More Charlie Hebdo Fallout

Randomly selected fallout from the Charlie Hebdo attack ... well, it's not entirely random. It's from articles that caught my eye, for one reason or another. And granted, I cherry-picked the excerpts from the articles. But I think they do a pretty good job of illustrating the two opposing schools of thought regarding islam and the civilized world's perspective on it.

The first is an op-ed piece written by Anjem Choudary, a muslim cleric (or, as USA Today describes him, "a radical Muslim cleric ... and a lecturer in sharia.") (emphasis added)

Why did France allow the tabloid to provoke Muslims?

Contrary to popular misconception, Islam does not mean peace but rather means submission to the commands of Allah alone. Therefore, Muslims do not believe in the concept of freedom of expression ... In an increasingly unstable and insecure world, the potential consequences of insulting the Messenger Muhammad are known to Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

That pretty much says it all. A leading muslim cleric acknowledges that islam is not, and never has been, a religion of peace. Muslims do not and never will accept freedom of expression. If non-muslims do or say something that offends muslims (and God knows that could be just about anything) we can expect some sort of violent reaction. That makes it difficult to have any sort of civilized interaction with them.

So how should we deal with the religion of non-peace. CNN, the British Attorney General, and our very own barack hussein obama have some suggestions.

First, CNN:

CNN is not showing detailed images of cartoons from the Charlie Hebdo magazine that could be viewed as offensive to Muslims, CNN senior editorial director Richard Griffiths said in a message sent to CNN staff Wednesday afternoon.

Although we are not at this time showing the Charlie Hebdo cartoons of the Prophet considered offensive by many Muslims, platforms are encouraged to verbally describe the cartoons in detail. This is key to understanding the nature of the attack on the magazine and the tension between free expression and respect for religion.

Video or stills of street protests showing Parisians holding up copies of the offensive cartoons, if shot wide, are also OK. Avoid close-ups of the cartoons that make them clearly legible.

It's also OK to show most of the protest cartoons making the rounds online, though care should be taken to avoid examples that include within them detailed depictions of the Charlie Hebdo cartoons.

To be fair, CNN is not the only media outlet censoring the Charlie Hebdo images.

Griffiths' memo comes after several news organizations came under fire for censoring various Charlie Hebdo cartoons that depict Muhammad. The Associated Press, The New York Daily News and The Telegraph were among those that blurred or cropped photos of the covers.

(Updated to add this link, which explores the issue in more depth.)

And these spineless media milksops have the unmitigated gall to proclaim "Je suis Charlie."

Not even close, you craven cowards.

Speaking of cravens, the Attorney General of Great Britain - Jeremy Wright - is applying pressure on Twitter and Facebook to remove so-called Islamophobic and racist comments from their websites.

Jeremy Wright said he wanted to meet social media companies to urge them to take down bigoted messages – and warn they could be prosecuted if they refused.

That's the biggest UK capitulation since Neville Chamberlain.

Jeremy Wright may be an appeaser extraordinaire, but he's not even close to the appeaser-in-chief currently wasting oxygen in the Oval Office.

Obama White House can't admit Paris attacks 'Islamic terrorism'

They shouted in Arabic  “Allahu Akbar” (Allah is Greatest) and “We are avenging the Prophet Mohammed” as they sprayed their victims with hundreds of bullets from their semi-automatic weapons.

Their “victims” were the top editorial cartoonists of the satirical Charlie Hebdo magazine, who had dared to practice their right of free speech.  Their offense?  Publishing cartoons deemed “offensive” by Muslim leaders around the world. The perpetrators? Islamic terrorists. 

Yet in the immediate hours after the murders in Paris, the response from western leaders was scurrilously predictable in their refusal to describe the attack as an “Islamic terrorist attack.” 

Indeed, the responses from our own president, French President Hollande and British Prime Minster David Cameron all spouted the same empty pabulum in asserting that the Paris attack had nothing to do with Islam or any religion for that matter. But the hollow comments coming from our own leaders are steeped in the stench of appeasement and cowardice. (emphasis added, because I agree with that statement 100%).

The first comments came from Josh Earnest, the White House spokesman, who refused to even call the massacre an act of terrorism, but made sure to add the now typical non-sequitor  which now routinely follows Islamic terrorist attacks,  that “Islam is a religion of peace” and therefore no should associate with the “extremists” in Paris with Islam.

Note how barry and his followers disagree with the muslim cleric quoted at the beginning of this post. Who do you think has a better understanding of the nature of islam, Western politicians, or an islamic religious scholar and leader?

Then President Obama issued his own statement, but in keeping with his administration’s 6 year old prohibition on using the term “Islamic terrorism,” he simply referred to the attack as “terrorism” -- a vanilla term conspicuously devoid of any descriptive term explaining the motivation behind the attack. Thus, to the proverbial Martian it literally could have been eco-terrorism, white supremacist terrorism, or narco-terrorism.  (But admittedly, calling this an act of “terrorism” was a step up from the classification of Major Nidal Hassan’s similar massacre at Fort Hood as “workplace violence.”) 

Idiot, hypocrite, or undercover muslim?

We've seen that appeasement and cowardice doesn't work. It only emboldens our enemies, resulting in more and more terrorist attacks. So how should we respond?

Here's one idea. Of course, it will send liberals, the media, and politicians into a frenzy, but at this point who gives a damn.

We must stop blaming ourselves for Islamist terror

It is tempting to think the Islamic fanaticism is purely a reaction to the West, but jihadists kill because that is what they do.

 We’d forgotten about Charlie Hebdo. In 2011, the satirical magazine, firmly rooted in the anti-clericalism of the French left, was firebombed after it published an edition poking fun at Islam: “100 lashes if you don’t die of laughter”, read the cover.

At the time, unthinkable in the light of today’s attack on Charlie’s office, there was “debate” over whether the magazine’s cartoonists and editors had “gone too far”.

Bruce Crumley, a correspondent for Time, rushed to condemn not the bombers, but the scribblers.

“Not only are such Islamophobic antics [as publishing cartoons] futile and childish,” he wrote, “but they also openly beg for the very violent responses from extremists their authors claim to proudly defy in the name of common good. What common good is served by creating more division and anger, and by tempting belligerent reaction?”

Way to go, Bruce. Blame the victims, and suggest that we muzzle ourselves and restrict one of our most basic rights.

Underlying all this was a persistent assumption. Islamist attacks are only ever reactions, only ever brought about by provocation from the West. All the way back to the Ayatollah Khomeini’s contract on the head of Salman Rushdie in 1989, we have accepted the idea that it is up to authors, artists and cartoonists to justify themselves in the face of threats and real violence.

If the rise of Isil has taught the world one thing, it is that the provocation is beside the point. Jihadists kill because that is what they do. It does not matter if you are a French cartoonist or a Yezidi child, or an aid worker or journalist: if you are not one of the chosen few, you are fair game. Provocation is merely an excuse used by bullies to justify their actions, while ensuring the world bows to their will.

I sure wish libs and media commentators could wrap their teeny little heads around that paragraph. What provocation did the girls in Nigeria commit that warranted their kidnapping by Boko Haram? Was vaccinating children sufficient provocation to justify the murder of health care workers by muslims in Pakistan, Nigeria, and elsewhere? How did the Boston Marathon provoke the muslim Tsarnaev brothers? Just yesterday I posted many other examples.

No, I think it has become quite obvious. Jihadists kill because that is what they do.