When it comes to female circumcision , I am comptely digusted by it. A close friend of mine in London, tried to make a doco about it a decade ago and receive death threats, so the project never got off the ground.

I am the last one who woudl ever defend such a custom.

As I stated earlier, I have no idea about the veracity of the story I linked to. This women may have a legitimate case, and if she does, then he deserves recognition and protection. Based on my haste to link to "flimsy evidence" (which you have yet to disprove). It’s interesting that Hitchens chose to use her case as yet another one of his affronts to Islam Islamic, which he despises.

Perhaps I deserved the remark about trying to marginalise Ali as an enemy, but the reality is far from it.

What I am alluding to in your argument, is that I have rarely read a post from you that has expressed any concern "with the rights of individuals", much less human rights for that matter. I am not suggesting you are being insincere in this case, but if you are going to make a case about the plight of one woman (which I admire) then where is the indignation and outrage over the thousands being slaughtered elsewhere in the world?

Face it mate, you enjoy being a polemicist and a contrarian, which tends to being out the same response in others. It was you that used this issue to make a damning comment about the people on this blog, and seeing as it is hardly a right wing forum, that smacked of a partisan jab.

1. Western sexual relationships can be described a serial polygamy. Get it? Many partners – serially. Exceptions of course, are sperm donors such as yourself.

2. As for your 'backward African Custom's', I am African, and I know a bit on the subject. Many cultures practice it, including people in the West. In the US, about 15,000 women undergo this operation annually, and voluntarily. Some for cosmetic reasons, others to enhance sexual pleasure. Don't believe me? Read Dr. Sami A. Aldeeb Abu-Sahlieh's book on the subject. Before you jump to any conclusions, he is Catholic, not Muslim, and he is a leading campaigner to abolish circumcision altogether – male & female, since he does not buy the yarn that there is any difference.

http://www.lpj.org/Nonviolence/Sami/articles/eng-…

This should be an effective wake up call to those like you, who are selective and grade issues according to whether it can be used as bludgeon against Islam or not. Incidently, he points out that more than 15,000 genital operation occur in the US each year for cosmetic and sexual gratification reasons. Costs? $US1,500 to $US2,500 per operation. Britian is not that far behind.

Ayaan Hirsi is a fake in every respect – people have selectively graded her according to her utility in their quest to denegrate Muslims, and those that support her now, do so only because of a desire to present her predicament as the result of Muslim agitation. So even the support you pretend is fake. Alas, she finds herself the victim of the agenda driven bigotry she has so virulently promoted.

In the end, she is a victim, by virtue of the fact that she was not born with a white skin. Otherwise, she would not be in this predicament in the first place. She is guilty of not being born white. Had she been white, her anti-black/Muslim bigotry would have been pedestrian. Because she was born Muslim/Black, her anti-Black/Muslim bigotry has made her a superstar amongst White Racists – Like you.

Your attempt to dress this issue up in (shabby) partisan garb speaks volumes about your own ideological benightedness. Addamo, you'd be well advised to step backwards and take a look at what you've become.

For all I know, the article from the idenpendent may or may not credible, but then again, i am curious as to how you arrive at your measure of credibility beyond your "balance of probabilities" scale?

And you can drop the lame straw man debate dude, becasue it doesn't wash here. I find it pretty bizarre in the extreme, that the right has suddenly found religion in the plight of woen's rights, while turning a blind eye to human rights abuses in general. It must require a very disciplined mind to arrive at the convition that womens rights and human rights are somehow mutually exclusive.

I am all for the rights and protection of women, but this sudden cause for the plight of women in muslim countries being taken up by the right is pretty heavy on the nose.

If you remember back to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, throwing acid in women's faces and destroying co-ed schools was then-called "freedom fighting" by rightist politicos, pundits and publications. In fact, so enthralled were they by the actions taken by Osama bin-Laden and friends, that some viewed this clerical fascism as an extension of American conservative values.

Same thing goes for the shrieks of empathy for the Kurds often heard at sited like Tim Blair's. Once you but heads with these war appologists and dispel their entire premise for the invasion, they prety much always produce the last card up their sleeve, ie. the plight of the Kurds under Saddam and how we owe it to them to see that they are safe.

Oh, you think so, do you Edward? …I must say, your standards of proof aren’t particularly high, old boy.

Yes, yes, and Usama probably wasn't responsible for 9/11 – after all, all we really have as evidence is one well-confirmed video in which he claimed he did it – hardly enough. Your "Leave Usama Alone" badge is in the mail.

Johd, you spent all that time typing out such dismissable and unverifiable conjecture ranging from your bizarre opinion on Western polygamy (dude, wtf?) to the ways you reckon African women get their rocks off more effectively (again; dude, wtf?). How the hell would you know? Why don't you stop being an apologist for backward Islamic and African practices and go play with your kids or something instead of wasting your time running down moral standards commensurate with the 21st century – those that Hirsi Ali defends?

PS. Wafa Sultan doesn't have "a story" that her credibility hinges on. She's a secular American professional who speaks a very elegant version of Arabic. She's also an extremely lucid critic of many Islamic practices and attitudes. Still, I suppose that's a hanging offence around these parts.

Her stand on Black and Somalian cultural practice is indistinguishable from White Supremacist. She makes false claims about the pervasiveness of FGM, which in Africa is more often the practice of excising the labia in order to enhance sexual gratification for women, not curtail sexual activity, and which in Africa, is more widely practiced by non-Muslim rather than Muslim communities.

Her predilection for attacking arranged marriage is based on a false assumption, and is a blanket condemnation of a practice accepted almost universally as a norm, with a demonstrably superior track record, than the current western practice of serial polygamy. It ignores the fact western marriage can be just as disastrous if the match is not compatible.

Ayaan makes her way though life by feeding on the prejudices of people, and fanning the flames of hatred. As a result, she finds herself embroiled in hatred directed against her. Live by the sword, die by the sword. She has public ally denounced her Father and ridiculed her mother. Despite this, these utterly immoral and despicable people have demonstrated that they maintain an allegiance to their misguided offspring – clearly an indication that nothing will dissuade them from their desire to genitally mutilate their daughter.

Ayaan's duplicty is another in a long string of Muslim 'reformist' who have been discredited and who have fabricated tales of perfidy in Muslim societies. This record of spectacular exposure of a veritible industry of Muslim 'reformer' charlatans does not seem to have an effect of dissuading thier champions in the west and they press on regardless; insisting that Islam is truly evil, so much so that it is ethical, and moral, to fabricte evidence to prove it.

Reality check, all societies have flaws, and oftentimes some major ones. Time for some honesty and self-reflection. Is western society the only legitimate social system there is? Is it neccesary for people to 'assimilate' – i.e renounce their culture and beliefs in order to live in western society? Do white people assimilate in non-white countries? Is it a requirement, and should it be?