Here's the full exchange from earlier today. It's always interesting to see what is "cherry-picked," as the expression goes, by the media as the most notable information.

Susan

Daily Press Briefing
Sean McCormack, Spokesman
Washington, DC
February 3, 2006

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

Jeff Goldstein's take:

 (h/t Allah; and of course, props to the State Department for kowtowing to this newest faux cultural outrage.  Just the latest defeat in legitimate ways—pointed political speech by way of satire—to fight an ideology that cleverly insulates itself by declaring any outside critiques inauthentic and offensive, and so unworthy of consideration and deserving of banning altogether from the public sphere under penalty of physical threat, harm, and death.  Of course, we should expect nothing less from professionally trained bureaucrats schooled on the very multiculturalist garbage that ensures we will continue to be blackmailed and “shamed” by those who know best how cynically to exploit western guilt, particularly its kneejerk concerns over “tolerance” for Otherness cultivated through years of logically incoherent leftist dogma being preached as progressive liberal orthodoxy from the linguistic charlatans who guard the Humanities battlements of own ivory towers.)

This started after the rumers of burning the Koran as a part of a demontration on "Rådhuspladsen" in Copenhagen. As far as I understand, some idiots startde those text messages but no one appeared.

These rumors went all the way to Syria, and this was the reaction -burning down the danish embassy. Jesus

Ditte 

Wow! I hadn't heard of these embassy burnings. Been watching BookTV all morning. When I first saw those images, I thought I was looking at a Parisian suburb!

In explanation of the Sean McCormack State Department response versus Kurtis Cooper, it is my understanding that the initial reports on WHO was speaking from the State Department were reported inaccurately. But I don't know for sure. I got mine from the State Department website on their daily briefings. Frankly, I never heard of either of these guys until yesterday.

 Here's what I read on Little Green Footballs as a prelude to the McCormack statement posted above:

State Department Criticism of Cartoons - a Hoax?

What in the world is going on with the story about the State Department condemning the Danish cartoons? LGF reader Ty points out that in three different news wire reports, the same statements are attributed to three different people.

Agence France Presse says the State Department spokesman was “Justin Higgins:” US blasts cartoons of Prophet Mohammed.

Reuters says it was “Kurtis Cooper:” US backs Muslims in cartoon dispute.

And the Associated Press says it was “Janelle Hironimus,” in a story by Qassim Abdel-Zahra: Protests Intensify Over Muhammad Drawings.

Is this story a hoax, or just hopelessly confused?

UPDATE at 2/3/06 4:10:43 pm:

Here’s the Daily Press Briefing from the State Department; they did discuss the Danish cartoons about 2/3 of the way down, (in considerably more detail than the above story): 

This is where the full McCormack comments are printed as I have posted above. 

Battle of Algiers = This bonus disc includes the documentary "The Making of The Battle of Algiers," which features interviews with the film's director, actors and various crew members; the documentary "The Dictatorship of Truth," which explores the director's politics as they relate to his filmmaking; and a third documentary featuring directors Spike Lee, Mira Nair, Julian Schnabel, Steven Soderbergh and Oliver Stone discussing the importance of the film.

Must be the DVD extras from the Criterion collection version, huh?

Since a "pitcher is worth a 1000 words" as the late Johnnie Cochran used to say, here's about 2000 words-worth.

Susan

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

Another couple thousand words...

I particularly liked the sign "The Beginning of the End" although it seems to be the concepts are reversed.

This one is charming as well.

Susan

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

For those who would like to assist the Danes by buying their products: ( thanks to michellemalkin.com )

The Buy Danish blog provides this helpful list of Danish products:

Food:
Arla milk, cheese etc.
Knorr seasonings
Danish crown (meat)
Lurmaerket Butter
Danish Bacon
Thor Fish
Danisco Food

Candy:
Toms (chocolate)
HAribo
LAgermann
Galle & Jessen

Beverages:
Tuborg Beer
Carlsberg Beer
Aalborg Aquavit (snaps)

Medicine:
Novo

Cigarettes:
Prince (Don?t start smoking because of this fire!)

Clothings:
H2O
Hummel
Per Reumert

Shoes:
Ecco
Jaco

Danish Design:
Royal Copenhagen
Georg Jensen
Stelton
PH-lamps
Lego (toys)
Brio (toys)
Raadvad (knives etc.)
Trip Trap
HTH- kitchen
Morsoe (Fireplaces)
Royal Danish Porcelain
B & G Porcelain
Vesta (Windmills)
B & O radioes/televisions etc.

Other:
Watco Danish Furniture Oil

Buy Danish yarn.

Denmark's exporter directory.

The Danish Food shop
Danish Deli Food
LEGO
More stuff made in Denmark.

Davids Medienkritik has an excellent Buy Danish post.

Check out the Support Denmark page (hat tip: Paul Belien of the indispensable Brussels Journal).

Sign a petition in support of the staff of the Jyllands-Posten newspaper.

Write the Danish embassy:

Embassy of Denmark
3200 Whitehaven St. N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20008
wasamb@um.dk

I found this interesting link on historic images of Mohammed, including Muslim sources. There are far too many to post here but check out the huge variety. And then tell me, do you think the rioters, burners, protesters, kidnappers, boycotters, etal are aware of this?

http://www.zombietime.com/mohammed_image_archive/

 Perhaps it is this set of images that need to be plastered in the Western press and on book covers.  Whaddayathink?

Susan

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

Here is a quote from newsman Brit Hume:

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.

I always like to see what Christopher Hitchens has to say on any given subject. Since he is defiantly atheistic, it's fairly obvious that he's not going to take the cultural sensitivity angle. Of course, Here's a few of his thoughts from "The Case For Mocking Religion.

Susan 

 http://www.slate.com/id/2135499/

CARTOON DEBATE
Christopher Hitchens

February 4, 2006

The prohibition on picturing the prophet—who was only another male mammal—is apparently absolute. So is the prohibition on pork or alcohol or, in some Muslim societies, music or dancing. Very well then, let a good Muslim abstain rigorously from all these. But if he claims the right to make me abstain as well, he offers the clearest possible warning and proof of an aggressive intent. This current uneasy coexistence is only an interlude, he seems to say. For the moment, all I can do is claim to possess absolute truth and demand absolute immunity from criticism. But in the future, you will do what I say and you will do it on pain of death.

I refuse to be spoken to in that tone of voice, which as it happens I chance to find "offensive." By the way, hasn't the word "offensive" become really offensive lately?

I am not asking for the right to slaughter a pig in a synagogue or mosque or to relieve myself on a "holy" book. But I will not be told I can't eat pork, and I will not respect those who burn books on a regular basis. I, too, have strong convictions and beliefs and value the Enlightenment above any priesthood or any sacred fetish-object. It is revolting to me to breathe the same air as wafts from the exhalations of the madrasahs, or the reeking fumes of the suicide-murderers, or the sermons of Billy Graham and Joseph Ratzinger. But these same principles of mine also prevent me from wreaking random violence on the nearest church, or kidnapping a Muslim at random and holding him hostage, or violating diplomatic immunity by attacking the embassy or the envoys of even the most despotic Islamic state, or making a moronic spectacle of myself threatening blood and fire to faraway individuals who may have hurt my feelings. The babyish rumor-fueled tantrums that erupt all the time, especially in the Islamic world, show yet again that faith belongs to the spoiled and selfish childhood of our species.

But if Muslims do not want their alleged prophet identified with barbaric acts or adolescent fantasies, they should say publicly that random murder for virgins is not in their religion. And here one runs up against a curious reluctance. … In fact, Sunni Muslim leaders can't even seem to condemn the blowing-up of Shiite mosques and funeral processions, which even I would describe as sacrilege.

On Saturday, I appeared on CNN, which was so terrified of reprisal that it "pixilated" the very cartoons that its viewers needed to see. Is it not clear, then, that those who are determined to be "offended" will discover a provocation somewhere? We cannot possibly adjust enough to please the fanatics, and it is degrading to make the attempt.

...civil society means that free expression trumps the emotions of anyone to whom free expression might be inconvenient. It is depressing to have to restate these obvious precepts, and it is positively outrageous that the administration should have discarded them at the very first sign of a fight.

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

It's sorta funny - Kelly and I were gone the entire weekend - didn't watch any news. Didn't pay any attention to newspapers. Just watched teh Super Bowl on Sunday night, drove home yesterday - still didn't watch the news - and then I wake up this morning and see that hell pretty much broke out over the weekend over cartoons. It's sorta strange having three or four days of no news, and then waking up in the morning to find out that everything seems to be spiraling out of control.

Moreover, Iran is doing a contest on the best Holocaust cartoons according to Reuters .  

When will the world wake up and realize what's going on?  

Jordan .

when hell freezes over.

Kelly

How Do You Live Your Dash?

Check out the Kids' blogs:
The CaleBlog and the Zoe Blog

Here's an editiorial which does suggest that Europe is waking up. If he's right, hell might be freezing over.... 

A European Awakening Against Islamic Fascism?
By Victor Davis Hanson

    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.

    On January 19, Jacques Chirac warned that his military would use its nuclear forces to target states that sponsored terrorism against France—El Cid braggadocio that made George Bush’s past Wild West lingo like ‘smoke ‘em out’ and ‘dead or alive’ seem Pollyannaish by comparison. Not long after, it was disclosed that the French and the Americans have coordinated their efforts to keep Syria out of Lebanon and to isolate Bashar Assad’s shaky Syrian regime. And in a recent news conference Donald Rumsfeld and the new German defense minister Franz Josef Jung sounded as if they were once more the old allies of the past, fighting shoulder to shoulder against terrorists who would like to do to Berlin what they did to New York.

    The once plodding and ineffectual British-French-German diplomatic effort to circumvent Iran’s nuclear program finally reached its predictable dead-end. But instead of the usual backtracking appeasement dressed up in diplomatic doublespeak about “multilateralism” and “dialogue”, the Europeans pointedly warned the Iranians that further enrichment was unacceptable and that the use of force to prevent acquisition of an Iranian bomb could not be ruled out. A Europe that once dismissed as retrograde America’s anti-ballistic missile system may well soon be in range of Iran’s envisioned nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles.

    The Dutch suddenly agreed to deploy up to 1,400 troops in the more dangerous regions of southern Afghanistan. That show of fortitude prompted NATO to boast that its European and American forces may soon go on the offensive against many of the most recalcitrant Taliban strongholds.

    When a Danish paper was threatened for printing cartoon caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad, neither the government of Demark nor the usually politically-correct European Union tried to impose censorship in the face of Arab boycotts, rioting, and not-so-veiled threats to make life difficult for Scandinavians. Instead, newspapers all over Europe reprinted the cartoons, ignored Arab threats—only to witness the United States State Department of all governments offer limp-wristed palliatives about cultural sensitivity rather than principled support of the surprising European defense of free expression and speech.

    Have the Europeans flipped out?

    Hardly. Recent polls show a majority of Europeans are becoming increasingly tired of current liberal immigration policies and foreign aid programs that have given billions of dollars to the Palestine Authority that they now learn in the aftermath of Yasser Arafat’s death resulted in both rampant corruption and the Hamas backlash. It is one thing to subsidize a double-talking Arafat, quite another to keep giving money to terrorists who openly promise to finish the European holocaust.

    More importantly, despite distancing themselves from the United States, and spreading cash liberally around, the Europeans are beginning to fathom that the radical Islamists still hate them even more than they do the Americans—as if the fundamentalists add disdain for perceived European weakness in addition to the usual generic hatred of all things Western.

    German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder is out—and, in humiliating fashion for a supposedly principled socialist, now grubbing for petrodollars for the Russian state-run conglomerate Gazprom. Despite his eleventh hour saber rattling, Jacques Chirac is emasculated. Conservatives are now firmly in power in Australia, Canada, Germany, and the United States. Immigration legislation under consideration from Scandinavia to France makes the American Patriot Act seem tame. Italian wiretaps led to arrests of Muslim terrorists who were plotting another 9/11 at the very time Democratic Senators in confirmation hearings tore into Justice Alito for supposedly condoning police-state tactics.

    Liberals here at home attribute the change of European hearts and minds to the abandonment of our own neocon unilateralism, and Mr. Bush’s long overdue return to multilateral bridge building. But that is a superficial exegesis, given that America still supplies the bulk of the coalition troops in both Afghanistan and Iraq—and receives daily European goading about electronic surveillance abroad and detention centers in Eastern Europe.

    Two other developments better explain the warming in Atlantic relations and the Europeans’ sudden muscularity. First, the Bush administration wisely adopted a Zen-like strategy of keeping low and letting the ankle-biting Europeans take the lead in dealing with radical Islamists like the Iranian theocracy and Hamas. As we stayed silent and played the sullen bad cop, the good guys were sorely disappointed at learning that, yes, the Iranians want both the bomb and Israel destroyed, and that, yes, Hamas, is still intent on annihilating the Jewish state and expecting subsidies to realize that aim. Second guessing and cheap anti-Americanism are easy without responsibility, but the Europeans found very quickly that for all their subtlety and exalted rhetoric they did no better than George Bush in dealing with these anti-Western fanatics.

    Second, the two most difficult hurdles are now past—the removal of the odious Taliban and Saddam Hussein. And thus the overblown caricature of Americans as war-mongering bombers has run out of gas. Europeans, of course, always wished both autocracies gone, but quickly learned they could admit that desire only in the first case.

    But now that the Americans are doing the fighting and dying, the Europeans can still be against the war, but “for the peace” with the utopian rationale that “whether the war was right or wrong, Iraq must not become a failed state.” Even the most diehard leftists are beginning to see that the fascists who once threatened Salman Rushdie and now bully the Danish cartoonists are the same as those who blow up female school teachers and reformers in Baghdad.

    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. But while pundits argue over whether the European demographic crisis, lack of faith, stalled economy, or multiculturalism are at the root of the continent’s impotence, we should never forget that if aroused and pushed, a rearmed and powerful Europe could still be at the side of the United States in joint efforts against the jihadists. And should we ever see a true alliance of such Western powers, the war against the fascists of the Middle East would be simply over in short order.

    Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and author of A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War.

Jordan .

 Also, isn't it kinda hypocritical of us to now criticize the Islamic world for wanting to release such cartoons (as tasteless as they will without a doubt be), while at the same time cry "Freedom of Speech!" and defend those Mohammed-toons?

Uhm - who's criticizing the Islamic world for doing that here? (or are you talking in generalities because I've yet to hear anyone criticize Iran yet except along the lines of "this is really stupid" response.) If Iran wants to do it that's fine, even though the only reason they want to do it is for an immature reason rather than a political commentary reason. Muslim papers are full of anti-Jewish and anti-Chrsitian cartoons every day. This is not much different than what we've seen before. However, I don't think any Jews will be rioting or fire-torching embassies. Plus, making fun of the Holocaust where thousands of people were killed because of their faith is far different from criticizing one's faith but so be it.   

Jordan .

Okay, so this picture was send together with the original cartoons (by a Danish Imam) .. this is one of the cartoons why the Muslims are so angry;

look at it closely and then read (and see!!) this news item: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8959820  

Yes, but it is my understanding that the pig-snout Mohammed and the doggie-Mohammed were added to the "ouevre" by a Danish Palestinian Abu Laban, whom I'd suggest is a provacateur whose goal was this very conflagration.

Earlier on this thread but now lost to memory and rarely reported since, was this:

The Counterterrorism Blog
February 02, 2006
Fabricated cartoons worsened Danish controversy

The controversy over the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed is expanding, as more Muslims join the boycott and protests against Denmark and various European newspapers decide to publish the cartoons, mostly out of solidarity with Jyllands Posten and to make a strong political stand. One issue that puzzles many Danes is the timing of this outburst. The cartoons were published in September: Why have the protests erupted from Muslims worldwide only now? The person who knows the answer to this question is Ahmed Abdel Rahman Abu Laban, a man that the Washington Post has recently profiled as “one of Denmark's most prominent imams.”

Last November, Abu Laban, a 60-year-old Palestinian who had served as translator and assistant to top Gamaa Islamiya leader Talaal Fouad Qassimy during the mid-1990s and has been connected by Danish intelligence to other Islamists operating in the country, put together a delegation that traveled to the Middle East to discuss the issue of the cartoons with senior officials and prominent Islamic scholars. The delegation met with Arab League Secretary Amr Moussa, Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Sheikh Mohammad Sayyed Tantawi, and Sunni Islam’s most influential scholar, Yusuf al Qaradawi. "We want to internationalize this issue so that the Danish government will realize that the cartoons were insulting, not only to Muslims in Denmark, but also to Muslims worldwide," said Abu Laban.

On its face, it would appear as if nothing were wrong. However, the Danish Muslim delegation showed much more than the 12 cartoons published by Jyllands Posten. In the booklet it presented during its tour of the Middle East, the delegation included other cartoons of Mohammed that were highly offensive, including one where the Prophet has a pig face. But these additional pictures were NOT published by the newspaper, but were completely fabricated by the delegation and inserted in the booklet (which has been obtained and made available to me by Danish newspaper Ekstra Bladet). The delegation has claimed that the differentiation was made to their interlocutors, even though the claim has not been independently verified. In any case, the action was a deliberate malicious and irresponsible deed carried out by a notorious Islamist who in another situation had said that “mockery against Mohamed deserves death penalty.” And in a quintessential exercise in taqiya, Abu Laban has praised the boycott of Danish goods on al Jazeera, while condemning it on Danish TV.

That Jacques-piggie was hilarious, Jazz! Whoever did that particular drawing was obviously on a higher rung of the art talent ladder.

As for Ahmadinejad's Holocaust Cartoon Compet, big friggin' deal. The Arab-Muslim press has this "contest" everyday which is no surprise when the most popular book in the Muslim world is "Mein Kampf." Can you say, "Water off a duck's back?" Pullllllll-ease! Like anyone expects otherwise. This sort of "art" has continued without a break from the Nazis straight through the Islamic world up to the present. There are warehouses of examples to draw from. For everyday samples check out this self-described "no hate" website, which is kinda amoozing to scan.

Their mission statement:

Radio Islam is working to promote better relations between the West and the Muslim World. Radio Islam is against racism of all forms, against all kinds of discrimination of people based on their colour of skin, faith or ethnical bakground. Consequently, Radio Islam is against Jewish racism towards non-Jews. World Jewish Zionism, today, constitutes the last racist ideology still surviving and the Zionist's state of Israel, the last outpost of "Apartheid" in the World. Israel constitutes by its mere existence a complete defiance to all international laws, rules and principles, and the open racism manifested in the Jewish State is a violation of all ethics and morals known to Man.

http://www.radioislam.org/islam/english/english.htm

Josch, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Europeans are handling their Muslim situation poorly. I'm not saying they're handling it well either. And, like, on one hand, if Muslims burn flags and embassies, etc. over Mo-toons, it's obvious, on the other hand, that the Jew-toons would the next logical incarnation. You know, six of one thing; half dozen of the other. A little of this; a little of that. Know what I'm sayin? All of them should stay in for recess in my, like, neutral, objective uninvolved position! Meantime, I'll just sit here on my front porch and watch because the very last thing I want to do is make a determination that there's one side or the other where I find myself more in synch.

C'est la vie say the old folks.

Susan

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

I must echo Jordan's sentiments, having taken a break from the news for the past few days I'm just amazed and appalled at the spiralling over-reaction to this set of cartoons.

Perhaps every other European nation should also publish the same cartoons in their press as a show of solidarity towards the Danes.

At least that way we all get attacked together... 

Freedom of speech? Pah!  

x-ray
if your back's against the wall, turn around and write on it...

Speciaal voor snoep kleurige clown, voor in de collectie;

we worden bedreigd door de Moslims - daar vliegende panters

Chuck Berry, 1958

It was millions killed in The Holocaust, not 'thousands'.

Maybe it's time for the Jews to burn the Iranian Embassies all over the place. Maybe it's time for all Western countries to declare radical Islam an outlaw religion and all practitioners guilty of treason and sedition, then round them up and drop them off in Syria. Or palestine.

From the sage George Friedman:

The Cartoon Backlash: Redefining Alignments

By George Friedman

There is something rotten in the state of Denmark. We just couldn't help but open with that -- with apologies to Shakespeare. Nonetheless, there is something exceedingly odd in the notion that Denmark -- which has made a national religion of not being offensive to anyone -- could become the focal point of Muslim rage. The sight of the Danish and Norwegian embassies being burned in Damascus -- and Scandinavians in general being warned to leave Islamic countries -- has an aura of the surreal: Nobody gets mad at Denmark or Norway. Yet, death threats are now being hurled against the Danes and Norwegians as though they were mad-dog friends of Dick Cheney. History has its interesting moments.

At the same time, the matter is not to be dismissed lightly. The explosion in the Muslim world over the publication of 12 cartoons by a minor Danish newspaper -- cartoons that first appeared back in September -- has, remarkably, redefined the geopolitical matrix of the U.S.-jihadist war. Or, to be more precise, it has set in motion something that appears to be redefining that matrix. We do not mean here simply a clash of civilizations, although that is undoubtedly part of it. Rather, we mean that alignments within the Islamic world and within the West appear to be in flux in some very important ways.

Let's begin with the obvious: the debate over the cartoons. There is a prohibition in Islam against making images of the Prophet Mohammed. There also is a prohibition against ridiculing the Prophet. Thus, a cartoon that ridicules the Prophet violates two fundamental rules simultaneously. Muslims around the world were deeply offended by these cartoons.

It must be emphatically pointed out that the Muslim rejection of the cartoons does not derive from a universalistic view that one should respect religions. The criticism does not derive from a secularist view that holds all religions in equal indifference and requires "sensitivity" not on account of theologies, but in order to avoid hurting anyone's feelings. The Muslim view is theological: The Prophet Mohammed is not to be ridiculed or portrayed. But violating the sensibilities of other religions is not taboo. Therefore, Muslims frequently, in action, print and speech, do and say things about other religions -- Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism -- that followers of these religions would find defamatory. The Taliban, for example, were not concerned about the views among other religions when they destroyed the famous Buddhas in Bamiyan. The Muslim demand is honest and authentic: It is for respect for Islam, not a general secular respect for all beliefs as if they were all equal.

The response from the West, and from Europe in particular, has been to frame the question as a matter of free speech. European newspapers, wishing to show solidarity with the Danes, have reprinted the cartoons, further infuriating the Muslims. European liberalism has a more complex profile than Islamic rage over insults. In many countries, it is illegal to incite racial hatred. It is difficult to imagine that the defenders of these cartoons would sit by quietly if a racially defamatory cartoon were published. Or, imagine the reception among liberal Europeans -- or on any American campus -- if a professor published a book purporting to prove that women were intellectually inferior to men. (The mere suggestion of such a thing, by the president of Harvard in a recent speech, led to calls for his resignation.)

In terms of the dialogue over the cartoons, there is enough to amuse even the most jaded observers. The sight of Muslims arguing the need for greater sensitivity among others, and of advocates of laws against racial hatred demanding absolute free speech, is truly marvelous to behold. There is, of course, one minor difference between the two sides: The Muslims are threatening to kill people who offend them and are burning embassies -- in essence, holding entire nations responsible for the actions of a few of their citizens. The European liberals are merely making speeches. They are not threatening to kill critics of the modern secular state. That also distinguishes the Muslims from, say, Christians in the United States who have been affronted by National Endowment for the Arts grants.

These are not trivial distinctions. But what is important is this: The controversy over the cartoons involves issues so fundamental to the two sides that neither can give in. The Muslims cannot accept visual satire involving the Prophet. Nor can the Europeans accept that Muslims can, using the threat of force, dictate what can be published. Core values are at stake, and that translates into geopolitics.

In one sense, there is nothing new or interesting in intellectual inconsistency or dishonesty. Nor is there very much new about Muslims -- or at least radical ones -- threatening to kill people who offend them. What is new is the breadth of the Muslim response and the fact that it is directed obsessively not against the United States, but against European states.

One of the primary features of the U.S.-jihadist war has been that each side has tried to divide the other along a pre-existing fault line. For the United States, in both Afghanistan and Iraq, the manipulation of Sunni-Shiite tensions has been evident. For the jihadists, and even more for non-jihadist Muslims caught up in the war, the tension between the United States and Europe has been a critical fault line to manipulate. It is significant, then, that the cartoon affair threatens to overwhelm both the Euro-American split and the Sunni-Shiite split. It is, paradoxically, an affair that unifies as well as divides.

The Fissures in the West

It is dangerous and difficult to speak of the "European position" -- there really isn't one. But there is a Franco-German position that generally has been taken to be the European position. More precisely, there is the elite Franco-German position that The New York Times refers to whenever it mentions "Europe." That is the Europe that we mean now.

In the European view, then, the United States massively overreacted to 9/11. Apart from the criticism of Iraq, the Europeans believe that the United States failed to appreciate al Qaeda's relative isolation within the Islamic world and, by reshaping its relations with the Islamic world over 9/11, caused more damage. Indeed, this view goes, the United States increased the power of al Qaeda and added unnecessarily to the threat it presents. Implicit in the European criticisms -- particularly from the French -- was the view that American cowboy insensitivity to the Muslim world not only increased the danger after 9/11, but effectively precipitated 9/11. From excessive support for Israel to support for Egypt and Jordan, the United States alienated the Muslims. In other words, 9/11 was the result of a lack of sophistication and poor policy decisions by the United States -- and the response to the 9/11 attacks was simply over the top.

Now an affair has blown up that not only did not involve the United States, but also did not involve a state decision. The decision to publish the offending cartoons was that of a Danish private citizen. The Islamic response has been to hold the entire state responsible. As the cartoons were republished, it was not the publications printing them that were viewed as responsible, but the states in which they were published. There were attacks on embassies, gunmen in EU offices at Gaza, threats of another 9/11 in Europe.

From a psychological standpoint, this drives home to the Europeans an argument that the Bush administration has been making from the beginning -- that the threat from Muslim extremists is not really a response to anything, but a constantly present danger that can be triggered by anything or nothing. European states cannot control what private publications publish. That means that, like it or not, they are hostage to Islamic perceptions. The threat, therefore, is not under their control. And thus, even if the actions or policies of the United States did precipitate 9/11, the Europeans are no more immune to the threat than the Americans are.

This combines with the Paris riots last November and the generally deteriorating relationships between Muslims in Europe and the dominant populations. The pictures of demonstrators in London, threatening the city with another 9/11, touch extremely sensitive nerves. It becomes increasingly difficult for Europeans to distinguish between their own relationship with the Islamic world and the American relationship with the Islamic world. A sense of shared fate emerges, driving the Americans and Europeans closer together. At a time when pressing issues like Iranian nuclear weapons are on the table, this increases Washington's freedom of action. Put another way, the Muslim strategy of splitting the United States and Europe -- and using Europe to constrain the United States -- was heavily damaged by the Muslim response to the cartoons.

The Intra-Ummah Divide

But so too was the split between Sunni and Shia. Tensions between these two communities have always been substantial. Theological differences aside, both international friction and internal friction have been severe. The Iran-Iraq war, current near-civil war in Iraq, tensions between Sunnis and Shia in the Gulf states, all point to the obvious: These two communities are, while both Muslim, mistrustful of one another. Shiite Iran has long viewed Sunni Saudi Arabia as the corrupt tool of the United States, while radical Sunnis saw Iran as collaborating with the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The cartoons are the one thing that both communities -- not only in the Middle East but also in the wider Muslim world -- must agree about. Neither side can afford to allow any give in this affair and still hope to maintain any credibility in the Islamic world. Each community -- and each state that is dominated by one community or another -- must work to establish (or maintain) its Islamic credentials. A case in point is the violence against Danish and Norwegian diplomatic offices in Syria (and later, in Lebanon and Iran) -- which undoubtedly occurred with Syrian government involvement. Syria is ruled by Alawites, a Shiite sect. Syria -- aligned with Iran -- is home to a major Sunni community; there is another in Lebanon. The cartoons provided what was essentially a secular regime the opportunity to take the lead in a religious matter, by permitting the attacks on the embassies. This helped consolidate the regime's position, however temporarily.

Indeed, the Sunni and Shiite communities appear to be competing with each other as to which is more offended. The Shiite Iranian-Syrian bloc has taken the lead in violence, but the Sunni community has been quite vigorous as well. The cartoons are being turned into a test of authenticity for Muslims. To the degree that Muslims are prepared to tolerate or even move past this issue, they are being attacked as being willing to tolerate the Prophet's defamation. The cartoons are forcing a radicalization of parts of the Muslim community that are uneasy with the passions of the moment.

Beneficiaries on Both Sides

The processes under way in the West and within the Islamic world are naturally interacting. The attacks on embassies, and threats against lives, that are based on nationality alone are radicalizing the Western perspective of Islam. The unwillingness of Western governments to punish or curtail the distribution of the cartoons is taken as a sign of the real feelings of the West. The situation is constantly compressing each community, even as they are divided.

One might say that all this is inevitable. After all, what other response would there be, on either side? But this is where the odd part begins: The cartoons actually were published in September, and -- though they drew some complaints, even at the diplomatic level -- didn't come close to sparking riots. Events unfolded slowly: The objections of a Muslim cleric in Denmark upon the initial publication by Jyllands-Posten eventually prompted leaders of the Islamic Faith Community to travel to Egypt, Syria and Lebanon in December, purposely "to stir up attitudes against Denmark and the Danes" in response to the cartoons. As is now obvious, attitudes have certainly been stirred.

There are beneficiaries. It is important to note here that the fact that someone benefits from something does not mean that he was responsible for it. (We say this because in the past, when we have noted the beneficiaries of an event or situation, the not-so-bright bulbs in some quarters took to assuming that we meant the beneficiaries deliberately engineered the event.)

Still, there are two clear beneficiaries. One is the United States: The cartoon affair is serving to further narrow the rift between the Bush administration's view of the Islamic world and that of many Europeans. Between the Paris riots last year, the religiously motivated murder of a Dutch filmmaker and the "blame Denmark" campaign, European patience is wearing thin. The other beneficiary is Iran. As Iran moves toward a confrontation with the United States over nuclear weapons, this helps to rally the Muslim world to its side: Iran wants to be viewed as the defender of Islam, and Sunnis who have raised questions about its flirtations with the United States in Iraq are now seeing Iran as the leader in outrage against Europe.

The cartoons have changed the dynamics both within Europe and the Islamic world, and between them. That is not to say the furor will not die down in due course, but it will take a long time for the bad feelings to dissipate. This has created a serious barrier between moderate Muslims and Europeans who were opposed to the United States. They were the ones most likely to be willing to collaborate, and the current uproar makes that collaboration much more difficult.

It's hard to believe that a few cartoons could be that significant, but these are.

"We cannot allow a mine shaft gap"

I love that Danwhy and I are both getting email reports from George Friedman.  But something was missing from that report...your thoughts, Danwhy.  Care to share?  Dare to share.  This is a fatwa-free zone.

Susan 

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

I don't yet have fully formed thoughts on this subject, good thing I'm not in power.

"We cannot allow a mine shaft gap"

I fail to see how the first and second halves of your sentence relate...