by Jeremy Reynalds

Newspapers across Europe have reprinted caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad to show support for a Danish paper whose cartoons have sparked Muslim outrage.

The BBC reported that seven publications in France, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy and Spain all carried some of the drawings. Their publication in Denmark led Arab nations to protest. Islamic tradition bans depictions of Muhammad.

The BBC also stated that the owner of one of the papers to reprint - France Soir - has now fired its managing editor over the issue. The cartoons have sparked diplomatic sanctions and death threats in some Arab nations, while media watchdogs have defended publication of the images in the name of press freedom.

The cartoons are available at http://face-of-muhammed.blogspot.com

But Muslims are “outraged.” Well, people may be more sympathetic if you expressed equivalent “outrage” about real atrocities committed in the name of Islam by your own people.

I’m still waiting to see the Islamic outrage about a now-exiled British cleric who on his web site described as heroes the hijacking thugs behind Sept. 11.

I’m still waiting to see the outrage about the Islamic thugs who butchered innocent American and British subjects, and the operators of radical Islamic web sites who posted (or linked to) graphic videos of their grizzly beheadings back in mid-2004.

Death Threat

And I’m not exactly holding my breath that I’ll see any outrage over the death threat that I received about a year or so ago from radical Islamics.

The death threat was a result of my “hobby,” which has turned into a consuming passion–tracking Islamic terrorists on the Internet.

Here’s what happened. I had always been aware that in targeting Islamic terror sites I was playing with fire. For a few weeks in early 2005, one of the hottest jihadi terror sites appeared to be www.mawsuat.com

Fortunately, this site was taken down by its American Internet Service Provider after I alerted the company to the contents of the site.

Thanks to Internet Haganah Web Site owner Aaron Weisburd, a vigilant anti-terror hunter, I learned that the site’s demise made some jihadis very upset. They expressed their distaste on a radical Islamic Internet bulletin board by saying they would like nothing better than to have my head on a platter.

Weisburd told me that the person who ran the now-defunct mawsuat.com site blamed me for the site’s demise, posted my P. O. Box address, and asked if anyone else had more information about me.

In the bulletin board discussion that followed, Weisburd told me that after posting my address so that I could be “visited,” as well as an accompanying picture of me and a wish that my ribs would be broken, they finally offered their prayers to Allah that He should deliver to them my “fatty neck.” That, Weisburd commented on his web site, was an obvious reference to the current fad of decapitating anyone deemed to be a critic of the more lethal forms of Islam.

When Weisburd told me about the threat against me, I told him that threats like this do not intimidate me and I had no intention of backing down.

So are you wondering what made me so upset that I wanted to see Mawsuat.com go off line?

Mawsuat - A Jihadi “Snuff” Store

Here’s what I found after going through only a portion of the site.

In addition to providing links to files of al Qaida publications, www.mawsuat.com also had about 40 Jihadi “snuff” videos (of killings reportedly committed by supporters of Iraq’s most wanted man, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi) available for download. These were mostly short three to five minute videos of masked insurgents reading some sort of proclamation to a prisoner; followed either by the individual’s head being cut off or shot in the head execution style.

Despite the al-Zarqawi and al Qaida materials available on the site, a disclaimer (ironically) read, “We would like to inform all the media outlets, all the governments and agencies that Mawsuat.com is not affiliated with any group or organization. The sole purpose of this project is to inform.”

The address provided for contact on the site was mawsuat@hotmail.com. I sent an e-mail to that address asking what the individual hoped to achieve by his site. It was answered like this.

“To tell the other side’s story without bias at the contrary of the most major networks in your land,” the individual wrote. “(For) example, if you check some of the videos of some operations in Iraq, you’ll find that the number of casualties of the American forces is far greater than what your Pentagon and your Fox News report.”

The individual continued,

“First of all, the cyber space doesn’t belong to anybody the last time I checked. What I put in my website is my business. To be honest with you, I find it kinda amazing that you will be offended by my website and its content, yet the thousands of porn sites that show women of all ages displaying themselves all over the Internet seem to be fine by you ‘people’ - assuming you are an American.”

He added,

“Now here’s my question to you, if you are so sensitive and have a lot of ‘moral values.’ Why don’t you condemn this war and ask your government to stop it - especially that over 100, 000 Iraqi civilians were slaughtered so far by your war machine, or maybe you can’t - so you pick on the underdog.”

The writer closed by saying, “If you find my English to be pretty good, maybe you should assume I’m educated.”

Mawsuat.com was hosted by an American Internet service provider - Go Daddy. When I alerted them of the site’s content, they quickly removed it. Now, visitors to www.mawsuat.com are told that the domain name is for sale.

So am I outraged about these cartoons? Not at all. Get over it! Bring on the “outrage.” Maybe it’ll help wake up the rest of the sleepy non-Islamic world as to just what Islam is really all about.

Jeremy Reynalds
P O Box 27693
Alb., NM 87125-7693
Tel: (505) 400-7145
www.joyjunction.org

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