It's remarkable that a fashion designer and burlesque dancer have more courage than the collective (American) mainstream media, although by this point I probably shouldn't be surprised.

What galls me is the complete and utter hypocrisy. These pompous, arrogant, overcredentialed, under-educated, dry-blown nitwits never tire of touting their alleged "bravery" and "boldness," but are too feckless to stand up to a few disgruntled Mohammedans.

These are the same pusillanimous twits that venerate Alan Berg-and justifiably so-for his tenacious defense of free speech, which would ultimately cost him his life. They hold him up as a martyr, and heap accolades upon him. Yet, when it came time to defend the 1st Amendment against rapacious, Islamist hordes these same individuals surrendered their rights with barely a whimper. Berg is probably rolling over in the crypt if he's witness to this.

What's more, they cobbled together a patently false explanation of why they refused to run the "controversial" Jyllands Posten editorial cartoons, instead of explicitly stating that they were cowed into backing down by Islamo-fascist agitators. At least the editorial board of the Boston Phoenix had the intellectual honesty to concede as much, in contrast to the rest of the media, which made a pathetic, faux display of cultural sensitivity in order to justify their indefensible decision not to run the innocuous Mohammed illustrations.

These craven brown-nosers are always willing to attack and disparage, when there are no negative repercussions to their actions, e.g. blasting President Bush, or conservative Christians, or Jewish settlers, but the minute they actually have to put their safety, or God forbid, their lives, at risk-and American journalists are some of the most cossetted, spoiled people on the planet-they balk.

Hypocrisy.

-good times, Gerard.

I say it's ok to lambast and revile the evil people using their religion to justify the abuse of others, but it's not ok to offend the same people of that religion for the sake of it. The depiction of Mohammed is offensive to all muslims. In the last few weeks a very small percentage of these people have demonstrated, and of these, a small percentage have broken accepted standards of law and order. So even if one million people broke the law, it still represents 0.1% (or less) of the people one would offend with these, not particularly funny drawings.
The Christian right may have small minorities that are 'bad' people, as will muslims, but one should not attack all christians to get at those 'bad' people. I don't see this concept as particularly complicated.

That's because viewing this as an uncomplicated subject allows you to wallow in your own ignorance, instead of confronting the difficult choices that lie in front of us.

Better instead to imbibe the trite banalities of Western apologists for Islam, e.g. John Esposito, Juan Cole, and other reputed "experts" in Islam, who want to brainwash the public into believing that Orientalism is the root of Muslim terror, and that Islam is the Religion of Peace (TM.) being despoiled by a few anomalous agitators like Osama Bin-Laden and Mohammed Ahmadinejad.

Your analogy to the "Christian right"-the ubiquitous boogyman among left wing, dogmatically secular Americans who would prefer not to think unpleasant thoughts-merely serves to illustrate how little you know about the essential tenets of Islam, its origins, its goals, and how it seeks to accomplish them.

Evangelical and Pentecostal Christians proselytize, but they do not force people to convert by force. They do not seek to have the government coerce people into being baptized, and even the most obnoxious Jehovah's witnesses, or Messianic Jews do not demand that society conform to their religious practices.

And no, the orgy of violence and hatred that has erupted over the past two weeks does not represent one-tenth of one percent of Islam's practitioners, despite what you might want to fervantly believe in your gullible, naive liberal heart.

The Jyllands Posten cartoons were not published merely to tick off the Muslim faithful-who in any case, seem to be the most aggrieved, short-tempered, easily irascible group of people on the planet-but to demonstrate in a concrete way the self-imposed censorship that is occurring in EUrabia, where people's lives and livelihoods are constantly imperiled by a fifth column known as Islam.

Orianna Fallaci has to live in exile, Michel Houellebecq has to fear that he'll be impoverished for writing a novel that is slightly critical of TROP, Theo Van Gogh is martyred by Islamic lunatics, Dutch MP Hirsan Ali has to live in constant fear for her life.

These are the fruits of appeasement, and the result of the muddle-headed, multi-cultural beliefs that Europeans have been misled into believing will accelerate the assimilation of people who hew to a creed that rejects those very values that they cherish.

There is no mult-culturalism or tolerance in Islam. If you are not an Arab, and do not speak the language of Mohammed, and his successors, Uthmar, Umar, Ali, etc., then you are inferior.

If you do not subscribe to the hadiths-the idiotic, anachronistic minutiae enumerated by a 7th Century warlord-then you are an apostate, and worthy of death.

These values are not compatible with liberal, European-or for that matter, American-values.

This destructive habit we have in the West of festishizing minute political, religious or philosophical differences will yet be our undoing. We even have vapid dichromatic schemes that illustrate the alleged "gulf" that separates us, i.e. red v. blue. However, these distinctions are lost on the febrile, fanatic Mohammeden praying at Al-Farooq Mosque.

The faithful Muslim does not distiguish between those who are shirk-the pagans, i.e. atheists, secular humanists, Hindus-and the supposed "people of the book," both groups are condemned for eternity if they do not renounce their beliefs and embrace Islam.

The latte-sipping "refusenik"-another leftist corruption of a once valuable, descriptive term-sitting in Haifa and the Haredi Jew living in Jerusalem, or the Orthodox settler who votes for the NRP; these people-despite their superficial differences-are equally worthy of death to the Islamist.

This is something that needs to penetrate the minds of you thickheaded leftists. In the end, we are all jahilliyeh to them. It makes no difference whether we worship in a synagogue, or an Orthodox church, or a Roman Catholic cathedral, or choose to forsake religious scripture altogether. The Maronite and the Melchite, the pagan and the bible-thumper... We are all corrupted, and the only choice we have-as far as they are concerned-is to either embrace Islam or "submit" to our own death and/or subjugation.

That's something that you folks need to grasp before it's too late. Evidently your counterparts in Europe are much further along in the process than you are.

Gerard.

Islam is approxiamtely 5-600 years younger than christianity. If you study history at a high enough level (I am assuming you don't correct me if I am wrong) you notice that both religions have developed and progressed along a similar path. Go back 5-600 years in Europe and what do you find? The Spanish Inquisition. Heresy was a crime across the continent and entire villages in Spain were wiped out. In Britain under the Tudors both Mary I and Elizabeth I had protestants and catholics respectively burnt at the stake or hung. As short a period of time ago as 1813 during the war on the Iberian Peninsular collaborating with the French installed government in Cadiz (which had banned the inquisition) was a death sentence if partisans caught you.

Look up the significance of christianity in the Salem Witch Trials in America or their equivalent in 16th and 17th century Europe.

Alfred the Great after he won the battle of Edington in 878 (give or take a few years) refused to sign a peace treaty with the Danish king unless the latter was baptised.

How about the burning of the Library of Alexandria. Caesar burnt it by accident. Caliph Omar of Damascus burnt it cdeliberately because the contents either agreed with the Koran in which case they were deemed superfluous or because they didnt in which case they were heresy. Christian zealots did the same thing a century or two before for the same reason with the bible instead of the Koran.

What about the Crusades?

Go back far enoughb in history and you see Christianity doing what Islam does today. Before you throw numbers and extent at me bear in mind the societal and demographic changes the world has undergone in the last 200 years. The problem is the same one as the overall terrorist one. Radical islam is probably more dangerous today because of the world we live in. It is criminally easy to procure explosives. Learning to fly isn't time consuming either nor is searching online for how to make atomic weapons. The radical elements of Islam are doing what Christianity did 600 years ago and unfortunately it is capable of far more. As a proportional measurement however there is little to differentiate the 2.

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