Freedom of Speech Doesn't Extend to Criticizing the "Religion of Peace"?!?

Certainly looks that way according to this bundle of depressing bits from Michelle Malkin-Belligerent. (Just warming that up.)

Go read the whole thing and its linked stories, but the short form is that a conservative talker got suspended for a column and saying on the air:

I take no pleasure in saying it. It pains me to think it. I could very well lose my job in talk radio over admitting it. But it is the plain truth:

Islam is a terror organization.

For years, I've been trying to give the world's Muslim community the benefit of the doubt, along with the benefit of my typical-American's complete disinterest in their faith. Before 9/11, I knew nothing about Islam except the greeting "asalaam alaikum," taught to me by a Pakistani friend in Chicago.

Immediately after 9/11, I nodded in ignorant agreement as President Bush assured me that "Islam is a religion of peace."

But nearly four years later, nobody can defend that statement. And I mean "nobody."

Certainly not the group of "moderate" Muslim clerics and imams who gathered in London last week to issue a statement on terrorism and their faith. When asked the question "Are suicide bombings always a violation of Islam," they could not answer "Yes. Always." Instead, these "moderate British Muslims" had to answer "It depends."

Despite Islam's current run as the most savage threat to freedom and safety in the world, anti-Western dogma demands that anyone pointing out that the mullah has no caftan gets a free trip to Golgotha for their apostasy.

Perhaps you heard about the so-called fatwa condemning Islamic terrorisim on the news yesterday and today? NPR had a bit this morning with a local (suburban Detroit) imam who was making the appropriate nice-nice noises before returning to his (likely) calls for jihad.

Well, according to The Counterterrorism Blog, it's a scam:

In fact, the fatwa is bogus. Nowhere does it condemn the Islamic extremism ideology that has spawned Islamic terrorism. It does not renounce nor even acknowledge the existence of an Islamic jihadist culture that has permeated mosques and young Muslims around the world. It does not renounce Jihad let alone admit that it has been used to justify Islamic terrorist acts. It does not condemn by name any Islamic group or leader. In short, it is a fake fatwa designed merely to deceive the American public into believing that these groups are moderate. In fact, officials of both organizations have been directly linked to and associated with Islamic terrorist groups and Islamic extremist organizations. One of them is an unindicted co-conspirator in a current terrorist case; another previous member was a financier to Al-Qaeda.

Is the MSM reporting this aspect of the story or are they just telling us that the nice Arab fellows - not the woman, natch - are saying that they aren't our enemies and that this is all Karl Rove's fault?

Duh.