Andy Khouri's 99 problems with conservative critics of Islam

I don't think I'd ever looked this over before - it's not like everything can be thought out easily in a jiffy anyway - but I thought I'd look over Comics Alliance's moonbat Andy Khouri's apologia where he basically attacks conservatives bothered with that Islamic comic, The 99, written a couple weeks before the case of the Islamic Batman officially came up:

Superhero fans, especially those old enough to have opinions, are often divided by their views on the appropriateness of real-world politics in their escapist literature. While many of us regard Dennis O'Neil and Neil Adams' socially relevant run on "Green Lantern/Green Arrow" to be a superlative example of costumed heroes confronting the hard-hitting issues of the day, just as many readers dismiss it as didactic and inappropriate given the characters' roots in benign adolescent power fantasies. But what about when real-world issues encroach upon the mild escapism? What happens then?

Poor man. Did it ever occur to him that back in the day, Green Lantern and Green Arrow never went miles out of its way to whitewash bad ideologies? But, that said, I do understand why some people feel that heavy politics just don't suit comics.

These issues are being confronted again with "The 99," a comic about a group of multi-ethnic superheroes with a basis in Islamic culture and faith. An animated series based on the comic was meant to debut last week, but it's been pushed back to January of next year (unlike DC's "JLA/The 99" crossover miniseries, which debuts next week with issue #1). Like New York City's so-called "Ground Zero Mosque," itself envisioned to promote tolerance and peace between Muslims and the greater American population, "The 99" cartoon finds itself imperiled by those who've yet to see or even contemplate the true nature of the work.

As it so happened, "those who've" guessed quite well what could be the problem: the comic/cartoon doesn't feature any of the more disturbing passages of the Koran. Does it? If it's offensive to whitewash nazism, then it's offensive to whitewash any violent themes in Islam and the Koran.

And judging from little Mr. Khouri's own whitewash of the Ground Zero mosque, it's clear he doesn't have a very high opinion of Americans - not even the families of the victims - who have every right to protest what will be seen as a victory to the terrorists. He also clearly has no shame in obscuring imam Feisal Rauf's own repugnant background.

"Cancel 'The 99' before it starts," wrote the New York Post's Andrea Peyser in an editorial this week.

Hide your face and grab the kids. Coming soon to a TV in your child's bedroom is a posse of righteous, Sharia-com pliant Muslim superheroes -- including one who fights crime hidden head-to-toe by a burqa.

These Islamic butt-kickers are ready to bring truth, justice and indoctrination to impressionable Western minds.

Conservative conspiracy website World Net Daily joined in, writing nearly 1,000 words of warning against the supposedly subversive series. Except, from all appearances, "The 99" is about as subversive as baseball and mom's apple pie.

But if no mention of the Koran's verses are featured, then it is subversive. As is Mr. Khouri himself, I'd think. And how touching that all he sees in WND is "conspiracy".

The superhero group was created by Muslim psychologist Naif Al-Mutawa not to promote radical Muslim values, but specifically to confront them, and challenge the xenophobia preached by radical Imams (possibly the sort of views that have resulted in an American cartoonist going into hiding after challenging Muslim extremists). In an interview with PBS, Al-Mutawa recalls his inspiration for "The 99," which began with the familiar idea of "Pokemon," and his desire to create something for children with that kind of potential:

My next thought was that there had been a fatwa issued against Pokemon in this region. My next thought was, "My God, who are these people, and who appointed them to be spokespeople for Islam?" My next thought was Allah, and how disappointed he must be. My next thought was that Allah had 99 attributes, and that brought me full circle back to Pokemon, which is a concept of 300 attributes.

Ah, I see. So Mutawa, and by extension Mr. Khouri, are trying to seperate between the Koran and the imams who preach the beliefs of its main writer, Muhammed.

Each of the heroes of "The 99" represents one of those virtues of Allah, such as strength, mercy and wisdom, attributes that are valued by many faiths and cultures. Praised by U.S. President Barack Obama as embodying "the teachings of the tolerance of Islam," the young heroes also demonstrate these values in their fantastical adventures without any one character praying or even mentioning explicit Muslim scripture nor the Prophet Mohammed, according to ICv2.

How odd that he technically admits Mohammed was the very inspiration for tyrants who follow him today.

Just as importantly, "The 99" are not only intended to present a moderate, tolerant face of Islam to the Western world, but also to the Islamic world itself. In the same PBS interview, Al-Mutawa recalled pitching the idea of "The 99" to investors, and describing the trading cards and stickers of suicide bombers that were sold "in the millions" to children throughout the West Bank and the Middle East. It was time for the Islamic world to find some new heroes, he said.

Gee, they were just following the teachings of Muhammed. Why does al-Mutawa live in denial about that? That's exactly his problem - that he won't acknowledge the Koran's verses for jihad, nor one of Muhammed's most chilling acts in sexuality. As Mark Steyn and Robert Spencer would say, there may be moderate Muslims, but no moderate Islam. And any "religion" that would condone violence for the sake of it - to say nothing of forcing underaged children to marry an older man - is not something you just whitewash.

Each of the heroes of "The 99" represents one of those virtues of Allah, such as strength, mercy and wisdom, attributes that are valued by many faiths and cultures. Praised by U.S. President Barack Obama as embodying "the teachings of the tolerance of Islam," the young heroes also demonstrate these values in their fantastical adventures without any one character praying or even mentioning explicit Muslim scripture nor the Prophet Mohammed, according to ICv2.

And just how does that somehow make it legitimate? Let us be clear: a religion founded by a violent man who even took a 6-year-old girl as his bride, and which is built upon his beliefs, is not something you deal with using kid gloves. In fact, it's not something to be admired at all. And that Khouri would go miles out of his way to apologize for something built on what neither Moses nor Jesus ever supported is disgusting as the whole claim to tolerance is a blatant lie. Will they next condone a whitewash of the sick acts of Mumia abu-Jamal, who murdered officer Daniel Faulkner?

Just as importantly, "The 99" are not only intended to present a moderate, tolerant face of Islam to the Western world, but also to the Islamic world itself. In the same PBS interview, Al-Mutawa recalled pitching the idea of "The 99" to investors, and describing the trading cards and stickers of suicide bombers that were sold "in the millions" to children throughout the West Bank and the Middle East. It was time for the Islamic world to find some new heroes, he said.

But as this earlier info tells, al-Mutawa may have committed the unpardonable sin of taqqiya.

The inherent Middle Easternness of "The 99" does set it apart from other television cartoons; I don't think we've seen this cultural context presented so obviously in children's entertainment since Disney's "Aladdin" in 1992 (you can count "Prince of Persia" if you like). A seven-minute preview on YouTube reveals more of "The 99's" backstory, which has to do with Mongols plundering and burning a library in 13th century Baghdad, which contained the world's largest collection of knowledge and wisdom. Luckily, the contents of the books were saved within 99 magic gemstones -- "Noor Stones" -- which are discovered centuries later by the young heroes of "The 99."

Such a series mythology is in keeping with the tradition of the variously "ethnic" backgrounds of some of our favorite children's adventure stories: Indiana Jones, Johnny Quest, the Immortal Iron Fist. There are differences, obviously, like the fact that all those heroes are white men inserted into "exotic" locales and cultures to become their champions, rather than heroes actually based in those milieus, as seems to be case with "The 99."

And these also something similar - that people of Arabic descent, if anyone, are just as white as the westerners, their complexion of dark/light notwithstanding. As for the "heroes" from these milieus, did it ever occur to him that the ancient Persians were an Aryan race - possibly one of the earliest - and even if they weren't as tall as their Viking successors, it's quite possible many of them were blond? So, I've included Prince of Persia alright.

That one female character, Batina the Hidden, wears a burka and a few other heroes wear headscarves seem to be sticking points for opponents of "The 99," and opponents of Islam in general. Indeed, Peyser's critical New York Post piece is called "Trading Cape for the Burqa," as if even gazing upon such fictional children will be enough to prompt non-Muslim American children to abandon our Western fashions and adopt all the trappings of the dreaded Sharia, or Islamic Law. It's the next dangerous fad that will get your children into trouble, like huffing paint or drag-racing down the street at night.

The problem is that it might not tell whether this is an obligation or a choice. Either way, a religion built upon the kind of horrors Islam happens to be and he won't admit, is not something you just promote as though it were no big deal.

Now here's where Khouri descends into lying:

Andy Sullivan, a Queens construction worker opposed to the "Ground Zero mosque," on "The 99":

They're taking advantage of the fact that in every middle-class household, Mom and Dad are working their asses off. They know the kids are watching TV or on the Internet. So maybe Sharia becomes OK. It's a game. It gradually becomes more and more in their lives.

Why shouldn't Mr. Sullivan be scared? In the United States, Sharia is most often discussed in connection with Muslim extremists such as the Taliban in Afghanistan and other places where one imagines thieves' hands being cut off at the wrists and women being executed for having the misfortune of being raped. Sharia has also been invoked as a boogeyman by some conservative American politicians, who say their liberal opponents intend to adopt Sharia in some official capacity. Former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Newt Gingrich recently came out firmly against Sharia being "considered as a replacement for American law" (even though no American politician is promoting anything of the kind). Sharia is coming for our courts and it's coming for our kids!

In reality, Sharia is not a by-the-books law but more of a set of social and political beliefs practiced by Muslims around the world, who differ on the details depending on where you go and who you talk to. What's generally true across the board is that Sharia is about being culturally conservative, behaving very modestly with respect to sex and money, and practicing a high level of courtesy and reverence for one's neighbors.

Oh really? I don't think the Koranic verses presented here support his shameless claim, nor do these ones, and nor do even these, nor do even the ones presented earlier in this post. Main mistake Khouri made was not citing any verses and themes from the Koran when he wrote that cruddy item, but we can guess why.

But even by this most unspecific definition of Sharia, "The 99's" connection to Islamic law seems tenuous at best. The reality is that Superman himself operates in a way that would be very agreeable by most mainstream interpretations of Sharia, and it is with pronounced irony that conservative Americans, particularly those in favor of living life like we're all Boy Scouts, react so hatefully towards Muslims, who are truly their allies in this regard.

If "The 99" were truly promoting the kind of intolerant views so feared by detractors -- if the super-strong Jabbar left an unmarried woman to burn in a fire because he found out she was banging her boyfriend, for example, or Betina the Hidden refused to stop some bank robbers unless the bankers agreed that "Israel should be wiped off the map," then we would have a problem. But none of those things are going to happen, and for millions of Muslims around the world, those things are not what Sharia is about.

Now isn't that a bit rich coming from someone who claimed I shed crocodile tears (which is only doing me a most flattering honor), wallowed in victimology himself, and then embraced the propaganda of Sarah Glidden? And who's pretty much signaled that he hates conservatives except if they're Muslims (though it's questionable if they really are conservative).

Towards the end, he tells about his background:

There are no doubt numerous empirical studies that suggest a wild conversion of non-Muslim American children to Islam or an adoption of fundamentalist Sharia is incredibly unlikely, but I can best speak to my own experiences as an American youth growing up not just in front of Islamic-themed television, but in actual Islamic countries. So as to deflect any accusations of religious bias, I should point out that my surname, Khouri, is Arabic for "priest," and it's a name my ancestors took on as they converted to Christianity. It is from within that Christian heritage that I first encountered Islam -- not on my television, but living next door. As a child I lived in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, where Islam is the official religion and Arabic is the official language. The little girls next door wore headscarves, as did all the women on our street -- except for my Scottish/German mother and my half-Arabic sister, since they weren't Muslims. The broadcasts of "Astro Boy" and "The Muppet Show" were interrupted for salah (ritual prayers), and I took a mandatory Arabic language class in school.

Strangely, over twenty years later, I remain a non-Muslim who can't speak Arabic, and I suspect the same will be true of non-Muslim children who watch "The 99." The worst that could happen, if you're inclined to think of it that way, is that non-Muslim American children may actually learn that while Europe was up to its eyeballs in the Dark Ages, the Middle East was experiencing a cultural renaissance. Non-Muslim American children may actually lay their eyes upon fictional kids of perhaps unfamiliar backgrounds stepping up to become heroes themselves, rather than backwater citizens in distress waiting for Tom Cruise's "Last Samurai" or Kevin Costner's "Dances With Wolves" character to come save them.

So he admits he's a Christian, though with the way he went at the time, one could say he's not all that different from say, Mosab Hassan Youssef, if Walid Shoebat is correct about him. But while there are moderate Muslims, there is no moderate Islam, and just because his family may not have been persecuted while in the UAE doesn't mean it doesn't exist, as one of the earliest links I provided makes clear. I do suspect even now he's still hiding more than a thing or two about what the environment there is really like. Just as importantly, he admits that he can't speak Arabic - and likely hasn't read the Koran - and if not, then I'm not sure he's qualified to make the argument here. However, like various other leftists, what's interesting is that he seems very absurdly obsessed with race.

I do find it amusing even now that this man who apologizes for Islam still reads the creations of Jewish writers/artists/editors, and have to wonder how much longer he'll continue to do so. I may have more to add to this post later. For now, this is the best I can do to dissect some of his sad propaganda.