Frank Talk About Islamic Law? Blasphemy!

At Townhall, columnist Diana West hits it out of the park, even bashing Republican presidential candidates and Fox News for their lack of concern about the lack of freedom of expression in "liberated" Afghanistan and Iraq and the dismissal of Pentagon Islam expert Stephen Coughlin.

Think about it. Where Americans have died, not just to de-fang jihadist threats but to "democratize" Islamic populations, freedom of speech is against the law. And not the law according to "militants" or "extremists," but the law as enforced by democratically elected governments that we, as a nation, support with everything we've got. What would Bush say to that?

I doubt he'd know what to say. Neither, for that matter, would anyone in his Cabinet, starting with Condoleezza Rice. Nor, I doubt, would the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Adm. Mike Mullen. Nor -- to open things up -- would the presidential candidates, the Fox News All-Stars or Simon Cowell. The fact is, to discuss blasphemy laws in Afghanistan and Iraq (Kurdistan, even) is to discuss Islam -- specifically, its laws and doctrines. And we, as a politically correct people, don't know how to do that. Instead, we act as though they don't exist.

And not just blasphemy laws. Jihad doctrine; Sharia (Islamic law); designs for a global caliphate through jihad (terrorism) and the spread of Sharia (Islamization): We pretend they are not factors in the Free World's experience with Islam. We certainly don't discuss their implications for the freeness of the world. Look at what passes for "debate" among our presidential candidates: Republicans argue over who supported "the surge" first; Democrats argue over who will withdraw troops first.