BROADSIDES

September 29, 2006

The 2006 Mitsubishi 4-Door Jihad
An Ohio car dealer recently produced a radio ad which declared a "jihad on the automotive market." According to several reports last week, the Columbus-based Dennis Mitsubishi ad also contained this priceless line:

Our prices are lower than the evildoers every day. Just ask the pope!

(Yeah, I thought it was a hoot, too.)

Even before the ad aired, the local chapter of the Council on American Islamic-Relations popped a vein; CAIR spokesman Adnan Mirza fumed that the ad is "in very poor taste and absolutely offensive." Even though dealership owner Keith Dennis defended the radio spot saying it's "fair game to poke a little fun at radical extremists," he canceled plans to air it.

Funny ... I don't remember hearing a chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations loudly condemning any of the following as being in "very poor taste and absolutely offensive":

*Iranian-backed Islamic militants take U.S. Embassy personnel hostage in Tehran for over a year (1979-1980)

*Islamic Jihad suicide bombers hit the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, killing 63 people (1983)

* Iranian-backed Hezbollah terrorists suicide-bombed and killed 241 U.S. Marines, sailors and soldiers on a U.N. peacekeeping mission in Beirut (1983)

* Shiite Islamic terrorists bomb the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait City, killing 5 (1983)

* Hezbollah terrorists detonate a truck bomb at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, killing 24. (1984)

* Islamic terrorists in Beirut hijack a Kuwait Airways flight and kill 2 American passengers. (1984)

* TWA Flight 847 en route to Rome is hijacked by Hezbollah terrorists and forced to land in Beirut. While holding the plane there for more than two weeks, the terrorists murder an American passenger, U.S. Navy petty officer Robert D. Stethem, and dump his body onto the tarmac. (1985)

* Palestinian Islamic terrorists backed by Libya hijack the Achille Lauro, an Italian cruise ship. The terrorists murder passenger Leon Klinghoffer, an elderly, wheelchair-bound American, and dump his body into the ocean. (1985)

* Libyan-backed Islamic terrorists bomb the Vienna and Rome airports killing 20 people, including 5 Americans. (1985)

* Libyan-backed Islmaic terrorists detonate a bomb aboard Athens-bound TWA Flight 840, killing 4 Americans. (1986)

* Libyan-backed Islamic terrorists bomb a German nightclub filled with U.S. military personnel, killing one American. (1986)

* Pan Am Flight 103 en route to New York explodes over Lockerbie, Scotland killing all 259 passengers, 189 of whom were Americans, and 11 on the ground. Libyan-backed Islamic terrorists carried out the bombing. (1988)

* Ten al-Qaeda Islamic terrorists in New York City detonate a massive truck bomb in the World Trade Center parking garage, killing 6 and injuring over 1,000. (1993)

* Iranian-backed Islamic terrorists detonate a car bomb at a U.S. military base in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, killing 5 Americans. (1995)

* Iranian-backed Hezbollah terrorists detonate a truck bomb at the Khobar Towers U.S. military facility in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, killing 19 Americans. (1996)

* al-Qaeda terrorists truck bomb the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing 224 and injuring over 4,500. (1998)

* In Aden, Yemen, al-Qaeda terrorists detonate an explosive-laden boat along side the U.S.S. Cole, killing 17 American sailors. (2000)

* al-Qaeda Islamic terrorists simultaneously hijack four American commercial airliners. Two are flown into both towers of New York's World Trade Center, killing 2,749 people. The third plane is flown into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, killing 184. The fourth plane fails to reach its target and crashes into a Shankesville, Pennyslvania field after passengers overpowered the terrorists, killing 40. (2001)

* 12 people are killed at the U.S. Consulate in Karachi, Pakistan when an al-Qaeda-planted bomb detonates. (2002)

* In Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, al-Qaeda terrorists suicide bomb a housing facility occupied by Americans and Europeans, killing 34. (2003)

* Islamic terrorists murder 22 foreign oil workers, including an American, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. (2004)

* Three Americans and a Briton are kidnapped and murdered by Islamic terrorists in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. (2004)

* Islamic terrorists attack the U.S. Consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, killing 5. (2004)

* 57 people are killed when al-Qaeda Islamic suicide bombers attack three American hotels in Amman, Jordan. (2005) (source: InfoPlease.com)

Gee, that silly car ad suddenly doesn't seem all that offensive now. Wouldn't you agree, Mr. Mirza?

B. Sides @ 2:27 PM