The Siege of Tatoonine

Right now, what I would argue is one of the most important foot soldiers in this war is under siege. For the last couple of weeks, Field Marshall (Dr.) Rusty Shackleford's main site, The Jawa Report, has been under a denial of service attack. He has a back-up site here. Support his siege and visit. In his honor, he along with The Commissar, Allah, John, and the gaggle at The Corner are mostly responsible for the existance of CDR Salamander (blame them), I am going to quote in full the background and story. From the back-up site:

Islamic cyberterrorists have attacked The Jawa Report.

A Distributed Denial of Service attack was directed at our site by Turkish Islamists irritated at a series of posts we ran making fun of the violence that erupted on the heels of a false story claiming that guards at Guantanamo Bay had flushed a Koran down a toilet. Those posts were later discovered by a Turkish Islamist who then posted links about them at an Islamic chat room.

From there the word spread and at least a dozen Turkish language websites began discussing our cavalier attitude toward their holy book. But it was not the Quran that the post was meant to mock, rather it was Muslim reaction to criticisms of it.

With the Jawa Report now effectively shut down, I again return to the main question posed by the tongue-in-cheek Koran desecration post: Can Islamic societies be tolerant of religious criticism?

This attack is evidence that the answer, sadly, is probably no.

There is not a single Islamic country that would allow me, a non-Muslim, to criticize the Quran or Mohammed. There is not a single Islamic country that would allow me, a non-Muslim, to openly try to convert Muslims to another religion. Not. A. Single. One.

Yes, many Muslim lands were more tolerant of religious dissent at one time, but this is not that time. We do not live in the 14th century. Today Islam is the most intolerant religion in the world.

If I cannot criticize your holy book, if I cannot call tell you how I truly feel about your holy men, if I am not allowed to try to convince you to leave your faith, then I am not truly free.

If you cannot tolerate the above, you are my enemy. If you cannot tolerate the above, you are the common enemy of freedom.

Here, here!