Are you serious? Do you really think the
crusades a thousand years ago is a reason to
tip toe on eggshells around ANY given
population?

No, but then I don't think stage-managed attacks by imaginary hijackers is a reason to send armies to invade other countries and slaughter their population either.

And I understand the people in that region being on edge. After all there is a present crusade involving the most massive invasive firepower the world has ever seen.

So when the media wizards start beating the war drum, of course some of them do start marching to it.

Don't complain, that's exactly what is expected of them. It would be hard to justify the next invasion if there weren't a new "crisis" that just "has" to be dealt with.

These cartoons were not any
different from those aimed at any other
country or religion when spokespersons for
any given group make wild statements like
Oral Roberts threat to send money or he
would die. I think encouraging people to
kill others for their God and that they will
get scores of virgins is WORSE.

Worse???

When Iraq invaded Koweit (after Albright told Sadam that the US wasn't concerned if he did so) I think there were 200 something Koweitis killed.

In the supposed retaliation, "Desert Storm" the US killed something like 200,000 iraqis. Not only that but they destroyed the entire country's health infrastructure. And then came the sanctions cutting off even food and medecine. That killed another million, mostly children.

So if you want to compare cultures, start by comparing what really has been physically done and not what the religious clerics call for.

Many of the clerics you're talking about are just CIA voices on CIA radio stations like Al Jezeera anyway. The violence they are pushing for will only be used as an excuse to invade and kill more Arabs. The US administration wants the violence to occur.

So why in lands of FREE SPEECH shouldn't a cartoonist be able to parody something? BTW Denmark has not apologized nor should they.
It's terroristic as a matter of fact.

Perhaps because the very freedoms we enjoy in our "free" countries have been long denied to the countries of that region at the hands of the west by our own hands.

Every one of the dictators in the mideast was put into place by the US for the very reason of preventing democracy from arising.

I challenge you to name a single democracy anywhere in the world that the US has ever set up. Instead they put in some strongman who will look out for the interests of big US corporations.

Only now with the NWO it's not even US corporations. It's multinationals based elsewhere.

So the US still bears the financial costs of the war, the poor countries bear the human cost, and the multinationals reap all the profits.

> Well now it was NOT the newspaper editors
> that cost jobs, money and four lives!
> Puhleeze! It is insane followers of the cult
> of extremist Islam.

And it was insane followers of the cult of extreme Bushianity that killed not 4 but something like 1,300,000 Iraqis in the last 15 years. Not to mention 50,000 Afghanis.
So maybe Muslims are a little touchy about issues that deal with the "us vs them" theme. I can understand that. And I think it was totally stupid and insensitive of the Danish newspaper to print such cartoons.

But no, it wasn't stupid. It was intentional provocation. And then the retaliatory rhetoric was already sitting on the desk waiting to be aired at Al JeCIAra.

You shouldn't complain. Within a few months the tanks will be rolling into Iran just according to plan.

> Not Islam as a whole. I
> am well aware of the many good Islamics who
> are not like this. But the blame for deaths
> etc is not on the cartoonists as you are
> insinuating.

I agree wholeheartedly, the blame is on the warmongers who planned out the whole scenario.