are going down kicking and screaming, it's "just" a matter of time.

Posted by: stranger at March 5, 2006 3:04 AM

Napoleon's 1 pass than law in French that ban the printing of any books to release to the general public that attack any religions or it beliefs or insult any religion and his court enforce it total.
French have serious fighting between the Roman Cathority and Prot faith which lead to murder and killing and other public safely problen. Under Napoleon 1 law the The Satanic Verses would have being stop from being printed in the first place. Napoleon didnot believe in a God but he never stop the workship of any God by his people unlike the First French Republic which try to destory all religious belief. In most counties than single person willnot most likely be effect but all media like TV, Radio,Newspapers, magines would be effect with the exspection of private print books and privates media that the general public willnot see or hear about.

Posted by: DefenderofIslam at March 5, 2006 3:25 AM

Since Napoleaonic law is not the law of France anymore, what's your point, that the West has grown up and can now tolerate the coexistence of different beliefs and opinions and Islam can't?

Posted by: Lisa at March 5, 2006 3:30 AM

Funny how only Muslims are calling for laws against "blasphamy", apparently because Islam can stand up to mockery or scrutiny. Too bad for Muslims that independent nations can ignore international laws as they see fit.

Posted by: Roxane at March 5, 2006 4:09 AM

Roxane: I agree with you, I'm personally going to inform peopel about Islam and the many vile things the prophet and his ollowers have been responsible for. Peopel are unfortunately still too ignorant about it.

Posted by: odin, king of gods at March 5, 2006 4:22 AM

Oops that should read

Islam can't stand up to mockery or scrutiny.

Posted by: Roxane at March 5, 2006 4:41 AM

Muhammad was a pedophile warlord and his followers are idiots. LOL

Posted by: stranger at March 5, 2006 6:16 AM

Hi Robert,

I think that I know which 12 websites were targeted specifically, and I think my website, plusultrablog.com was one of them. You see, we were among a list of exactly twelve websites who were announced as open targets on a series of Islamic hacker forums, where the readers were encouraged to try to hack our websites in any way possible, because we were guilty of encouraging people to create new Mohammed cartoons, and guilty of publishing new Mohammed cartoons. This is exactly the specific charge leveled against the twelve websites blocked by the Pakistani government. The twelve websites' names are:

* DrawMohammad.com
* The Nordish Portal
* Draw Mohammed Week
* Mohammed drawings
* Free Spech?
* Plus + Ultra (plusultrablog.com)
* Jesus and Mo
* Mohammed Image Archive
* Dumb Religion
* Danish Cartoons Nearly Start WWIII - A flash animation of the story
* Wear the MohammedBomb
* Drawchrist.com

Further details of my arguement, as well as links to these websites, can be found on my blog, here: http://dragonkeypress.com/blog/?p=965

But my question to you, Robert, is: Can you think of any way that we can officially confirm that these are the 12 blocked websites?

Posted by: Tracy R. Twyman at March 5, 2006 6:19 AM

Pakistan continues to be described in the press as a "key ally" in "the war on terrorism." If this "war on terrorism" is to mean something, it should mean a "war" to "prevent constant replenishment of the ranks of terrorists" and not merely "searching, over a wide area, and many years, for those terrorists already known to exist and to have attracted the most attention (i.e., the leaders of Al Qaeda)." Their numbers are limited. They can be replaced.

In what way is the government of Pakistan helping to lessen the likelihood of that replenishment? How is it acting to change the understanding of Islam so that the Jihad against the Infidels is de-emphasized, perhaps even made, by textual or ideological escamotage, made to disappear altogether?

There is no such way. The government of Pakistan does nothing to prevent Islam from being Islam, that is -- from the widespread dissemnination of hostility and hate toward Infidels.

No state that fails to change, or even to attempt to change, that ideology, can be called an "ally" or a "key ally."

Pakistan is neither. It is a country filled with people hostile to Infidels. They vary mainly in the degree of that hostility, and the willingness to carry out acts of aggression against those Infidels. Pakistan is not a "key ally." It is not an "ally." It is, and permanentlly will be, a menace to all Infidels. Though Mohammed Ali Jinnah himself was relaxed, drank wine, did not foresee quite the Islam-only state that Pakistan became, he was, being a worldly and less fanatical Muslim, one more of those fooled by the power of Islam itself. In this respect Jinnah was like those Iraqis in exile who forgot what Islam was like, and what seething resentments, irrationality, inability to control rumor and conspiracy theories, inshallah-fatalism in both economics and politics (the first response of the Iraqis has not been to pitch in, but to exhibt a "wake me when it's over attitude" toward the Americans, as if they, those Americans, did not do enough in upending Saddam Hussein, but now must turn Iraq, and pronto, into New York and Los Angeles.

If one cared about the people of Pakistan one would rack one's brains trying to find ways to limit the power of Islam. A beginning might be made by the government to cut off all Arab (i.e. Saudi, U.A.E.) funds for madrasas, and to carry on a campaign based on encouraging resentment against the "rich Arabs." Nothing need be made up. It is rich Arabs who treat Pakistani servants terribly in the Gulf, just as they do all other wage-slaves. It is rich Arabs who come to Pakistan for such diversions as bustard-hunting, and are known to ignore the wildlife preservation laws. It is rich Arabs who supply the funds to pay for these madrasas in Pakistan that churn out millions of students who have spent their earliest years memorizing the Qur'an, in a language they do not understand, and prepared not for any useful task but for more Qur'an, which is to say, more Jihad, more aggression, more inability to live in the world with Infidels. Unlike the poor Pakistanis whose lives and real needs they treat with such disdain, rich Arabs need not worry about making a living; they never have had to; the oil money keeps gushing.

A sensible government in Pakistan would try to raise these matters, and to use them to enocurage a distancing from those Arabs, and perhaps would even begin to raise that most delicate of subjects for Muslims in the sub-continent: what was it in the past that caused the ancestors of those Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Indian Muslims, to convert -- to be converted not always at the point of a sword (though there was often that) but because the conditions of dhimmi (in the subcontinent, zimmi) status, were simply unendurable?

What Pakistani journalists will begin, inside or outside Pakistan, to begin to hint at these things? And what officials will take them up -- or are they all on the Arab take?

Posted by: Hugh at March 5, 2006 8:01 AM

DefenderofIslam,

You have to understand that even in the Ecy Britannica it states the Allah had three daughters - and the satire in the Salman Rushdie book the Satanic Verse is based on this fact. And although it makes those in Islam uncomfortable - we can't prevent a book such as this from being published.
________________
We can't shut down the modern world for Islam.
________________

Here everyone takes a beating - no religion, no race and no group is going to escape criticism and or examination. Here we question everything - even prophets.

To ask us not to question or criticize the prophet - is similar to asking you to allow open questions on your religion and prophet in Islamic countries.
___________
We can't turn the world into an Islamic State.
___________

We allow questions and open expression,
Just as in the Islamic world you don't.

Posted by: Pass It On at March 5, 2006 8:11 AM

RE: Here everyone takes a beating - no religion, no race and no group is going to escape criticism and or examination. Here we question everything - even prophets.

And that ideal posted above is gradually being eroded here in the US by the PC types.

The irony is that many leftists idiots claim our civil liberties are being eroded by Bush and CO.
when the real truth is that our freedom expression has been gradually eroded over the years by PC types, the media with its leftist bias, by college speech codes, etc, etc.

Posted by: learjet0450 at March 5, 2006 8:54 AM

I think the Muslims are;- "All on the Arab take?"

A bunch of Arab wanna be's!

And really this is were it becomes our problem - these poor people come to western countries looking for wealth - or a job, but on the other side they also have a strong desire to be Arab.

The types of societies that we have allow us to be in a position to offer the Muslim immigrant a job and or shelter. But in addition these people also want to be Arab or Arab-like, and the Arab society functions or thrives purely on the fact, that there is an abundant amount of oil beneath the ground there. The Arab society - void of anything besides a large purchasing power for things created - in infidel nations - is really living on oil time.

The new immigrants want an Arab society and a western job.
The problem we have is that they are not content with just wanting to be Arab themselves -
They want the rest of us to want to be - Arab too.

Posted by: Pass It On at March 5, 2006 9:46 AM

And I suppose that Muslims in Egypt, Syria, Iran, Jordan, Palestine, etc., will stop publishing cartoons of Jews as dogs, Bush as a Nazi, pigs, etc.? I doubt it. They only want a one-sided law that will protect them and still allow them to defame and insult others. They want to hide the truth behind how many military Jihads Mohammed led, how many people he salughtered and how he was a thief, rapist, slaver, murderer, pedophile and ultimately a false prophet. Typical Islamic hypocrisy.

Posted by: Bohemond_1069 at March 5, 2006 11:03 AM

"internationally applicable law against blasphemy."

In general isn't the West secular? We don't have religious law, it's probably in most of our constituions, sorry islam, no go.

Posted by: meredith at March 5, 2006 11:30 AM

"Pakistan, meanwhile, is seeking an internationally applicable law against blasphemy."

This just in from al-Reuters:

March 5, 2006
Brussels

The EU and the UN have joined with Pakistan to call for "an internationally applicable law against blasphemy."

Spokespersons for the UN and EU, which for the moment would like to remain anonymous, came out with a joint communique:

"Nothing would please the World Bodies at the EU and the UN more than to join with Pakistan in implementing such an international law. We think this would do much to quiet the recent and unfortunate offenses caused by irresponsible Western nations against the Muslim world for publishing cartoons insulting Islam's Holy Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). We believe we will instantly have at least 57 countries sign on whole heartedly with our move, roughly representing 1 quarter of the world's nations, and 1 fifth of the world's population. This move would also go a long way towards the establishment of EU and UN supranational restrictions, something thought to be paramount in light of certain recent unilateralism displayed by a certain hegemonistic Imperial world superpower, whose name will go unmentioned."

Clerics from across the Muslim world heralded the announcement of the joint UN/EU communique, and say they look forward to working with these world bodies to bring a series of internationally binding laws before the world stage. They agree, as one Mullah said, "that the most important agenda for the world today is restrain the unacceptable Zionist aspirations of the hegemonistic Imperial world superpower and Great Satan, the United States."

The only sign of discord between the call by the Pakistanis and the EU/UN interlocutors came when Mullahs and Imams from across the globewondered about the EU/UN reticence to name the Great Satan of America...

"Why are they fearful to name the Great Satan of America?" One Imam pondered out loud... "The Muslim world is heartened -- things are finally going our way! But why won't they name the Great Satan? It's wierd!"

Posted by: jsla at March 5, 2006 1:14 PM

addendum:

al-Reuters
March 5, 2006
Brussels

Journalists asked the anonymous EU/UN spokespersons to clarify several points. Who were the 57 countries who would instantly sign on, for example?

The EU/UN interlocutors specified the 57 Muslim nations are all expected to support the motion for "internationally applicable law against blasphemy."

When further pressed, the EU/UN expressed hope that European nations would also sign on, but at the time of their announcement, it was thought that the intellectual elites in Europe had not had sufficient time to guide the motion through the arcana of garnering support for the EU's position from Europes as yet sovereign states. The UN spokeperson said there was no confusion, since the Muslim nations mainly represented and largely controlled the moral high ground for the UN world body.

"As such, this measure will have no problem passing the General Assembly -- it's the UN Security Council we always have to worry about. It is well known that there's a certain hegemonistic Imperial world superpower, whose name will go unmentioned, which ruthlessly and unilaterally controls a veto, and which loves to rain on the world's parade."

When asked to clarify further, the UN spokesperson declined to comment further, except to say "You all know who I'm talking about!"

At that, the press corps nodded in knowing agreement, and smirks were seen to ripple through the room, along with knowing nods of heads, and rolling of eyes...

Posted by: jsla at March 5, 2006 1:34 PM

We can't shut down the modern world for Islam.

Oh yes we can. And, if the ruling elite from those moron factory hate-farms collectively called the Ivy League have their way, we will.

And, let us be fair to the hairy scowling Moslem Man --- and, also, to their similarly scowling bovinal "women" --- Islam is not about shutting down modernity; Islam is all about shutting down goodness. Islam is about the total unfettered pursuit of pure, unadulterated, evil.

Posted by: Alarmed Pig Farmer at March 5, 2006 1:39 PM

Islam is about giving up the freedom to be who you want to be,giving up the freedom to be an individual and think with an open mind,follow the doctrine like a sheep and all think the same thing.

Posted by: stevenz at March 5, 2006 2:32 PM

Speaking of legislation, there is a growing problem in the struggle against islamic colinization on the home front here in Australia.

we are slowly exposing our moderate islamic spokesmen one by one.

These guys are all older and fundi islam, they blunder along with grotesque statements about the West that they are easily seen as the horror they are... They are uneducated self appointed etc.

As they fall (it's stil good they do) there is a new wave of younger well educated muslums. well versed in the PC speak ready and waiting.

These are going to be harder as they don't blunder with ugly words, and lay their soft core shariaesque out smoothly.

Any Aussies well versed in law and history and some spare time???

Is anyone seeing this in their country?

Posted by: meredith at March 5, 2006 3:11 PM

Doesn't Islam blaspheme Christianity?

Which means they want to outlaw themselves?

I back that 100%.

Thanks, Pakistan.

Maybe Bush's visit did some good after all.

Posted by: profitsbeard at March 5, 2006 3:44 PM

"These guys [Muslim spokesmen] are all older and fundi islam, they blunder along with grotesque statements about the West that they are easily seen as the horror they are... They are uneducated self appointed etc.

As they fall (it's still good they do) there is a new wave of younger well educated muslums. well versed in the PC speak ready and waiting."
-- from a posting above

And the problem is made worse by the efforts of governments all over the Western world to "integrate" or to attempt, vainly, to "integrate" local Muslims by teaching them the language and history and culture of the countries in which they have settled, which knowledge of languages and histories does not incline many to give up Islam, or the hostility toward the Infidel nation-state and Infidels, but rather, equips them better to debate, using taqiyya-and-tu-quoque, in smoother fashion.

It is as if, during the Cold War, the Western world welcomed KGB agents and gave them a thorough grounding in local mores so that they might better fit in, and conduct their dangerous business. "Integration" may work for a very few, but those very few do not outweigh, or outbalance, the many who will either stick with Islam, and Sura 9.29 and the hundred other verses just like it, and hundreds of Hadith, and the basis of the Islamic worldview, which is the division of the universe between Believer and Infidel, or even if they are temporarily unobservant, can return to full-blooded Islam whenever they feel like it, for whatever reason -- or their children can, or their grandchildren.

How can this continue to be avoided? How can the Western world, beginning with its negligent or fearful press, continue to ignore this problem? It is neither imaginary, or particularly difficult to spot. It requires no great feat of mind. It only requires common sense, and some modest inquiry into both the contents of Qur'an, Hadith, and Sira, and study of the history of Islamic conquest and subsequent subjugation of the non-Muslims who have been conquered.

And that's all it takes. But it does take that.

Tens of millions of people in this country spend more time investigating in the pages of Consumer Research or other magazines the Best Toaster to buy, or the Best Used Car, or the Best Vacation to Take to Cozumel, or the Best Pizza in Town or the Best Chinese Buffet. Yet how many of those tens of millions will spend even one day, even one hour a day for a week, studying Islam by looking at this site, or www.dhimmitude.org, or www.faithfreedom.org, or www.secularislam.org? Who will go to www.challenging-islam.org? Who will look up, so that he will know, what the word "dhimmi" means, or the word "taqiyya" or the word "kitman"? Who will find out what is wrong with quoting 5.532 without 5.533? Who will find out who Asma bint Marwan was, or Abu Akaf, or Aisha, or what happened to the Banu Qurayza? Who, perhaps someone who has just made a large donation to the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (that is completely silent on the subject of Islam, and therefore in many ways cannot begin to educate official Washington, or even its own members, on the nature of the Arab siege of Israel that can be contained, but has no foreseeable end save?), bothers to do a little more, having given at the office, to actually find out something about Islam, and what its spread in Europe, or here, may mean for his future, or that of his descendants somewhere down the line? Why are so many willing to spend time analyzing every aspect of those toasters, and not every aspect of taqiyya?

Posted by: Hugh at March 5, 2006 3:53 PM

Ya just stop any other viewpoints from being seen that way the leaders in charge now can keep the hate alive with selective information being givin out,this issue gets more depressing day by day.

Posted by: Denver at March 5, 2006 5:21 PM

And the problem is made worse by the efforts of governments all over the Western world to "integrate" or to attempt, vainly, to "integrate" local Muslims by teaching them the language and history and culture of the countries in which they have settled, which knowledge of languages and histories does not incline many to give up Islam, or the hostility toward the Infidel nation-state and Infidels, but rather, equips them better to debate, using taqiyya-and-tu-quoque, in smoother fashion. - Hugh

I suspect the smooth-talking taqiyya-vendors would find a way to hone their craft with or without governmental help, especially when so many of the real pros at it are either Western-born Muslims or converts to Islam-- say, Ibrahim Hooper.

But I do agree that efforts like those you described are a recipe for trouble in their incompleteness, which from the paralysis that the PC mindset inflicts on any attempt to take a firm moral or principled stand.

Systematized and compulsory education-- and the literature that is opened up to them by learning the language-- may be the last and best chance for a few rays of light to penetrate a mind bolted shut by the Koran. But without that aim in mind, and the conviction that it's the right thing to do, the odds of doing it by chance aren't very good.

Accordingly, then, the teaching of "culture" must not just be the benign, travelogue type, but must include an uncompromising survey of civics, with the message: "This is what we stand for. Take it or leave it." Never mind "trying" to integrate them-- we definitely can't do it for them.

"Do or do not: There is no 'try'." - Yoda (pbuh)

Posted by: Shinoliite at March 5, 2006 5:35 PM

I thought you would like to know this: We've found proof, from the Urdu version of the BBC News website, that our own website, plusultrablog.com, along with Zombietime and 10 others, were indeed the 12 websites recently banned by the Pakistani government. BBC Urdu has a copy of the official government memo listing the 12 websites, and both plusultrablog.com and Zombietime are on it. Plus Ultra is #7 on the list.

I posted a story about it on our website, Plus Ultra, here:

http://dragonkeypress.com/blog/?p=970

Posted by: Tracy R. Twyman at March 5, 2006 6:35 PM

It seems to me that the Q'uran blasphemes Christianity and Jesus Christ, since Jesus Christ called God "My Father", taught us to pray the Lord's prayer "Our Father, Who art in Heaven..." and predicted His own death on the cross and His resurrection three days later. Since the Q'uran says "Allah has no sons" (forget about his three daughters), and denies Jesus Christ died on the cross and therefore could not have been resurrected from the dead, the Q'uran essentially calls Jesus Christ a liar, and by extension, a false prophet. The Q'uran blasphemes Christ and commands Muslims to murder Infidels. It preaches hate and intolerance, advocates violence, and should therefore be banned on those grounds.

Posted by: Bohemond_1069 at March 5, 2006 7:06 PM

A sensible government in Pakistan would try to raise these matters, and to use them to enocurage a distancing from those Arabs, and perhaps would even begin to raise that most delicate of subjects for Muslims in the sub-continent: what was it in the past that caused the ancestors of those Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Indian Muslims, to convert -- to be converted not always at the point of a sword (though there was often that) but because the conditions of dhimmi (in the subcontinent, zimmi) status, were simply unendurable?

Hugh

Once any Pakistani government raises these matters, and enters into that sort of a national introspection, the obvious question would sooner or later be raised,"Why do we exist (as an independent country)". Pretty much like East Germany in 1990 - once Erich Honecker was out of power and Communism collapsed there, what followed was reunification. If Pakistanis raise these questions and start shaking off Islam, they'd sure still be a separate country, but in what way would their identity be different from India?

Posted by: Infidel Pride at March 6, 2006 1:49 AM

A sensible government in Pakistan would try to raise these matters, and to use them to enocurage a distancing from those Arabs, and perhaps would even begin to raise that most delicate of subjects for Muslims in the sub-continent: what was it in the past that caused the ancestors of those Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Indian Muslims, to convert -- to be converted not always at the point of a sword (though there was often that) but because the conditions of dhimmi (in the subcontinent, zimmi) status, were simply unendurable?

Hugh

Once any Pakistani government raises these matters, and enters into that sort of a national introspection, the obvious question would sooner or later be raised,"Why do we exist (as an independent country)". Pretty much like East Germany in 1990 - once Erich Honecker was out of power and Communism collapsed there, what followed was reunification. If Pakistanis raise these questions and start shaking off Islam, they'd sure still be a separate country, but in what way would their identity be different from India?

Posted by: Infidel Pride at March 6, 2006 1:50 AM

Apologies for the double post.

Posted by: Infidel Pride at March 6, 2006 1:50 AM

As for the "internationally applicable law," that sounds like a job for John Bolton.
Posted by: Shinoliite

No, it will be enforced by the world Caliphate, who will send Islamic religious police to drag you out of your house, cut of your head in the street.
The UN will be where his throne is. At least that's the vision Islam has. That's why the place is crawling with Islamic dictators. It's also crawling with Leftist Moobat elitists who have the same idea of using the UN as their throne where these unelected idiots can rule the
world. There is either going to be a clash within the UN one of these days or a melding of ideals.

Posted by: Mullahmasher at March 6, 2006 2:00 AM

I hate to allude to a movie or fictional literature ('Dune' references being the most obvious), but any wonder the Machine City in Animatrix 'Second Renaissance' was on the Arabian Peninsula? Not to mention the Machine representative vaporizing itself at the U.N. after delivering its ultimatum. Pretty damned effective piece of software that Qur'an is. Cartoons are a reminder of the world outside their 'Matrix'. Makes me want to look for a socket in the back of the head of every Mohammedan I come across.

Posted by: Eisenhund at March 6, 2006 3:45 AM

I do not doubt that this "Universal" law would not apply to the dar al-Islam who regularly desecrates anything and everything not of their particular persuasion. The community of Islam does not recognize any other’s right to worship (or not) as they may choose; indeed there is no choice in Islam, although they claim to agree that there is such a thing as Human Rights in their Universal Islamic Declaration of Human Rights (www.alhewar.com/ISLAMDECL.html) et al. That is as long as it is according to the Quran and Shari’ah law which clearly states that all mankind WILL comply and be assimilated or be destroyed. If these things were the policies of a government toward all other nations the world would soon unite to crush the threat.
Will the West wake up in time?

Posted by: infidelion1095 at March 6, 2006 4:09 AM

Hugh and everyone,

Thanks very much for the advice. Yes PC imprisoned governments have as good as given free arms to the islamic propaganda agenda.

The slow and minor response from our governments may be due to many reasons, we can but push for more protection/backing from them.

To become an educated society is the best approach.
It does make sense that as we head into the legislation wars, the Koran and our own laws will be riddled with handy loopholes on both sides, we need to know what these are.

Probably also there will be attempts at shariaesque styled legislation, still within our legalities.

Islamic judges setting precedents based on tolerance of religion.

So far our separation of law and religion seems the best defence we have, I hope to learn more.

One of the main flaws in the Koran’s approach to jihad is it was written before the secular concept had been realised and is unprepared for the legality of the word NO. It seems so heavily dependent on the tolerance aspect of the West.

As far as I know, secular needs are physical needs, such as food and shelter, these are the responsibility of the law, spiritual needs are private matters in the west and we are immune by law from having them enforced on us.

Posted by: meredith at March 6, 2006 4:47 AM