Taking offense is one thing, torching embassies another

To many Americans, the rash of violent riots in Afghanistan, Syria and elsewhere over 5-month-old Danish newspaper cartoons is as baffling as it is shocking. It helps somewhat to understand the context — the growing anti-Muslim sentiment in Europe that led to the cartoons’ commission and wide reprinting. The reason so many have taken offense is key, too — Islam forbids any depictions of the Prophet Muhammad, let alone images that ridicule him. One truth about this unsettling clash of cultures stands out, or should — it’s unjustifiable to torch embassies, cause deaths and incite further violence over an act of free speech.
Posted by Rhonda Holman

32 Comments

  1. Pancho Villa
    Posted February 6, 2006 at 7:35 pm | Permalink

    It seems to me that the way the muslim world has reacted to the cartoons, Just proves the point of the cartoons in the first place.

  2. Damoon
    Posted February 6, 2006 at 7:47 pm | Permalink

    This is why democracy won’t work in the Middle East. Even if they have democracy, all they’ll do is elect Islamic extremists to power. This whole war will be for nothing, except they’ll just hate us even more than they already do.

  3. CF
    Posted February 6, 2006 at 7:56 pm | Permalink

    Be suspicous, folks. Very suspicious.

    Turns out these riots were precipitated by elements in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, to deflect media attention from the death of 350 worshippers during the Hajj. After the folks were killed on January 12, the Saudi media began running up to four stories a day. Here’s the link to an Italian blog that does a nice job with background and analysis:

    http://www.weblog.ro/soj/2006-02-05/Muslim+Cartoon+Controversy%3A+What+the+Media+Isn%27t+Telling+You.html#

    Of course, the irony is that conservative elements in Saudi Arabia precipitated the crisis, and conservative elements in the West are using this as an occasion to fan anti-Muslim sentiment. Big surprise, eh?

  4. Rage
    Posted February 6, 2006 at 8:01 pm | Permalink

    Extremism bites.

  5. Ian Santiago
    Posted February 6, 2006 at 8:06 pm | Permalink

    This is great news actually as it heralds the coming end of globalism, democracy and multiracialism in Europe. In a few short years you will be hard pressed to find a negro, muslim or jew in Holy Europe. I will look forward to the coming trials for the traitor European political class as it will make the Inquisition look tame by comparison.

    “The jews are like HIV to White Christian Civilisation, the blacks, beaners, muslims etc. are merely the opportunistic infections”! El Diablo Blanco

  6. CF
    Posted February 6, 2006 at 8:11 pm | Permalink

    Maybe they’ll carry them on C-Span.

    “Viva la Raza Mestizo!”

  7. Damoon
    Posted February 6, 2006 at 8:15 pm | Permalink

    Ian, go take your meds.

  8. Rev Cain
    Posted February 6, 2006 at 8:21 pm | Permalink

    It was just a joke … for Christ’s sake! It’s just a joke!What would they do if they saw a violent cartoon like Tom and Jerry or The Roadrunner?

    Some people need to take in some precious air and appreciate their devine maker. The one that made a sense of humor!

  9. podunkboy
    Posted February 6, 2006 at 8:22 pm | Permalink

    This is what worries me — you do something they find offensive to their beliefs, and it’s “up against the wall – all infidels must die for their blasphemy!”

  10. Uncle Sam
    Posted February 6, 2006 at 8:25 pm | Permalink

    Tell some more jokes, please. Maybe our government can scare Osama Bin Laden out of hiding!So far ……. we have gotten more resistance from the jokes than we have our army!

    Makes you wonder when we can declare another end of major fighting again and how we can keep our new democracy from having jokes, if we last that long?

  11. Ian Santiago
    Posted February 6, 2006 at 8:28 pm | Permalink

    Hmm, things are becoming bizzare!

    “People in Europe are not allowed to do…free historical examination of the Second World War and the holocaust and freely express an opinion on it that is different than the dominating dogmatic line. Any attempt to have deviant historical examination of the holocaust will earn you the title of revisionist, anti-Semite and a jail sentence….Yes Arabs and Muslims are uptight when you touch their religious and national symbols, but Europe had made of political correctness and the cult of the Holocaust and Jew-worshiping its alternative religion and is even more uptight when you touch that. Europeans might not respect their flags, and they might laugh [at] Jesus and Mary but if you touch their new religious symbols, they will bombard you with indignation and persecute you in the best European inquisition tradition.

    “I am for the absolute freedom of speech everywhere, and that’s why I call upon every free sole among Arabs to use the Danish flag as a substitute for toilet paper. To illustrate every wall with graffiti making fun of everything Europe holds as holy: dancing rabbis on the carcasses of Palestinian children, hoax gas-chambers built in Hollywood in 1946 with Steven Spielberg’s approval stamp, and Aids spreading faggots. Let us defend the absolute freedom of speech altogether, wouldn’t that be a noble cause?” Mr. Jahjah

    http://www.nationalvanguard.org/story.php?id=7793

    Viva La Raza Blanco!!

  12. Posted February 6, 2006 at 8:46 pm | Permalink

    What really gets me is that there was no Muslim uproar when ‘extremists’ shot schoolchildren in Beslan or when they started flying planes into buildings. Draw one insensitive cartoon and WOW!

    The only sense you can make of it is that most of the countries with riots are not free societies. So the various states are probably behind the ‘outrage’ for their own reasons.

  13. Posted February 6, 2006 at 9:33 pm | Permalink

    What I really hate about any religious fundamentalists, whether they are Muslims burning embassies or “Christians” bombing abortion clinics, is that their actions go against the teachings of their God.

    Jesus taught peace and love and teaching the other cheek, and I’m sure Muhammad taught similar things. It’s just a shame we don’t pay attention to those things and instead try to kill each other.

  14. Outlander
    Posted February 6, 2006 at 10:27 pm | Permalink

    cookie: The scary thing about what is going on is that it is being pushed by the Muslim religious leaders. And it is justified in their holy book.

    To be fair, let’s differentiate this from acts of a lone wacko who may be a Christian acting alone and certainly against scripture when he bombs an abortion clinic.

    It certainly makes one wonder about the common sense of the Muslim sheople. They can be worked into a destructive frenzy by their religious leaders over a cartoon!

    It should also serve to illustrate what kind of enemy we are facing, and the lengths that we may need to go to defeat them. We should be very concerned.

  15. anonymous
    Posted February 6, 2006 at 10:48 pm | Permalink

    Is this how WW III starts?Maybe it’s time to follow the old saying. “Kill them all and let God sort them out”.Fu*k ‘em if they can’t take a joke.

  16. Posted February 7, 2006 at 5:05 am | Permalink

    All it takes is the realization that any organization that proselytes by killing infidels is not a true religion.

    Muslim extremists need to be treated like the unlawful murderers that they are.

    Every newspaper in the world should print the stupid cartoons, dunk them in urine, spread feces over them.

    Screw the damned muslim extremeists. People who are afraid of them now will have ten times as much to be afraid of in the future if those radicals aren’t stopped now.

    And as for all you appeasers who wondered after 9/11 — “Why do they hate us. Let us reform our evil ways.” — Forget it. You are infidels. They will kill you at the first chance.

    The muslim religion is unable to deal with the modern world. It either needs to grow up or be eliminated.

    Other religions have learned how to coexist with each other in a peaceful exchange of ideas. Muslims need to grow up.

  17. Joe Williams
    Posted February 7, 2006 at 7:37 am | Permalink

    I heard these cartoons was printed back in September. Took them this long to react? Or are they just looking for any excuse to riot?

  18. Todd
    Posted February 7, 2006 at 8:24 am | Permalink

    Must be more of those badass Arabs Ed was telling me about.

  19. John Malkovich
    Posted February 7, 2006 at 10:52 am | Permalink

    What about all the times the media makes fun of and utterly blasphemes the God of Christianity? Do you see a majority of Christians going out with assault rifles and burning embassies and killing people? Makes you wonder if indeed the prophet Muhammed was really an advocate for peace like his followers claim huh? Then again I wouldnt expect that from a 7th century polygamist who spread his belief through violence and intimidation.

  20. CrusaderX
    Posted February 7, 2006 at 10:55 am | Permalink

    Ian Santiago,

    A racist, citing from other racists. what credibility!!! ;)

  21. Ian Santiago
    Posted February 7, 2006 at 11:13 am | Permalink

    Hi ALL,

    It seems as if turnabout is fair play! I don’t want any muslims in White Nations but I do admire the Iranians for tell the truth about the big lie, the lie of the mythical jewish “holocauSt”!

    IRAN’S largest selling newspaper announced today it was holding a contest on cartoons of the Holocaust in response to the publishing in European papers of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed.

    “It will be an international cartoon contest about the Holocaust,” said Farid Mortazavi, the graphics editor for Hamshahri newspaper – which is published by Teheran’s conservative municipality.He said the plan was to turn the tables on the assertion that newspapers can print offensive material in the name of freedom of expression.

    “The Western papers printed these sacrilegious cartoons on the pretext of freedom of expression, so let’s see if they mean what they say and also print these Holocaust cartoons,” he said.

    Iran’s fiercely anti-Israeli regime is supportive of so-called Holocaust revisionist historians, who maintain the systematic slaughter by the Nazis of mainland Europe’s Jews as well as other groups during World War II has been either invented or exaggerated.

    Iran’s hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad prompted international anger when he dismissed the systematic slaughter by the Nazis of mainland Europe’s Jews as a “myth” used to justify the creation of Israel.

    Advertisement:Mr Mortazavi said tomorrow’s edition of the paper will invite cartoonists to enter the competition, with “private individuals” offering gold coins to the best 12 artists – the same number of cartoons that appeared in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten.Last week, the Iranian foreign ministry also invited British Prime Minister Tony Blair to Teheran to take part in a planned conference on the Holocaust, even though the idea has been branded by Mr Blair as “shocking, ridiculous, stupid”.

    Mr Blair also said Mr Ahmadinejad “should come and see the evidence of the Holocaust himself in the countries of Europe”, to which Iran responded by saying it was willing to send a team of “independent investigators”.

    http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,18066746-1702,00.html?from=rss

    Viva La Raza Blanco!!

  22. Mr. Turner
    Posted February 7, 2006 at 12:32 pm | Permalink

    Thank God all our religious nuts do here is sign petitions aginst porn shop, picket funerals, and try to stop abortions by writing vague laws ( Kline clown).

  23. CrusaderX
    Posted February 7, 2006 at 1:58 pm | Permalink

    You should thank God that Jesus was nothing like Muhammed. Because us Christians don’t advocate killing anybody, while the Infallible Great Prophet Muhammed and his ilk advocates killing anyone and everyone who don’t agree with his religious views! They can’t even take a joke without burning something. Is this anything new? well no. You see had it not been for Charles Martel “the hammer” fighting off the invading Muslim horde in the 12th century A.D. All Europe would have been Muslim, and I think you know what kind of world it would have been like today had it turned out that way. Draw your own conclusions.

  24. CrusaderX
    Posted February 7, 2006 at 2:04 pm | Permalink

    Hey Ian,Why don’t you enter the contest and move to Iran? I bet you, Ahmadinejad, and the Ayatollah would be excellent bedfellows! And when Jesus comes back to kick ass, I’ll give Him your address. :)

  25. Ian Santiago
    Posted February 7, 2006 at 2:07 pm | Permalink

    CruX,

    Stop it skippy, you’re killin’ me here!

    I am not Ed.

    Viva la Raza Blanco!!

  26. Hank
    Posted February 7, 2006 at 2:35 pm | Permalink

    Joe,

    It was a logistics problem. Takes a while to order and recieve all of those Danish flags. Then there is the problem of getting those signs printed in English when CNN covers the riots.

    Certain flags like US, French and German they keep in stock and the reaction time is quicker.

    Hank

  27. R Lewis
    Posted February 7, 2006 at 2:52 pm | Permalink

    Think the cartoons pissed them off…………….Wait until they find out he is gay!

  28. Pancho Villa
    Posted February 8, 2006 at 12:16 am | Permalink

    or watch the Jesus vs Mohmand boxing match on comedy central

  29. CrusaderX
    Posted February 8, 2006 at 1:05 am | Permalink

    Why don’t we be childish and throw tantrums like Ayatollah’s cronies and burn Iran’s flag? Oh I forgot, we’re not allowed to be critical of anything about Islam anymore.

  30. CrusaderX
    Posted February 8, 2006 at 11:01 pm | Permalink

    The Arab world is going to boycott Danish products in protest to those cartoons. I for one will be stocking up on Danish cookies in support for free speech.

  31. Hank Price
    Posted February 9, 2006 at 7:41 pm | Permalink

    Ooh! Ooh!

    Stock up on their cheeses too!

    Hank

  32. CrusaderX
    Posted February 9, 2006 at 7:47 pm | Permalink

    Of course! How could I forget their delicious cheeses!