O'Sullivan on the Cartoons
I haven't said much on the cartoons which are causing such an outcry in the Muslim world. I have some thoughts of my own, but I've been pretty busy writing, so instead I'll just borrow someone else's, namely John O'Sullivan:
As uncomfortable as it is, he certainly has a point.
Update (2/10/2006): Link fixed.
As riots spread through the Islamic world, the British foreign secretary, the U.S. State Department, the U.N. secretary general, various responsible Muslim organizations and many commentators in Europe and America are calling for restraint on both sides.
What both sides would those be? Well, one side has published a handful of cartoons, arguably blasphemous and certainly insulting to the Prophet Mohammed, and the other side has burned embassies, taken hostages, murdered three people suspected of being Christians and/or Danes, shot at Danish soldiers helping children in Iraq, marched through London with banners threatening further bomb attacks on the city, and attacked and beaten people whom they suspected of some vague connection with, well, with Europe or Christianity.
Suppose both sides listen to these calls for restraint. What would happen? I suppose that one side would stop burning embassies and murdering people and the other side would no longer publish cartoons to which the murderers might object. That would mean the murderers had obtained their objective and the Danish newspaper that first published the cartoons had been defeated in its campaign against the unofficial Islamist censorship that in recent years has spread across Europe by murder and intimidation.
As uncomfortable as it is, he certainly has a point.
Update (2/10/2006): Link fixed.
