CARTOONS

mesopotamian ^

[MNJohnnie]

Sure nailed it. Great post.

[Recovering Ex-hippie]

Thank you for your posting. It is most helpful to hear from you. Our prayers are with you.

[nuconvert]

pong

[Hawk1976]

So all those Muslims and Arabs are just poor unsophisticated rubes? Easily played bumpkins? What exactly are they? Even a child (in the west anyway) learns definitively to never touch an oven burner of they do it once.

Turn on the TV, look for news from the Muslim world. I'll guarantee that somewhere, for some reason, Muslims can be found to be rioting over something. It can be anything, doesn't really matter. Christians in Sudan or Nigeria, Hindus in India, whatever can be turned into a good excuse. They tear down their own infrastructure, make themselves out to be jerks in the world media.

All of this is fueled from on high in the Saudi Royal family, The Iranian dictatorship, Syria, The new palestinian "government", from the Bully pit of a million mosques.

I am not a fool. I observe people saying they want to kill me for some perceived slight and ready to act on their threats. I don't know if they are practicing true Islam or false Islam. I do know that it's a fools bet to negotiate with them, because such only leave two outcomes. I can only take them at their word.

I am a peaceable person, I would rather avoid a fight. You cannot think that you can negotiate with people who would do violence to you.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

More here:

Widespread Cartoon Protests Under Way

[starfish923]

Too bad the Danes didn't let the insulting cartoon STAY under the radar. It HAD passed almost unnoticed way back in Semptember, 2005, in that obscure Danish paper.
Too bad they simply HAD to re-print it, rub it into Muslim noses and make it a world-wide issue.

One of the first remarks made was that Denmark said it had free speech. That was Denmark's reason for re-printing the cartoon. But then, Muslims pointed out Danish censorship of free speech regarding pro-nazism and denial of the holocaust (which is actually a crime).
Now, some Iranian talking head has threatened to start a cartoon contest which mocks/insults the Jewish holocaust. He would label the insulting cartoons "free speech."

This doesn't seem to be going away quicky, does it?

[FreeReign]

Turn on the TV, look for news from the Muslim world.

Sure, it's the TV -- that great reality box. Right??

Turn on the TV and what you'll see is the news manufactured and brought to you by global companies who wish to do business with the many anti-American statist governments around the world.

What you'll get on TV is center stage for anybody who hates America and the America-hater's numbers will be overrepresented.

Now, turn off the TV and what you get is reality. The reality includes a big enough dose of radical Islam but it also includes many and most Muslims who would never do you harm.

Sure, the majority of Palistinians are Hamas voting dirt bags. Sure, democracy in Saudi Arabia would probably be a scary thing, it's a good thing S.A. isn't democratic yet.

But there are plenty of peaceful Mulims and plenty of Muslims allied with us in the WOT.

That's what victory in the WOT will ultimately look like. You should recognize it early-on

[higgmeister]

nuconvert, I really don't know what to make of you.

I clicked on your name to read about you and I see this
disturbing image.

The American flag is very improperly displayed. Our flag
appears upside down with the stripes above the union.
The Persian Lion is standing on the union which is very
disrespectful. Here our flag is on the right but it should
be displayed on it's own right (on the left as it is viewed).
Additionally, The American Eagle should have a bundle
of arrows in one talon to represent our ability to fight when
necessary but our American Eagle always looks toward
his other talon which holds an olive branch of friendship.

I held my tongue and explored more to find that this is
intended to represent the solidarity of expatriate Iranians
with American democracy.

It is interesting that a discussion about disrespecting the
Prophet revealed obviously unintentional disrespect of
the United States.

There is a much larger chasm than you imagine between
average Americans and Islam. This post named a man,
Al-Sistani, that lays the blame on the extremists and
Takfiris (sic) for the harm done to the image of Islam in the
World. Yet, where in the world are the arrests by Islamic
Police and trials and imprisonment or death by Muslim
countries of the Islamists that instigate or perpetrate
the "beheading, kidnapping and blowing up market
places and day workers in Iraqi cities/.../blow up mosques
during prayer time, kidnap murder and torture innocent
travelers, and all the other repertoire of atrocities
committed in the name of Islam?"

Islam itself is the harm, its image is the reality. All Islam
gives tacit approval of the bombings and beheadings
because they fear Allah will judge them if they speak out.
What a conundrum. You know it is wrong. You know you
will let it continue because one more dead nonbeliever
is another step toward fulfillment of the Prophet.

Until Islam controls itself it is heading toward destruction.
Western culture hasn't taken men to the Moon and space on
feet of clay.

Oh, by-the-way, women aren't chattel.

[Coop]

Too bad the Danes didn't let the insulting cartoon STAY under the radar. It HAD passed almost unnoticed way back in Semptember, 2005, in that obscure Danish paper. Too bad they simply HAD to re-print it, rub it into Muslim noses and make it a world-wide issue.

In other words, it's all Denmark's fault.

And I bet all the rest of the world's problems are America's fault.

[Recovering Ex-hippie]

Wow.
Just excellant, articulate post. So much to think about.
thank you for pointing out so much I missed.

[Smokin' Joe]

It turns out the three most offensive cartoons were not even published in a Danish paper, but circulated by one of the islamic rabble rousers because he felt they reflected the opinion of Islam held by many of the Danes and other non-islamic Europeans.

link to story here

[nuconvert]

"this is intended to represent the solidarity of expatriate Iranian with American democracy."

It's an artistic rendering. It's our American symbols, the eagle and flag, intertwined with and standing together united with the symbols of a free Iran. (From the flag used during the time of the Shah) Iran and the U.S. were great allies back then. (until Carter) I would like us to be great allies again.

"I held my tongue ..."

Maybe you should have continued to do so, because it seems that the next conclusion you jumped to,unless I'm misinterpreting, is that I'm muslim. I am not.

"All Islam gives tacit approval of the bombings and beheadings because they fear Allah will judge them if they speak out."

Nonsense. Muslims speak out against it all the time. Do we see it in the msm? Rarely. (Do a search here on FR under keyword 'Jasser' for someone speaking out.) Sistani and other Grand Ayatollahs and clerics have spoken out against it and even in Iran want to see a separation of church and state.

Islam needs a reformation. There are very dangerous elements, the Muslim Brotherhood and Wahhabi sect, for example, which should be eradicated, IMO. There are also very peaceful sects, the sufis, for example. And there are members of sects in between, who are moderate and want nothing to do with the radical fundamentalists, the writer of this blog, The Mesopotamian, being one.

I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that when you said "You know you will let it continue..." that you were speaking in general terms, and not about me specifically. After all, you know nothing about me, including the fact that I have family members, retired and currently active, in the military.

Your last sentence was apparently meant as some sort of a parting jab (however ridiculous that you felt you needed to inform me) and was obviously said out of ignorance of who I am.

In closing, I'd like you to remember that not all muslims are bad. Not all muslims want to chop our heads off. If you have doubts, please speak with some of our soldiers who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

[nuconvert]

Please see post # 13

[nuconvert]

"It turns out the three most offensive cartoons were not even published in a Danish paper, but circulated by one of the islamic rabble rousers..."

Yes, it was totally orchestrated to incite. Though I think the Iranian regime was involved as were the Syrians, and I wouldn't exactly call them "rabble rousers".
I believe they were hoping to include the U.S. in the mayhem, so it was a wise decision (even though it may have been done for other reasons) for most newspapers here to refrain from publishing them.

[Smokin' Joe]

CHeck the link. They were not published by any papers. Not until the story broke. One is a bad fax of a picture of a french contestant in a hog calling contest, but has been presented to the faithful as a carriacture of Mohammed. The other two are not cartoons from a newspaper at all. Read, and be enlightened.

[nuconvert]

I know the 3 additional pictures weren't published in newspapers.
I've read most of the posts here on this story and more.

[Smokin' Joe]

It seems to me that the published images were pretty tame. Not worthy of rioting. A dog humping one of the faithful at prayer would be a more offensive matter, so if images which are not those published are being used to incite rioting and acts of war (such as burning embassies), then Muslims are being led down the path to global conflict by a few (at least one) fraudulent hucksters.

Islam is not my religion.

What Muslims do about that is up to them, but the rest of the world is watching.

What the rest of the world does about Islam may depend on it.

[nuconvert]

I agree with you.

"images which are not those published are being used to incite rioting and acts of war (such as burning embassies), then Muslims are being led down the path to global conflict by a few (at least one) fraudulent hucksters."

Yes. Except it isn't a few "fraudulent hucksters". There is money and organization behind all this.

[Smokin' Joe]

So someday, when we reinvent the bumper sticker, it will read "The Imams lied and Millions died"?