Europe saves our ass

As most of you know, the Muslim world has exploded in fury over the publication of a dozen political cartoons that show the prophet Mohammed and that this is considered a grave offense against Islam.

Rather than kowtow to Islamic sensibilities, a number of papers around Europe republished the cartoons as a show of solidarity. Denmark's government has refused to apologize, saying it cannot be held accountable for the actions of an independent newspaper and stands fully behind the concept of freedom of the press.

Now, a couple of problems here...

First of all, it is not true that European papers are truly free. In many European countries, there are strict laws against matters relating to Nazism and Holocaust denial.

In a surprising show of snarkiness from a government not known for its sense of twisted humor, {AP gank-->>} a prominent Iranian newspaper, Hamshahri, invited artists to enter a Holocaust cartoon competition, saying it wanted to see if freedom of expression - the banner under which many Western publications reprinted the prophet drawings - also applied to Holocaust images. {<-- end gank}

Well.... what to say about that, eh? It puts the West in a rather tight spot and there are only two options, neither of which is pretty.

Now initially I was please at the official US reaction to the publication of the Danish cartoon, that while the US fully supports freedom of the press, it nonetheless was disturbed by the irresponsibility of their publication. However, Bush has now come around and is standing behind the Danes come hell or high water.

I find this bewildering, given that the US had laid out a very good position that covered all the bases. Now.... well... we're back in it.

What has happened with all of this is that suddenly Europe finds itself dragged into this holy war that has erupted between Islam and the West. News reports from countries like Finland and Norway say that the people up there are completely befuddled and bewildered that Muslims are now raging at them and they can't quite grasp why. There's a similar reaction across much of Europe, that it was just a cartoon.

Now following 9/11, Europe was firmly on the side of the US in wishing to tackle Muslim extremists. But when Dubya cowboyed up, said fuck you to the United Nations, and sent in the troops to steamroll and occupy Libya {Libya??? What the fuck was I thinking? Interesting slip..} Iraq, Europe- with the exception of England, Poland, and Spain- told the US to piss off and they wanted nothing to do with it.

Which made the US the prime target, along with England and Spain, and there was an underlying attitude that having this bullseye on our backsides wasn't entirely undeserved.

But now.... now Europe has really stepped in it and suddenly find Muslims turning against them as well and I think we will find that when the US talks of Muslim extremists, it will find a much more attentive ear in Europe.

This brings us almost full-circle back to 9/11. Not many people get second chances in this life, and the Prodigal Idiot Son aka Dubya, now finds himself back in the same position he was prior to his fateful decision to go crack fucking crazy and invade Iraq. Will he now do what he should have done before and take the course his father took in the first Gulf War and go to Europe, hat in hand, and build a coalition? Or will he again go Crack Cowboy and, oh, I dunno, invade Iran?

Honestly, I have no idea. The idealistic side of me likes to think that people can learn their lesson, but then again, I remember that famous scene from Cool Hand Luke and the quote "What we have here is a failure to communicate. There are some men you just can't reach."

So what's it gonna be this time?

Tags: Bush Europe Denmark Mohammed cartoon Iran Holocaust 9/11