MY Vast Right Wing Conspiracy

Simply Amazing

• Posted by Vinnie on March 31st, 2005 filed in General, Journalism, The War, Vinnie    

Meandering about the web last night I found this:

(CNSNews.com) - The Council on American-Islamic Relations says the conservative National Review magazine apparently has removed advertisements for two “virulently anti-Muslim books” it is selling in its online store.

I really found that hard to swallow. I can’t imagine that National Review would back off in the face of bullying by the Islamofascist advocacy group CAIR. I couldn’t find any acknowledgment of this on NRO, but I did find the following, written by Robert Spencer, at FrontPage Mag.com:

The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) has this week waged a campaign against National Review, seeking an apology and the removal of a book called The Life and Religion of Mohammed from sale by the NR Book Service. This was a bit out of focus, since National Review did not publish the book and is not the sole source for it. In fact, I wrote this ad, although I receive absolutely no remuneration from the sales of the book by NR or anyone else. CAIR’s campaign was revealing of what CAIR wants Americans to know — and not to know — about Islam and Muhammad. And CAIR did succeed in intimidating NR into withdrawing the book, along with Serge Trifkovic’s Sword of the Prophet.

In a press release, CAIR called the book “virulently Islamophobic,” and quoted sections from advertising copy for book that called it a “guide into the dark mind of (the Prophet) Mohammed.” It took issue with the ad copy’s description of the book as explaining “why Mohammed couldn’t possibly be a true prophet, and reveal[ing] the true sources of his ‘revelations.” Above all, CAIR was angered by the ad copy’s assertions that “Mohammed posed as the apostle of God…while his life is marked by innumerable marriages; and great licentiousness, deeds of rapine, warfare, conquests, unmerciful butcheries, all the time invoking God’s holy name to sanction his evil deeds,” and that “Mohammed again and again justified his rapine and licentiousness with new ‘divine revelations.’”

In the CNSNews article it’s revealed that CAIR didn’t just go after NR, they went after one of NR’s biggest advertisers, Boeing. So I can see why NR pulled the books from their online store. From what I’ve read, NR doesn’t exactly operate on a huge budget, and the loss of Boeing as an advertiser would have dealt a serious blow to this august magazine which has been around for 50 years now.

Still, it rankles that my favorite magazine was successfully bullied by the terrorism apologists over at CAIR. I haven’t read these books, but, in reading the full Frontpagemag article, it is revealed that The Life and Religion of Mohammed was actually written over 80 years ago, and rather than being the viruently anti-islam tome that CAIR describes, is merely a look at the early history of Islam.

Which, if anyone cares to look seriously at, was a time of “great licentiousness, deeds of rapine, warfare, conquests, unmerciful butcheries, all the time invoking God’s holy name to sanction [his] evil deeds.” And in some places, it still is.

cross posted at Vince Aut Morire