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Cartoons, Clinton, Kofi, allah,

absence of humor

By John Burtis
Saturday, February 4, 2006

It is now reported that protests have broken out all over the arab world demanding immediate redress over the increasing problem of free speech and the publication of a series of cartoons which depict, so I'm told due my lack of fluency in both Danish and arabic, Islam in an unfavorable light.

These cartoons, which were originally posted last September in Denmark's Jyllands-Posten, caused quite a stir at the time and have been picked up for reprints in a growing number of European countries, brave enough to defy intimidating Muslim calls for their further banning.

Normally cartoons are relegated daily to the in-and out-boxes of free speech, but in the case of anything having to do with Islam, increasingly so even in america, freedom of expression need not apply and encroaching political correctness dictates that the wishes of the local Muslim leaders should be allowed to trump free expression in every case.

Islam, happy go lucky Islam and its associated cross-currents of Wahhabism and radical Islamist thought, seems to be associated of late, for reasons I can't quite put my finger on, with televised beheadings, kidnappings, the bombings of weddings and tourist destinations, improvised explosive devises designed to kill indiscriminately, Fatwas and calls for mass murder by imams and commoners alike, the trampling of human and civil rights across their sphere of influence, the traffic in human slavery, public executions and other sordid goings on.

and thanks to the like of al-Jazeera, these lurid clips are routinely brought into our homes for our viewing pleasure. In our slippers, with the kids in bed, with a beer and chips on a side table, and with the use of TiVo we can discern the latest in the techniques employed in Islamist slaughter, judge them for their degree of difficulty, note the wry camera angles, discern the growing abilities of the producers, gape at the latest habiliments of the executioners and delight in the many replays of a deft beheading.

We are also bombarded for weeks on end with the promised atrocities and the plans for a promised 12th century feudal system to be visited on us by the triumvirate of Messrs. Zarqawi, al-Zawahiri and Br'er Osama of the bin-Laden family. These cruel jokesters continually offer our gruesome destruction, further attacks on our homeland and the enslavement of our people on VHS tapes, all to the tune of a cheery background set of Pan pipes and in front of a nice clean, and probably freshly ironed, silk sheet.

But toss a cartoon or two into this wild, wooly and volatile mix of mayhem, murder and threats of untold violence and, bingo, Islam has a problem with the West for casting their religion in an unfair light and for, oops, letting that dreaded double-secret bugaboo, that favored tool of the Democrats, discrimination, out of the bag.

The imams advised the Danish government that they'd like to practice their religion without, "being provoked or discriminated" against, in other words, for the Danes to apologize for the publication of the dreaded cartoons and stop any further ideas of future caricatures along the same line and to admonish the artists. There were unverified reports that calls for their public stoning by the zealots were downplayed by the more relaxed of the least exercized imams involved, who later said that similar demands for an immediate beheading were way off the mark.

So, let's see if I get this right. Saw off a guy's head on TV with a long knife --excellent. Show a sobbing kidnapped woman on TV and threaten to kill her--fine. Chop off a few heads in the square--neato. Bury a few thousand folks in a mass grave--delightful. Use poison gas on indigenous people--a simple demonstration of power. March through town with missiles on the way to slaughter the unfortunate--just great. Threaten to destroy Israel-- terrific. Read a few verses from the Q'uran on TV then blow up a bus of commuters--a martyrdom operation and all part and parcel of the good book. Raise your children to kill the Infidels, unbelievers and apostates--a wise and beautiful choice. See all of this day after day--no complaints from the imams.

But print a few cartoons in the local paper--a horrifying and unnerving experience and one that must be stamped out by using what ever means, coalitions and forces necessary by the same imams, with no humor at all.

and just when you thought the whole idea of the pot calling the kettle black couldn't get any more weird, along comes that overly talkative and omni-present eminence gris himself, the big he, Bill Clinton, to join the growing fray about free speech--and coming down against it, of course.

Fresh from his lengthy and delicious power nap through the attacks on the World Trade Center, the Khobar Towers and the USS Cole (and not remaining content to call President Bush to task for starting democracy in Iraq, as he did in Dubai last November, where he stated, "I don't agree with what was done."), Big Bill has now gone on record this past Monday in Doha, Qatar, condemning the use of the cartoons, calling them, "…anti-Islamic prejudice," and, "appalling."

Bill, come on, buddy, oh, sorry, I know, the poor dog. But Bill, seriously, are you really going to tell us that you honestly don't see a psychic disconnect in the madcap rumpus over a few paltry cartoons and the wasting of untold thousands of people in the recent name of Islam, or are you playing to the crowd again for your needed fix of immediate worship, to be garnered this time from the anti-american arab street?

adding his own timely and acute wisdom to the set-to and to the demonstrative genius of President Clinton, the often troubled Kofi annan -- dogged of late by his blue bereted hoodlums and their rape accusations, his increasingly scandal plagued procurement organization, the heedless mountebanks in the monstrous Oil-for-Food disgrace and his son's own rampant, repetitive and unrepentant flim-flams--has now advised the world community that freedom of the press and expression is to be curtailed rather than risk needling a religion with the acute sensitivity of an Islam.

Of course Kofi has dozed through so many inconceivable acts of genocide, has slept through so many astonishing acts of Islamic barbarism and has ignored so many heart-wrenching and piteous calls for help from the disaffected that his ears are, by now, only attuned to those crises which pass muster on the scale of the truly enormous--like cartoons.

So here we are, damning cartoons while the murderous zealots associated with Islam slit throats, behead and perform other brands of torture to their hearts', if they have them, content.

Sadly, in tossing freedoms--won at such high cost against similar blood thirsty pariahs of the past--around like so much cheap shoddy disposable baggage, we find our two old friends united in common cause again--Bill Clinton and Kofi annan.

The former wants to be Secretary General and would offer the world nothing better in administration, would say anything and think nothing of tossing away a liberty or two for empty applause, however reed thin and fleeting; while the latter has become a joke, a smiling banal bounder in a tailored suit, who remains indifferent to the monumental corruption and unbounded greed of his own criminal organization, deaf to the cries of the murdered, and as a result of his own dismal failures in stewardship, ever more sensitive to the feelings of the killers.

Yet, in the end, both Bill and Kofi share an increasingly vital concern over the use of cartoons and their absence of humor.


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