GAZA CITY — Armed militants angered by a cartoon drawing of the Prophet Muhammad published in European newspapers surrounded EU offices in Gaza on Thursday and threatened to kidnap foreigners as outrage over the caricatures spread across the Islamic world.
More than 300 students demonstrated in Pakistan, chanting "Death to France!" and "Death to Denmark!" — two of the countries where newspapers published the drawings
Wow, this sounds like a reasonable response to a political cartoon. Imagine all the cartoons of Jesus or Moses that get published all over the world. It's a good thing the US doesn't start popping off cruise missiles and airstrikes when somebody makes fun of Christianity. Yes, I know that Christianity is not the only religion in the US, but not all Palestinians are Muslims. Still, they're wishing "Death to France" because of a cartoon. I don't like France either, but I just want them to quit socialism. I'm starting to wonder if the Koran comes with several crack rocks to snack on while you read it.
In Paris, the daily France Soir fired its managing editor after it ran the caricatures Wednesday.
Why did they fire him? The New York Times prints outrageous garbage that's totally untrue all the time, and they've never fired an editor over bogus commentary. I thought stirring up the public is what you want to do in the media. Hell, I'd never even heard of any of those papers, and now I'm checking out their webpage. You're in it to sell advertisements, right? It seems like the editor made a brilliant move. Oh well, it's just another example of France giving in to the demands of radical Islam.
Gunmen in the West Bank city of Nablus entered four hotels to search for foreigners to abduct and warned their owners not to host guests from several European countries. Gunmen said they were also searching apartments in Nablus for Europeans.
Please, somebody tell me why abducting French visitors has anything at all to do with a political cartoon.
If the European governments don't apologize by Thursday evening, "any visitor of these countries will be targeted," he said.
Why does the government need to apologize? Does Bush have to apologize to the world for Wolf Blitzer's racially insensitive comments on CNN? Is the French government responsible for what a newspaper publishes? These offended Muslims should be reminded that we have a seperation of religion, state, and commerce here in the free world. Again, why would you abduct visitors for a political cartoon that got published in a newspaper thousands of miles away?
The furor over the drawings, which first ran in the Danish paper Jyllands-Posten in September, cuts to the question of which is more sacred in the Western world — freedom of expression or respect for religious beliefs.
Guess what? You can have both! It will require a little bit of a sense of humor, though. An attention span wouldn't hurt, either. For example, I'll never feel bad about trashing these boneheaded Muslims who threaten people over a newspaper article that somebody else wrote, but at the same time, if someone is peacefully practicing Islam them I will respect their right to do so. I'll even go out of my way to defend a Muslim's right to practice his/her religion. Likewise, that Muslim had better respect anything and everything that I say as part of what I believe. A little sense of humor goes a long way.
Islamic law, based on clerics' interpretation of the Quran and the sayings of the prophet, absolutely forbids depictions, even positive ones, of the Prophet Muhammad in order to prevent idolatry.
Get over yourselves, honestly, and put down the Red Balls Energy Drinks. These clerics need to go on a life-long cruise with Pat Robertson and Sean Hannity so they can yell at each other and leave everybody else alone.
The Danish newspaper defended its decision to publish the caricatures, citing freedom of expression, but apologized to Muslims for causing offense.
Finally, a resonable remark.
Sami Abu Zuhri, a spokesman for the Islamic militant Hamas also demanded an apology from European countries. However, he said foreigners in Gaza must not be harmed.
Un-Holy crap! I think Bush actually scared them in the State of the Union Address the other night. It's amazing how even Islamic terrorists are actually willing to talk once you show them that you're willing to fight if they won't talk (RE: Saddam).
In Multan, Pakistan, more than 300 Islamic students chanted "Death to Denmark!" and "Death to France!" and burned flags of both countries near an Islamic school.
...yet more brilliance from a group of experts on world politics.
the Danish paper had apologized, "but for some reason, nobody in the Muslim world wants to hear the apology."
Here we have an exhibit of the culture of victimization. Besides the Irael/Palestine conflict, I couldn't imagine Muslims embracing this...
Morocco and Tunisia barred sales of France Soir's Wednesday issue.
Resonable comment #2. If you don't like it, dont' buy it. Capitalism is always worth a try. It seems like France has basically pissed off the entire world, and most everybody is boycotting at least some imports from that country. This is ironic because like I've said before, France does the most to appease villians worldwide. France appeases Muslims by opposing the liberation of Iraq, then they appease Muslims by keeping a lawless immigration policy, and now Muslims boycott France. What have we learned from France? You be the judge.
The director of media rights group Reporters Without Borders, Robert Menard, called for calm. "We need to figure out how to reconcile freedom of expression and respect of faith," he said.
It's called a sense of humor, and you should subsribe to one. Don't take yourself so seriously and maybe you won't look like intolerant crybabies in the international press. I take my Christian faith very seriously, but I'm not so stupid and intolerant that I can't appreciate a Jesus joke or two. Notice how the Jesus and Mohammed jokes aren't actually about the real Jesus or Mohammed, but rather what religious idealogues have applied them to be in your culture.
-BlackLabelAxe
4 comments:
Thanks for the story Axe! What the hell is wrong with the French. I can understand issuing an apoligy in an attempt to cool things down, but they fired an editor. Damn those cheese-eating surrender monkeys!
Talk about ridiculous! As I've said before, "If your religion causes you to be ridiculous, cruel or to go against one another, lo my bothers, cut it from your life."
Crallspace, I think you're right. I've heard an interesting argument that Islam is due for a major reform. I wish I knew who said that, because that statement got me doing a bit of research that would help me understand the current state of Islam:
Prior to the Protestant Reformation, one could easily argue that the Catholic Church was at least as despickable as Islam is now. A quick check of history reminds us that Islam is approximately 670 years younger than Christianity. The Church grew from a humble brotherhood of faith into a Institution of wealth and power, hardly reflective of the noble faith it represented. The Catholic Church went 1,487 years as an uncontested incumbent before Martin Luther nailed his "95 Theses" to the door in that famous deed that earned him an excommunication (Jesus died in ~30 A.D.). Since Islam wasn't around until ~670 A.D., they aren't due for a de-centralization and major reform until 2157 A.D., assuming the same rate of progression that Christians experienced.
I don't know about you, but I'm pretty sure it'll take less than 151 years for Iran to build nuclear warheads for their already ridiculous fleet of long-range missiles. If Iran can get their hands on those missiles, there is almost nobody left who doubts they would use them on Israel immediately.
What can we do? They're not going to cooperate with the UN. I think a series of strategic airstrikes conducted with the blessing of the UN Security Council is looking like the most likely option at this point. It's not the best option, but given Iran's record of compliance, it may and probably will come to that.
I agree Axe. If we do not do something about the situation in Iran, Israel will! Just like when Iraq started to develop nuclear weapons, Israel bombed the nuclear facility they were using. If Israel bombs Iran, the shit WILL hit the fan.
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