Pakistan Condemns Rushdie and the Queen of England.

Here’s another good example of why we need to be concerned about radical Islam.

Pakistan has condemned Britain’s award of a knighthood to author Salman Rushdie as an affront to Muslim sentiments, and a Cabinet minister said the honor provided a justification for suicide attacks.

“This is an occasion for the (world’s) 1.5 billion Muslims to look at the seriousness of this decision,” Mohammed Ijaz ul-Haq, religious affairs minister, said in parliament.

“The West is accusing Muslims of extremism and terrorism. If someone exploded a bomb on his body, he would be right to do so unless the British government apologizes and withdraws the ’sir’ title,” ul-Haq said.

That last part makes my head spin. A Pakistani government official is saying that because the Queen of England knighted Salman Rushdie, it’s okay to dispatch suicide bombers and that wouldn’t be extremist or terrorism. And Pakistan is (supposedly) our ally in the global war on terror.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam said Rushdie’s knighthood would hamper interfaith understanding and that Islamabad would protest to London.

“We deplore the decision of the British government to knight him. This we feel is insensitive and we would convey our sentiments to the British government.”

Insensitive? Adding the word “sir” to an author’s name is insensitive. But saying it’s okay to send out the suicide bombers isn’t insensitive. Allowing the mastermind of the 9/11 bombings to hide out in your country isn’t insensitive.

How come nobody told me it was backwards day?

The full article is here.