Ten Fingers, 6 Strings: Planned Riots?

February 09, 2006

Planned Riots?

I've been pretty quiet on the Muhammed cartoon controversy because 1) I don't spend a lot of time scooping the news here, and 2) there seems to be more behind this than a simple, random collective tizzy from "outraged" Muslims.

Strategypage is reporting something that I had a hunch about. I'm not sure how to validate this information, but it does seem to jive with the events we've been seeing over the last few days:

The riots throughout the Moslem world over Danish cartoons of the prophet Mohammed appear to have been instigated by Iran, with the help of Syria. The cartoons first appeared last fall, and were even published in an Egyptian newspaper last October. There was no fuss then, until the Iranian government decided there was an opportunity to enlist the media, and Islamic radicals, into some violent, and well publicized street theater. Ten have died so far, all Moslems, and the cartoons have been more widely published than would have been the case otherwise. The clerics ruling Iran apparently see themselves as retaking the leadership role in the "worldwide Islamic revolution."

I don't think it is much of a coincidence that the most violent and explosive demonstrations against the cartoon have occured in Tehran, Damascus and Beirut. The Western media has been reproducing these images without scrutiny or question for the past week, and have yet again, become a bull-horn for those that want to strike fear into the hearts of the infidels. Do you think these men would have gotten away with burning down Egyptian Embassy in Tehran?

Right now in the West, the debate is simmering over freedom of expression and the wisdom behind the appropriatness of printed content designed specifically to "infuriate" people of a certain minority protected ideology.

These debates are completely unfocused, and only serve to demonstrate how utterly clueless the West is in dealing with our enemies who, regardless of what you choose to believe, have declared war on us. The Iranians in particular are masters of the proxy war, and have used yet another trick to not only rally Muslims to their radical bosom against the West, but also to make the West feel bad about being the infidels that they are. The button that activates self-loathing is big and exposed on our chests for all the world to see.

Posted by 10 fingers 6 strings at February 9, 2006 04:18 PM | TrackBack

Comments

Clearly there is a war heating up between "radical" Islam and "the West". I use quotes because even non-radical Islamic people's still have a 13th or 14th century mentality that does not at all coalesce with the modern world's views on most things. It is a huge culture/religious clash that cannot be avoided and has been bound to happen. Until Islam finds a way to fit into the collective global society we live in, this major schism will remain.

And the onus clearly lies on Muslims to bend to the Western way of living because "we ain't going back to the 14 century for no Ragheads" would be the sentiment expressed in various languages by millions of gun toting westerners riding smart bombs, when that confrontation eventually happens. And guess who would lose that fight...yep, the Muslim world.

I think the fact that so many generations have gone by where people in the West have experienced relative peace and freedom that the images of violence and threats of violence from the radical Islamic fundamentalists has led to this kow-towing and the apologizing for exercising our most basic freedoms as "fredom of the press". I never would have thought a day would come where CNN would self-censor out of respect to religious sensitivities? U can bet they aren't going to start doing that for Christians. So, we capitulate to keep the lid on the cooker, for now. But the cooker is still heating up, bubbling over with jingoistic hatred of nations which don't honor the Sharia law. And if you leave the lid on a pressure cooker long enough it explodes, which is what we saw happen recently over...cartoons. Obviously the temperature was turned up not by an outside force, but by someone adding heat from within, but the result remains the same.

So, we are left with either finding a way to lower the pressure (capitulation, appeasement, kow-towing), let the thing keep exploding little by little or into one eventual explosion that leads to most likely a war with Israel (read: with the West), or apply enough pressure from the outside that the thing implodes on itself. What form that pressure comes in should be up to the Islamic world to choose:

1. Drop the Sharia crap and accept the western way of existence (unlikely to happen)
2. Economic sanctions etc. (unlikely to work)
3. Get bomb lobbed into your turban and cease to exist. (could happen, would work)

That's my take on the effect cartoons can have in a postmodern world.

Posted by: Rick at February 10, 2006 01:09 PM