Bah! Who Needs A Free Press Anyway?
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Washington on Friday condemned caricatures in European newspapers of the Prophet Mohammad, siding with Muslims who are outraged that the publications put press freedom over respect for religion.
By inserting itself into a dispute that has become a lightning rod for anti-European sentiment across the Muslim world, the United States could help its own battered image among Muslims.
“These cartoons are indeed offensive to the belief of Muslims,” State Department spokesman Kurtis Cooper said in answer to a question. “We all fully recognize and respect freedom of the press and expression but it must be coupled with press responsibility. Inciting religious or ethnic hatreds in this manner is not acceptable.”
“We call for tolerance and respect for all communities for their religious beliefs and practices,” he added.
Note that our State Department did not have a single word of condemnation for the Muslims who issued death threats, took over government buildings, and did a bit of firebombing of their own.
You know, like the “American Taliban” might if we just give them an inch.
It’s a shame that the US Government feels it has to reward violent and reprehensible behavior in this way. I suppose freedom is disposable when we have the chance to suck up to Islamofascists.
Way Too Smart For Me UPDATE: Jeff Goldstein has a must-read post on the nature of the “other” and how this may well be the endgame in the establishment of Muslim identity politics. Spend 20 minutes reading and pondering what he says. It’ll be worth your time. Here’s a taste:
Predictably, we are simply seeing an Islamic version of identity politics finding its rhetorical niche: western deptictions of the Other are inauthentic and are to be demonized—though, with the death of Edward Said and the subsequent and extensive real-world cartooning (pardon the pun) of Said’s position of cultural ownership over individual ethnic narratives (one propagated by fierce proponents of identity politics within the academy, often out of blinkered idealism, often out of a cynical recognition that such a philosophical paradigm greatly expands areas for “study” and lends to the new champions of these area studies the label “experts” in the various new ethnic identity studies “fields”), this argument is taking on more tangible and extreme manifestations.
SCREW YOU, Islamofascists UPDATE:
Yeah, you self-righteous oppressive bastards, you’re mighty fearsome with your faces covered, using your children to spread your pestilence and hate. Take off the coverings, show yourselves to the sunlight, and come and get me and everyone showing the world the cartoon that have twisted you into such a rage. Me, I’m laughing at you and your infantile sensitivity.
Tim Blair nails their reprehensible hides to the wall.
Michelle notes that an American artist is exhibiting a painting of Osama bin Laden as Jesus Christ. Someone might want to alert John Cole so he can go on Code Red American Taliban Watch. No word yet on if any Baptists have issued a fatwa or called for an “international day of anger”, but we can always hope, right?
Much more from Michelle on the cowardice of the American media here.
(h/t and image, Michelle Malkin)
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Category: Fighting the Islamists, Our Foreign Policy
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