Muslim thugs burn embassies in Syria

[Kid Gleason]

I'm just glad these crazy kids over there never opened an issue of Mad Magazine!

 

We need some Tex Avery right now.

 

[BigSqwert]

Everytime I check the news this story seems to be getting worse and worse. WTF people! It's just a cartoon.

[southsider2k5]

You just said "so much for a 'religion of peace.'" Does that mean every time Pat Robertson calls for the assasination of a foreign leader, we can rightly say the same about Christianity?

 

 

Christian thugs blow up abortion clinics, shoot doctors, and kill homosexuals. So much for a "Religon of Peace"

 

Except I don't believe it, of course.  They may be thugs alright, but theor acts are far from Christian.

 

Now you can go back to painting the world with that wide-ass brush you like to use.

 

 

And bombing abortion clinics, shooting doctors, taking photos of people and plates of cars that go into clinics and publishing them, etc.

 

Mmmmm... I think he is drawing the comparison that we've got plenty of ready to be violent religious fundies in our own country that it makes no sense to denigrate one group while avoiding others.

 

 

Its funny, but everytime anything republician gets defended by something a democrat did in office prior we get ripped on for changing the subject and/or arguement. But everytime Islamic terrorism gets brought up, it gets explained away or the subject gets changed to Christian fundimentalism every single time. I guess this is either the "they all do it"ing of religious arguements, isn't it? Funny how that works.

[southsider2k5]

Everytime I check the news this story seems to be getting worse and worse.  WTF people!  It's just a cartoon.

 

The problem is that isn't nearly as simplistic as you make it out to be. ANY dipicition of the Prophet is forbidden by Islam, as they forbid any idolitry, and they feel that to prevent this, you have to prevent his image from being shown. And on top it, some of the cartoons were as insulting as any of the worst sterotypes that you can image for any ethic group. Think of the caractures of the slanty eyed Asian, the gangster Italian, the Tonto Indian, the black charactures during the 19th century, etc.

 

It isn't as simple as being JUST a cartoon. This is a combination of two mortal sins of idolitry and blasphemy.

[Flash Tizzle]

Here's what I've been hoping for--atleast SOME proof Muslims condone these actions.

 

http://www.sorrynorwaydenmark.com/

[juddling]

check this out

 

 

 

take this for what it's worth......

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[BigSqwert]

The problem is that isn't nearly as simplistic as you make it out to be.  ANY dipicition of the Prophet is forbidden by Islam, as they forbid any idolitry, and they feel that to prevent this, you have to prevent his image from being shown.  And on top it, some of the cartoons were as insulting as any of the worst sterotypes that you can image for any ethic group.  Think of the caractures of the slanty eyed Asian, the gangster Italian, the Tonto Indian, the black charactures during the 19th century, etc. 

 

It isn't as simple as being JUST a cartoon.  This is a combination of two mortal sins of idolitry and blasphemy.

 

As a Catholic I was taught not to steal. So if a muslim steals I have a right to burn down the Saudi Embassy in Washington because they did something that my religion doesn't stand for? I know this is a stupid example but what I'm saying here is if Muslims aren't allowed to depict the Prophet that's cool but how do they have the right to perform terror because someone or some entity depicted the Prophet. The Danish newspaper doesn't need to adhere to Islamic rules and regulations.

[FlaSoxxJim]

Its funny, but everytime anything republician gets defended by something a democrat did in office prior we get ripped on for changing the subject and/or arguement.  But everytime Islamic terrorism gets brought up, it gets explained away or the subject gets changed to Christian fundimentalism every single time.  I guess this is either the "they all do it"ing of religious arguements, isn't it?  Funny how that works.

 

I follow the line of reasoning you are attempting, but your comparisons are not truly analogous. NOBODY you quoted, Rex or LCR or myself is defending the extremists' acts of violence. What was pointed out in all those posts was that the refutation of Islam as being a religion of peace because of the reprehensible acts of a minority is hypocritical unless you also refute that Christianity is peaceful because of the reprehensible acts of a minority in that instance as well.

[Rex Kickass]

I didn't realize saying that painting with a broad brush is the same as "they all do it." I thought that it was quite the opposite. If that's the case, guess I'm guilty.

[mr_genius]

The problem is that isn't nearly as simplistic as you make it out to be.  ANY dipicition of the Prophet is forbidden by Islam, as they forbid any idolitry, and they feel that to prevent this, you have to prevent his image from being shown.  And on top it, some of the cartoons were as insulting as any of the worst sterotypes that you can image for any ethic group.  Think of the caractures of the slanty eyed Asian, the gangster Italian, the Tonto Indian, the black charactures during the 19th century, etc. 

 

It isn't as simple as being JUST a cartoon.  This is a combination of two mortal sins of idolitry and blasphemy.

 

 

I hope you aren't supporting their actions.

 

If you are, would you support Catholics attempting to burn down New York if an art dislpay decided to, oh I don't know, put a cross in a bucket of urine? There is a big difference between having a peaceful protest of something you disagree with rather than using violence to force your will on others.

 

I really don't care if these cartoons offend people, I fully support the freedom of press and speech even if it offends people. If a newspaper or magazine prints material you find offensive I suggest you do not purchase or support them in any way.

[YASNY]

I follow the line of reasoning you are attempting, but your comparisons are not truly analogous.  NOBODY you quoted, Rex or LCR or myself is defending the extremists' acts of violence.  What was pointed out in all those posts was that the refutation of Islam as being a religion of peace because of the reprehensible acts of a minority is hypocritical unless you also refute that Christianity is peaceful because of the reprehensible acts of a minority in that instance as well.

 

Sure, the specifics are different. As they are when the actions of a previous administration is pointed out. He's saying the same approached that is being used in his examples. Which was not kosher before, but seems to be now.

[LowerCaseRepublican]

And in the "Everybody Knew This Was Coming" department of today's news:

 

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/02/07/...n.ap/index.html

 

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- A prominent Iranian newspaper says it is going to hold a competition for cartoons on the Holocaust to test whether the West will apply the principle of freedom of expression to the Nazi genocide against Jews as it did to the caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed.

[YASNY]

And in the "Everybody Knew This Was Coming" department of today's news:

 

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/02/07/...n.ap/index.html

 

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- A prominent Iranian newspaper says it is going to hold a competition for cartoons on the Holocaust to test whether the West will apply the principle of freedom of expression to the Nazi genocide against Jews as it did to the caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed.

 

Maybe we have something here. Send all military and militants home and let the cartoonists battle it out.

[southsider2k5]

A better written article on why the outrage...

 

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationw...ll=chi-news-hed

 

Why cartoons sparked furor

Islamic tradition and freedom of press clash over artists' depictions of Prophet Muhammad

 

By Margaret Ramirez and Manya A. Brachear, Tribune staff reporters. Tribune news services contributed to this report

Published February 7, 2006

 

 

The violent and now deadly protests rippling through Asia and the Middle East over the publication of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad reflect 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 Bush administration called on Saudi Arabia to work with other Arab nations to calm the violence, which erupted last week after months of simmering tensions between Europe and the Middle East over the cartoons, first published in a Danish newspaper in September.

 

In Tehran, hundreds of Iranians hurled stones and firebombs at the Danish Embassy and pelted the Austrian Embassy with rocks. Those protests followed weekend violence in Beirut and Damascus, Syria.

 

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. Many Muslims have expressed dismay over the violence, however.

 

"Exercising your speech this way in a violent manner is not helping anyone," Haq said. "It is also not prudent to express anger in this way."

 

Activists agree.

 

"When the press decided to make a big deal of it, some people in the Muslim world did something that the Prophet would not be proud of," said Abdul Malik Mujahid, chairman of the Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago. "I'm not proud of it."

 

Much of the anger stems from a feeling among Muslims that their religion is under attack by the Western world, said John Woods, Islamic history professor at the University of Chicago.

 

"It's not only that the Prophet is shown, but it's how he's shown," Woods said. "He's shown as a terrorist and there is the insinuation that this is the religion of terrorists. Ten years ago, this might have caused a minor stir. But, in the aftermath of 9/11, Iraq and the Mideast conflict, this came too close for comfort."

 

U.S. reaction tempered

 

While the cartoon has sparked violence overseas, the reaction in the U.S. has been tempered.

 

Ahmed Rehab, director of communications for the Chicago chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said he is working to organize a town hall meeting of Muslim leaders to discuss the caricatures and how they could be used to educate the public.

 

Mujahid said the group is calling on 89 mosques in the Chicago area to focus Friday sermons on respect for others and how to conquer the fear of Islam.

 

"These cartoons are part and parcel of Islamophobia," Mujahid said. "On both sides of the Atlantic we find that problem. I think Islamophobia is just as harmful to society in general as anti-Semitism."

 

The cartoons were published in late September by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten as part of an examination of whether the media were being too careful in covering Islam. The paper's editor in chief has said he would have not published the cartoons had he known what would follow.

 

At first the protests were peaceful. Diplomats from Muslim countries demanded meetings with the Danish prime minister and were rebuffed, as was a group of Danish Muslims who filed a criminal complaint against the newspaper.

 

The Danish Muslims then sought the support of Arab leaders in the Middle East. By the end of January, Saudi Arabia and Libya had recalled their ambassadors from Copenhagen, and many Arabs began to boycott Danish products.

 

Publications across Europe reprinted at least some of the cartoons beginning in January, partly in a show of solidarity for media freedom. Most major U.S. newspapers, including the Chicago Tribune, have not published the cartoons. The Philadelphia Inquirer ran one cartoon in Saturday's editions and was picketed by about two dozen protesters Monday.

 

The Tribune chose not to publish the cartoons because editors decided the images inaccurately depicted Islam as a violent religion, and that it was not necessary to print the cartoons in order to explain them to readers.

 

One of the two most controversial cartoons depicts Muhammad wearing a bomb with a lighted fuse as a turban. The other shows the Prophet turning suicide bombers away from paradise because, he says, heaven has run out of virgins to be given to martyrs.

 

On Jan. 30, as protests began to spread, Jyllands-Posten apologized for offending Muslims but not for publishing the cartoons, saying the newspaper was within its rights under Denmark's laws. The next day, an Internet statement attributed to Iraq insurgents called for attacks in Denmark and Norway, and the paper received a bomb threat.

 

Danish officials try diplomacy

 

Since then, Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen and Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller have met with ambassadors and diplomats from more than 70 countries in an attempt to defuse the crisis.

 

On Thursday, protests erupted across the Muslim world, with angry demonstrations reported in the Gaza Strip and Indonesia, among other places. Protesters in Damascus torched the Danish and Norwegian embassies Saturday, and a similar protest Sunday damaged the building housing the Danish Consulate in Beirut.

 

European governments have been measured in their responses, trying to balance their long traditions of media freedom with concerns about spurring more violence. "All freedoms, including the freedom of speech, come with responsibility," said Terry Davis, the head of the Council of Europe, a human-rights advocacy group.

 

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said that a free press must respect religious beliefs, while the French foreign minister said that while media liberty "cannot be questioned," it must be followed "within the spirit of tolerance and the respect of faiths and religions."

 

The Bush administration Friday denounced the cartoons as "offensive" and also criticized European newspapers' decision to respond to the protests by reprinting the images.

 

Scott Alexander, a professor of Islamic studies at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, said the controversy underscores a disconnect between the West and Islam.

 

"Many people in the West have lost a sense of the sacred and, therefore, have lost a sense of sacrilege," Alexander said. "I think there's a real lack of understanding as to how people can be so deeply offended by a cartoon such as this.

 

"In the West we're used to kind of being critical about religions and critical about religious beliefs. It's part of the enlightenment rational heritage. In Muslim culture, there is a very strong sense of the sacred and a strong sense of the sacrilege."

 

----------

 

[email protected]

 

[email protected]

[FlaSoxxJim]

Sure, the specifics are different.  As they are when the actions of a previous administration is pointed out.  He's saying the same approached that is being used in his examples.  Which was not kosher before, but seems to be now.

It's more than specifics. Nobody is trying to defend any of the religious extremists. It's not the equivalent of saying 'this administration can do such and such because the administration before did it." It's the equivalent of saying 'both administrations did such and such and BOTH were wrong for doing it."

 

Not that it much matters. I understand what SS is sayig. And semantics aside, we all realize that Muslim thugs don't undermine the legitimacy of mainstream Islam as a peaceful religion any more than Christian thugs do to Christianity.

[FlaSoxxJim]

A better written article on why the outrage...

 

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationw...ll=chi-news-hed

 

Yep, western idealism over freedom of speech aside, the free media can use some judgement to decide whether they should stir any particular hornets nest just because they have a free press right to.

 

And I don't like the prospect of the media having to make those decisions and I don't condone the violence or think that it is in any way reasonable that Muslim prohibitions against depicting the Prophet should translate into such a firestorm of outrage when non-Muslims make such depictions.

 

If the cartoons were published in a Muslim newspaper or something like that with the explicit intent to be perceived as a blasphemy, then I might feel a little different – again, mostly because there hornet's nests thast shouldn't be stirred just for the sake of doing so.

 

I agree somewhat with Rex' assertion earlier in the thread that the 4 month delay between initial publication and the current global outrage suggests the crisis is intentionally manufactured. Whether it's primarily to divert attention from the Hajj deaths (how the heck can hundreds of people a year continue to die in pilgrim stampedes like that?), or whether fundamentalist anger is being fannned for some other purpose I don't really know.

[southsider2k5]

Also for those who have not seen the comics, the great majority are not really "offensive" in a laymans sort of way. Only a couple are really outrageous. They are really hard to find on-line, but here is someone who has them up.

 

http://sabbah.biz/mt/archives/2006/01/11/freedom-of-racism/

[southsider2k5]

A Russian mueseum is going to exhibit these cartoons.

 

http://upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=...07-072431-9805r

[Flash Tizzle]

And in the "Everybody Knew This Was Coming" department of today's news:

 

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/02/07/...n.ap/index.html

 

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- A prominent Iranian newspaper says it is going to hold a competition for cartoons on the Holocaust to test whether the West will apply the principle of freedom of expression to the Nazi genocide against Jews as it did to the caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed.

 

There could have been more sufficient selections to truly test our principles relating to freedom of expression. Insulting the Jews, who've already been the blunt of every joke for the last 60 years, won't amount to much. If they created cartoons about Christianity or 9/11, then there might have been an interesting dilemma. But I'm sure the Iranians know inciting the American public and the government won't help their nuclear ambitions.

 

BTW, thanks for the links yesterday.

[southsider2k5]

There could have been more sufficient selections to truly test our principles relating to freedom of expression. Insulting the Jews, who've already been the blunt of every joke for the last 60 years, won't amount to much. If they created cartoons about Christianity or 9/11, then there might have been an interesting dilemma. But I'm sure the Iranians know inciting the American public and the government won't help their nuclear ambitions.

 

BTW, thanks for the links yesterday. 

 

Our own media and entertainment people make fun of these groups everyday... We call it comedy. No one really cares in the US.

[bmags]

i don't think people understand the context in denmark...journalists and newspapers are being threatened if they report on anything that would put islam in a negative light (i.e. reporting on terrorist acts in denmark), and this was their reaction to that. I stand by them, their freedoms were being curbed by a bunch of thugs so they gave a big "f*** you" and are standing by it.

[southsideirish71]

So let me get this straight, if you make a cartoon of Mohammed you offend all Muslims and you need to die now.

 

But If you rip down some buddahs who are a representation of someones faith you are okay in the Muslim world.

 

Taliban housecleaning

 

Now if you print or show those evil anti-islam cartoons you need to get your embassy sacked, your trade interrupted, and your lives threatened.

 

But if you spit on the bible, then trample it, destroy a catholic church, hold a few people at gunpoint, thats ok.

 

f***ing Hypocrites

 

Cartoon victims spit on the Bible

 

I would say that destroying a church and terrorizing the christians is a far worse thing that a f***ing cartoon. But then again, its their self centered islam only world that doesnt allow for other religions. If you depict christ in a cartoon, I may think its tasteless, however thats up to you.

Where can I get a Pakistani flag and a box of matches again.

Edited February 7, 2006 by southsideirish71

[NUKE_CLEVELAND]

Where can I get a Pakistani flag and a box of matches again. 

 

 

First of all, why is that in green?

 

 

Second. Why don't we get a Koran and take a crap on it then leave it outside a mosque. That'll raise some pulses huh?

 

 

LOL!

[bmags]

First of all,  why is that in green?

Second.  Why don't we get a Koran and take a crap on it then leave it outside a mosque.  That'll raise some pulses huh?

LOL!

 

more like noses.

[Rex Kickass]

First of all,  why is that in green?

Second.  Why don't we get a Koran and take a crap on it then leave it outside a mosque.  That'll raise some pulses huh?

LOL!

Way to keep yourself above the fray!