I'm happy to say, along with TAPPED, Instapundit, and Lou Dobbs, that "Islamists" are a problem, as long as we're all on the same page as to what that means - Islamic Fundamentalist Theocrats.
But, Instapundit ignores TAPPED's rhetorical link between Islamists and Christian Fundamentalists/Theocrats. And, both of them ignore that Iraq until recently was a fairly secular nation and, though a dictatorship, would not now be called a theocracy.
On the other hand, Fred Phelps really likes Iraq. Here's a photo from his photo gallery labelled a picket in Baghdad, Iraq. Story clip from the Advocate (sorry, no link).
2/27/98
Hate Preacher In Iraq
from The Advocate
Antigay crusader the Rev. Fred Phelps has taken his message to Iraq, The Kansas City [Mo.] Star reported Thursday. For the past several days Phelps has been outside Iraq's Foreign Relations Ministry building in Baghdad carrying signs protesting President Clinton, homosexuality, and a potential war against Iraq, Phelps's relatives said. "His issue is not that Saddam Hussein is a great guy. His issue is that this [disagreement over U.N. arms inspections in Iraq] isn't our business," said Shirley
Phelps-Roper, Phelps's daughter.
UPDATE: Just found his letter to Saddam:
"We understand that Iraq is the only Muslim state that allows the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ to be freely and openly preached on the streets without fear of arrest and prosecution. Alas, the United States no longer allows the Gospel to be freely and openly preached on the streets, because militant sodomites now control our government, and they violently object to the Bible message...The same majoritarian sodomite tyranny that now guides the Clinton administration's repressive policies toward Gospel preaching on America's streets, is apparently responsible -- at least in part -- for the merciless slaughter by starvation of 400 innocent Iraqi babies each day in your country. If our government and laws will allow it, and at the invitation of your government, we would like to send a delegation from Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas, to preach the Gospel on the streets of Baghdad for one week in the near future."
-- Fred Phelps, in a letter to Saddam Hussein,
November 30, 1997
Something just occurred to me. Does this mean that Fred Phelps is a Saddamite?
