Month: February 2006

So we now discover that the hideously offensive and blasphemous cartoons – so blasphemous that CNN, the New York Times, and the Washington Post, won’t publish them … were reprinted last October. In Egypt. On the front frigging page. No one rioted. No editor at Al Fager was threatened. So it’s official: the Egyptian state media is less deferential to Islamists than the New York Times. So where were the riots in Cairo? This whole affair is a contrived, manufactured attempt by extremist Muslims to move the goal-posts on Western freedom. They’re saying: we determine what you can and cannot print; and there’s a difference between what Muslims can print and what infidels can print. And, so far, much of the West has gone along. In this, well-meaning American editors have been played for fools and cowards. Maybe if they’d covered the murders of von Gogh and Fortuyn more aggressively they’d have a better idea of what’s going on; and stared down this intimidation. The whole business reminds me of the NYT’s coverage of the Nazis in the 1930s. They didn’t get the threat then. They don’t get it now.

If you want to see what the NYT won’t let you see, but Al Fager had no problem publishing, click here.

Contrast and Compare.

This is not exactly a sign that the Republicans are turning over a new leaf.

I’ve been trying hard to be encouraged recently by news of a decline in suicide bombings, the new safety of the airport road, and splits between Sunni Arabs and al Qaeda. That makes the following pieces of news so unnerving. The last time I had a serious sit down with a "senior administration official" to discuss Iraq, SAO told me that I should focus less on deaths of civilians, which are very hard to prevent, and worry more about attacks on infrastructure, which were now going to be stopped in earnest. But the latest data show that we’re still at pre-war levels on any number of fronts, and that the insurgency is essentialy succeeding in stopping the Iraq economy from recovering. We also discover that insurgent attacks, broadly analyzed, are still near their post-invasion peaks; and our approach to intelligence at Gitmo has succeeded in putting dozens on hunger-strike, which now requires us to engage in unsavory methods of force-feeding. To recap: reconstruction money down the toilet, insurgency still strong, detainee policy both brutal, damaging and ineffective.

If your instinct is to defend the administration, ask yourself this: did you really believe when we invaded that three years later, we still wouldn’t be delivering as much electricity as Saddam did? Maybe Powerline can spin this, but I don’t see how. Hewitt, maybe? Instapundit? Surely someone’s up to the job.

Ah, yes, the good old days. Do not click this link if you’re squeamish, or think that laughing while you die of AIDS is inappropriate. It’s my recollection that many who kicked it in the plague years were among the funniest and most mordant people ever. But this piece of nostalgia, resurrected by Boozhy, took me by surprise. Oh, the innocence of 1982.

Here’s a great series of cartoons from around the world on the attempts to suppress the work of other cartoonists. It’s a perfect response to the bullies and fanatics who, I might add, are also busy intimidating other Muslims who are more relaxed about these things. If you want to see what the New York Times won’t allow you to see, click here. Let freedom reign – despite the best efforts of the mainstream media.

A reader wonders if the West will continue to be able to publish Dante:

"In the discussion over Islam, cartoons, and religious intolerance, has anyone chimed in about Dante?  Or have the fanatics already boarded buses and planes for Italy?

In any case, in Canto 28, Page 237, line 30, Mohammed must spend eternity tearing himself apart, for that is his punishment in Hell.   

Consistent with medieval Christian thinking, in which the Muslim world was viewed as a hostile usurper, Dante depicts both Mohammed and his cousin and son-in-law Ali as sowers of religious divisiveness. Dante creates a vicious composite portrait of the two holy men, with Mohammed’s body split from groin to chin and Ali’s face cleft from top to bottom."

Berlusconi needs to offer an apology, no? Or will the mobs now descend on Rome?

Jpod makes a good point. The real reason that many mainstream papers will not publish any of the Danish cartoons is that the owners and editors feel rightly responsible for the safety of their employees. A decision to publish puts a lot of people at risk for their lives. An individual blogger may feel free to put herself at risk, but an editor and publisher have broader responsibilities. I just wish the MSM were honest about this and confessed that they are making a decision based on legitimate fear of violence against them. That would clarify things, at least. If the NYT can publish "Piss-Christ" and the Virgin Mary made out of dung, then it cannot logically claim to be a paper dedicated to respecting religious sensitivity. It respects religious sensitivity when the religious threaten violence. And this stance therefore rewards the violence. Where am I wrong here?

"Not a good day to be blonde in Beirut," – a British woman, caught up in the anti-Western rioting in Lebanon. What I love is the distinction made by Islamist mobs. It’s ok to attack an innocent Dane, because he happens to share the same nationality as a newspaper editor, but not an innocent Brit. They’re taking lessons in logic from the New York Times.

Check out the BBC’s website treatment of the respective histories of Christianity and Islam. A former BBC CEO noticed something. There’s one obvious difference between them. The people who wrote up the history of Islam are far more deferential to religious sentiment. Since when does the BBC insist on writing "peace be upon him" after every reference to the Prophet Muhammad? They demonstrate no such piety when discussing Judaism or Christianity. And this is one element that will at some point have to be tackled: Christianity has been reshaped and challenged by scholarly revisionism with respect to the books that became the Bible. We know far more now than we used to about how the Gospels were written, what influenced them, their cultural context, their political objectives, and so on. There is much less scholarship, especially in Islamic countries, about the origins of the Koran. We need more scholarship. And for that, we need less fear, and … freedom. (Hat tip: Andrew.)