I have to tell you that I found all of the plot lines completely believable and I came to view Elphaba as a decent, kind witch who meant no one any harm. Of course, one has to remember that this play is from the point of view of the witches of the Land of Oz.

In the real world, we cannot be so quick to believe fairy tales. Because I have Islam on the brain, I could not help thinking to myself that Wicked is not unlike how most people in the Christian world view Islam. To them, Muslims are a misunderstood people whose behavior in the past was merely a reaction to the nasty attacks from Crusaders and colonial occupiers.

Those of us who understand the true nature of Islam, who have read the Quran, who have read history books, know that the Crusades were a good and necessary action by nations under threat of Islamic domination. Without the Crusades most people today would be living as dhimmis under unbearable Muslim rule.

Without the colonial powers succeeding against the Ottomans in WWI, the present day Syrians, Lebanese, Jordanians, and Iraqis would not be Syrians, Lebanese, Jordanians, or Iraqis, but subject peoples still living in tents under Ottoman suzerainty.

Without American oil exploration know-how the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia would be a kingdom of goat-herders and fig-pickers (say that 5 times fast). Although most of the Arab Muslim world today live in poverty and ignorance, but for colonial-built schools, universities, roads, railroads, and hospitals, Arab Muslims would be ten times more poor, and ten times more ignorant and backward than they are today.

we are told by the play's author that, except for her magical powers, the Wicked Witch of the West is not an evil person and is just like you and me; someone who wants only to live a normal life, fall in love, and have a family. In a like manner we are told by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) that Muslims too are just like the rest of us (see my article on Muslim deception, what they call al taqiyya).

I agree, Muslims are just like us infidels, except for their Quran-Hadith-and Sunnah-inspired claims of God-given supremacy, their religious ideology of violent, offensive Jihad, their subjugation of women, their hatred of Crusaders and Jews, their desire to institute medieval, totalitarian, theocratic law and their goal of a one-world Caliphate; aside from those minor differences, Muslims are pretty much like the rest of us.

I don't buy the story in Wicked, and I don't buy the story from CAIR. There is one difference between the two: believing that the first one is the true story of OZ will not destroy modern civilization.