My name is Bosch and I’m a recovering Muslim.

That is, if Muslims don’t kill me for leaving Islam, which it requires them to do. That’s just one of the reasons I’ve been writing and drawing against Islam and its Jihad for a number of years now. But fortunately for us, Islam hasn’t been able to make every Muslim its slave, just as Nazism wasn’t able to turn every German into a Nazi. So there is Islam and there are Muslims. Muslims who take Islam seriously are at war with us and Muslims who don’t aren’t.

But that doesn’t mean we should consider these reluctant Muslims allies against Jihad. I’ve been around Muslims my entire life and most of them truly don’t care about Islam. The problem I have with many of these essentially non-Muslim Muslims, especially in the middle of this war being waged on us by their more consistent co-religionists, is that they give the enemy cover. They force us to play a game of Muslim Roulette since we can’t tell which Muslim is going to blow himself up until he does. And their indifference about the evil being committed in the name of their religion is a big reason why their reputation is where it is.

So while I understand that most Muslims are not at war with us, they’ve proven in their silence and inaction against jihad that they’re not on our side either, and there’s nothing we can say or do to change that. We just have to finally accept it and stop expecting them to come around, while doing our best to kill those who are trying to kill us.

Another problem with Muslims who aren’t very Muslim is that they lead some among us to conclude that they must be practicing a more enlightened form of Islam. They’re not. They’re “practicing” life in non-Muslim countries, where they are free to live as they choose. But their “Islam” is not the Islam. There’s no separate ideology apart from Islam that’s being practiced by these Muslims in name only, there’s no such thing as “Western Islam”.

Non-observant Muslims are not our problem, but neither are they the solution to our problem. Our problem is Islam and its most consistent practitioners. There is nothing in Islam that stays the hand of Muslims who want to kill non-Muslims. If an individual Muslim is personally peaceful, it’s not because of Islam, it’s because of his individual choice, which is why I often say that your average Muslim is morally superior to Mohammad, to their own religion. The very rare Muslim who helps us against Jihad is acting against his religion, but that doesn’t stop some among us from thinking that his existence somehow means that he represents more than himself.

The only reason we’re talking about Islam is because it doesn’t mean peace. Islam wasn’t hijacked by a “small minority of extremists” on 9/11, it was hijacked by a very small minority of moderates whose embarrassment in being associated with such an immoderate religion leads them to engage in moderate truth telling about it, proving their irrelevance as allies.

In addition to these politically active moderates, when you see well-assimilated Muslims in the West, you’re not seeing Islam in action, you’re seeing individuals living up to the old adage, when in Rome, do as the Romans do. They’re essentially post-Islamic Muslims who have rejected Islamic values and have embraced Western ones. But since the process of their assimilation was implicit – as it happened naturally by their exposure to Western, i.e., pro-life, values – both Muslims and non-Muslims alike prefer to generously give Islam some credit for it. But a good Muslim, by our standards is a bad Muslim by Islamic standards. Objectively good human beings, who identify themselves as Muslim, give Islam a good face, one far better then it deserves. This only gives us a false impression about what it is we’re facing, with just another excuse not to face it. And this leads to our acceptance into our culture of stealth jihadists who have figured out how to say what we want to hear, while they scheme behind the scenes to further Islamize the West.

In the name of distinguishing the enemy from Muslims who mean us no harm, far too many Western commentators have avoided using the name “Islam” for the enemy’s ideology, and instead have decided to create their very own terms for the threat we’re facing, terms that are alien to the enemy. Terms such as:

Islamic Fundamentalism.

Islamic Extremism.

Totalitarian Islam.

Islamofascism.

Islamonazism.

Political Islam.

Bin Ladenism.

Radical Islam.

Militant Islam.

Islamism.

Jihadism.

We didn’t use terms such as “Radical Nazism”, “Extremist Shinto” and “Militant Communism” in the past. “Militant Islam”, Political Islam”, etc., are redundant terms. Our pretending otherwise has proven disastrous. Thousands of American lives, both civilian and military, have been sacrificed because of policies predicated on the myth that “Islam means peace.” We didn’t try to reform Shinto or Nazism during World War II; the major changes in those cultures took place only after we thoroughly de-militarized them.

And it’s no accident that Western analysts of Islam who are most informed about Islam are also most critical of it, while those least informed are least critical. But then there are those who, in their study of Islam, have become so enamored with their subject that, instead of sticking to what Islam is, they often write about what it isn’t, what they hope it might be. They seem preoccupied with doing their part to save Islam from those who have allegedly corrupted it.

The Muslim world is where the true meaning of Islam can be found in practice. Islam – not any alleged deviant form of it – means misogyny, censorship, anti-Semitism, homophobia, wife-beatings, beheadings, honor killings, pedophilia/“child marriages”, murdering infidels, etc. This is evil, and Islam sanctions every bit of it, but we’ve been told that we must respect “one of the world’s great religions” because it’s a religion. Following 9/11, the only thing George W. Bush knew about Islam was that it was a religion, and that apparently was a good enough reason for him to exonerate it as he did. And his advisor on Islam, David Forte, told Bush exactly what he wanted to hear, that “Nothing this evil could come from religion.” But 9/11 did come from a religion. Whatever else 9/11 was, it was an act of faith.

And Bush saying “Islam is peace” shortly after 9/11 gave the enemy a gift they couldn’t have foreseen. Here was the one man who was charged to defend America from their attack and here he was defending the very ideology that motivated the attackers. Honesty is the best policy in general, and when it comes to war, it’s a moral imperative to find out the truth, to tell the truth and to act on the truth, no matter what sacred cow is killed in the process. And so a big part of why nearly 3,000 victims of jihad on 9/11 haven’t been avenged is because of respect for religion, even for a religion that calls for our destruction.

Captain America is too American for some Americans.

Which Americans?

The director and star of the upcoming film Captain America: First Avenger.

The director, Joe Johnston, says “…this is not about America so much as it is about the spirit of doing the right thing…it’s an international cast and an international story. It’s about what makes America great and what make the rest of the world great, too.”

And actor Chris Evans, who plays Captain America in the film, when asked, “What does it mean to you to basically be draped in the American flag for this film?” replied:

“Ha, well, to me, I’m not trying to get too lost in the American side of it. This isn’t a flag-waving movie. It is red, white and blue, but it just so happens that the character was created in America during wartime, when there was a common enemy, even though it is Captain America. I’ve said before in interviews, it feels more like he should just be called Captain Good. [Laughs] You know, he was created at a time when there was this undeniable evil and this guy was kind of created to fight that evil. I think that everyone could agree that Nazis were bad and he, Cap, just so happens to wear the red, white and blue.”

They’re clearly uneasy about the patriotism of the character, mainly the American aspect of it, and I’ll have to see the film to find out exactly how that attitude manifests itself onscreen.

This kind of talk is particularly disappointing when it is about Captain America, our most patriotic superhero. But it is, unfortunately, just the latest example of a growing trend in comic books and the films they spawn to de-Americanize American superheroes for the sake of those who are not American, or who are even hostile to America.

In the Batman comic books, the character has gone global, franchising his “brand”, and even recruiting a Muslim to be his French counterpart. It’s akin to having Batman recruit a German Batman during World War Two without any mention of the Nazis. The de-Americanization of Superman was made clear in the 2006 film, Superman Returns, which has Clark Kent’s boss, Perry White, describing Superman as fighting for “Truth, Justice……all that stuff.”

And then a few months ago, in the Superman comic books, the character renounced his U.S. Citizenship….that is, until D.C. backtracked after it didn’t go over well with the public, especially since the issue came out right before Osama bin Laden was killed. D.C. Comics was swiftly mocked, not only for the uncharacteristic storyline, but also for the timing of it, while Americans at large celebrated the American heroes who cut down one of the world’s greatest villains.

Despite the damper the filmmakers have put on my enthusiasm for the film, I’m planning to watch it because the previews promise an exciting, entertaining film, and because it’s possible that Captain America and all he stands for might actually overcome the filmmaker’s lack of appreciation for it. But even though the character is still referred to as Captain America in the film’s title, “Captain America: First Avenger”, the studio clearly still felt a need to put a buffer around the word “America” in the title. By contrast, the Iron Man, Thor, and Spider-Man films (to take a few examples) had titles consisting of no more than the character’s name.

Obama has gone Old School. Literally. Back in 1967, he was living in Indonesia and attended “Koran class”, where a negative attitude towards Jews and Israel was no doubt instilled in him. (See also here.) Today, he “suggested”, drawing on the Full power of the office of the President of the United States, that Israel pull back to its 1967 borders. Especially today when we have Facebook groups calling for a massive invasion of Israel tomorrow, Obama’s words are particularly inexcusable.

Leave it to Ron Paul to make Obama look like a hawk.

Ron Paul’s irrational foreign policy should bury his candidacy in a post- 9/11 world, yet he’s still popular among many Americans who are sick of our government’s intrusion into the private sector economy and who see his domestic policies as the answers to our troubles, but some even question his soundness in that arena. His constant refrain about the jihadist war being waged on us is, “They’re here because we’re over there.” This tells me that to Ron Paul, no matter what the enemy does to us, including nuking us, we had it coming. We are always to blame according to Ron Paul, and that’s why he can’t even see the killing of Osama bin Laden as a good thing. Besides everything else that this says about him, it’s his absolute indifference to the victims of jihad that condemns him for me. Here’s a very good post on Ron Paul.

When is the left pleased with a character who’s known for fighting for “Truth, Justice & The American Way”? When that character has forsaken that fight.

There is now a trend of American comic book icons being de-Americanized in order to make them more palatable to a foreign — even anti-American — audience. In some foreign markets, Marvel studios is leaving the name “Captain America” off of the title of the upcoming film starring the patriotic superhero, and even the director of the film has made comments designed to placate non-American audiences.

The left was also pleased when Batman recruited a Muslim as his French counterpart, in a storyline that ignores the very reason we even began talking about Islam on a large scale, 9/11.

Superman was created and published by Americans. He crash-landed in America, was raised by Americans, lives in America, works in America, is married to an American. But D.C. Comics has just made him renounce his U.S. Citizenship. I keep reading about how Superman belongs to all of us. Well, my Superman would Never quit America. He might be critical of a particular policy of the American government, but he would never stop fighting for Truth, Justice & The American Way.

Our media and our government is desperately trying to make us believe that an American pastor is somehow responsible for turning otherwise peaceful Muslims into bloodthirsty killers. We are to believe that he is somehow forcing Muslims to riot and to kill when he burns a Koran or when he plans to protest a mosque. This man, Terry Jones, has been called every name in the book by those who never make a peep about the very threat that Jones is trying to warn us about. The latest and absolute greatest outrage in this story is how Jones was jailed this week in Dearborn, Michigan, because of his plans to demonstrate outside the largest Islamic Center in the United States. More on that story here.

It’s not Terry Jones who we should worry about. It’s our enemy and those who refuse to defeat them, our government.

If he only felt about America the way he feels about Islam.

But he doesn’t, and so he constantly puts our interests below the interests of our enemy. His latest tribute to Islam is his siding with “the rebels” in Libya, “rebels” who are linked to Al Qaeda. Under Obama, the Muslim world is becoming more Islamic and the enemy is becoming more emboldened, as if it’s his job to make it so. Barack Hussein Obama, a man in love with all things Islam, has given our enemy great reason to believe that they can actually achieve their goals, and do so sooner than they even dreamed of. The enemy understands that the one man in all the world who is supposed to be their worst enemy is actually their greatest hope.

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When I arrived at the shoot, I learned that my interviewer would be Aasif Mandvi, the show’s “liberal” Muslim correspondent. When I commented on this to the producer (he had actually mentioned a different correspondent in one of the e-mails leading up to the shoot), he played dumb (of course.) I smelled a rat, but proceeded anyway. During my interactions with them on the set, the producer, Aasif, and the crew were professional and friendly, which was to be expected. (The producer was also friendly to me in correspondence via e-mail both before and after the shoot. This was also to be expected.)

Then came time for the sit-down interview. It was wide-ranging, going from serious to funny to silly to blasphemous. Here are some of the things I recall that were left out of the edited segment:

The most egregious omission/dropping-of-context was with respect to my answer to the question that was supposed to be the focus of the piece: “What is wrong with a Muslim Batman?” The aired segment makes it appear as if my answer was “Nightrunner could be a Jihadist.” During the actual shooting, I was prompted to state that as a complete sentence, after responding “yes” to Aasif’s question, “Could Nighrunner be a Jihadist?” That statement was NOT given as an answer to the question, “What is wrong with a Muslim Batman?”  My answer to that question is and was a lot more involved. The short answer, which I stated immediately after being asked the question, and which was edited out, was, “What’s wrong with Batman, during WWII, recruiting a German Batman with no mention of Nazis?” During a significant portion of the interview, Aasif was emphasizing that comics aren’t real and was asking, in essence: Why can’t comics just take a piece of reality, out of context, if they want? My point was, you can’t peer into reality just a little bit, and pick-and-choose in this way. The only reason Nightrunner exists (and probably the reason Aasif is on “The Daily Show” although he seems to be a nice guy who does a good job) is because Muslim terrorists attacked us on September 11, 2001, and they did it in the name of Islam. (I made a similar point during the interview.) In my view, it is irresponsible for any cultural medium to include Muslims while dropping the larger context that is the reason for including them at all. (At least “The Daily Show” sometimes includes some of this larger context, and often does a good job of it.)

Next: More significant points ignored, out-of-context quotes, and a few good jokes that made the cutting room floor.

I am often accused of being a hate-filled Islamophobe, but I didn’t just wake up one day and decide to hate Islam for the hell of it. I woke up one day and witnessed something horrific that had Islam’s name plastered all over it. Having come from a Muslim background, perhaps I felt more motivated than most to find out the truth, and then write and draw a story about it.

The response to The Infidel #1 has been gratifying. There have been two reviews published so far, both positive. One was written by someone who disagrees with the theme of the work; one by someone who is sympathetic with it.

Rich Johnston over at Bleeding Cool, who still calls the work “bigoted,” nonetheless admitted that his preconceived notions of it were wrong, and praised its artistry. He wrote, in part,

“[T]here are all sorts of narrative tricks at play here that can’t help but impress….Exposing character, physicality and direction in a very impressive fashion, and a comic book fashion at that. This is not a movie pitch, this is very much a comic book using, reusing some of its best tricks and inventing one of its own.”

In his review of The Infidel #1, James Hudnall wrote,

“Fawstin works out his feelings about Islam and Jihad in a powerful narrative that pits two brothers with deeply opposing views on the faith and religious fanaticism.“It’s bound to upset some people because, like the fictional hero in the story, it doesn’t pull any punches.”

Reader response has been as good as I could have hoped for, both from long-time comic book fans and from those for whom this may have been a first-time comic book purchase.

Nearly ten years after 9/11, The Infidel #1 is the first comic that has taken on jihad in a significant way. I believe today’s pop culture has to show and tell the truth about what we are facing in the post-9/11 world; it has to bring it to the enemy the way the culture of the WWII generation did. My part in this is The Infidel, and I hope it is only the beginning of a larger trend. If you agree, check out The Infidel #1.

THE INFIDEL is my upcoming graphic novel about twin brothers Killian Duke and Salaam Duka, whose Muslim background comes to the forefront of their lives on 9/11. Killian responds to the attacks by creating a counter-jihad superhero comic book called “Pigman”, as Salaam surrenders to Islam and becomes a Born Again Muslim, following the faith to wherever it leads him. Pigman’s battle against his arch enemy, SuperJihad, echoes the battle between the brothers.

Issue #1 will hit in early 2011 in digital form. For more info, check out my blog.

This popular post was first published here on December 29.

This is the third of a three-part series on DC Comics becoming IslamiComics. The first two starred Superman & Wonder Woman.

Right after 9/11, which of the following would be more likely: that Batman takes on al Qaeda or, rather, that he recruits a Muslim to be one of his “Global Batmen”? Of course the former, but not in a world where “Islam means peace.” Frank Miller worked on a graphic novel called “Holy Terror, Batman” as his response to 9/11, pitting Batman against al Qaeda. But for reasons that are still unclear, “The Fixer” has now taken the place of Batman in Miller’s project, while DC Comics has Batman recruiting a Muslim to be his French counterpart.

What have Muslims done to earn this honor? The same thing Islam has done to deserve being equated with peace in Western culture.

I personally don’t think Batman is built to take on butchers like al Qaeda, since DC Comics thinks having Batman kill would kill the character. (Heroes don’t kill? What of our heroic soldiers?)  But I sure as hell don’t think Batman should be used to sell the Big Lie that “Islam means peace.” And, believe it or not, this is the second time in two months that Batman has been used in Islamic propaganda, the first being in the unreadable JLA/the 99 #1. At this rate, Superman converting to Islam is inevitable.

If you’re as sick and tired of this IslamiCrap as I am, be on the lookout for my upcoming graphic novel, THE INFIDEL, which features Pigman, an ex-Muslim superhero who is the jihadist’s worst nightmare. Chapter one will be released digitally in early 2011.

Check out my last cartoon, dealing with Islamophobia

This is the third of a three-part series on DC Comics becoming IslamiComics. The first two starred Superman & Wonder Woman.

Right after 9/11, which of the following would be more likely: that Batman takes on al Qaeda or, rather, that he recruits a Muslim to be one of his “Global Batmen”? Of course the former, but not in a world where “Islam means peace.” Frank Miller worked on a graphic novel called “Holy Terror, Batman” as his response to 9/11, pitting Batman against al Qaeda. But for reasons that are still unclear, “The Fixer” has now taken the place of Batman in Miller’s project, while DC Comics has Batman recruiting a Muslim to be his French counterpart.

What have Muslims done to earn this honor? The same thing Islam has done to deserve being equated with peace in Western culture.

I personally don’t think Batman is built to take on butchers like al Qaeda, since DC Comics thinks having Batman kill would kill the character. (Heroes don’t kill? What of our heroic soldiers?)  But I sure as hell don’t think Batman should be used to sell the Big Lie that “Islam means peace.” And, believe it or not, this is the second time in two months that Batman has been used in Islamic propaganda, the first being in the unreadable JLA/the 99 #1. At this rate, Superman converting to Islam is inevitable.

If you’re as sick and tired of this IslamiCrap as I am, be on the lookout for my upcoming graphic novel, THE INFIDEL, which features Pigman, an ex-Muslim superhero who is the jihadist’s worst nightmare. Chapter one will be released digitally in early 2011.

Check out my last cartoon, dealing with Islamophobia

phobia-  a persistent, abnormal, and irrational fear of a specific thing or situation that compels one to avoid it, despite the awareness and reassurance that it is not dangerous.

It’s rational to fear an irrational, political religion like Islam.

“Islamophobia” is a myth like “Islam means peace”, created by Organized Islam in order to exploit the West’s illusions about Islam. The enemy must lie about Islam for the same reasons that we must tell the truth about it.

But the enemy’s propaganda jihad isn’t working as well as it used to, as more informed, honest individuals are willing to tell the truth about Islam despite fear of reprisal.

David Frum’s refusal to accept that A is A is one of the reasons why he’s one of the most ridiculed liberal-conservatives on the scene. He’s now one of the “Founding Leaders” of No Labels, a new group which is meant to be a cure for “hyper-partisanship”, which the website states is “one of the greatest domestic challenges our nation faces.” I think that whenever people with fundamentally different philosophies decide to “work together,” it means that they cannot get away with what they want to get away with without the help of those they despise, and it’s usually the American people who get shafted. We need more individuals who do not compromise on basic principles, not more confused do-gooders who want to make themselves immune from being labeled what they are. No Labels is only adding more gray to a gray world, and as the hero of my first graphic novel, Table for One, says: ”We do live in a gray world….which is why I have to see it in black and white.”

And then there’s the inimitable Ayn Rand:

“There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other is wrong, but the middle is always evil.”

Al Qaeda, which consists of the world’s most consistent practitioners of Islam, is threatening to turn this time of peace on earth into hell on earth.

Until “Islam means peace” is understood to be as dangerous to us as “Nazism means peace” would have been during World War Two, we will continue losing against this enemy in a war we haven’t even begun to fight.

For me, Islam means September 11, 2001, and it will mean far worse for us unless we come to understand that only the end of Islam means peace.

Peace