Thursday, March 27, 2008

Fitna Fizzles: Online Today, No Fires

So far, anyway.

Fitna, that short subject by Dutch member of parliament Geert Wilders, is available online: thanks to a "London-based Web site," CNN reports.

"Dutch lawmaker's film criticizing Islam finds Web host" CNN (March 27, 2008) says: "The film opens with a controversial caricature of Islam's prophet, Mohammed -- one of those that prompted demonstrations in early 2006 after newspapers published the images -- followed by translated portions of the Quran.

"The passages are followed by graphic images of the September 11, 2001, terror attacks against the United States juxtaposed with audio from 911 calls made by the victims trapped inside the World Trade Center in New York." And it goes on for fifteen minutes.

And: "Some in the Muslim community rejected the film as nothing more than dangerous anti-Islamic propaganda.

" 'This film is a direct attempt to incite violence from Muslims and help fan the flames of Islamophobia,' Arsalan Iftikhar, a contributor to Washington-based Islamica Magazine, told CNN on Thursday. 'Any reasonable person can see this is meant to spit in the face of Muslims and insult our religion.'

"However, he called on Muslim leaders to react peacefully: 'Calmer heads should prevail.' "

So far, calmer heads in the Islamic world seem to be on top. The film has been out for over five hours now ("Anti-Koran film post on Internet" International Herald Tribune (March 27, 2008 - 5 hours ago)). As another headline said, "First Reactions to Dutch Anti-Quran Film Are Muted" FOXNews (March 27, 2008 - 4 hours ago at the time of this post).

On the other hand, "Dutch fear Muslim anger as anti-Koran film hits Web" Reuters (March 27, 2008 - 11:10pm GMT, 3 hours ago at the time of this post). Reuters has an interesting editorial policy, as I've mentioned before.

More, at

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Blogroll

Note! Although I believe that these websites and blogs are useful resources for understanding the War on Terror, I do not necessarily agree with their opinions. 1 1 Given a recent misunderstanding of the phrase "useful resources," a clarification: I do not limit my reading to resources which support my views, or even to those which appear to be accurate. Reading opinions contrary to what I believed has been very useful at times: sometimes verifying my previous assumptions, sometimes encouraging me to change them.

Even resources which, in my opinion, are simply inaccurate are sometimes useful: these can give valuable insights into why some people or groups believe what they do.

In short, It is my opinion that some of the resources in this blogroll are neither accurate, nor unbiased. I do, however, believe that they are useful in understanding the War on Terror, the many versions of Islam, terrorism, and related topics.