Fate of the Man Misquoted

Here is an interesting and instructive bit about the oft misquoted line in Mark Steyn's America Alone. Steyn is speaking of the ongoing saga involving Maclean's Magazine and a group of poorly trained young Osgoode Hall graduated lawyers working for Ontario's visciously Islamofascist Mohammed Elmasry, who collectively were attempting to haul Steyn up before a Human Rights Tribunal. He refers to a passage in his book that was actually a quote from a Norwegian Muslim cleric of the Islamofascist variety, but which the Elmasry legal team and numerous others attribute to Steyn.

The truth is that infamous words were spoken by the cleric during an interview with Carsten Thomassen, a Norwegian journalist, who subsequently was in Afghanistan where he was mowed down by, to quote Steyn:

"two members of the Taliban who had "forced their way inside (the hotel) and opened fire."

Steyn goes on to say:

"Carsten Thomassen died of his injuries at a Nato field hospital. The Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg called the terrorist murders an attack not only on Norway but on freedom of speech."

"...we owe it to his memory to insist on the truth about that mosquito line, not just because his murder reminds us of the difference between real "hate" and the pseudo-victims of the Canadian "human rights" circus, but because to allow Elmo and the Sock Puppet Three to bully the media into going along with their misrepresentations is to collude in a lie. And no society that does that is truly free."

In the last month or two I have learned of three young Canadian men who have signed up to the armed forces. I would hope that these brave young Canadians were motivated by their correctly perceiving the threat that is a all around us. Freedom of speech in only one of our cherished rights at stake in this modern world. As Westerners, our very lives are threatened. The number of incidents in which innocent people, exercising their right to free expression who have been murdered by Islamists is growing. I hope it won't be too long before the majority of Canadians understand that.