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As predictable as the sun rising in the east or a welfare recipient voting Democrat, the usual suspects are at it again. (from the AP)

Muslim clerics said Monday that Osama bin Laden’s burial at sea was a violation of Islamic tradition that may further provoke militant calls for revenge attacks against American targets.

I share their outrage. It was far better than he deserved, and as deterrents go, it really doesn’t budge the needle.

Although there appears to be some room for debate over the burial — as with many issues within the faith — a wide range of senior Islamic scholars interpreted it as a humiliating disregard for the standard Muslim practice of placing the body in a grave with the head pointed toward the holy city of Mecca.

Many issues with the faith are open to debate?  You don’t say!  You mean like the right way to beat your wife?  Or the correct way to stone your cousin’s daughter because she allowed herself to be raped?  Which shade of black is the best for the headscarf?  Or the proper way to behead an infidel on tape and deliver it to the press?  Perhaps the correct way to topple a wall on a homosexual, or to deal death to an apostate?  Yes, I do find those islamic faith issues so very troubling.  But I digress…

Bin Laden’s burial at sea “runs contrary to the principles of Islamic laws, religious values and humanitarian customs,” said Sheik Ahmed al-Tayeb, the grand Imam of Cairo’s al-Azhar mosque, Sunni Islam’s highest seat of learning.

Maybe we could offer to let them free dive to collect the body?

A radical cleric in Lebanon, Omar Bakri Mohammed, said, “The Americans want to humiliate Muslims through this burial, and I don’t think this is in the interest of the U.S. administration.”

I don’t think so.  Humiliating him would be more like burying him with a canned ham and a pair of panties in place of his turban.  I think it was about denying them a potential place for a future mosque.  Unless they can hold their breath really, really well.  But somehow, I don’t think the call to prayer is going to carry so well under water…

A U.S. official said the burial decision was made after concluding that it would have been difficult to find a country willing to accept the remains. There was also speculation about worry that a grave site could have become a rallying point for militants.

I think the former is because of the latter.  Bury a prominent jhadi in your country and the next thing you know, you’re up to you neck in splodeydopes. 

President Barack Obama said the remains had been handled in accordance with Islamic custom, which requires speedy burial, and the Pentagon later said the body was placed into the waters of the northern Arabian Sea after adhering to traditional Islamic procedures — including washing the corpse — aboard the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson.

But the Lebanese cleric Mohammed called it a “strategic mistake” that was bound to stoke rage.

I don’t really care what Mohammed (really?  I swear, they only have what? 4 names?) has to say about this.  This TUCKS™ Medicated Pad Moment is brought to us not because of where we buried him, but because it was a bullet from an American that sped him into Satan’s tender loving embrace.  We could have waited for all the muslim clerics to decide amongst themselves on the most respectful means of disposing of his mortal coil, and once that internecine jihad was complete and we followed it to the letter, they would still “rage”, stoked or otherwise.

In Washington, CIA director Leon Panetta warned that “terrorists almost certainly will attempt to avenge” the killing of the mastermind behind the Sept. 11 attacks.

“Bin Laden is dead,” Panetta wrote in a memo to CIA staff. “Al-Qaida is not.”

And in other breaking news, water is still wet.

But Mohammed Qudah, a professor of Islamic law at the University of Jordan, said burying the Saudi-born bin Laden at sea was not forbidden if there was nobody to receive the body and provide a Muslim burial.

“The land and the sea belong to God, who is able to protect and raise the dead at the end of times for Judgment Day,” he said. “It’s neither true nor correct to claim that there was nobody in the Muslim world ready to receive bin Laden’s body.”

He is not raging at the infidels!  He must die!

Clerics in Iraq, where an offshoot of al-Qaida is blamed for the death of thousands of people since 2003, also criticized the U.S. action. One said it only benefited fish.

“If a man dies on a ship that is a long distance from land, then the dead man should be buried at the sea,” said Shiite cleric Ibrahim al-Jabari. “But if he dies on land, then he should be buried in the ground, not to be thrown into the sea. Otherwise, this would be only inviting fish to a banquet.”

I agree.  Something involving a wood chipper, pigs, and a Koran or two would have been a much more poignant option.  If they’re gonna be pissed anyway, then at least give them something to think about.  I’d rather have them hate us and be reluctant to try crap like that again, than hate us, and think that it is ok to kill us with impunity.  But I’m funny like that.

“What was done by the Americans is forbidden by Islam and might provoke some Muslims,” said another Islamic scholar from Iraq, Abdul-Sattar al-Janabi, who preaches at Baghdad’s famous Abu Hanifa mosque. “It is not acceptable and it is almost a crime to throw the body of a Muslim man into the sea. The body of bin Laden should have been handed over to his family to look for a country or land to bury him.”

Provocation of muslims?  The Hell you say!  Why, I only thought that such a thing was possible if you did some really unacceptable things…like treat a woman as a real person and not chattel.  Or subscribe to a different religious belief.  Or enjoy a BLT and a brew, or a Brat and a shot, or other infidelish stuff…like believe that Israel has a right to defend itself

Prominent Egyptian Islamic analyst and lawyer Montasser el-Zayat said bin Laden’s sea burial was designed to prevent his grave from becoming a shrine. But an option was an unmarked grave.

Preferably with the stuff left over from hog butchering that doesn’t get used.

“They don’t want to see him become a symbol, but he is already a symbol in people’s hearts.”

Well, we can’t have anything else in the people’s hearts.  Like an understanding that the rest of the world is getting sick of your crap, and if you hold scum like this coward up as a hero in your heart, then the rest of us can quit pretending that there is anything about you or your culture that can be redeemed.