Freedom of the press
by The Panda Man · 02/03/2006 10:50 amHere in the United States it is perfectly acceptable for media to offend Christians on a regular basis with things like Kanye West dolled up as Christ, but other religions are definitely “hands off.” Surprisingly, European newspapers have run caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad which have touched off demonstrations in the Middle East.
The caricatures, including one depicting the Muslim prophet wearing a turban fashioned into a bomb, were reprinted in papers in Norwegian, French, German and even Jordanian after first appearing in a Danish paper in September. The drawings were republished after Muslims decried the images as insulting to their prophet. Dutch-language newspapers in Belgium and two Italian right-wing papers reprinted the drawings Friday.
The response from Palestinian quarters has naturally not been peaceful.
"Whoever defames our prophet should be executed," said Ismail Hassan, 37, a tailor who marched through the pouring rain along with hundreds of others in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
"Bin Laden our beloved, Denmark must be blown up," protesters in Ramallah chanted.
"If they want a war of religions, we are ready," Hassan Sharaf, an imam in Nablus, said in his sermon.
"We are ready to redeem you with our souls and our blood our beloved prophet," they chanted. "Down, Down Denmark."
Hard to understand why Israel has such a hard time getting along with the Palestinians, isn’t it? Demonstrations also took place in Iraq, but they were far less vitriolic.
In Iraq, the country’s top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al- Sistani, decried the drawings but did not call for protests. Al-Sistani, who wields enormous influence over Iraq’s majority Shiites, made no call for protests and suggested that militant Muslims were partly to blame for distorting Islam’s image. He referred to "misguided and oppressive" segments of the Muslim community and said their actions "projected a distorted and dark image of the faith of justice, love and brotherhood." "Enemies have exploited this … to spread their poison and revive their old hatreds with new methods and mechanisms," he said.
Who would have thought Europeans would ever be less politically correct than their American brethren on any issue?
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Wow. France threatening nuclear strikes against terrorist nations that hit France, harsh rhetoric against radical Islam appearing in Danish, French, German, Jordanian and Norwegian papers.
All the while, the liberals in the US (and even some self-proclaimed conservatives) are saying that we should just ‘live and let suicide bomb’ and the Bad People will be nice to us and leave us alone.
Funny how that works. We’ve become complacent too quickly in America…
It is amazing how political correctness, or lack of it, shifts positions in the media around the world.
Usually the good old USA is the “Great Satan,” and is charged with being responsible for ALL of the worlds ills, now the Dutch are going to take the hit !
Check the news on TV, Muslims worldwide are upset over a cartoon, but the three little Christian girls who were beheaded in Indonesia, just for being Christian, where is the outrage from the peace loving Muslims around the world ?
Bottom line, we are now in a global war against terrorism that is being conducted under the guise of a religion that tolerates NO OTHER RELIGIONS, that means all of you infidels !
You CAN NOT count on the liberal media, the DNC, the ACLU, George Soros, Cindy Sheehan-Chavez, MoveOn.Org to fight the current global battle.
Vote carefully in 06 & 08 !!!!!
Doc you touched on what I think is the most important point of this story. Muslims are outraged to an incredible level over a cartoon. But, they don’t make a peep when it comes to kidnapping and murder.
But Islam is a peaceful religion!
Umm… hello? Ya’ think? It’s funny how thousands marching over a cartoon versus nary a peep over beheaded young girls can tend to “distort” Islam’s image. BTW, #’s 1, 2, and 3 above: all spot on.
It’s no worse than the ADL getting all worked up every time someone criticizes Israel or the Jewish.
I’m not anti-Semitic, but let’s be fair. Heck, they just put a guy away in Austria for denying the Holocaust took place.
The problem is that Christians are not vocal enough like the Jews and Muslims. Defend and advocate your faith as loudly and clearly as possible.
You wonder why God is getting His butt kicked out of everything in our country. I believe He’s leaving the fight to us, and we’re wussing out and losing the war.
It’s time for all Believers to make our voices heard! (www.ingodwestilltrust.com)
When the children are brought up around hate & violence and taught that a religion supports it,
how is there hope of having any kind of peace
with them.
Headshaker,
Surely there’s more to the story than that. If a person wants to deny that the Holocaust took place, I suppose it’s their right to believe what they want. When you use your belief to try to incite others into a hate-filled frenzy, that’s altogether a different thing. Got a link for the story?
#6 Smacktle,
That’s a good point, but I do believe there is hope. The hope lies in showing them by example that democracy works for America. It’s not perfect, but it by far provides all of us a better quality of life than would be available in any Islamic society that currently exists. America has many immigrants from Islamic lands, while Islamic societies have virtually no immigrants from non-Islamic societies. That fact alone is very telling.
Dude,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust_denial
“Because of this, Holocaust denial is also illegal in a number of European countries, as their governments hold that it is motivated by an antisemitic and anti-democratic agenda.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Irving
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4449212.stm
I’m impressed (and pleasantly surprised) by the words of al Sistani. Moderation from a Islamic cleric? Maybe there is hope.
“Whoever defames our prophet should be executed,”. They make comments like this as they ignore the fact that a real prophet has already been executed to offer salvation to their sorry asses. Anyone that speews this sort of rhetoric is nothin more than walking excrement.
And now the US State Department is saying “These cartoons are indeed offensive to the belief of Muslims.”
How can we ever expect to counteract this extremist movement if at different points we cower to it?
#5 - Shakey, I’m sure you’re not suggesting we rampage in the streets and issue fatwahs on anyone who denigrates Christianity as the muslim world is doing but you’re exactly right: we need to stand up and defend God! Start by demanding our politicians cut off funding to the NEA. If Kerry, Kennedy and Soros want to fund this crap then let them do it with their (or their rich wife’s) money, not mine. I don’t care if its only a couple hundred million dollars. Not in my name!
#12 - Amen brother! I’m not suggesting we issue fatwahs but damn straight we need to make a ruckus and stop letting the tiny minority push us around and push God out.
Check out that site I posted and listen to the song. Let me know what you think (I have more than a casual interest in it).
When we get wrapped around the axle about a cartoon it is because it offends our sense of proper decorum. The Muslims react out of sense of religous insult that they are willing to go to war for..
You’re right Shakey. Fatwahs won’t defeat these guys. I suggest we use Freedom Fries and beer to convert them!
Headshaker,
From the Wikipedia source you linked:
From you earlier comment:
I must disagree… it’s a lot worse. Squawk stated the reason why very well in #14:
I haven’t seen the ADL react in that manner. The ADL didn’t fly two jets into the WTC on 9/11/01. If Muslims can’t stand the derision, then they as a culture need to wholeheartedly denounce those who perform acts of terrorism in their name. Until then, the world will continue to be derisive towards them. Muslims need to face this fact and deal with it in a constructive rather than destructive manner.
shakes, I like that song!
Hey, I just got the “slow down cowboy” warning for the first time while trying to post this. That’s pretty funny!
#16 Dude - my main point is that Christians need to be more vocal like the Muslims and Jews; we don’t need to fly planes into skyscrapers.
#17 hamous - thanks, I came up with the idea for it (really) and had it produced, then it was played for Diamond Rio and they cut it.
Here’s the only reason the crazy jihadists are upset.
http://www.humaneventsonline.com/images/islm_cartoon_6.jpg
Headshaker, what song?
Hogfan
#20
LOL!
pm - http://www.ingodwestilltrust.com
#18,
I agree on that point (that Christians need to be more vocal like the Muslims and Jews) 100%. The part where you said the Anti-Defamation League getting upset about Holocaust deniers is comparable to Muslims getting upset about an editorial cartoon and marching by the 10’s of thousands and calling for jihad is where you lost me.
Couldn’t find the tune so here’s the lyrics. A song at the top of my list.
Source: http://www.sing365.com
Have You Forgotten?
——Darryl Worley
I hear people saying we don’t need this war
But I say there’s some things worth fighting for
What about our freedom and this piece of ground
We didn’t get to keep ‘em by backin down
They say that we don’t realize the mess we’re gettin in
Before you start your preachin let me ask you this my friend
Have You Forgotten
How it felt that day
To see your homeland under fire and her people blown away
Have you forgotten
When those towers fell, we had neighbors still inside
Going through a living hell
And you say we shouldn’t worry about Bin Laden
Have you forgotten
They took all the footage off my TV
Said it’s too disturbing for you and me
It’ll just breed anger, that’s what the experts say
If it was up to me I’d show it everyday
Some say this country’s just out lookin for a fight
But after 9/11 man I’d have to say that’s right
Have You Forgotten
How it felt that day
To see your homeland under fire and her people blown away
Have you forgotten
When those towers fell, we had neighbors still inside
Going through a living hell
And we vowed to get the ones behind bin Laden
Have you forgotten
I’ve been there with the soldiers
Who’ve gone away to war
And you can bet that they remember, just what they’re fighting for
Have you forgotten
All the people killed
Yeah, some went down like heroes in that Pennsylvania field
Have you forgotten
About our Pentagon
All the loved ones that we lost and those left to carry on
Don’t you tell me not to worry about Bin Laden
Have you forgotten
Have you forgotten
Have you forgotten
23 - Wow, Headshaker, what a great song!
#9 Willie
Imagine if Christian extremists kidnapped four Muslim coeds and beheaded them for being heathens. Do you think that Christians the world over would sit back and say nothing? Of course not!
Unless the majority of Muslims express public outrage over acts of terror committed by Muslim extremists there will be no hope. Until then, there will only be a world full of Muslim hypocrites whose indifference toward terror against Christians will serve as tacit endorsement of Islamic jihad.
As English philosopher Edmund Burke said, ‘The only thing necessary for the triumph [of evil] is for good men to do nothing.
Hogfan, my favorite is Toby Keith’s, called something like An Angry American. I especially like the part where he says:
“We’ll put a boot in your a$$ it’s the American way.!”
The video was absolutely great. He is a great American.
#7 The Dude. . . . I am afraid you are mistaken if you think we can set an example of democracy providing a better quality of life. There is plenty of evidence, if you open your eyes, that our enemy doesn’t care one bit for quality of life, nor for education, nor for anything you and I hold dear. ALL that matters to our enemy is ‘religious purity’! At one time they made great strides in math and astrology (12 - 13th century) but once they knew what direction to face (Mecca) while sticking their butts in the air they stopped producing anything useful. They have since only bought technology and produced suicide bombers. When was the last time a raghead won a Nobel ‘Anything’ Prize? they are only ‘moderate’ in the U.S. because they lack sufficient numbers to force their cult ‘religion’ on the rest of us. That, and the knowledge we will shoot their asses off if they try!
25. Hogfan –
Thanks for the lyrics. It is one of my favorites. Even in reading the words, my eyes well up. I for one, have never forgotte, nor will I ever forget. 9/11 changed me. I may have been in Houston, but on a call with NY as the events were unfolding. Had personal conversations with way too many whose lives were changed forever.
#29 Mountainman,
I must disagree. There are some Muslims who “get it”:
http://www.freemuslims.org
These guys are not like CAIR. Muslims like the Free Muslim Coalition are few in number, but they do exist. On first glance, the outlook for Islamic-Western relations looks pretty depressing. Sometimes you just have to look a little bit harder.
#31 Dude
Yeah, and both of them are doing a great job.
The Dude: I’ll look as far as my front sight. . . .
Hey Dude,they are fooling you. Its like when the big corporations give money to charity. It makes them look good and the TV cameras love them for it. Then they walk away and dump toxic waste in the river.
The 9-11 hijackers ate BB-Q and blended in with their neighbors before they got the signal to fly planes into buildings.
pmartin, thanks for your kind words
Jeremy,
Your Title “Freedom of the Press”. I couldn’t help but wonder, I think we need more Freedom FROM the Press! They are ruining the country, the MSM anyway, not good guys like ya’ll.
Was kind of shocker to see the liberal utopia’s slapping down the muslims!
#32, #33, #34,
If you guys would care to look a little beyond your “front sight” you would realize (with just a bit of deductive reasoning) that if every Muslim in the world was as bent on our destruction as you think they are that we’d already be dead.
Don’t get me wrong here, I’m no apologist for Muslim extremism and neither are the Free Muslim Coalition. I just happen to believe that if any reform is going to happen with Muslims, it will come most effectively from within. That’s not to say that we shouldn’t be actively engaged in the war on terror, but it should come in addition to reform from within the Muslim community, not in lieu of it.
I’m as conservative if not more so than all of you. I just don’t happen to believe that the extermination of all Islamic societies is the answer to the problem. To give in to that kind of hatred would make us no better than the subhuman terrorists we strive to eliminate. It would certainly make us far less than good Christians.
Your religion does not matter if you are dead. . . Anything less than a full frontal assault would be interpreted by ‘them’ as weakness. And it would be!
We do NOT have to kiss their ring! Look at the fruits that islam brings into the world. Every muslim nation in the world right now is either engaged in some kind of war, or revolution, or are killing somebody to get to heaven, or just for sport. They kill EACH OTHER for not being MUSLIM ENOUGH. They would have us either killed or enslaved to their ideology. They are offended or pretend to be for the most insignificant slight. Look at the ferry that sank today….Egypt would not accept help from the US or the Israelis to rescue muslims. They would rather see their own people die than be rescued by infidels. Scrooo them! We need to let ‘em drop and fight them for real! This is a war of ideology that we cannot afford to lose. Playing nice will get us killed. Vlad Tepes knew how to deal with them.
You obviously misunderstand what I’m saying. Full on frontal assault as far as the war on terror goes… yes, absolutely! If I have any reservation at all about what’s been done so far in Iraq and Afghanistan it’s that we’ve been a bit too worried about the PC aspect of it. But that’s not to say we should destroy every Muslim we come across. To do so would make us as bad as the terrorists we are trying to eliminate. You can’t honestly believe that every Muslim in the world will interpret any kindness from you as weakness. “Every” is a very big word.
If any lasting change is to happen, it will come as a result of internal change in the Islamic world. The only other option is genocide. Thankfully we don’t live in a society that advocates such irresponsible action. That doesn’t have anything to do with Christianity in particular or even religion in general. It has everything to do with being decent human beings.
I haven’t seen much change on their part…..
From the BBC:
30 Sept: Danish paper publishes cartoons
20 Oct: Muslim ambassadors complain to Danish PM
10 Jan: Norwegian publication reprints cartoons
26 Jan: Saudi Arabia recalls its ambassador
30 Jan: Gunmen raid EU’s Gaza office demanding apology
Over a freakin cartoon!!!!
We’re all pretty pissed over the cartoon with the quadruple amputee soldier printed here in the US, but I don’t see anyone here storming the Washington Post offices! Too many of them walk around waiting to be insulted so they can say the other guy picked a fight with them. They will take a small slight as something worth taking a person’s life over. Taking a life is too often the answer to a muslim question!
I see them as a cult of death. They bow to a thirsty god that drinks the blood of infidels. I don’t care to be a cocktail for allah.
Our great State Department sides with the IslamoFacists and check out the photos of the religion of peace on Michelle Malkin’s website
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/02/03/060203161134.7zd6bpnp.html
http://www.michellemalkin.com/
Have any of the Propaganda Pimping news channels shown any of the photos posted on Malkin’s site?
And these people want nukes…………..Let them have one……..
We have been too nice for too long. How come we can get along with them here, but over there they want to slice you up like a loaf of Boar’s Head Balogna??????
Or is that baloney…no wait my baloney has a first name…no that’s O S C A R……..crap….
Religion of Peace…. Should be Religion of Piece. The Piece being your head separated from your body.
http://news.yahoo.com/photo/060203/ids_photos_wl/r3443127481.jpg/print;_ylt=AmADtrTLezMGo47tO9P9cLeaK8MA;_ylu=X3oDMTA3bXNtMmJ2BHNlYwNzc3M
Name one islamic country that is currently not in some type of war or not fighting religious based insurrection within its own borders…Peaceful folks.
We sure are fortunate to be here in the US!!! No matter how we may agree or disagree, we don’t condone killing over it!! We can speak our minds and not have our heads lopped of by some nut job with a scimitar.
Cindy Sh*$head ought to look at how her not agreeing with the establishment would play over in burka-land………………….CHOP
To The Dude: ROTFLMAO!
Don’t you understand, the real war is not against individuals, it is against an ideology that has existed for hundreds of years.
Battles have been won by both sides over these years, causing one group to “dominate” for a period of time, but the overall war cannot be won. Just look at Israel.
Sure, you can nuke Iran, but that will only embolden the Muslims around the world even further.
Islam is the fastest-growing religion around the world, so how can you stop it? You can’t.
headshaker
“It’s no worse than the ADL getting all worked up every time someone criticizes Israel or the Jewish.”
You’re right… NOT. Calling for bombing, destruction and death is worse than pointing out the words and behavior with which you disagree.
The calls for boycott by the Muslims are no worse. The rest is very much worse.
Once again, you take a surface simiarity and equate two very dissimilar events. You really need to get a sense of perspective and see that although there is definitely a line of demarcation, there are still levels and shades of meaning.
For example, jaywalking is illegal. Murder is illegal. They are NOT “the same thing” or “no different” and one is definitely worse than the other.
You really need to rethink your wording, yet again.
#49 Wino - yes I should have worded it better.
See #18 for my main point.
Thanks.
I think Headshaker already answered:
If you read the mission statement of the Free Muslim Coalition (see my #31) you’ll see that one of their main tenants is that Islamic theocracies are a major source of empowerment for those who are predisposed to terrorism. They recognize that those theocracies are what we should be fighting, not the individual Muslims.
If you can honestly tell me that you’ve personally talked to every Muslim in the world, and know beyond a shadow of a doubt that they are all (to a man, woman, and child) terrorists, then I’ll gladly accept that the only solution is to kill them all. However, like you said yourself, we are fortunate to live in a country where we don’t lop each others heads off over religious differences. What makes that fact interesting is that our country contains a fairly large number of practicing Muslims who obviously aren’t into lopping off heads.
BTW Mountainman,
After you’re through laughing your ass off, do a bit of research. If you want to slam CAIR, I’m right there with you. If you want to slam the Free Muslim Coalition, I think you’re contributing more to the problem than the solution. Members of the FMC receive death threats very much like Salman Rushdie did for his writings. In my book, they are patriots until proven otherwise.
Your choice will be to ‘convert or be killed’. Sounds like you need to practice sticking your ass in the air. . . . .Islam is a plague that needs to be purged (from Western countries at least). Let them fester in their own corner of the world.
#52,
I wonder how your way of thinking would have been received in the Reagan-era conservatism where Soviet dissidents were being given asylum in the US. I think you and I both know the answer.
Knee-jerk reactions rarely provide solutions to complex problems. Your scenario of “convert or be killed” may be valid in countries where non-Islamic people are forced to live in dhimmitude. In the United States, however frustrated I may be with the PC nature of things, your “convert or be killed” scenario is farfetched at best.
I have offered you a link that could lead you to a bit of enlightenment on the subject. Since you offer me no evidence or even a source for your claims, we’ll have to agree to disagree.
Agreed!