And these are just the wages of Islam.

When things seem inconsistent or 'ironic' on the surface, you have to look for the real consistency. In this case it's obvious: Under Bushobama our established religion is Islam. Heresy against Mohammed is punished here just as in Arabia or Afghanistan, while heresy against Christ is required here just as in Arabia or Afghanistan.

This is a horrible story, but isn't it exactly the sort of thing that toppling the Taliban was supposed to end? We have a puppet government in a client state that we're propping up - and they do something like this. In other words, business as usual in the Middle East / SW Asia.

I'm not saying that staying the heck out of it would have saved Mr. Musa, but clearly Bush's exercise in nation building has done nothing to prevent it. Don't scapegoat Obama here. This wasn't his excellent adventure.

We either need to get serious about Middle Eastern nation building, or get out of the business altogether. Half measures are always worse than full ones, or none at all. Bush's instinct for Solomonic compromises (as when he quite literally split the baby in his obscene embryonic stem cell funding approval, or when he signed McCain-Feingold into law even as he grumbled that he thought it was unconstitutional) has failed us time and time again. We need to treat radical violent iterations of Islam the way we treated similarly disfunctional ideologies in Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan - smash it to pieces and rebuild from a Western perspective.

*OR ELSE* – if we now lack the confidence in our own traditions and system to be willing to inflict themon others forcibly – we need to just get out and stay out. One or the other. I prefer "the other" here, but I have some sympathy who zealously prefer the first option. I have however nothing but contempt for those who dabble their toes into the water while fearing to get all the way wet.

The silence in the press and in the government to the Christians being executed right under our noses in places like Afghanistan and Iraq where we have boots on the ground is an intolerable code of diplomatic silence.

It doesn't fit their narrative about what we are doing in those nations. I am a supporter of what we are doing and have gone in intending to do in those nations and it does not cut into my support to know that Christians are being violated and executed there. I knew that.

What cuts into my support is we are not raising bloody hell about it but just pretending it is not happening and hoping the American public will not notice if nothing is said or printed. Disgusting jerks! (and I'm talking about our people who know and say nothing)

Jamal Khan must be made to leave the government. The US cannot continue to fund government officials who are loathsome barbarians.

The awful thing is that somehow these "religious" people think that someone converting to another faith gives them an excuse to engage in behavior that is supposedly prohibited by their own faith. This is true hypocrisy.

They are also cowards. They cannot win the heart of this man, who has chosen to follow Christ, so they will try to kill him instead. They do not have the courage of their own faith, to believe that it can win out. That is why they resort to murder.

But it is God who will answer, in the end.

Did he not realize that becoming a Christian where he lived was a capitol offense? I mean, really, he was a Muslim for christs sake, how could anyone be surprised? It's like trying to build a mosque in downtown New York, didn't anyone think that would be controversial? Cheese and rice people, this is a story of idiocy run rampant. Sorry for the guy but he should have know what to expect. Anyone willing to die for a religion is a nut case.

@Shackleford: No, he is a Christian for CHRIST'S sake.

Perhaps for every act of barbarism we suspend one week of international travel of people on their way to Mecca (suspend by denying the airlines, cruise companies, etc. and/or their leasing companies insurance).

Could do equivalent w/ Iran - if they hurt protestors, we'll not permit insurance for the tankers carrying their oil (note that we did roughly the same for Egypt by telling their (U.S. trained) military leadership if they hurt protesters they'd lose their homes alongside Musharref in VA. To say nothing of their 1.5B in perqs).

Are there still people who do not believe that Allah is another name for Satan? You need only look at what he demands of his followers.

Randy Shackleford, you should be ashamed of yourself.

cb_10, it is precisely their religion that requires them to take his life.

Steve Koch, you are a fool. You cannot civilize a barbarian. Rome learned that, the hard way.

MSriver, You are completely incoherent. Check your meds.

What all of you do not understand is that Islam is a religion of lying and murder and pederasty. Mohamad was a pedophile taking a 9 year old girl to wife. Those who follow him will kill their own daughters if they are raped! I'm not making this stuff up!

And soon they'll have nuclear weapons. Perhaps we should realize that it's not Osama bin Ladin nor the Taliban that are the enemies, but Islam itself. Just as they claim. Better to face them down now than to wait till they are too strong. Right now there's only 1.5 billion of them.