Is Islam ready to join the world?

Mark Steyn on the case of Abdul Rahman:

The Islamists know our side have tanks and planes, but they have will and faith, and they reckon in a long struggle that's the better bet. Most prominent Western leaders sound way too eager to climb into the weak-horse suit and audition to play the rear end.. . .

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. Gen. 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."

If this is what the Afghan people want, I'm sure we'd be more than happy to witdraw and allow them to sink back into their Dark Age culture, with the caveat that if they start training terrorists again we'll be back. If they want to be taken seriously as more than barbarians, they'll have to quit treating the rest of us as if we deserve to be murdered.

Then there's this:

One United Nations estimate says from 113 million to 200 million women around the world are demographically "missing." Every year, from 1.5 million to 3 million women and girls lose their lives as a result of gender-based violence or neglect.