Were the major mainstream media outlets worried about fanning the flames of Muslim sensibilities when they showed those pictures over and over again …… and demanded more?
I think they intended to fan those flames.
Please note…. this thread is about the media.
No - it’s about you supporting Islamic attempts to stifle free speech. Why in hell should ‘Muslim’ or neo-con sensibilities get in the way of free speech?
Actually, I think it’s more of a rant on the Librul Media.
But let’s stand back and watch - it should be interesting to see how things writhe.
-Joe
What evidence do you have to support that claim?
What I find interesting is the level of protest of the cartoons seems much greater than it was over Abu Ghraib. Now that would be an interesting debate!
I think the problem is that for many devout Muslims just having a picture of the Prophet is a serious offense, regardless of the motivation. With Abu Ghraib, the pictures themselves were not offensive: it was what was depicted in them that was. So a newspaper publishing those pictures was not being offensive, but was just offering up evidence of wrong-doing by some in the US military.
And in any case, the offense at Abu Ghraib was mostly directed at ordinary people, whereas these cartoons are directly offensive against the Prophet.
(I’m not religious, so I can understand these feelings, but I do know that a few hundred years ago many Christians were so seriously offended by pictures of Jesus and the saints in churches that they started wars so they could destroy them. Presumably they would not have been so offended by pictures of people being tortured, because this would not have offended their beliefs about idolatry and graven images.)
No. I think the difference is that governments like those in Syria and Iran aren’t too keen on fanning the flames of protest over mistreatment of prisoners, since they mistreat prisoners routinely. But offend the Prophet, pease be upon him, and they’re more than willing to let the masses go on a rampage.
Having more ‘fundamentalist’ folks in your secular country that would ordinarily be causing you trouble cause an European embassy trouble and be more ticked off at a European country than at you might be a good reason to just go ahead and let them ‘vent’.
Aren’t you assuming political/ideological consistency is the rule? It always amazes me at how little of that there is in the general populace; I expect even less those from those who in power, who have much to gain from being two-faced…
I’m not sure what you mean. I’m not saying that I would expect any regime, much less Syria and Iran, to be consistent on how it manages protest. But most western countries cannot do much to manage protest, while countries like Syria and Iran are not known for allowing any protest that doesn’t align with the goals of the regime.
That’s part of the reason for the protests, really. Muslims in countries with state-controlled medias may not understand that a major newspaper’s output is not necessarily sanctioned or authored by the government, nor is it necessarily representative of the people’s overall opinions.
I also think that it’s naive to think that these riots are exclusively about the cartoons, any more than the LA riots were solely about Rodney King or the recent riots in France were about those kids killed in a chase. The Islamic world has a long list of complaints against Europe and America, and while these latest ones may seem petty in comparison to, say, Abu Gharib, they’re both the latest and some of the most tangible.
I would go out on a limb and suggest that they intended to fan the flames of Muslim sensibilities and secular sensibilities and every other sort of civilized sensibility on the planet. The United States tortured and murdered people at Abu Ghraib. The United States tortured the guilty and innocent at a network of prisons across the planet, and sent inmates to foreign countries where they would undergo even worse tortures. Every person who wants to be considered civilized must be outraged by what happened there. The media should have fanned the flames of outrage everywhere. They were morally obliged to fan the flames of outrage everywhere in the world. To do anything else would have been referred to as lying and a cover-up.
I’m not sure that the image of the green giant running after M. while opening and emptying cans over him is what is called for here to lower the heat of the debate…
The Army investigation of abuse there started months before the media broke the story. I’m not sure if any news outlets sat on it for a while, but they may have.
Here’s a minor difference: in Abu Ghraib, you had photos of an event that actually happened. They were the documents; there’s not much of a story without those photos. Not quite the same as arguably-offensive artwork, if you ask me. Oh, and it’s also two years later.