Andrew McCarthy: A Film is Not Causing the Muslim Rioting

A spot-on article from the man who prosecuted the World Trade Center bombing:

The coordinated violence against American installations in the Middle East on the eleventh anniversary of 9/11 was caused by one thing: Islamic supremacism. Contrary to the knowing lies government officials and opinion elites have been feeding the American people for 20 years, Islamic supremacism is not the fringe ideology of the terrorists; it is the predominant Islam of the Middle East. By margins of upwards of 2 to 1, the United States and the West are despised in countries like Egypt and Libya. As I point out in my just-released book, Spring Fever: The Illusion of Islamic Democracy, when given the chance, Egyptians elected Islamic supremacists by a 4-to-1 margin. The only surprise in the voting was not the weakness of secular democrats — that they are a non-factor, even though American politicians continue to depict them as emblematic of the Muslim Middle East, was a given. The surprise was that the Muslim Brotherhood, which has reaffirmed its goal of a global caliphate ruled by sharia, is not quite devout enough for about a quarter of Egyptians, who voted for the even more extreme "Salafist" parties.

Under sharia, as construed by Islamic supremacists (i.e., at least two-thirds of Middle East Muslims), any negative criticism of Islam or its prophet, no matter how trifling, is deemed to be blasphemy and warrants violent reprisals — including death. These Muslims — hundreds of millions of them — consider this to be a divine ordinance and thus to be imposed on Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

Understand that Islam, particularly as Islamic supremacists interpret it, is not merely a religion; it is a totalitarian ideology that has some spiritual principles, which make up a small subset of the belief system. Blasphemy is not applied only to the spiritual principles — say, to the oneness of Allah, and the like. The speech prohibition applies across the board to all Islamic doctrine. You've got a problem with a woman's court testimony being worth only half of a man's? Blasphemy! You've got a problem with needing four male witnesses to prove rape? Blasphemy! You've got a problem with the death penalty for homosexuals? With stoning for adulterers? With scourging for the consumption of alcohol? Blasphemy, blasphemy, blasphemy!

That's what causes the rioting and murder. The "blasphemers" are only a pretext. What causes this is the indoctrination of Muslim populations in an evil ideology that justifies savagery over nonsense.