Of Mohammed Cartoons and Moslem Carnage

Apparently, while I was incommunicado this past weekend in an obscure and isolated Oklahoma state park, the story of the reaction by the Islamic global community to a dozen generally-inoffensive cartoon representations of the supposed prophet Mohammed exploded. As I’m still trying to play catch up, here’s a link dump on the brouhaha.

How cartoons sparked violence

The violent and now deadly protests rippling through Asia and the Middle East over the publication of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad reflects a larger schism and lack of understanding between traditional Western cultures and Islam, experts said Monday.

In the secular world, the debate is about freedom of the press, but to Muslims worldwide, the images are offensive not only because they depict Muhammad as a promoter of terrorism but also because their very existence violates the Islamic tradition forbidding visual depictions of the Prophet.

As European diplomats urged calm and restraint, the violence that already led to the burning of Danish and Norwegian embassies over the weekend turned fatal Monday. Afghan troops killed four protesters, including two outside the U.S. military base near Bagram, and a teenage boy was trampled in Somalia.

[…]

The anger, according to experts, stems from long-held and deep beliefs. The Koran, Islam’s sacred book, does not contain an explicit ban on images of Allah or Muhammad. But visual depictions of Muhammad or other prophets such as Moses or Abraham are traditionally eschewed in order to discourage idolatry, or worship of an object as a god.

“It’s very offensive on many levels and for many reasons, but mainly because it’s an attack on the sense of what is most sacred and which cannot be ridiculed,” said Inamul Haq, adjunct professor of Islam at Benedictine University in Lisle.

That the cartoons also portray the prophet as a terrorist only increases that anger, the experts said.

Unfortunately, such portrayals would seem to be an accurate reflection, according to the objective history I’ve read of the man.

Cleric calls on Mohammed cartoonist to be executed

Omar Bakri Mohammed, the radical Muslim cleric, has said the cartoonist behind caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed that have sparked outrage across the Arab world should be tried and executed under Islamic law.

The cleric said the cartoonist had insulted Islam and must pay the price, as three people were killed during protests against the cartoons in Afghanistan.

“The insult has been established now by everybody, Muslim and non-Muslim, and everybody condemns the cartoonist and condemns the cartoon,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

“However, in Islam, God said, and the messenger Mohammed said, whoever insults a prophet, he must be punished and executed.

“This man should be put on trial and if it is proven to be executed.”

The cleric said Muslims in Britain were not allowed to kill people who insulted Islam because it was against the law of the country.

“We are not saying ourselves to go there and start to look to him and kill him, we are not talking about that. We are talking about Islamic rules. If anybody insults the prophet, he will have to take a punishment.”

He said if countries refused to put people on trial for insulting Mohammed they must “face the consequences”.

Sounds rather blackmailish and unpeaceful to me. Yeah, the guy seems like a worthy student of Mohammed (hat tip LGF).

No let-up in sight for cartoon fury

After a weekend that saw Denmark’s embassies torched in Lebanon and Syria, fury over the images continued to spread with protests held across Afghanistan as well as in Indian-held Kashmir, Indonesia, Lebanon, Iran and Thailand.

French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy called for calm as the Arab world seethes over the cartoons which first appeared in a Danish daily and have been reprinted by several publications in Europe, Australia and Malaysia.

“Let us calm things down. We have had enough hate and intolerance,” he said on French radio. “There is not a religion in the world that condones killing, or the burning of flags.” [Editor’s note: well, there does appear to be one on the killing thing, though I’m not certain of any mention of flag-burning in the Koran]

[…]

In Kabul about 300 people marched on Denmark’s embassy, where they torched a Danish flag and threw stones at the embassy, shouting “Death to Denmark, death to Norway, death to America, death to Bush.” [Editor’s note: Death to Bush? Did some of his doodles get published?]

Around 1,000 protestors also gathered in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif and burnt the flags of France, Denmark and Norway. Hundreds protested in Kandahar, while more than 5,000 marched in Parwan province near Kabul.

In Lebanon, one person died and almost 50 people were wounded during rioting in the capital Beirut which saw the Danish consulate set ablaze, police said yesterday.

[…]

In Indonesia’s second-largest city of Surabaya, police fired warning shots outside the US consulate to disperse 200 protesters from the hardline Front of the Defenders of Islam, who earlier smashed windows at the Danish consulate.

[…]

In the Indonesian capital Jakarta, hundreds of people demonstrated outside the Danish embassy, which was closed, calling for an apology from the Danish government over the offending images.

Widespread. Radical. Islam. Oh yeah, it’s a threat, folks.

Danish lawyer shot as fury of Muslims sweeps world

A Danish lawyer was shot and several Muslim demonstrators died as protests against the publication of cartoons showing the Prophet Muhammad continued around the world yesterday.

The lawyer was wounded in an incident in a Moscow cafe by a man from the Muslim Caucasus region of southern Russia.

Meanwhile, the prime minister of Chechnya announced that Danish humanitarian organisations would be expelled. [Editor’s note: way to shoot yourself in your foot, idiot]

Danish troops also came under fire in southern Iraq. Shots were fired at a patrol as it helped children who had been hit by a car near Qurnah. None of the soldiers was injured. [Editor’s note: way to shoot your children in their feet, idiots]

The worst trouble yesterday came in Afghanistan, where hundreds of demonstrators clashed with police and soldiers. Four people were killed and at least 19 wounded, officials said.

The worst violence was outside Bagram, the main US base in Afghanistan, although the US has not been involved in the controversy over the publication of the cartoons. Afghan police fired on some 2,000 protesters as they tried to break into the heavily guarded facility.

Kabir Ahmed, the local government chief, said two of the demonstrators were killed and five wounded, while eight police were hurt. The protesters threw stones at the base and smashed a guard post.

Some of those in the crowd then shot at the base with assault rifles, prompting the police to return fire, he said. [Editor’s note: way to shoot at people who can shoot you in your foot and elsewhere, idiots]

[…]

Iran said it was cutting all trade ties with Denmark.

Danish flags, however, remain in demand. An enterprising shopkeeper in Gaza, Ahmed Abu Dayya, said he had ordered 100 Danish and Norwegian flags when he heard that the cartoons were being reprinted.

“I knew there would be a demand for the flags because of the angry reaction of people over the offence to the Prophet Muhammad,” he said.

Angry Muslims have been setting the flags ablaze or tearing them to pieces

I left the last in as an investment tip — flags are a good investment in Islamic lands, as they seem to be lit as often as cigarettes. Inventory management would be difficult, though; obviously a huge chunk would have to be devoted to the U.S. and Israel, but trying to predict the enemy o’ the day for the always-victimized ain’t easy. Trust me, there was some planning behind coming up with all of these Danish flags to torch.

Iranian paper launches Holocaust cartoon competition

Iran’s biggest-selling newspaper has waded into the Muhammad controversy by launching a competition to find the 12 “best” cartoons about the Holocaust.

Farid Mortazavi, graphics editor for Tehran’s Hamshahri newspaper, said that the deliberately inflammatory contest would test out how committed Europeans were to the concept 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.

Karen Pollock, chief executive of the Holocaust Educational Trust, said that victims of the Holocaust and their families were growing used to insults from Iran. “It’s just very sad,” she told Times Online.

Iran’s regime is supportive of Holocaust revisionist historians, who maintain that the slaughter of Europe’s Jews during the Second World War was invented or exaggerated to justify the creation of Israel on Palestinian territory.

As usual for the Moslems, it’s got to be the Jews. Hat tip to John Little at Blogs of War, who points out that, while trying to shift blame and anguish down the Jewish route, the Islamists miss the mark.

And finally, there’s the usually remarkably-astute Victor Davis Hanson:

A European Awakening Against Islamic Fascism?

Over the last four years Americans have played a sort of parlor game wondering when—or if—the Europeans might awake to the danger of Islamic fascism and choose a more muscular role in the war on terrorism.

But after the acrimony over the invasion of Iraq, Abu Ghraib, and Guantanamo, pessimists scoffed that the Atlantic alliance was essentially over. Only the postmortem was in dispute: did the bad chemistry between the Texan George Bush and the Green European leadership who came of age in the street theater of 1968 explain the falling out?

Or was the return of the old anti-Americanism natural after the end of the Cold War—once American forces were no longer needed for the security of Europe?

Or again, was Europe’s third way a realistic consideration of its own unassimilated and growing Muslim population, at a time of creeping pacifism, and radically scaled down defense budgets after the fall of the Berlin Wall?

Yet suddenly in 2006, the Europeans seem to have collectively resuscitated. The Madrid bombings, the murder of Theo van Gogh, the London subway attacks, and the French rioting in October and November seem to have prompted at least some Europeans at last to question their once hallowed sense of multiculturalism in which Muslim minorities were not asked to assimilate at home and Islamic terrorists abroad were seen as mere militants or extremists rather than enemies bent on destroying the West.

Please go read it in its entirety, as it is rare I find myself so often in disagreement with the man. His whole piece strikes me as too optimistic, supported by bits and pieces scattered over several years in a hope of showing a European strengthening only anecdotally supported. Hanson does, towards the end, seem to recognize the difficulties I have with his point.

So is Europe now finally at the front or will they retreat Madrid-like in the face of the inevitable second round of terrorist bombings and threats to come?

Americans are not confident, but we should remember at least one simple fact: Europe is the embryo of the entire Western military tradition. The new European Union encompasses a population greater than the United States and spans a continent larger than our own territory. It has a greater gross domestic product than that of America and could, in theory, field military forces as disciplined and as well equipped as our own.

It is not the capability but the will power of the Europeans that has been missing in this war so far.

Yes, overwhelmingly, I still question whether that will power is present, and even if it can be resurrected before it is too late for the continent.