Jihad Watch writer praises Terry Jones as man of courage who has helped reveal the truth about Islam

For the last several days on the conservative Web I’ve seen Pastor Jones referred to only as a jerk, a moron, a nut, and a man with blood on his hands. While everyone concedes (albeit with reluctance and distaste) that Jones had the right to burn a Koran, no one has said he was right to burn a Koran, except for me and a few blogs that have approvingly quoted my praise of him.

Now that is changing. The Jihad Watch contributor “Roland Shirk,” after initially condemning Jones in the usual terms, suddenly switches tack and writes:

… I have come to change my opinion of Pastor Jones’ actions. No doubt, he was provocative—and see what he has provoked. Like the cartoonists who drew Muhammad, Jones has prodded the world’s Muslims into showing Islam’s true colors. While the West still lies half-drowsy, sung to sleep by the lullabye that Islam is just a religion of peace, this simple, crude action by an obscure Florida pastor with no church behind him, no government support, and weird facial hair, has served as a wake-up call. If burning a book can “provoke” Muslims to burn and kill six thousand miles away, just how peaceful can their religion really be? Next people must start to wonder: What’s in that book, anyway—and what does it say about the fate of non-believers? What does it say about Jews and Christians, and the righteousness of waging religious war?

The fact that critics of Islam are doused on a daily basis with charges that we are hatemongers—even as Muslims answer our pamphlets and blogs with bullets and bombs—tells me that we are winning. The frenzy of leftist and dhimmi hostility to those who speak truthfully of Islam reminds me of the rhetoric that poured out of the Communist Party U.S.A. in the dying days of the Soviet Union. We “running-dogs” and “imperialist lackeys” of the “corporate elite” can wear these terms of abuse like military decorations. We should pin them to our coat. Having said that, I must overcome my initial distaste for the manner and matter of his gesture, and offer Pastor Jones the Red Badge of Courage.

And most of the JW commenters agree with Shirk.

I would correct Shirk on one point. Jones’s mutton chops facial hair may be odd and old fashioned, but it is not “weird.”

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Robert C. writes:

Here in the Nashville area, one local talk show host “defends” Pastor Jones’s action, if you could call it that, by describing him as “wacky” and a nut. He defends him—not because he has just demonstrated the truth of the very proposition he was testing, but because he has a First Amendment right! The reason for the action and the reaction is never recognized as having any significance.

While the host ironically states that Islam is once again shown to be the religion of peace, he refuses to assert the connection between the mandates of the Koran and hadiths and the reactions of Moslems, which are predictable. Instead he quickly adds that most Moslems are peaceful; murder, bombing, and beheading are reserved for “radical” Moslems. Of course, the only thing that separates peaceful Moslems from radical Moslems is their actions, not their beliefs. But he either can’t work up the nerve to say it or he can’t believe it, no matter how much evidence or repetition there is.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at April 05, 2011 01:01 AM | Send