Pirate's Cove

Funny how so many around the world, and here in the USA (read liberals/lefties/progressives/Democrats) think that the USA is the worst, most dangerous country in the world. Meanwhile, people are streaming in, both legally and illegally, to take advantage of the freedoms and possibilities one can only get here. Case in point

As a child, Ayaan Hirsi Ali fled violence in Somalia with her family. As an adult she fled Kenya to escape an arranged marriage. She left her adopted Holland after she was caught up in political turmoil and had her life threatened.

Now Hirsi Ali — a brave critic of Islam to her supporters, a bigot to her critics — has found refuge in the intellectual bastion of leading U.S. conservatives.

Hirsi Ali joined the American Enterprise Institute last September, after a sometimes stormy 14 years in the Netherlands, where she was a member of parliament and became a central figure in two events that jolted the nation.

First, after she wrote a script for a film that depicted naked women with Quranic verses scrawled on their bodies, a Dutch-born Muslim gunned down the filmmaker, Theo van Gogh. A letter threatening Hirsi Ali was left on a knife plunged into van Gogh's chest.

Next, a fight within Hirsi Ali's political party over her Dutch citizenship brought down the government.

These days, Hirsi Ali is promoting her autobiography, "Infidel." It gives a graphic account of how she rejected her faith and the violence she says was inflicted on her in the name of Islam.

"I'm an apostate. That's why the book is called 'Infidel,'" she said in a telephone interview from New York.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations thinks Hirsi Ali's campaign amounts to slander and bigotry.

She is taking a stand against the insanity, violence, and harsh, dispicable treatment of women inherent in Islam. So, of course, she must be a bigot and involved in slander. Heck, anyone who CAIR takes a negative interest in must be doing something good. CAIR doesn't want people to know the true face of Islam, which is anything but peaceful and modern.

Unlike many world leaders, including Bush, who say Muslim terrorists are distorting the peaceful Islamic religion, Hirsi Ali said the terrorists in large part have truth on their side: The violence is in the Quran and the hadith, the traditions of the Prophet Muhammad, she said.

Islam today, she said, "is not my grandmother's amulet-wearing, superstitious sort of Islam that is just comforting for the believer." Today's Islam sees the world as its enemy, she said. "And you wage war against your enemies."

She just reinforces my notion that those that are called "radical muslims" are, in fact, the mainstream, just following what the Quaran states.

Here's hoping that Miss Hirsi Ali's voice is heard, and listened to, and that she stays safe.

Hot Air catches the AP playing games with the story.