In my view, the whole cartoon episode was a piece of cynical manipulation by the Islamic religious establishment.
Consider this: the row surfaced months after the initial publication of the cartoons, just at the time when there was a rising tide of outrage in the Muslim world over the ongoing mass slaughter of Muslims in Iraq by Al Qaeda. Suddenly, there is this manufactured anger against the Danes and the focus switches away from Al Qaeda.
I really can't give any credence to the supposed determination of the Mullahs to "defend" their prophet, since they apparently couldn't care less about the quite deliberate effort to destroy his reputation in every possible way by the book Prophet of Doom, published in the US and given away on the Internet. When I had a Muslim colleague ask the organisers of the Danish boycott why they weren't launching a boycott against the US over this outrageous and blasphemous book, the reply was "The Danish wall is easier to jump over". In other words, it wasn't about defending the Prophet's reputation at all, it was about stirring up outrage and picking an easy Western target. To me, that would fit exactly with trying to take the heat off Al Qaeda. If they were really determined to defend the Prophet against insults they would have launched a much bigger campaign against "Prophet of Doom", where all the insults and blasphemy are 100% deliberate (unlike the cartoons).
Of courae, the mullahs did succeed in making a huge number of people very, very angry indeed, to the extent of people dying as a result of the protests. But it was pure manipulation, switched on and off like a tap (however sincere the feelings of those caught up in it were).
I don't see why a Western military alliance should let its decision-making be affected by the fall-out from the political activities of eastern religious leaders.
In my view, the whole cartoon episode was a piece of cynical manipulation by the Islamic religious establishment.
Consider this: the row surfaced months after the initial publication of the cartoons, just at the time when there was a rising tide of outrage in the Muslim world over the ongoing mass slaughter of Muslims in Iraq by Al Qaeda. Suddenly, there is this manufactured anger against the Danes and the focus switches away from Al Qaeda.
I really can't give any credence to the supposed determination of the Mullahs to "defend" their prophet, since they apparently couldn't care less about the quite deliberate effort to destroy his reputation in every possible way by the book Prophet of Doom, published in the US and given away on the Internet. When I had a Muslim colleague ask the organisers of the Danish boycott why they weren't launching a boycott against the US over this outrageous and blasphemous book, the reply was "The Danish wall is easier to jump over". In other words, it wasn't about defending the Prophet's reputation at all, it was about stirring up outrage and picking an easy Western target. To me, that would fit exactly with trying to take the heat off Al Qaeda. If they were really determined to defend the Prophet against insults they would have launched a much bigger campaign against "Prophet of Doom", where all the insults and blasphemy are 100% deliberate (unlike the cartoons).
Of courae, the mullahs did succeed in making a huge number of people very, very angry indeed, to the extent of people dying as a result of the protests. But it was pure manipulation, switched on and off like a tap (however sincere the feelings of those caught up in it were).
I don't see why a Western military alliance should let its decision-making be affected by the fall-out from the political activities of eastern religious leaders.