Outrages : Outrageous conduct as I see it.
Updated: 3/1/2006; 11:56:55 PM.

 

 
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Sunday, February 05, 2006



Blame It On Newsweek!

"Who could have foreseen that cartoon caricatures of the Prophet Muhammed would piss off Muslims?" Where the hell is
Karen Hughes, Under Secretary of Public Diplomacy for the Middle East? Shouldn't she be, I don't know, working what little diplomatic mojo she has to try and quell this chaos?

Lebanese demonstrators have set the Danish embassy in Beirut on fire in protest at the publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad.

Thousands of people attended a rally and clashes broke out with security forces sent to protect the building.

Lebanese leaders condemned the attack and Interior Minister Hassan Sabeh announced his resignation.

The violence came a day after mobs in neighbouring Syria torched the Danish and Norwegian embassies in Damascus.

Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller has called for a calming of tensions.


"It is a critical situation and it is very serious," he told Danish public radio.

Denmark urged its citizens to leave Lebanon as soon as possible.

The cartoons first appeared in a Danish newspaper in September and caused outrage among Muslims, who consider any images of Muhammad offensive. One of the cartoons shows Muhammad wearing a bomb-shaped turban.  Newspapers across Europe have republished the pictures in recent days, saying they are defending freedom of expression.

Some Muslim clerics helped to persuade the crowd to disperse as the violence died down, the BBC's Jim Muir reports from the scene.

Lebanon's most prominent Sunni leader, Saad al-Hariri, vowed to track down and prosecute those involved in the attacks.

"We tell our Christian brothers that any stone thrown against a house or a car was an insult to Muslims," he said from Paris.

In other developments:

  • Hundreds of people rally in Afghanistan in protest at the cartoons
  • Iraq's transport ministry freezes contracts with Denmark and Norway
  • Iran recalls its ambassador to Denmark
  • An Iraqi militant group in the insurgent stronghold of Ramadi calls for attacks on Danish and non-Muslim targets in Iraq
  • Two tabloid editors in Jordan, arrested after publishing some of the cartoons, plead not guilty to charges of insulting religion.

Denmark and Norway have condemned Syria for failing to stop Saturday's attacks in Damascus and urged their citizens to leave the country.

"The principle of diplomatic relations is that diplomats can work safely and the fact that this has been broken is extremely serious," Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere told a news conference in Oslo.

The US also criticised Syria's approach, saying it was "inexcusable" for such damage to be inflicted on diplomatic missions.

While only 12 cartoons were intially published, there are fakes circulating which are incredibily inflammatory. Extremists have taken advantage of the situation and have fueled the flames with fake cartoons and dangerous rhetoric. But I don't care how damn offensive you find a cartoon, violence is unacceptable. Period.

If there's a lesson to be learned here - and I assure you there won't be - it's that Arabs rather obviously don't hate America any more than any other country. We just provide them with more opportunity to show it. If the Danes would just step up to the plate more often, maybe we could sneak our troops home from Iraq and no one would notice.

Can someone please point out to the Catholics that, if you are going to get all upset at the elephant dung Virgin Mary, piss Christ, and Last Temptation of Christ, you need to learn tactics from these Muslims? Catholics need to learn to threaten to blow up embassies, take people hostages, and burn stuff in violent demonstrations. I mean, little prayer vigils ain't gonna get it done.

enozinho in Washington Monthly comments:

As a Muslim, I find this whole episode really sad. Yes, the cartoons are and were meant to be an insult. Yes, it is a sin as far as Muslims are concerned to make images of Muhammad. But so is drinking, eating pork, men wearing gold etc. Muslims can't go around holding other people to their own standards.

This is what people do when their leaders are neutered. Sweat the small stuff while your leaders sell your future for an f-16.

My point is that the leaders in most Muslim countries are satisfied to let foreign powers do all kinds of actions that are not in the best interest of their constituents in exchange for financial aid. They prop themselves up by encouraging the rubes to blame America and others.

This works most of the time, but every once in a while you get a Muhammad Atta or a Timothy McVeigh.If anyone is really interested, the actual "sin" committed is two-fold.

First, Muslims aren't supposed to worship men. On the day of Muhammad's death one of his companions said roughly "For those who worshipped Muhammad, let them know that he is dead. For those that worship God, let them know that he lives and never dies."

Second if you want to get really fundamentalist about it, Muslims aren't supposed to draw any living form, because it is considered akin to competing with the creator.

Maybe this stuff is stupid, but it's what people believe, and it has had positive repercussions. Calligraphy, geometric artwork, and even architecture flourished because of the need for Muslims to express themselves without committing what they perceived to be a sin.

For anyone in the Washington DC area, or visiting, the Freer Gallery, just off the Mall steps from the Washington Monument, has the most amazing collection of Islamic art, and is worth it for anyone who is A. an art lover, B. Hoping to better understand Islamic culture, or C. Both.

Before any of us get too smug, a blatantly racist cartoon in a major US newspaper (say, USAToday) would have rather enormous implications. Can anyone really say how Compton or South Central would react?

I'm not saying this to equate the two types of outrage. Certainly there's something bottomlessly ironic about wrecking things and threatening violence to protest being portrayed as backward and violent. But we really can't judge this through our smug democratic eyes alone. Obviously Muslims feel this is a grave offense (and I think this prohibition is in the Sunnah -- the collection of traditions around the prophet Mohammed -- rather than in the Koran itself). And yes, you can look at Turkey who called off a prosecution of one of its more prominent authors because he said a few lines about the Armenian genocide. Their leaders realized that their dream of joining the EU would immediately go down the crapper if they imprisoned this guy for "insulting Turkish honor."

How do we, as Westerners, disabuse people of this kind of mindset? Of the kind of infantile narcissism that says even people in an entirely different culture can't act in ways prohibited by their own?

I don't know. I do know that it sure seems to help make Benjamin Barber's arguments that democracy demands a certain degree of cultural requisites before it facilitates progressive values ...

This incident doesn't bode well for what we can expect from Hamas, either, sad to say ...


categories: Outrages
Other Stories according to Google: Don't Blame the Saudis - Newsweek World News - MSNBC.com | Fighting Anorexia: No One to Blame - Newsweek Society - MSNBC.com | Saudis, pilgrims trade blame over hajj disaster - Mideast/N | How Bush Blew It - Newsweek Gulf Hurricane 2005 Coverage - MSNBC.com | Assigning Blame - Newsweek National News - MSNBC.com | Plenty of Blame to Go Around - Business Edge - Newsweek - MSNBC.com | Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | 'Not just the media is to | Fort Wayne news, sports, jobs, homes, cars | Blame the Cubs - Newsweek Society - MSNBC.com | A Leftist Youth Journal Based in the US

3:36:05 PM    



Lieberman Keeps War With Iran "On The Table"

"We are capable, if necessary, of continuing to pursue our aims militarily in Iraq and Afghanistan and elsewhere and, if necessary, conduct a military attack on Iran." And Syria, and Venezuela, and... Joe Lieberman has been Republican lite for years. Now he's a Bushite. It's great to see that Democrats are finally acknowledging it.

When you have a big hammer, everything starts to look like a nail. As long as we continue to invest outrageous amounts of money in the military and the military-industrial complex, all our solutions to all problems remain military solutions. We abandon diplomacy rapidly as diplomacy is not our strong suit, but military is. In the end, we just have more guns, so we resort to "smokin' 'em out" rather than finding a way to deal like grownups.

The outrage here is not that Lieberman is supporting McCain but that both of them are wanting to start a war that would be a cataclism for the world and most certainly escalate into nuclear exchanges. We need to raise holy hell starting now to prevent a military strike on Iran. According to reports the date has been set for the end of March with bunker busting nuclear tipped bombs and missiles. Does anyone really think it will end there? This will be a major military confrontation with China and Russia. The exchange of missiles will escalate within minutes and the whole Muslim world will rise up in defense of Iran. This must be avoided at all cost, and now. If the American people are alerted, they will oppose such a reckless and dangerous endeavor.

Unbelievable.
The two call each other John and Joe, and even though McCain is an Arizona Republican and Lieberman is a Democrat from Connecticut, they often cross party lines to work together _ sometimes to the chagrin of their peers.

When McCain later told the gathering of the world's top defense officials that "every option must remain on the table," when dealing with Iran on its nuclear program because "there's only one thing worse than military action, that is a nuclear-armed Iran," Lieberman did not elaborate much.

"I agree with John," he told the gathering, tossing out his prepared remarks on the Iran issue to spend more time instead lobbying for greater international involvement in Sudan.

"It is not unusual for Senator McCain and I to agree on matters of policy, but as people in the United States know, when we do agree it doesn't mean we are speaking for either the Democratic or Republican parties," he said to laughter. "But in this case I do believe we are speaking for the overwhelming majority."

Ned Lamont hasn't formed his committee yet so you can't give to him yet, but you can give to Blogpac, and that money will go to Lieberman's opponent.

UPDATE: Oh. My. God. Lieberman is tacitly supporting right-wing Republican John McCain for President.

"Every now and again we're asked that, and McCain always says we couldn't do it because each of us would want to be vice president," Lieberman told The Associated Press. "And my presidential campaign days are over _ I hope his aren't."

The Dems damn well need a strategy on this one.

You know why? Because to Bush, the strategic implications of hitting Iran won't matter -- if they decide to strike militarily, they will time it nicely for the 2006 midterms, and use it as a cudgel against Dems.

The Dems don't need much of an actual policy stance on this --they have no power, and they are not going to be consulted with in any honest way by this administration.

But they damn well need a political stance on this. I'm not sure what it'd be: probably that a military strike is on the table, with international support only, but that they have grave misgivings that Commander Codpiece could actually do it right. He has the reverse Midas touch -- everything Bush touches turns to shit.

And we need to be prepared for the crippling oil embargo if Bush does strike.  The Iranians have at their disposal the following retalitaory options: stopping all oil shipments out of the Gulf, a Shiite uprising in Iraq, a possible Iranian invasion of southern Iraq, missile strikes against Saudi oil infrastructure.....

This is some serious shit. The loyal oppostion (we Dems) must continuely press and challenge the administration to be clear, transparent and forthwright in addressing this issue. Posturing for electoral or PR advantage - not acceptable.

Remember, if we attack Iran in any way, we will be attacking the Islamic world (once again) Against that backdrop, this week's cartoon riots might just seem, well, cartoonish.

In other words, there will be no good options, just some that are slightly less miserable than others.

In other news, the guy down the block from me with a huge collection of guns has heard that I'm considering the purchase of a derringer. Word is he's planning a massive assault on my home to make the neighborhood safer.



categories: Outrages
Other Stories according to Google: Legislators demand more action on Iran - Americas - International | Daily Kos: Lieberman Says Filibuster Is ON The Table ! | Welcome To The American Cause | THE TALK SHOW AMERICAN: Legislators demand more action on Iran | THE TALK SHOW AMERICAN: Joe Lieberman : US Prepared for Iran Strike | danieldrezner.com :: Daniel W. Drezner :: Liberal absurdities on Iran | village voice > news > Mondo Washington by James Ridgeway | Iran Focus-Legislators demand more action on Iran - Iran (General | MyDD :: Lieberman Calling for Iran Strike? | CNN.com - Transcripts

2:24:31 AM    


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