To All Those Offended by The Mohammed Cartoon

My new MySpace picture displayed is the Mohammed cartoon that is causing the riots and embassy attacks. I put it up on my page in defiance of all religious fundamentalists and extremists. Come and wage jihad on me, you zealot motherfuckers.

What is sacred to you is not sacred to me. Don't try to impose your will, your religion, or your backward misogynistic culture on me.

You burn the American flag (a sacred symbol to me) in violent demonstrations all over the world, but you don't see me throwing rocks at your embassy. A cartoonist makes a political statement by drawing a cartoon, and all of a sudden you become part of a mindless mob. Get a grip.

But you want to know the craziest thing about all of this? The “deeply offended” Muslim reaction is largely a sham.

People have been whipped up into a frenzy about something that generally would engender very little strife. The Danish cartoons were originally printed in September 2005, and then re-printed in a popular Egyptian newspaper, “al Fagr,” in October 2005. Tens of thousands of Egyptian Muslims saw them and went about their business. Were some people offended? Maybe. But they attacked neither the newspaper nor its staff. This part of the event provoked NO comment in the Islamic world at all. To repeat, an Egyptian newspaper published these “offensive” pictures of Mohammed and no one reacted.

The reaction was deliberately stoked by radical Danish Islamic imams - Abu Laban and Akkari, who toured the Middle East and included along with the fairly mild Jyllands Posten cartoons several other extremely offensive images, supposedly “hate mail” they had received. At least one of their extra images, supposedly of Mohammed as a pig, was in fact, nothing of the sort. It was a humorous picture of a Frenchman at a pig-calling contest. The point here is that the Danish imams, on their “let’s make a big stink” mission, included extraordinarily offensive pictures that had nothing to do with the Danish newspaper’s cartoons. It’s clear that these gratuitous and dishonest additions contributed to the outrage that developed.

The largest, most violent riots have occurred in Syria, Lebanon, Iran, and Afghanistan. The first three countries are under the control of strongly anti-Western regimes. (Syria remains an influence in Lebanon, to say nothing of Hezbollah.) In Afghanistan, the Taliban remains an influence in the out-lying cities where the riots occurred. All these governments and parties have an interest in whipping up anti-Western hysteria. No crowds of any sort assemble in Damascus and Teheran without explicit instigation, direction, and organization by the governments.


Support and defend free speech! Censorship is un-American! End all violence perpetrated in the name of religion!

Judge for yourself, you can find the cartoons here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_Drawings

Unapologetically,
Me
p.s. Feel free to repost or pass this along.