Testing, one, two, three
I can't help but think that the west in being tested, even inadvertantly, with this whole cartoon thing. From the rapid response of the "demonstrators" to the media and governmental responses, to the way the cartoons were manipulated by the muslims in the first place to the fact that when they originally ran in Egypt no one cared. And the west failed. Terrorists must have noticed the way the west panicked and capitulated to the extremest demands. The fear is just too noticeable. No other group, ever, has managed to extend their sub-desires to the global community like this. I can only look at this as a major victory for the terrorist community. The damage that these extremests have caused to the western pshyche is amazing and troubling. These cartoons are not the last of this strategy, even if the terrorists have stumbled onto something.
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Effective in enciting pathetic hand wringing within establishment Europe while grassroots Islam beats its breast, yes. There is, however, a strange-bedfellows backlash coming from social conservatives and secular liberals in Denmark, France, and Germany, and it has all the makings of ugly when the next terrorist attacks occur.
Call for probe of Muslim group's involvement in cartoon case
15/02/2006 - 19:51:28
Denmark’s main opposition party and a government ally today called for an investigation of a national Muslim group’s Middle East trip, which has been blamed for fanning the furore over a newspaper’s publication of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.
Anger over the cartoons had simmered within Denmark after the Jyllands-Posten daily published them on September 30, but then exploded internationally after an umbrella organisation of Danish Muslims took the caricatures to the Middle East in December and January to seek support from religious and political leaders.
Islam widely holds that representations of Mohammed are banned for fear they could lead to idolatry.
Since the trip, consumers in many Muslim countries have boycotted Danish goods, and violent protests have led to the withdrawal of Danish embassy staff from Lebanon, Syria, Iran and Indonesia.
The Foreign Ministry advised all Danes to refrain from travelling to Pakistan as protests gathered momentum there against the cartoons.
A poll released on Sunday showed most Danes blame the group, which claims to represent 27 Muslim organisations, for provoking the flag-burning protests and embassy attacks, though the group insists that was not their intention.
“We need to find out happened on these trips,” said Peter Skaarup, deputy leader of the Danish People’s Party, an ally of Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen’s governing coalition.
On the trip, the group carried a dossier with purported examples of images offensive to Islam, including photocopies of the 12 Muhammad cartoons and three additional images – two offensive drawings of the prophet and a copy of an AP photograph that was unrelated to the controversy.
That photograph, showing a bearded man wearing fake pig ears and a pig nose, was from a pig-squealing contest in France in August and had no connection with Islam or the prophet caricatures.
Ahmad Akkari, the group’s spokesman, said his group did not regret the trip, but was ready to accept part of the blame for the anti-Danish furore, saying the rest of the blame lies with the Danish government and the Jyllands-Posten newspaper.
Ahead of the journey in October, the Muslim group contacted the ambassadors from several Muslim nations with their complaints over the cartoons.
The ambassadors then wrote to Fogh Rasmussen, demanding a meeting and urging him “to take all those responsible to task under law of the land in the interest of interfaith harmony.”
Fogh Rasmussen declined to meet them, saying the government could not be held responsible for cartoons printed in an independent newspaper.
In parliament, Skaarup’s party said the role of the ambassadors should also be investigated.
The main opposition Social Democrats went one step further, saying that as well as a probe into the Middle East trip and the ambassadors, the Danish government itself should be investigated.
“When we go through the case, we must look at whether the government, the ambassadors, and the imams who have a stake in this could have done things differently,” said Social Democrats’ spokesman Jeppe Kofod.
Fogh Rasmussen’s office declined comment on the calls for an investigation.
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