In perhaps another example of the U.S. government bowing to Sharia law, an American contractor in Afghanistan has been expelled by the U.S. military on an “insult to Islam” charge, according to a report.
At issue is a letter anti-jihadism crusader Pamela Geller said she received from a military contractor named John Craig. Craig had been stationed in Afghanistan for five years and was working as a mechanical engineer at Bagram Air Field — that is, until he studied the Koran and rendered a politically incorrect opinion on it, he says.
Craig states that he bought two copies of the Koran, one paperback and one hardback, because he was interested in studying Islam. He would highlight various parts of the books and write notes within them and, ultimately, “came to the conclusion that the [Islamic] doctrine itself is that of murder, rape, and extortion,” as he put it.
But it was his final note that authored his last chapter with the military. As he tells us, “Well, dumb me, I wrote on the paperback Koran in black marker right on the front — RELIGION OF MURDER. That is what I think of it.”
Subsequently, military police performed a routine inspection searching for General Order 1 violations, things such as alcohol, drugs, and pornography. While Craig was fine on that count, the MPs did find his Korans, and he was summoned for an investigation.
Craig states that he went to the police station and wrote an essay explaining that his Korans were for personal study only; he had no intention of presenting them to others, especially Muslims, and wasn’t going to talk to Muslims about their beliefs. Yet this cut no ice with base command. As Craig relates it (presented by Geller at American Thinker):
The following day, the leadership of my company called me in and read a letter from the Air Force Colonial Command, stating that I was permanently barred from the military base there in Afghanistan and that I was to leave immediately. The charge was that I was “in possession of prohibited material.” So it did not define my marking on the book; it just said I had something that was in violation of their General Order 1.
The colonel said that my presence there was a security threat and a disruption of the good conduct of personnel on the base and that I had to leave. In addition, I will not be able to work anywhere with the military, either there or in Kuwait or Iraq, or with any other branch in the military service.
Apparently, he has even gone as far as put me on a watch list, which is called “red flagging.” Even though I have a security clearance, I am being watched as if I were a terrorist in case I might cause some kind of violence or something. When I left the following night, I had a Military Police escort to the airport. Two men followed me right up to the airplane to see for themselves that I was in the airplane and seated. I never thought I would be treated like the Taliban. They were ordered to keep an eye on me and not to let me out of their sight.
I do not know how far this is going to escalate. It appears to me that this is the Obama administration: they have made federal regulations to punish anyone who insults or criticizes the Islamic faith and are making an example of said individuals. I have done nothing wrong. Those books were mine. I purchased them, and I can do what I want with what is mine. I was not going around voicing my opinions about Islam. I even have a good friend there in the company who is a Muslim, and I do not insult him or tell him he is wrong. It’s all just a hobby to me, to study region and political science.
The federal government might push this farther and try to get some kind of criminal charges against me. I have been advised not to talk much or say much by people in the company, because they are hearing things but will not tell me. My manager told me that he called corporate, and they told him this was an extremely serious charge against me, that I am being fired on this insult to Islam charge, and that I will lose my clearance and be punished for my graffiti on these books.
Craig certainly seems legitimate. What appears to be his LinkedIn.com page is here, listing the various positions he has held, including in Afghanistan.
Craig isn’t alone in his conclusions on the Koran. In fact, with that book constituting only 16 percent of the Islamic canon — and the tamer part of it — one wonders what would have befallen him had he studied the rest of it: the two works called the Sira and Hadith, known together as the Sunna. As I wrote in 2015, citing research by Bill Warner, director of the Center for the Study of Political Islam:
These two books record what Mohammed did and said and, as Warner writes, form “the perfect pattern of all Islamic behavior.”
And what is that pattern? In the Hadith, 21 percent of the text is devoted to jihad. And Sira?
A whopping 67 percent.
In all three books (known as the “Trilogy”) taken together, 31 percent of the words are devoted to jihad.
And what of the [supposedly] “equally violent” Bible? Warner tells us that 5.6 percent of the Old Testament and 0 percent of the New Testament are devoted to political violence. In terms of word count, this works out to 0 in the latter and 34,039 in the Hebrew Bible. And the Islamic Trilogy?
It comes in at 327,547 — 9.6 times greater than the Old Testament.
Yet mere numbers don’t tell the whole story. As Warner also writes, “The political violence of the Koran is eternal and universal. The political violence of the Bible was for that particular historical time and place. This is the vast difference between Islam and other ideologies. The violence remains a constant threat to all non-Islamic cultures, now and into the future.”
Such critiques are nothing new. In Winston Churchill’s book The River War, penned in 1899 while Churchill served as a British army officer in Sudan, he opened a scathing passage on Islam with, “How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries!” What is new is the reign of political correctness, whose “hate speech” laws rain down tyranny across the West. Just consider that, shockingly, a United Kingdom political leader was arrested in 2014 for publicly quoting the legendary Churchill.
In contrast, the Islamic world isn’t quite as responsive to foreign sensitivities. Take a look at this eye-opening U.K. government advisory for travelers visiting Saudi Arabia. Among other things, it states that since “Islamic law is strictly enforced,” the “public practice of any form of religion other than Islam is illegal”; and while possession of a Bible for personal use is allowed, carrying “larger quantities than this can carry severe penalties.” Moreover, it states, “Penalties for the possession of, or trade in alcohol are severe. Both result in prison sentences.”
Ironically, now criticizing Islam in the West may, too.
