In its first reaction more than a week ago, the State Department appeared to blame the European media for publishing the cartoons, instead of condemning the violence that resulted, although U.S. officials said their message was misconstrued and taken out of context. Then, after days of careful statements supporting press freedoms while denouncing violence, President Bush suggested anew that the press had been irresponsible. "America's initial response was a bit lacking and regrettable, in that it actually sided with those who were offended as opposed to the Europeans, and particularly the Danes, who should have gotten unqualified support," said Reuel Marc Gerecht, a conservative foreign policy scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and the Project for a New American Century.

...the offended Muslims do not want a world where people are free to do both. They don't even want a world where people are not free to do either, which would at least be consistent. They want a world where you may not portray the Prophet Mohammed (even flatteringly, slaying infidels or whatnot) but you may deny the Holocaust all day long. The shameful American position on all this is boilerplate endorsement of free expression combined with denunciation of the cartoons as an "unacceptable" insult... But the limits of free expression cannot be set by the sensitivities of people who don't believe in it. How can President Bush continue to ask young Americans to sacrifice their lives for freedom in the Muslim world, if he won't even defend freedom verbally when forces from that world are suppressing it in our own?

atheist bashers, the ones who want to blame everything that goes wrong, from 9-11 to hurricanes, on atheists, choose not to use the word with an understanding of its proper syntax, even if they know about the formal properties of language. The ones who say there are no atheists in foxholes discount the authenticity of a person's belief system. They show their utter disrespect and contempt for anyone who says they do not believe in God.

Ba'al's conjecture: The list would include quite a number of comments from the same people who note that the cartoons are an unacceptable insult to religion, blah blah blah.....

There's also a lot of right-wing Christians (like my father) using this as further proof of why Islam is evil and all Muslims are terrorists, because a caricature of the Prophet Muhommed is supposedly "such a minor thing." Yet these are the same people who pitch huge fits about whether stores say "Merry Christmas"

"I couldn't forget those moving scenes, blood and severed limbs, women and children sprawled everywhere. Houses destroyed along with their occupants and high rises demolished over their residents, rockets raining down on our home without mercy." Link

Yeah? Are they "pitching a huge fit" by burning buildings? Slicing themselves with razors, rioting violently? Destroying property of others? Wow, you've got a nice moral relativism going on there.

Both are wrong, but only one is legal.

Article 140 of the Criminal Code allows for a fine and up to four months of imprisonment for demeaning a "recognized religious community." Mogens Glistrup, a tax protester turned xenophobe, was imprisoned for 20 days last year for a racist speech. He compared Turks to rabbits.

The Left is just now starting to realize that aligning themselves w/Islamic Reactionaries....

Islamic values such as the subjugation of women, the forced conversions, and the suppression of free speech are incompatible with Western values, at least those defined by classical liberalism

Thursday, May 13, 2004 Allahu Akhbar... posted by Arab Street Bum at 02:40 I just watched the video of Nick Berg's death. It was brutal and shocking, and reminded me of the equally horrible footage of Daniel Pearl's murder. The animals who carried out this killing were cowardly, hiding behind their ski masks, clutching automatic weapons while their boss read out some standard extremist drivel. Needless to say, every one of those people will have their skins burned off a thousand times in hell, not only for the murder comitted, but also for the cynical and twisted way it was carried out. The murderers' twisted perception of Islam is fully exposed by their method, and as a Muslim I am filled with rage that people could pervert our religion in such a way. Nick Berg, just like Daniel Pearl, was slaughtered in precisely the same manner as a sheep during the Eid-el-Adha (feast of the sacrifice). Laid on his side, Mr. Berg's throat was cut while his killers repeated over and over again Allahu-Akhbar, Allahu-Akhbar, Allahu-Akhbar. These madmen think that they are slaughtering a human being in a somehow "Islamic" or "Halal" way, that by doing it like this they are fullfilling God's wishes. Allahu-Akhbar is one of the most beautiful and powerful phrases that exist for the expression of Islamic faith. I am sure that Satan is filled with glee that his murderous demons have publicly used these words in such a way, while committing such a filthy act.

you would probably wet your self if you saw one up close. Scary huh, bet you are a bedwetter.

Posted by Squeaky at September 19, 2005 11:19 PM Rove never needed proof for his smear machine, why should I.

Posted by JimakaPPJ February 11, 2006 07:29 PM Talk is cheap

Squeaky - Pretentious? Uh, you might consider that it is you that are telling people that you disagree with that they shouldn't be here, start there own blog, etc.

If you do not like the question and are dissatisfied with the crowd here, then go and leave us be, Start your own blog.

The proper response to Islamists and their supporters [many who comment at TL] is to identify them as our ideological and political enemies--and dispense justice accordingly. In the case of our militant enemies, we must kill or demoralize them

you might consider that it is you that are telling people that you disagree with

Refining the new wingnut talking point. Your echo chamber is not needed here. BTW- you are the one who sounds like a 'Reactionary". A bigot too. What a surprise.

What you are trying to do is shut down someone else's freedom of speech with a false claim, an attack and an insult.

He used... sarcasm. He knew all the tricks, dramatic irony, metaphor, bathos, puns, parody, litotes and... satire. He was vicious.

A LEADING imam in the mosque where the July 7 bombers worshipped has hailed their terrorist attack on London as a "good" act in a secretly taped conversation with an undercover reporter. Hamid Ali, spiritual leader of the mosque in West Yorkshire, said it had forced people to take notice when peaceful meetings and conferences had no impact. He also praised the bombers as the "children" of Abdullah al-Faisal, a firebrand Muslim cleric, who was convicted of inciting murder and racial hatred in 2003. Ali revealed that the leader of the London suicide bombers had attended sermons in Yorkshire by al-Faisal and tapes of al-Faisal's teachings were still circulating within his mosque.

Posted by JimakaPPJ February 11, 2006 07:29 PM The person writing this has my thanks. Just one small thing. Talk is cheap.

You make some solid points, but the deal is this. In the west violence associated with religion has almost completely disappeared. Mostly because the culture of the west, rejected it.

Just because you're not burning flags in the street doesn't mean you are more peaceful than the Muslims you despise. You're doing your bit, right here. It's just a difference in style, that's all.

If we let the Moslem world dictate what we can print today, what will we let them dictate next? And if we agree that it is okay for them to riot, burn and kill everytime they are "insulted," do you understand that they will find more to be insulted over, and more to riot over? It is called "behavior reward."

Al - You are making some false assumpations. I am not a Repub, or a conservative and I don't love any politican, much less Bush. As you probably know I call myself, for lack of a better description, a social liberal. I do support Bush in his approach to national defense.

As for violence, yes we are a violent society, and yes the US military can provide all the violence most people want.

But it takes a lot more to set it off than a few cartoons

I see that PPJ is back here again, demonstrating his continual inability to grasp the logic of other people's posts, and his preference for engaging people in irrelevant and time-wasting arguments. Attempting to counter one of his posts with logic and relevance only generates another inevitable round of his distractions. Get smart, don't reply.

I agree. I do read [his] posts, after all, though most are not worth responding to...

The proper response to Islamists and their supporters [many who comment at TL] is to identify them as our ideological and political enemies--and dispense justice accordingly. In the case of our militant enemies, we must kill or demoralize them.

I think we should give the Muslims equal time so to speak...

Breaking news: The United Iraqi Alliance, a coalition of Shiite fundamentalist parties, has chosen Ibrahim Jaafari to be prime minister of Iraq for the next four years.... I scanned the US cable news channels and only CNN Headline News was making much of this development, and then only briefly. It raises the question for me of whether US television news has unspoken racist undertones. There are exceptions. .... But on the hour-long t.v. news magazines, or even just with the anchors during the day, we never see so much as an extended interview with Ibrahim Jaafari. Isn't that weird? The real UK BBC will do an hour-long interview with an Iraqi cabinet minister like Ali Allawi. But our television news almost never talks to anyone among important Iraqi politicians, with the possible exception of the Kurdish politician Jalal Talabani, the mostly ceremonial president of Iraq. Aren't the Iraqi politicians who have come to power in the celebrated purple-thumb Iraqi elections worth talking to? Don't Americans care what they think? ..... And, with all these cable channels and satellite capabilities, why can't we see the real BBC in America? I mean, I can watch French and Italian and Egyptian and Lebanese channels. I'm not even being offered by my satellite company the possibility of the real BBC. Isn't that weird? There are so many weird things. The upshot is that if you don't have Joe Scarborough's profile, you don't get seen or heard much on US television.

For years now, the corporate media has controlled the dissemination of information in the US via mainstream routes (newspapers, TV, radio). It has used its control to promote agendas that pumped up corporate profits and power and put corporate toadies into office - from Congressfolk to regulatory commissions to the presidency. It also "erased" any information that might be detrmimental to the corporate machine, whether it was images of protestors at Bush's inauguration, critical details of the Enron case, or the holes in the Iraq WMD story. It presented rightwing zealot reporters and commentators as moderate or "fair and balanced," while at the same time promoting the myth of the nonexistent "liberal media."

In Iran, a woman can walk alone anywhere she likes at any time, day or night and can be 100% sure that she will be safe. Street crime is almost non-existent.

Tehran's despots recently hanged a 16-year-old girl. What is it in the Arab-Islamic culture that breeds the demonization and dehumanization of the female? FP: Ms. Zand-Bonazzi let me begin with you. Tell us a bit about the circumstances behind Atefeh's execution. Zand-Bonazzi: Well, sadly this young woman was hung in public charged with adultery. The man with whom she had allegedly had sexual relations with was also arrested but he only received 75 lashes apparently and then freed!

So, the driving-away jihad against the US does not stop with its withdrawal from the Arabian peninsula, but rather it must desist from aggressive intervention against Muslims in the whole world.

There are three reasons not to publish the Danish cartoons depicting Mohammed with his turban styled as a bomb . . . and the other images that have sparked violent protests and deaths throughout Europe, the Middle East, West Asia, and Indonesia: 1) Out of fear of retaliation from the international brotherhood of radical and bloodthirsty Islamists who seek to impose their will on those who do not believe as they do. This is, frankly, our primary reason for not publishing any of the images in question. Simply stated, we are being terrorized, and as deeply as we believe in the principles of free speech and a free press, we could not in good conscience place the men and women who work at the Phoenix and its related companies in physical jeopardy. As we feel forced, literally, to bend to maniacal pressure, this may be the darkest moment in our 40-year publishing history.

Just substitute White, Christian, Jew , Black, Asian, American, etc for the word Moslem

Well you can do that. But the problem is none of the recommended substitutes are demanding the artists be killed, rioting in the streets upon command of the Imam in charge, burning, etc.

What is the White Order of Thule? What is the Creativity movement (WCOTC)? What is the National Alliance? What is Hammerskin Nation? What is Aryan Nations?

When still a student at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, (Dred) Scott inflamed patriotic sensibilities with his incendiary, now-historic 1989 installation, What Is the Proper Way to Display a U.S. Flag?, which invited people to step on the flag as they responded to the question on a ledger. He was personally denounced by President George Bush Sr., and his installation was banned by the U.S. Senate for desecration.

In 2004, the highly respected British medical journal "Lancet" reported the results of an epidemiological study...of post-invasion mortality in Iraq...the researchers estimated that the total number of deaths that can be attributed to the invasion and occupation may have been as high as 194,000, with a conservative estimate set at about 100,000. 2005 was far more violent in many areas of Iraq than 2004...it can be safely assumed that the number of civilian occupation deaths in the nearly 15 months since the study has increased by at least another 50,000 (and this is conservative) given the trend identified in the study. This means that the total body count is now at least 150,000, but could be as high as nearly 250,000. That's up to ONE-QUARTER OF A MILLION LIVES.

Nor have you answered the point that religiously-inspired US-sponsored violence against women kills nearly 80 000 women worldwide each year. End the global gag rule.

A state statute that prohibits flag-burning as a direct attack "likely to provoke the average person to retaliation, and thereby cause a breach of the peace" may pass constitutional muster. This narrow and rather amorphous exception to free- speech protection was recognized in the 1942 decision Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire.

So, let's look at the guy who started this whole cartoon escapade. He's Flemming Rose, the cultural editor of the Danish newspaper. In all of the Lexis-Nexis database of stories from the American media on the Mohammed cartoons, there is absolutely no mention of the fact that Rose is a close confederate of arch-Islamophobe Daniel Pipes. In

He wants the utter military obliteration of the Palestinians.... Pipes' frequent outbursts of racism -- designed to toss gasoline on the neo-cons' lust for a wholesale conflict of cultures -- earned him a Bush nomination to the U.S. Institute of Peace, a congressionally funded think tank. Rose came to America to commune with Pipes in 2004, and it was after that meeting the cartoon gambit materialized.

AN enraged mob of Nigerian Christian youths has slaughtered dozens of Muslims in two days of rioting in the southern city of Onitsha.