Assalamu aleikum and welcome to a marvelous mid-May missive of monumental... er, well, it's just a newsletter. Remember the good ol' days of the George W. Bush administration when the world was divided into an easy-to-understand us vs. them paradigm? When the Iraq war was characterized as a "crusade?" Such accusations were denied (and a bit exaggerated), but that didn't stop folks in the military from stamping a Christian stamp of approval on activities hostile to Muslims. Take General William Boykin for starters. His comments in 2003 that "his God was bigger than" his Muslim adversaries prompted outrage in the Muslim world and calls for his resignation. One of Boykin's key defenders was then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who found himself mired in similar controversy today, years after he resigned in 2006. GQ writer Robert Draper alleged that many Pentagon briefings, some delivered to Bush by Rumsfeld himself, were adorned with messianic Christian imagery and quotes from the Bible. At least one Muslim analyst at the Pentagon had been greatly offended (who says Muslims shouldn't join the US military?) and one staffer held on to copies, passing them on to Draper when debriefed over the Bush years. Other staffers decried Rumsfeld's arrogance and mismanagement. Rumsfeld has responded with denials of approving the report covers which, after all, conceal a more disastrous policy underneath. Also, the managerially incompetent (though poetically intriguing) Rumsfeld was no Dick Cheney, who today continues to fight his battles well out of office.

Now that our sister site, altmuslimah is running at a steady clip, we're planning an overhaul of the site you love, altmuslim - a 3.0 version, in fact (version 2.0 launched in mid 2007). The focus will be on content - better stuff and more of it - with new features and a streamlined layout. If there are any obvious changes you'd like to see, please let us know. In particular, we're looking to have improved coverage of Europe, in partnership with like-minded media groups here. Speaking of Europe, Aaqil Ahmed, former head of religious programming at Britain's Channel 4, has just been appointed the first head of religious programming at the state-funded BBC. This has proven controversial, not only because of Islam's minority status in Britain, but because of a perceived trivialisation of Christianity in some of Ahmed's earlier productions. Some Christian groups in Britain are calling it an "insult" and have issued over 100 complaints to the BBC - although the BBC received 55,000 complaints from Christians for airing the Jesus-mocking "Jerry Springer - The Opera" in 2005. Ahmed produced shows like "Make Me a Muslim" (yes, there was a "Make Me a Christian") and five seasons of "Shariah TV" (called a "fatwa machine" by one critic but, more often than not, highlighting disagreements between guests and leaving it at that). In the end, the BBC claims that hires are made "on the basis of talent and suitability to the role, regardless of their faith or background" and many observers are optimistic that Ahmed will prove naysayers wrong.

Finally, in more evidence that the ranks of violent extremists are selecting themselves out of the gene pool, minicab driver Abbas Taj was convicted this week in the case of the attempted arson of the home of Martin Rynja, the would-be British publisher of Sherry Jones' controversial book, The Jewel of Medina, which you know plenty about already. It was the third conviction of the three men (two convicted earlier) who were caught in the act September 27 of last year, swooped upon by armed police who had them under surveillance (a rare example of accurate intelligence). Taj claims that he was only giving some friends a lift (though recorded evidence in the car suggests otherwise). Ali Beheshti, one of the others convicted, was a former member of the extremist group Al-Muhajiroun and was noted for two other displays of ignominy: burning himself while trying to set a flag alight at an anti-war demonstration in 2005, and bringing his then 20-month old daughter to a protest of the Danish cartoons with an "I love Al Qaeda" hat on. Sentencing for all three takes place in July. Releasing may take place in time to assist said daughter with years of therapy for being the "Al Qaeda hat" girl. And Jewel of Medina, commercially and critically unappreciated in the US, is still scheduled for British release in October, 2009 - one year late.

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