Bloggers On The Cartoons

She reopened the subject, and I'm going to take advantage of it. First off, I'd like to point to Hugh Hewitt this morning. He wants bloggers to answer two simple questions.

"Are we at war with Islam? Do you want a war with Islam?"

The obvious answer to both is "no." I stated a few days ago that I slammed the Hell out of Tom Tancredo for his "let's bomb Mecca" comments. Of course I don't believe we're at war with ALL if Islam, and no, we don't want one. Here's a couple of questions I have in return for Hugh.

Do the Muslims realize they are doing nothing to help their image? Would they like to see a reprisal from the world, as a whole. After all, the deliberate attack of an embassy can be construed as an act of war, regardless of who is at fault.

But, I'd like to pass along some wisdom from within the blogosphere about this. This is from Brit Hume yesterday:

What is striking about this is what offends these Muslims who are protesting and these imams. Does the slaughter of innocent people in many parts of the world in the name of Allah offend them? Is that a sacrilege worthy of protest? No, not in the least. No, cartoons published five months ago in a -what- for people who live in Gaza and Damascus is an unknown and unheard-of newspaper--that's what's offending them. Not to mention, of course, the kinds of slurs against Christians and against the Jewish faith that are regularly spread abroad in the Arab world by the mass media and by these imams.

This is really a disgrace. And it is a disgrace not least because of the obvious, howling double standard involved here. The really great sins are ignored. And this trivia is protested.

There is this from Thomas Lifson from The American Thinker.

The cartoon crisis which has left embassies ablaze and sparked riots from Beirut to Bangkok and Jarkarta was a set-up job, planned and executed by a group of Muslim leaders from Denmark in concert with leading lights of the Islamic world. The conspirators used supremely inflammatory phony cartoons never published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands Posten to gin up a campaign of violence and intimidation against Denmark, the EU, and the West. ...

It is quite understandable that caring, sensitive Westerners seek to avoid offending the religious sensibilities of any serious believers, Muslims included. Such empathy is normally a highly commendable impulse.

But acceding to the demand that those most willing to use violence be allowed to control the discussion and stifle debate, among infidels and Muslims alike, is a betrayal of not only the moderate Muslims, but of all those who hope someday to live in peace with an Islam that grants legitimacy to religious dissent and to the claims of other faiths.


These cartoonists--these Muslim leaders--did this to incite the Muslim street. This tells me something very important, and may have been overlooked by the casual observers. For months we have heard of couriers intercepted by US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan referring to a lack of recruits for al Qaeda in both places. People don't want to join. This debacle makes me wonder if this was done in an attempt to send more people running to the jihadists because we, "the infidels," are beating them so badly on the battlefield. That, however, is a hypothesis for another time and place. However, it does seem to fit the scenario. After all, Syria ginned up it's population to the point where they torched embassies, but the Syrian government did that to take the heat off the Hariri investigation going on.

Ibn Warraq has a great piece that includes this below. Ibn is a Muslim dissident who gets the primary argument being made by our side.

The great British philosopher John Stuart Mill wrote in On Liberty, "Strange it is, that men should admit the validity of the arguments for free discussion, but object to their being 'pushed to an extreme'; not seeing that unless the reasons are good for an extreme case, they are not good for any case."

The cartoons in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten raise the most important question of our times: freedom of expression. Are we in the west going to cave into pressure from societies with a medieval mindset, or are we going to defend our most precious freedom -- freedom of expression, a freedom for which thousands of people sacrificed their lives?

A democracy cannot survive long without freedom of expression, the freedom to argue, to dissent, even to insult and offend. It is a freedom sorely lacking in the Islamic world, and without it Islam will remain unassailed in its dogmatic, fanatical, medieval fortress; ossified, totalitarian and intolerant. Without this fundamental freedom, Islam will continue to stifle thought, human rights, individuality; originality and truth.

Unless, we show some solidarity, unashamed, noisy, public solidarity with the Danish cartoonists, then the forces that are trying to impose on the Free West a totalitarian ideology will have won; the Islamization of Europe will have begun in earnest. Do not apologize.

Mark Steyn wrote an article that Marcie and I thoroughly disseminated not too long ago, talking about the plight of Europe. The rise of Muslim influence had taken a sharp turn upwards in recent years, and there were problems starting to show, including the French riots, and the murder of Theo Van Gogh. Do we want a war with Islam? No, we don't, but Islam may force that onto us. We can't just look away from what is happneing abroad. And the Islamic world can't just turn a blind eye to itself any longer.

They ventured out into the rest of the world from their homes int he Middle East and Asia. They knew going out into the world that was modern was going to test their faiths. It isn't easy staying on the straight and narrow path. We all try to stay on the path, and occasionally, we screw up. Muslims look at this world--this world of the infidel--and condemn us. Take a look at their reaction to the rioting in France.

It was justified because of the youths that were killed (never mind that they were running from the police), and because they decided they couldn't live within a westernized society, they now want the southern part of France to live--under Sharia law--and to protect their culture. Unfortunately for the Muslims, that isn't how it happens. When you move to a new country where the majority doesn't share your beliefs, culture, or ideas, you adapt. you don't demand that country cater to you. You're in the minority.

This is simply another symptom in an ever-growing problem. It's not "our" problem. It's theirs. It's theirs because they are the ones demanding capitulation from governments, execute violent protests when they don't get their way, and they refuse to condemn the jihadists. These are just a couple of the things wrong with their "world image." They claim that these cartoons were disparaging. Yes, they were. No more disparaging, however, than those they make to slam Christians and Jews. And I'd like to remind those that are condemning the cartoonists that we never receive an apology from those that slander us.

Further, it would normally be the stance of those moderate voices offended by the cartoons to write the cartoonists off as "nutters." But not his time, which to me is a level of hypocrisy itself. When I first saw the cartoons, I didn't think much of it. I knew there might be some backlash, but not to the extremes that we have witnessed. The Muslims blowing their lids right now reminds me of the friend we all have that will lose his/her temper at the drop of a hat, and stew over the slight they endured for hours, and even days.

Should this violence spread to Europe, the uproar will be met by force. There are already a couple incidents in Europe where Muslim protesters were broken up, and even a few of them were arrested. But should this escalate over there, from simple protests to violent demonstrations, we will witness a crack-down that we've yet to see. And it will not be pretty. Marcie was right: Before this is over, it will get worse.

CAIR, who is not a favorite group of mine, has actually done just that. The following comes from their website:

On Sunday, February 5, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) will hold a news conference in Washington, D.C., to express the U.S. Muslim community's rejection of violence in response to the defamatory caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad published in European newspapers.

There we go. This is the FIRST condemnation by any Muslim group that I have heard of in relation to this controversy. This is a good sign. More voices need to be heard, though. More moderates in the nations affected need to step up and tell those expressing their offense violently to stop their actions. The cartoonists need to apologize, and come clean; admitting that they did this on purpose to stir the pot, so to speak. Until something is done, this is going to continue to fester, and more people will be hurt,a nd more buildings will burn.

Publius II

ADDENDUM:

Somehow we missed this, and I didn't pick up on it until I went to read Mr. Lifson's column. Gateway Pundit did this post which blew the lid off of the fiasco from the beginning. Simply put, this was a case of Danish Muslims purposefully inciting Muslims. I will note that had we caught this, while informative, it would not change the stance we have taken. Regardless of the slight, there is no reason for the Muslims to be rioting. This also further illustrates how easily manipulated the Muslim street is, and how desperate their people are, at times.

Now, this added to the twelve Danish cartoonists gaffe is all it took to incite the Muslim populations of several countries. It should be noted that Turkey's Muslims aren't reacting like the others. They are protesting peacefully, and not calling for an escalation of the jihad over this. They're just not happy with it. And I can't blame them, but at least they are sending the common-sense, head-still-attached-to-the-shoulders mentality. "I don't like it so I'm going to protest." Good for them; the radicals in the Middle East could a take a cue or two from them.

And, I sit corrected. While perusing the blogs today, I came across this from Pajamas Media. The piece is written by Don Singleton, and he cites this story snippet from Times Online.

BRITAIN’s leading Islamic body yesterday called on Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan police commissioner, to press charges against the extremists behind last week’s inflammatory protests in London over the “blasphemous” cartoons of the prophet Muhammad.

That isn't all of the MCB's statements. There are more below from the same article.

In London, Inayat Bunglawala of the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) said the extremists should be prosecuted. “The Metropolitan police should now consider all the evidence they have gathered from the protests to see if they can prosecute the extremists,” he said.

“It is time the police acted, but in a way so as not to make them martyrs of the Prophet’s cause, which is what they want, but as criminals. Ordinary Muslims are fed up with them.”

The council, a moderate umbrella group, was speaking after the demonstration last Friday in which some protesters chanted the name of Osama Bin Laden and “You must pay, 7/7 is on its way” — a reference to the London suicide bombings.

Five hundred demonstrators brandished placards, including ones proclaiming “Behead the one who insults the Prophet”, “Down, down UK” and “Freedom go to hell”.

Bunglawala said: “Lots of innocent Muslims went to the demonstration not realising that it was organised by extremists. They were hijacked by them.”

Sir Iqbal Sacranie, the council’s secretary-general, said: “We cannot have double standards, so therefore any breach of the law should be looked at by the police and investigated.

“The cartoons have offended every Muslim and the anger of Muslims has to be lawfully expressed. However, this outrage was used by some to induce Muslims into taking part in terrorist violence. We condemn their actions.”

This is what we have been waiting for. The moderate Muslims are beginning to condemn this. This is what they need right now to repair any sort of damage the extremists did. Granted, the "compensation" for the loss of life (now standing at five confirmed) and the loss of the embassies (now standing at three burned to the ground) is something that will have to be hammered out by others. But, if the moderates can get a grip on this, and tone down the rhetoric, the violence, and the calls for the heads of infidels, we might get past this week with little violence left in the protests.

Of course, I'm not holding my breath. I'm an optimist with a real-world view. We're just biding our time until the next thing sets the radicals off.