Let me get this straight. A man publically supports those who encourage the murder of a novelist. When criticized for this, he says he didn't mean to encourage free-lance murder...only execution, by a proper Islamic court, for blasphemy ...which court, not incidentally, would find much of our recent "Is there a god?" thread blasphemous. And if the U.S. doesn't let him in, it's a "witch-hunt"?
I thought the problem with witch hunts was that harmless people were condemned. I assume most readers of this post consider Rushdie harmless. So wouldn't that make Yosuf Islam the witch hunter? And wouldn't that put the U.S. in the role of Thomas Brattle, who helped stop the Salem witch trials?