Will the Real Mohammed Please Stand Up?

I didn't want to let Everybody Draw Mohammed Day go by without participation. A number of bloggers have expressed distaste for the idea, but my view is that a little solidarity is a good thing, especially when it comes to standing up against bullies.

Yeah, Everybody Draw Mohammed Day is not the pinnacle of spiritually enlightened activities, but only the delusional haven't noticed that Mohammed is a name that pops up a lot when large numbers of innocent people minding their own business suddenly find themselves in the middle of a bloody nightmare.

I'm not going out of my way to respect that.

I've been reading Mark Steyn's book, America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It (Regnery, 2008). It's every bit the example of insight and clarity you'd expect from him, and here's a little piece of it (pp. 63-64). I added illustrations I found on the Web until I ran out of stomach:

Not long after September 11, I said, just as an aside, that these days whenever something goofy turns up on the news chances are it involves some fellow called Mohammed. It was a throwaway line, but if you want to compile chapter and verse, you can add to the list every week.

A plane flies into the World Trade Center? Mohammed Atta.

A sniper starts killing gas station customers around Washington, D.C.? John Allen Muhammed.

A gunman shoots up the El Al counter at Los Angeles airport? Hesham Mohamed Hedayet.

A terrorist slaughters dozens in Bali? Noordin Mohamed.

A British subject self-detonates in a Tel Aviv bar? Asif Mohammed Hanif.

A terrorist cell bombs the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania? Ali Mohamed. [No photo; substituted photo of Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, 9/11 mastermind.]

A gang rapist preys on the women of Sydney? Mohammad Skaf.

A group of Dearborn, Michigan, men charged with cigarette racketeering in order to fund Hezbollah? Fadi Mohamad-Musbah Hammoud, Mohammed Fawzi Zeidan, and Imad Mohamad-Musbah Hammoud. [No photos; substituted photo of Mohammed al Modadi, the Qatari diplomat who caused two jet fighters from Buckley Air Force Base to be scrambled after he locked himself in a passenger jet restroom and told air marshalls he was "lighting his shoes on fire."]

A Canadian terror cell is arrested for plotting to bomb Ottawa and behead the prime minister? Mohammed Diri, Amin Mohamed Durrani [shown], and Yasim Abdi Mohamed.

These last three represent a "broad strata" of Canadian society, according to Mike McDonnell, assistant commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and a man who must have aced Sensitivity Training class. To the casual observer, the broad strata would seem to be a very singular stratum: in their first appearance in court, all twelve men arrested in that Ontario plot requested the Koran.

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