John,

I see your point, and if I were the guy filling in potholes, I too would be annoyed with the dapper fellow on his soapbox.

Yet, as you said, some things exist only in the doing of them, and if the Europeans are going to HAVE free speech, they have to DO it, and publishing those cartoons is DOING it.

And as far as all that cartoon-publishing goes, I think it might make our job in Iraq easier, because we can point to the Danes et al, and say to the Iraqis, "See? Freedom of speech means sometimes running into pictures and ideas you don't like. But does their publication injure your rights to think and believe as YOU wish? Are you any less of a Muslim because someone else thinks Mohammed was a squirrel or asshat? No? Well, good. You're learning what it means to be modern, to have the qualities that make Westerners generally, and the United States in particular, such a dominant power in the life of the world."

In short, John, it's about breaking the hold of the Muslim clerical class (they're shamans, really) have on the hearts and minds of the ignorant and fearful, however devout they may be. And part of growing up, to learn to do without the shamans and their witch-doctoring, is learning to stand on your own two feet in dealing with the world and all its insults to one's heart.

convoluted

What, you mean these ideas and opinions don't spring out fully formed, with footnotes and an index?

You sound like Lincoln complaining about abolitionists - which is definitely good company to be in...

...and perhaps that's the best analogy...by 1862, Lincoln certainly didn't care about alienating southerners - they were already openly at war (like the jihadists) - but he recognized how vital Delaware and Kentucky and Missouri were (like the moderate muslims) - enough so that he fired Fremont and disbanded Hunter's African Descent regiment after their local Confederate-only emancipation proclamations. The time wasn't right, even if the cause was...he picked his battles, and by that fall the time was ripe, and he issued his own Emancipation Proclamation...

A highly inexact analogy, but perhaps helpful...

Nonetheless, I still think it's way too late now to back down - when the signs demand beheadings and embassies have burned and people have died, to apologize and to fudge will do nothing but train the protesters, even the peaceful protestors to whom we wish to appeal, that mob violence and threats of mob violence are the most effective tools they have. The time when an apology and fudging with nuance would have solved this passed long ago, in my view.

That doesn't mean shoving it in their faces, obviously - but pointing out, calmly but firmly, that, in the West, blasphemy is not and will never be a crime. It may be rude, disgusting, reprehensible, and morally indefensible - but it is not and will never be a crime.

Will that work? Hell if I know...but if the message were consistent and clear, from Bush to State to our western allies, it would clarify the argument - it makes the jihadi's demand we make blasphemy illegal...

I have been a little confused by your response to this issue as well. What I think you’re saying is that, (1) the cartoons truly are in bad taste because they mock someone’s deeply held spiritual beliefs and that is understandably offensive, and (2) this whole thing has been a case of horrible timing because it threatens to undo a lot of very good work that has been done by some very good people.

I agree with both points, by the way, and I think your assertion in an earlier post is exactly right – that many on the other side are potentially ready to defect under the right circumstances. This incident doesn’t help produce those circumstances.

What I’m still a little confused about, however, is exactly what you think should have happened differently. Is this just an unfortunate incident occurring at a bad time, and you feel compelled to blog about it? Or are you going as far as to say that because we are at war the government of Denmark should not have allowed the cartoons to be published?

Mike, I'm not so bold as to make a specific policy prescription. Perhaps this was something that just had to happen. (Certainly even contemplating having European governments DO anything is enough to make me throw up my hands in helplessness. It all sure makes Bush look good.)

But in any revolutionary time, there is a tendency for hotheads and radicals to grab control. And I think there were not enough cool heads and too many hot heads. (With much blame to fall on European political sclerosis, which allows little change and maybe makes hot-heads the only alternative.)

But Ethan's right, it's too late to back down now. Which is just my point seen from another angle. If we are blundering into situations and then finding we can't back out, then we are not making decisions cooly and well.

And speaking of the Bush Administration, ponder this. Our war-like actions were supposedly going to "inflame the Arab Street," and conjure up legions of new enemies.

So how did we invade 2 Moslem countries, bully many others, stay friends with Israel, shoot missiles into terrorist dinner-parties, and yet...and yet...and yet...have no embassies go up in flames? And not much in the way of riots.

Could it be—aw no, what a loony idea this is—could it be that Bush is doing something right?

Actually, non-Muslims aren't the only ones who think the cartoons weren't all that offensive. Omar over at Iraq the Model says:

"You know that those cartoons were published for the 1st time months ago and we here in the Middle East have tonnes of jokes about Allah, the prophets and the angels that are way more offensive, funny and obscene than those poorly-made cartoons, yet no one ever got shot for telling one of those jokes or at least we had never seen rallies and protests against those infidel joke-tellers"

So complaining about how awful and insulting these cartoons were (when they were mostly childish, goofy, or neutral-looking sketches, and some of them weren't even pictures purporting to be of Mohammed at all) is beside the point. So is the argument about free speech. This isn't exactly about free speech per se. There is an element in Muslim society that takes offense at the least little thing, and just the way we don't bring our society to a halt every time someone with OCD starts freaking out about needing to wash every doorknob thirty times before touching it or something like that (instead, we tell them to get medical help), we should not continue to back up every time one of these situations come up, where some Muslim supposedly has been offended by some innocuous thing that no one else even noticed (a grease stain on the subway that looked like Mohammed, too many women with bare heads on tv, whatever,). Every time we back down when the "Arab Street" goes on one of its carefully orchestrated rampages doesn't make us look superior and in control, it makes us look like we are being jerked around. I don't even think the cartoons are any good; I'm just tired of being jerked around.

Here's a case I'll remind you of to illustrate what I am trying to say: remember that wacko who complained to Burger King about the swirly shape on its ice cream lids that "looked like" the name of God, though why in God's name that would be offensive I have no idea as Muslims write the name of God on just about every surface -- but Burger King cowered before the Mighty Muslim Complainer and apologized and changed the lids, because of course actions more violent than mere boycotting was threatened. Maybe Burger King made a good business decision, I don't know. But it looked like they were made to obey by the Shining Truth of Islam, and we simply can't afford the other side this kind of petty victory. It's one thing not to insult other peoples' beliefs, but not being insulted is a two-way street.

Thanks for that!

Apropos of this: Islam is like your neighbor -- your increasingly crazy neighbor.

And since I'm handing out links, even other Muslims are getting worried about their toys-in-the-attic family members: Sorry, Norway and Denmark.

Of course, that site could have been worked up by a non-Muslim, for a variety of reasons that come to mind, but for now I'll take it as real.

Really, see if you don't agree that it's excessive to buy into the six-month-old original cartoons as "insulting," just because we are offended in general by the excesses of modern imagery:

These cartoons, as solicited to find out whether fear was squelching Danish illustrators, are really very mild to the Western eye. If we self-censor something like this, we leave no scope for adversary commentary at all. Several make fun of the cartoonists, and the one with the incendiary device...well? And the idea of a flat prohibition on representing Mohammed is a canard.

These cartoons were originated and circulated by imams to inflame.

The western mass media melee is a mess, and yet wanting to clamp down on it (as opposed to refine one's own contribution) is counterproductive. We can't go back, only forward into more facts and one hopes more wisdom. The blogosphere helps. I put this argument together here.