Via Reuters:
The United States backed Muslims on Friday against European newspapers that printed caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad in a move that could help America’s battered image in the Islamic world.
Inserting itself into a dispute that has become a lightning rod for anti-European sentiment across the Muslim world, the United States sided with Muslims outraged that the publications put press freedom over respect for religion.
“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.”
American Muslims welcomed the U.S. position, although it stopped short of urging American media not to republish the cartoons that include depicting Mohammad as a terrorist.
Cooper said he had no comment as to why the United States chose to pass judgment in a dispute that ostensibly does not involve America.
I know a lot of people in the blogosphere are lashing out at the State Dept., but in my opinion a position on a hot button issue like this one would not have been taken by the State Dept. without the approval of the President so if there’s someone to be upset with, it should be him.
On one hand I can see where the US would want to show Muslims that they are ’sensitive’ to their concerns about this issue - especially considering how some Muslims view us in light of the Abu Ghraib scandal. On the other hand, I seriously doubt the Islamic community would ever take the Christian side in a show of support if the situations were reversed (and I should note that the situation wouldn’t be totally the same on the Christian end because you wouldn’t see Christians going ballistic, making bomb threats, committing acts of terrorism in response to any offense taken over an anti-Christian cartoon).
I think I’d have some sympathy for Muslims regarding the cartoons if they didn’t take to the streets and do things like this and this in protest.
Every once in a while there are issues I blog about in which I haven’t formed an opinion and this is one of those issues. What do you think about the official US position on this controversy?
(Hat tip: Atlas Shrugs)
Update I/Related: Zombietime has a page up that notes depictions of Mohammed through the years. FYI: It’s slow-loading because it contains many, many images.
Update II: Jim in the comments section notes a post from Eugene Volokh which sheds a different light on the US position than the short version Reuters reported.
Related Toldjah So posts:
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The State Department should have kept their nose out of it! This is a cartoon. Ted Rall is more offensive than these cartoons but the SD says nothing about him…this is ridiculous but I am glad to see you brought it up!
Comment by Pam @ 2/3/2006 - 8:34 pm
Then I am angry with Bush. He is overstepping his position with this one. He can be “sad that freedom of speech results in this”, but he has to support freedom of speech regardless.
Comment by blogagog @ 2/3/2006 - 8:51 pm
-When the “peace loving” Muslim communities stand up and flail their arms 1/10th as much over the hijacking of their religion, something they insist has happened, and openly and vociferously condemn the murdering Jahidists among their numbers, then and only then will I take anything serious that t6hay have to say. Their group as a nationality/religious movement is at the heart of almost every area of unrest and inhuman activities going on in the world, and they expect sympathy over a damn cartoon. Good luck!
- Bang
Comment by Big Bang Hunter @ 2/3/2006 - 9:20 pm
Before anyone gets to upset at the State Dept. take time to read this at the Volokh Conspiracy where he has an extensive transcript that goes beyond what was mentioned in the Reuters piece. His analysis:
Sounds to me like McCormack, at least, is repeatedly stressing that the cartoons ought to be protected from governmental punishment, but is simply exercising the government’s right to speak out against them. Naturally, the Reuters story could only quote a small part of the comments, but it’s unfortunate that the quoted excerpt seemed to understate the State Department’s expressions of support for free speech.
Comment by Jim @ 2/3/2006 - 9:52 pm
Thanks Jim. Leave it to Reuters to p me off for no reason
Comment by blogagog @ 2/3/2006 - 10:03 pm
” Their group as a nationality/religious movement is at the heart of almost every area of unrest and inhuman activities going on in the world, and they expect sympathy over a damn cartoon.”
Welcome to communist china!
Comment by andrew @ 2/3/2006 - 10:25 pm
Ah but you would never know that in China if you use Google
Comment by sanity @ 2/3/2006 - 10:26 pm
- I’ll save my sympathies for the surviving family members of our 2300 dead at the WTC, and the 2400 of our troops, and the 17,000 wounded in Iraq, fighting the “peace loving” Muslims, if its all the same too you Andrew. One of the things I simply love about the left is their total lack of common sense and prospective….
- The Muslims around the world stay silent, and in many cases quietly cheer their “heros” on. So no. I can’t get too worked up over a few political cartoons…
- Now we’re finding out that some of the translators in the CIA that had uncovered important information, previously unknown because of faulty work, were fired when they raised objections, and exposed others who were actually sympathetic to the “cause”. It appears if theres an area that we WERE prepared for, prior to the 9/11 attack, all the way through the Clinton admins, and now Bush’s, it would be hard to find. But aside from all the blame to go around, having people in our security services who are antipithetic to America takes the cake. The skunks in Washington should be glad I’m not in charge or one day after I found out some of these things a lot of fimiliar faces would be headed home. Blaming the President is totally misplaced, and worse dangerous, because it wastes precious time and doesn’t fix a damn thing….
- Bang
Comment by Big Bang Hunter @ 2/4/2006 - 1:08 am
I’m glad to see this happen because it shows everyone that it will always be something with radical Muslims.
I have a British friend and after 7/7 she was insistent that the cause was British involvement in Iraq. This should help her to understand that radical Muslims want to change her/our very way of living and that if it weren’t the war in Iraq eventually something we did, like this, would incite Arab Muslims to declare war on the west.
Did anyone notice that war HAS been declared on Europe by these Islamofascists because of this?
Radical Islam’s stated goal is to convert us or to kill us all. It’s that simple. Some people don’t believe that’s what they want because it seems like an unattainable goal. And it probably is, but that doesn’t mean they’re not going to try. They have time. If it takes a thousand years. For them a nuke in NYC would be a good start. And it would be just that: a good start. It wouldn’t be an end or a one time strike back at the Great Satan. It would simply be a good start.
Too many people on the left simply don’t believe that the Islamofascists are serious. These people aren’t convinced and many of them see President Bush and Christian fundamentalists as a much bigger threat to the U.S. and the world.
I got news for them. Either we give in to every Muslim demand or we fight for our rights and our way of life.
When I say “demand” I mean sharia law and laws based on Muslim beliefs. They would eventually insist that we do things their way and if we refuse at any point, well, then it’s more jihad until once again we appease them.
We must fight this way of thinking both intellectually and physically now or else we’ll simply continue to roll over at each and every confrontation until we have completely changed.
I hope this uproar over Mohammed is opening some eyes.
Comment by Sean @ 2/4/2006 - 10:32 am
You cannot yell fire in a crowded theater and diliberatly provoking a negative response by using “graven” images is arrogant and uncivilized. It would have been more to the point and far more effective to use the image of bin laden, instead of a Prophet. The double standard here is how American’s respond when anyone is seen to be anti-Jewish. How about a nuclear bomb over the head of Christ published in Muslim newspapers? All of you warmongers on both sides need to step back some. Peace
Comment by steve @ 2/4/2006 - 11:01 am
Steve - If you’d get your badly screwed up head out of that dark place for just a few minutes I think you’ll find that quite a few “Christian ‘heads’” have already been published in the Muslim media/web sites. Of course in your twisted world kidnapping innocents and cutting off their heads is oh so much less arrogant and much more civilized. Right. If I’m a warmonger for wanting to fight for my country, family, and way of life you’re just a raving horses ass…
- Last time I respond to your idiotic, intentionally inflamitory posts sport. You’ve earned permanent ignore. Happy?
- Bang
Comment by Big Bang Hunter @ 2/4/2006 - 1:49 pm
steve, you’re just not paying attention. How about Kanye West as Christ on the cover of Rolling Stone? Pity about the fatwah against Kanye, huh? And let’s all have a moment of silence for those intrepid RS reporters who gave their lives for free speech. And I do think the firebombing was over the top, simply selling the editorial staff into slavery would have been sufficient.
steve, do you actually enjoy being dismissed with contempt?
Comment by Steve Skubinna @ 2/4/2006 - 2:31 pm
Its ok if a republican president does it.
Comment by andrew @ 2/4/2006 - 3:44 pm
- You’re suggesting the President is cutting off heads? Andrew…I think your momma is calling you for dinner…..
- Bang
Comment by Big Bang Hunter @ 2/4/2006 - 4:16 pm
The State Department ought to shut up. I don’t care what reason they might have, nor who may have authorized the statements. The US State Department has historically been a bumbling, friend of the Left.
Tell the European papers to print those cartoons if they like. If the Muslims don’t like it, TOUGH! Nyeaahh!
Comment by benning @ 2/4/2006 - 5:26 pm
Fighting for your country might best be done by not leaving it. Peace
Comment by steve @ 2/4/2006 - 7:26 pm
Your right steve…hate to say that, but he is right.
All those democrats who fled or complain and whine when they don’t get thier way they are going to leave the US are not fighting for it, they are not ‘patriotic’, they care nothing for the country they live in nor its citizens if they are so willing to abandon it.
Comment by sanity @ 2/4/2006 - 7:50 pm
Not leaving your country to fight for it guarantees you will be fighting for your country on your own soil. Freedom
Comment by blogagog @ 2/4/2006 - 7:51 pm
“You’re suggesting the President is cutting off heads? Andrew…I think your momma is calling you for dinner”
Are you on drugs?
Comment by andrew @ 2/4/2006 - 8:58 pm
Children should be seen and not heard Andrew…. Otherwise your momma might have to paddle you….
- Bang
Comment by Big Bang Hunter @ 2/5/2006 - 12:19 am
sanity, I’ll bet that when you break wind it sounds much like when your speaking, correct? Peace
Comment by steve @ 2/5/2006 - 11:39 am
“Children should be seen and not heard Andrew…. Otherwise your momma might have to paddle you…”
Oh please.
Comment by andrew @ 2/5/2006 - 12:28 pm
- This whole kerfluffle over the Danish cartoons is a desperate attempt on the part of the Islamist extremist leadership in places like Syria and Iran to try to stem the tide of burgeoning Democracy in the ME. For many Decades the Leaders in Damascas and Tehran have been living in palaces and squandering all of the countless billions of oil money and foreign aid from the West, keeping their own masses at the level of starvation, and playing a dangerous game of demonizing the West as the “Great Satan”, to take the spotlight off their own greed and avarice.
- Arafat died with an estimated 62 billion salted away in various hidden French back accounts, while the Palistinians were kept busy hating Israel and dying for no reason, other than Arafats mendacity.
- The Muslim press has been running hate cartoons and articles for years, calling the Isreali’s “monet grubbing Jews”, and Zionist infidels and pigs. Where was all the faux outrage all these years while that was going on?
- And yet now the Mullahs and Shieks incite their people to burn flags and Embassies, kidnap Westerners, and call for Death to the Danish leaders. Again the Muslim leaders seek to enflame the passions of their people and escape thier own duplicity by blaming all the ME problems they have caused themselves on the West.
- The sooner America and the other Western Nations can break free of our dependency on oil, the sooner we will rob the Mullahs of the use of our image and support as the bad guys. If not for that dependency, the ME would be reduced to just another group of developing countries…..
- Bang
Comment by Big Bang Hunter @ 2/5/2006 - 12:36 pm
Steve says, sanity, I’ll bet that when you break wind it sounds much like when your speaking, correct? Peace
And there we have it folks, steve as usual shows the typical liberal mentality that when faced with thier own hypocrisy they can not debate the facts, they must attack you personally and try and make fun of your arguements because they have nothing of real substance to say.
Thank you for showing us this steve.
You have played the part of the ignorant liberal to the tee.
and here is your peace for you:
You can put peace in your quotes as much as you like, but your actions belay your words.
Comment by sanity @ 2/5/2006 - 8:01 pm
Sanity, you lie when you say, “You have played the part of the ignorant liberal to the tee.” He hasn’t even called you a fascist yet!
Comment by blogagog @ 2/6/2006 - 12:19 pm