Rahman Release Won't Fix Problem

Updated. See below.

If Abdul Rahman does indeed walk from an Afghan prison in the next few hours as authorities there promise, it's hardly the end of the problem. (AP reports charges have been dropped.)

First, no Afghan court has ruled that it's OK to leave Islam for another religion. Rahman's freedom will be because of gaps in evidence not gaps in Islam's ruthlessness.

Second, while in prison, Rahman has been relatively safe. What's to stop a street gang from taking out Islamic "justice" on him once he's released?

And finally, Rahman is not the only Christian Afghan. What will happen to the next one?

Islam is afraid to lose a single practioner; it is afraid to let any other voice be raised. This is not without cause. The religion fears conversion because it simply doesn't offer the same comfort and surety that Christianity does. Even Buddhism, with its karma and reincarnation, offers more hope than the unpredictable and angry Allah.

So the Mullahs are ready to kill Rahman. And they hear a Christian woman who is one of the most powerful people in the most powerful nation on the planet (Condi Rice) say,

America has stood solidly for religious freedom as a bedrock, the bedrock, of democracy, and we'll see.

ACLU are you listening? Mullahs of the world, are you listening?

Update: Mark Steyn tells this story in his column today, which also is about Rahman:

In a more culturally confident age, the British in India were faced with the practice of "suttee" -- the tradition of burning widows on the funeral pyres of their husbands. General Sir Charles Napier was impeccably multicultural:

''You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: When men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows.You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."

Tags: Abdul Rahman, Religion, Religious freedom, Condi, Afghanistan