Cartoon War I

Austin Bay believes that the Danish Cartoon fracas is a a terrorist operation:

In May 2005, Newsweek ran its phony Guantanamo prison "Koran flushing" story -- a story designed to embarrass the Bush administration as well as sell copies of Newsweek. A good sales ploy? When riots began in Muslim countries, the world got a lesson in information warfare. Indian military analyst Bahukutumbi Raman claimed that in Afghanistan the riots were incited by "well-organized agents of the Hizb ut-Tahrir terror gang."

The cartoons published by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten are categorically different from Newsweek's indefensible action. The cartoons, like Rushdie's novel, don't purport to convey fact but are opinion, in their case mild satire. The Danish editor argued many Muslim immigrants criticize Europeans but brook no counter-critique.

Four months after their publication, however, we witness waves of orchestrated, coordinated violence -- war and information war directed at the West but also designed to deflect domestic challenges to Middle Eastern dictatorships. Vicious anti-Muslim cartoons -- not published by the Danes -- now circulate with the originals (suggesting a calculated act of propaganda designed to further inflame). Syria's secular dictatorship made cynical use of the cartoons. Mobs burned the Danish and Norwegian embassies in Damascus. The attacks would not be possible without the tacit permission or connivance of the Syrian government. At the moment, Syria faces U.N. censure for its role in the murder of Lebanon's Rafik Harari.

Turkish Muslims, however, held peaceful protests. They opposed the cartoons, but they are not enemies. Turkey is an emerging democracy.

I support the publication of the original cartoons, but I also know the figurative war of free expression in the West occurs in the midst of a real (non-figurative) and active global war against terror and tyranny. That's why I also support combat operations that lead to free elections and, ultimately, liberation.

Meanwhile, my cohorts at Pajamas Media are reporting that the same cartoons were published in Egypt back in October:

Egyptian blogger and friend, the Ranting Sandmonkey writes:

… they were actually printed in the Egyptian Newspaper Al Fagr back in October 2005. I repeat, October 2005, during Ramadan …

He has the scans right here. The cartoons start right on the front page.

Don't hold your breath waiting on the MSM to report these findings.

And Cox and Forkum have readied their entry into Iran's Holocaust Cartoon contest:

Comments

[S]

I think the cartoon of the holocaust is really well drawn

[sarah berman]

y is every1 a holocaust hater????? F**K U GUYS.....THE HOLOCAUST IS REAL AND MANY PEOPLE HAD TO SUFFER FROM IT, and yet to this day people sit here making fun...HOW DARE YOU!