UPDATE:
This post started out strong, but I screwed it up by bringing nurse-nanny Karen Hughs into it. The real point I hoped to convey was that many, many American Muslims are on the record condemming suicide bombers, and terrorists.
Quite accidently, I've come across news of another ban, this one directed by bearded religious leaders not at a psudeo-intellectual author, but at religious extremists.
That's right, now the bans are flying in the other direction. Only they are being issued not by our Gedolim, but by the Fiqh Council of North America, a group that has issued a fatwa against Osama bin Ladin. The fatwa is sponsored by CAIR, the Islamic Society of North America and more than 120 other Muslim groups, leaders and institutions, and states plainly and unequivocally, "Targeting civilians' life and property through suicide bombings or any other method of attack is haram – or forbidden - and those who commit these barbaric acts are criminals, not 'martyrs'"
[Note: This is where the post takes a wrong turn]
Wonderful news, no doubt, but news that dates to July 28, 2005, and news I had not heard. Now then, who is in charge of spreading the word when 120 Muslim groups, leaders and institutions announce that there is no justification in Islam for terrorism? Why it's undersecretary of state Karen Hughes, another Bush cronie promoted beyond her ability.
