# Is the 'Cartoon Crisis' Spiralling out of Control? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 19, 2006, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-cartoon-crisis-spiralling-out-of-control/345247 "2006-02-19T21:47:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2006, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-cartoon-crisis-spiralling-out-of-control/345247/1 "2006-02-19T21:47:36Z")
In the latest insanity over a few cartoons: [Muslims Assault U.S. Embassy in Indonesia](http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11445755/) > [@](#): > > Hundreds of Muslims protesting caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad tried to storm the U.S. Embassy on Sunday, smashing the windows of a guard post but failing to push through the gates. Several people were injured. > > Pakistani security forces, meanwhile, sealed off the capital of Islamabad to block a planned mass demonstration and fired tear gas and gunshots to chase off protesters. In Turkey, tens of thousands gathered in Istanbul chanting slogans against Denmark, Israel and the United States. So, the U.S., which had nothing to with the cartoons and which actually issued a weasely ‘apology’ for them, gets attacked. In other news about the ‘religion of peace’: > [@](#): > > Muslims protesting in the Nigerian city of Maiduguri attacked Christians and burned 15 churches in a three-hour rampage that killed at least 15 people. Some 30 other people have died during protests over the cartoons that erupted about three weeks ago. > > In Jakarta, about 400 people marched to the heavily fortified U.S. mission in the center of the city, behind a banner reading “We are ready to attack the enemies of the Prophet.” So to get this straight - a cartoon of the Prophet is a gross injustice against Islam, but burning 15 Christian churches is apparently no big deal. Where is this going to end? Should the west tolerate this? At what point do we should ‘enough!’? And what are the appropriate responses? ---
**Author:** ![alaricthegoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4bbf92/32.png) [@alaricthegoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alaricthegoth)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2006, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-cartoon-crisis-spiralling-out-of-control/345247/2 "2006-02-19T21:55:17Z")
> [@Sam Stone](#): > > In the latest insanity over a few cartoons: > > [Muslims Assault U.S. Embassy in Indonesia](http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11445755/) > > So, the U.S., which had nothing to with the cartoons and which actually issued a weasely ‘apology’ for them, gets attacked. > > In other news about the ‘religion of peace’: > > So to get this straight - a cartoon of the Prophet is a gross injustice against Islam, but burning 15 Christian churches is apparently no big deal. > > Where is this going to end? Should the west tolerate this? At what point do we should ‘enough!’? And what are the appropriate responses? a frage? (forgive the poor transliteration of a yiddish expression from my mother’s lexicon, which rendered into english is “a question?”, which is to say, yeah, it spiraled out of control about a week and a half ago.(vide, elsewhere, my comparison to the incident at sarajevo that led to wwI) bottom line:we have no appropriate response on the menu. Virtually anything we do from our position of abject weakness (secondary to the network of contradictory policy and economic interests that permeate our utterly non-introspective society) will likely make things worse. The most salutary step we could take would be to extirpate the hypocrisy that underlies our posture vis-a-vis the muslim world (starting, perhaps, with our professed horror that the Iranian mullahs bless THEIR bomb when we bless Israel’s bomb, and remain the sole nation guilty of it’s use.) ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2006, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-cartoon-crisis-spiralling-out-of-control/345247/3 "2006-02-19T22:12:01Z")
> [@alaricthegoth](#): > > a frage? (forgive the poor transliteration of a yiddish expression from my mother’s lexicon, which rendered into english is “a question?”, which is to say, yeah, it spiraled out of control about a week and a half ago.(vide, elsewhere, my comparison to the incident at sarajevo that led to wwI) Well, it wasn’t clear to me that it was something that would keep growing bigger and bigger, or whether it was just a flare of anger that would die down. But it’s still growing in scope and violence… > [@](#): > > bottom line:we have no appropriate response on the menu. Virtually anything we do from our position of abject weakness (secondary to the network of contradictory policy and economic interests that permeate our utterly non-introspective society) will likely make things worse. I don’t know. It’s certainly a difficult problem. I think we could start by asserting our own values instead of appeasing this nonsense, which is what we’ve done so far. > [@](#): > > The most salutary step we could take would be to extirpate the hypocrisy that underlies our posture vis-a-vis the muslim world (starting, perhaps, with our professed horror that the Iranian mullahs bless THEIR bomb when we bless Israel’s bomb, and remain the sole nation guilty of it’s use.) Saying it’s okay for Israel to have the bomb and not Iran is no more hypocritical than saying it’s okay for a good citizen to own a gun and not okay for a fanatic with a history of violence to own one. Israel threatens no one who doesn’t threaten them. The same cannnot be said of Iran. There’s also the little matter that Israel got their bomb a long time ago, and didn’t ask anyone’s permission. That does not make it okay to repeat the same mistake. ---
**Author:** ![alaricthegoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4bbf92/32.png) [@alaricthegoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alaricthegoth)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2006, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-cartoon-crisis-spiralling-out-of-control/345247/4 "2006-02-19T22:41:29Z")
[I The same cannnot be said of Iran\* **HUH??** I’m pretty sure that we are threatening Iran on a daily basis, and have been ever since we murdered their elected prime minister to install our stooge in 1953. ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2006, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-cartoon-crisis-spiralling-out-of-control/345247/5 "2006-02-19T22:43:58Z")
I know it’s a different culture and all, but I have to wonder how much of this is really about the cartoons. These folks weren’t overly fond of the west before the cartoons, I imagine, and maybe this just gave them a flash point. Why this and not, say, Abu Ghraib, I dunno. Or maybe it really is primarily about the cartoons. That’s hard for me to understand, I could see a cartoon of my mother fellating a walrus and I’d only think the cartoonist was an idiot. Or knows something about my Mom I don’t know. But people can be trained to take offense at any trivial thing. As to what our response should be, well, whatever caused the violence is irrelevant. If our embassies or allies are in danger, we do what we can to protect them. Whether it’s violence stemming from intractable political differences, or from a ‘Peanuts’ where Mohammad goes flying because Lucy pulled the football away from him seems irrelevant to me. ---
**Author:** ![alaricthegoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4bbf92/32.png) [@alaricthegoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alaricthegoth)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2006, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-cartoon-crisis-spiralling-out-of-control/345247/6 "2006-02-19T22:55:01Z")
> [@Revtim](#): > > I know it’s a different culture and all, but I have to wonder how much of this is really about the cartoons. These folks weren’t overly fond of the west before the cartoons, I imagine, and maybe this just gave them a flash point. Why this and not, say, Abu Ghraib, I dunno. > > Or maybe it really is primarily about the cartoons. That’s hard for me to understand, I could see a cartoon of my mother fellating a walrus and I’d only think the cartoonist was an idiot. Or knows something about my Mom I don’t know. But people can be trained to take offense at any trivial thing. > > As to what our response should be, well, whatever caused the violence is irrelevant. If our embassies or allies are in danger, we do what we can to protect them. Whether it’s violence stemming from intractable political differences, or from a ‘Peanuts’ where Mohammad goes flying because Lucy pulled the football away from him seems irrelevant to me. it’s this, AND Abu Ghraib, AND the 15,000 swept up and imprisoned right now, AND gitmo, AND Palestine, AND W’s clever use the “crusade” first pop out of the box,AND maybe most of all, “if you’re not with us you’re against us” (I could go on but you get the idea). ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2006, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-cartoon-crisis-spiralling-out-of-control/345247/7 "2006-02-19T22:55:38Z")
> [@Sam Stone](#): > > Saying it’s okay for Israel to have the bomb and not Iran is no more hypocritical than saying it’s okay for a good citizen to own a gun and not okay for a fanatic with a history of violence to own one. > > Israel threatens no one who doesn’t threaten them. The same cannnot be said of Iran. There’s also the little matter that Israel got their bomb a long time ago, and didn’t ask anyone’s permission. That does not make it okay to repeat the same mistake. I agree with you as do most Americans, Canadians, British, French and Germans, I’m sure . It isn’t\* us\* that we need to enlighten on this point, and I’m afraid that many muslims feel that the mere existence of Israel does threaten them. After all, look what happened to the Palistinians when Israel was created. The fact that the creation of Israel wasn’t the real reason for the Palistinians lack of a homeland is irrelevant, they think it was. MId east Arabs and others (maybe they should be called Caananites) seem to resent that a new nation was shoehorned into territory that they considered theirs. Those are the people to whom it must be demonstrated that, while their view of free-speech, Israel, newspaper cartoons and so on is OK for them they shouldn’t try to enforce it on us. And I don’t see any way to do that in under, say, 500 years. That’s about how long it took Christianity to get over witch burning and that sort of stuff. I think that for many of its adherents, Islaam is about where Christianity was in 12-1300 AD. ---
**Author:** ![alaricthegoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4bbf92/32.png) [@alaricthegoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alaricthegoth)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2006, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-cartoon-crisis-spiralling-out-of-control/345247/8 "2006-02-19T23:01:53Z")
- I don’t see any way to do that in under, say, 500 years\* I don’t think we have that much time ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2006, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-cartoon-crisis-spiralling-out-of-control/345247/9 "2006-02-19T23:20:55Z")
I don’t think we have 500 _days_. This is going to feed on itself until some group somewhere steps over the line and a Western government is forced to respond. Then you can kiss Peace on Earth goodbye for the foreseeable future. There is absolutely no middle ground with these zealots in their countries. Quarntine them as much as possible and let them go to hell their own way. Muslims in the West can lead the lives they want, without being subjected to the abuses of their ignorant kin. Pull out our embassies, place the offending country on a “No Visit” list, cut all aid from the West, and let them rot. If their governments can’t control them, then why should we be bothered? ---
**Author:** ![alaricthegoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4bbf92/32.png) [@alaricthegoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alaricthegoth)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2006, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-cartoon-crisis-spiralling-out-of-control/345247/10 "2006-02-19T23:24:19Z")
_why should we be bothered?_ three letters. O…I…L… ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2006, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-cartoon-crisis-spiralling-out-of-control/345247/11 "2006-02-19T23:28:57Z")
> [@alaricthegoth](#): > > - I don’t see any way to do that in under, say, 500 years\* > > I don’t think we have that much time I don’t either but I don’t see any way to forcefeed the process. ---
**Author:** ![alaricthegoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4bbf92/32.png) [@alaricthegoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alaricthegoth)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2006, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-cartoon-crisis-spiralling-out-of-control/345247/12 "2006-02-19T23:36:09Z")
> [@David Simmons](#): > > I don’t either but I don’t see any way to forcefeed the process. quite true, given which, we might be well advised to adopt, ad hoc" the code of the joint" (not the pot joint, the big house joint) which is to day, be especially careful not to dis (respect) your fellow inmates, even on points that seem preposterously picayune. ---
**Author:** ![Nietzsche](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/8dc957/32.png) [@Nietzsche](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nietzsche)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2006, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-cartoon-crisis-spiralling-out-of-control/345247/13 "2006-02-19T23:36:19Z")
**Sam Stone** : My short answer is yes, I think it is spiraling out of control. I read an interesting article on the BBC regarding what may be fueling the protests. [Link](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4716762.stm) It is particularly troubling to see tensions rise in Pakistan due to the fact that they already have nuclear weapons. Musharraf’s support for the west has put him in a very precarious position and now he faces a huge dilemma in whther to allow the protests to continue and not be confrontational (in the hopes that it will allow the steam to release) or confront them by outlawing gatherings. When the Shah did that in Iran, it led directly to more protests and ultimately the Islamic revolution itself. So as to your question… > [@](#): > > what are the appropriate responses? As much I fully support the right to free speech and think it should never be curtailed no matter how “offensive” a subject might be to a group of people, I think now is a bad time to show one’s committment to free speech, at least in this way. As **alaric** mentioned, it’s not just about the cartoons. It’s about Guantanamo and the guards there urinating on the Koran, the recent revelation of abuse of Iraqis by British soldiers followed promptly by a reminder of what the Americans did at Abu Ghraib, and so on. And if you push any harder now, it may have the opposite effect. It won’t passify or subdue, it’ll exacerbate and inflame. On preview, what **silenus** said. ---
**Author:** ![Pope\_Bob\_The\_Pious](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/97f17d/32.png) [@Pope\_Bob\_The\_Pious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pope_Bob_The_Pious)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2006, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-cartoon-crisis-spiralling-out-of-control/345247/14 "2006-02-19T23:38:11Z")
[They either love the Klan or think this will offend Christians.](http://news.yahoo.com/photos/ss/events/wl/020106danishcartoons/im:/060217/ids_photos_wl/r492962011.jpg;_ylt=Aq.7MIeb3yEYivQ604vQsueaK8MA;_ylu=X3oDMTA5bGcyMWMzBHNlYwNzc25hdg--?sp=-1&lsp=6000) Maybe both? ---
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2006, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-cartoon-crisis-spiralling-out-of-control/345247/15 "2006-02-19T23:40:59Z")
> [@alaricthegoth](#): > > _why should we be bothered?_ > > three letters. O…I…L… If America instituted a crash program to become energy independent, we could truly be free of them. We sent a man to the fucking moon by the end of the 60s. We can become energy independent if we had national initiatives to do so. If the pursuit of alternative energy was given top priority, tax incentives given to those who used alternative fuels, financial benefits given to auto makers to make them workable, we could do it, I really think we could. And don’t forget, not all of our oil comes from the Arabs anyway. Plenty of it comes from elsewhere, including domestically. ---
**Author:** ![alaricthegoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4bbf92/32.png) [@alaricthegoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alaricthegoth)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2006, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-cartoon-crisis-spiralling-out-of-control/345247/16 "2006-02-19T23:43:57Z")
- national initiatives to do so\* that was the ill-fated BTU tax, circa 1992. It died like a dog. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2006, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-cartoon-crisis-spiralling-out-of-control/345247/17 "2006-02-20T00:04:24Z")
Disengagement with the Muslim world is not an option. And a complicating factor is that these aren’t governments doing this. It’s a revolt by the citizenry. I think the appropriate response is not so much retaliation or disengagement, but a defense of our own values. This is why it’s so disheartening that the initial reaction by the west was such a weak, defensive posture. Rather than strenuously defend the value of free speech, we castigated the publishers and begged forgiveness. That was inexcusable. The Bush administration screwed up big time on that, as did most other western governments. So it’s time to take the offensive in the propaganda war, to stand up and tell the Muslim world what we will and won’t tolerate, and that we have our own values and won’t be intimidated. And in the cases where we can find governments fanning the flames (i.e. Iran and Syria), crack down on them hard with sanctions or whatever other tools we can use. Frankly, I think one of things that is causing this to spiral out of control is that our initial reaction was so weak and apologetic that it gave the rioters a sense of victory - a sense that they were reshaping the world and that they could push us around. When newspapers refused to publish the cartoons for fear of violence, it gave the rioters a very real victory. So who should be surprised that we’re getting more of it? ---
**Author:** ![Nietzsche](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/8dc957/32.png) [@Nietzsche](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nietzsche)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2006, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-cartoon-crisis-spiralling-out-of-control/345247/18 "2006-02-20T00:33:26Z")
> [@Sam Stone](#): > > Disengagement with the Muslim world is not an option. Actually, it is. Agreed that it may not be an ideal solution. You don’t have to sever all ties, but some disengagement is definitely in order. > [@](#): > > I think the appropriate response is not so much retaliation or disengagement, but a defense of our own values. Agree completely, but not like this. > [@](#): > > This is why it’s so disheartening that the initial reaction by the west was such a weak, defensive posture. Only if by “the west” you mean the U.S. Other European newspapers started reprinting the images in a show of solidarity and a re-affirmation to their belief in free (even if offensive) speech. How well has that played out? And now you’re suggesting even more? Look, your boys are literally on the front lines over there. I don’t blame the U.S. one bit for not adding any more fuel to this fire. There are 150,000 or so troops from the west right in the fire of the venegence these cartoons are inspiring. Are you sure you think you need a more firm hand? And incidentally, I don’t recall you ever supporting a back-off approach to anything. When _do_ you think it would be a right time to back off? Only when it’s the other guy that’s doing the backing up? > [@](#): > > So it’s time to take the offensive in the propaganda war, to stand up and tell the Muslim world what we will and won’t tolerate, and that we have our own values and won’t be intimidated. Okay, but remember, they believe in their values just as fervently as you believe in yours. And the two may not exactly mesh well. ---
**Author:** ![alaricthegoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4bbf92/32.png) [@alaricthegoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alaricthegoth)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2006, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-cartoon-crisis-spiralling-out-of-control/345247/19 "2006-02-20T01:06:39Z")
- they believe in their values just as fervently as you believe in yours\* not with specific reference to partner S., but this appears to be a concept of profound impenetrability to many in the besieged west. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9fc348/32.png) [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Flying_Dutchman)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2006, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-cartoon-crisis-spiralling-out-of-control/345247/20 "2006-02-20T01:39:10Z")
> [@Sam Stone](#): > > Where is this going to end? Should the west tolerate this? At what point do we should ‘enough!’? And what are the appropriate responses? Never since the fall of communism has the world faced such a polarization that is enveloping the globe today. When did it start? In the seventh century or a couple of decades ago? Up till the second half of the 20th century, Islamic strife was largely confined to it geographic borders but the interface of Islamic/non-Islamic intercouse takes place everywhere all over the globe. The littlest provocation occuring in an obscure northern peninsula can set nations ablaze. Utopia for a muslim is total submission to Allah across the globe. Utopia for a western citizen is a free world. Perhaps I’m wrong. In any case we need to be informed and ready. Short term responses need to be decided on in light of the overall strategy. Is the strategy to defeat Islam or control it? How about exit strategy? This isn’t just about terrorist cells. This is about a bunch of mullahs communicating through a global network leading the sheep, and raising funds and suicide bombers for the military units on the front. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-cartoon-crisis-spiralling-out-of-control/345247.md?page=2)