Mohammad is a cry baby

Damn... you got balls, Steve. ;-)

i am a muslim.
your excuse of "Does the beheading of hostages offend Muslims? Do homicide bombers that take the lives of mothers and children offend Islamists? Did the murder of thousands in the World Trade Center offend the Arab Street? Of course not!" is irrelevant to my offense of the cartoon since i, and hundreds of millions of other muslims have nothing to do with any terrorist activity. i would have supported the cartoonist with all my heart if he drew cartoons offending the terrorist but he has absolutelly no right offend me.

The problem is that Islam has become associated with terrorism, and muslims such as yourself have done precious little to condemn, and distance yourselves from, the actual terrorists.

Muslims should be fighting a civil war right now. Instead they seem to be standing by, hoping reason will prevail.

Concerned:
A couple of unrelated points. First, consider the reality of what this comic means to Muslims. It is comparable to what most Christians would think of a comic of a man and a woman having sexual intercourse for all the world to see. Simply something that should not be shown, out of respect. Second, despite caglar's claim otherwise, you still somehow think that a terrorist calling himself Muslim is the responsibility of good Muslims. What exactly would it take for you to believe that good Muslims don't like or condone bad people masquerading as Muslims? Are they supposed to appeal to their pope to have them excommunicated or something?

Lastly, don't consider my points an attack on free speech. I agree that the publication was simply exercising their rights, they broke no laws. But please grant the Muslims their outrage: remember what you would consider the Christian equivalent. Not illegal, but offensive nonetheless.

(i should clarify about what this comic means to Muslims: they are not allowed to depict Muhammed's physical likeness in any way, including with a bomb on his headwrap)

oops 1 more thing. last one i promise.

"The problem is that Islam has become associated with terrorism"

- interesting. The comic "associates" Muhammed with a bomb. Muslims are outraged and offended. Does that count towards the "precious little" they are doing to condemn the association?

Your third post is answered by your second post. It's not obvious to me that the reaction would have been different if the depiction had featured, say, a rubber chicken on his head. Ergo, I don't think it counts towards the distancing I mentioned.

As for "appealing to the pope", I think you're on the right track (although I think your post was intended to be sarcastic). There should be imams denouncing hateful imams and telling the public they are not muslims. Call them "the devil's prophets" or something equally revealing. Why is it that the "activist" leaders we see and hear from are the ones preaching hatred? (That goes for more than just Islam, btw)

As for the images, Muslims have the right to be insulted. The images were obviously hateful and a responsible news outlet shouldn't have published them. The right to protest and express the degree of insult stops short at calling for murder. But it's happening, and that is something many people in the west have come to expect.

Also: I don't think you're attacking free speech. I think there are plenty of protesters who ARE, but your points are much more rational than theirs.

In short, no h8 m8 and I'm not trying to flame. I just can't see sympathizing for the muslim point of view. To some degree, the bed has been made.

ur mind is in the gutter. so, thousands of ppl are killed in the name of Allah?! are u an idiot!!! thousands die EVERY day by these so called democratic governments! their are innocent children dying all the time in afghanistan, iraq, pakistan, chechnya ALL OVER THE WORLD!. u refer to the world trade centre bombing. what about the bosnian genocide?!??!! what about the millions killed there?!?!! what about the so called prisoners america is torturing?! do u only look at one side?! and our religion is NOT threatened by cartoons. it is the ppl that are threatened. NOTHING will be able to kill our religion. ur jewish. do u not know of how the cartoons used in germany against the jews contributed to the escallation of hatred?! and the hatred led to the execution of millions of jews?! why do u not look back at the history of others? u only look to what u have seen on the media, and only the ignorant find that helpful.

and go ahead and get rid of this if it supposedly offends you. what about what was just written??!!! if that is not offensive, i dont know what pathetic dimension ur living in.

and to the person who is so called 'concerned'. the media has fully blown the picture of muslims as terrorists. and THESE CARTOONS ARE NOT free speech!!! what the hell! there not hateful?! u guys live in ur secluded america where that piece of crap bush feeds ur minds with his crap and u just go along not looking at what else is going on in this world.

A little late but read this http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2006/2/22/nation/13465489&sec=nationforperspective