Useful Idiot 1.01

The name Kenneth L. Woodward rings a bell somehow, but I can't quite place it. Anyway. Here's a moron (over at OpinionJournal) who tries to make us understand, see how the Muslim world can become so outraged over the 'desecrations'. Listen to this drivel:

The Quran is not "the Bible" of Muslims. It is infinitely more sacred than that. To use a Jewish analogy, it is more like the oral Torah first revealed on Mount Sinai, which was later passed on orally through the prophets and eventually written down on scrolls for all to read. Whereas Christians regard the Bible as written by human beings inspired by God, Muslims regard the Quran--the word means "The Recitation"--as the very words of God, revealed aurally to the Prophet Muhammad in Arabic. To hear those words recited is, for Muslims, to hear Allah. If, for Christians, Jesus is the logos or eternal Word of God made flesh, the Quran is the Word of God made book, and every Arabic syllable in it lives as the breath of the divine.

In short, what Christ is for Christians the Quran (in Arabic) is for Muslims: the living Word of God made present in this world. Moreover, to recite the suras or verses of the Quran, as devout Muslims do, is to breathe in the very words of Allah. Thus, recitation of the Quran is for Muslims much like what receiving the Eucharist is for Catholics--a very intimate ingestion of the divine itself. This, then, according to Newsweek's story--now retracted and "regretted" by the magazine's editor--is what some interrogators flushed down a toilet at Guantanamo Bay.

Gee, I can certainly understand how that would cause me to go kill and maim hundreds, if I heard they did that to MY favourite bedtime reading!

But it's a lie. From a sycophant for Islam. Here's what an actual Muslim, from Saudi no less, has to say about what the devoutest Muslims of them all do with the Koran when it suits them:

The Saudi government does not even spare the Quran from desecration. On Oct. 14, 2004, dozens of Saudi men and women carried copies of the Quran as they protested in support of reformers in the capital, Riyadh. Although they carried the Qurans in part to protect themselves from assault by police, they were charged by hundreds of riot police, who stepped on the books with their shoes, according to one of the protesters.

Ironically this was also reported at OpinionJournal.com.

Muslims WANT to be outraged at infidels. ANY excuse will do. On the other hand, if it suits them, they'll happily step on the Koran themselves.

And morons like this Woodward, who fawns over Islam, would have you believe that the excesses committed as a result of these 'desecrations' are perfectly understandable, legitimate even (He certainly does not condemn them in his article). They are not, they aren't even understandable, except for the barbarians themselves.