That being said, I think the Muslim community as a whole forfeited their right to an apology when they started burning down buildings and killing innocents because of a political cartoon. The very idea itself is sick and absurd beyond belief. The Prophet Muhammed is the not the first religious icon to be demonized in a political cartoon. How often do you hear of Buddhists burning down embassies because of a disrespectful article, book, or cartoon directed at their religion? Or hindus? Or wiccans? Or, dare I say it, Christians? Of all the major religious icons through history, Jesus has probably been mocked, demonized, and offensively portrayed more than any other. But when was the last time you heard of Christians worldwide rising up to burn down buildings, kill innocents, riot in the streets, and generally wreak all havoc and chaos because of a political cartoon?

(And if you’re going to try and use the Crusades as an example, don’t. What the Roman Catholic church did in the past cannot be used as an indicator of Christian behavior. Anyone who calls the Roman Catholic church of the Dark Ages a true Christian organization is simply misinformed…)

I suppose I can agree on the fact that this is a “branch” of Islam, not the whole religion. What I am saying is this. The people in the Middle East are offended because a newspaper portrays their most holy prophet in light of violence. The subsequent undertone is that the followers are also violent. This “offends” them, so to protest what do they do? They become violent! Say what you will…but when numerous countries have experienced embassies being burned and innocent people being killed over cartoons…I would call that militant. The people in the street are not just Al Qaeda and Hamas, they are everyday people. I do not think we should try to “understand” their repeated actions of violence. I do not recall trying to understand the Nazis. We just went in and took care of business. That’s an offensive term we call the “American Way.”

September 11 was the first time we had an encounter with “Muslim” terrorists on our home land… all the previous terrorists who struck America were quite American (Unabomber for example). Saying the problems of the world today are the result of radical Islam is ignoring our own very large role in shaping the world as it is today. For instance, we were very “buddy-buddy” with Saddam a few decades ago, providing him with weapons and support. Look where that got us today.

The real point is that we absolutely must not blindly point at the Islam-Muslim religion-people and scream “YOU!” without really understanding what’s happening. We should not condone their violence, but at the same time, the violence will just get worse if we don’t at least make an personal attempt to understand. We’ve killed anywhere from 16,000 to 48,000 people in Iraq. Think about that… how many people have Iraqi terrorists killed on American land? 0.

And yet, on a very public forum, you reproduced these same cartoons (even though they claimedly go against your beliefs).

Please clarify this apparent discrepancy in your thinking.