Well, one thing is to have an opinion. But hey, don't count me in your messages of hate. :) Tone it down, little buddy. In that way, your message gets across.

Also, poor Asians if you speak in their behalf. I am pretty sure you feel strongly about your conviction. But hey, speak for yourself.

Finally, Muslims need to shut up for a minute and figure out the "why" questions. Muslims are a little too impulsive.

I sure am glad I was a decendant of Isaac and not the concubine's son (Muslims).

Muslims get offended by the cartoons. But you have to stop and look at yourselves and see whether or not your actions offend the peaceful muslims living in the rest of the world.

With that said, Screw the Dutch! Natalie Halloway all the way! Canadians, you guys are weird. Hehehehe.

Well, before anything else. I think that the Dutch suck. I love the cartoons they made recently. But you guys suck as a country anyways so we just laugh about it.

Canadians? You know how Canada was formed? We took the worst of Great Britain and US, then we coraled them into this cold place called Canada. There.

Just kidding. I am just poking fun at you all just like how Muslims are poked fun at.

Sooner or later the extremist muslims will learn to co-exist. They have difficulty with co-existing among non-muslims and that's a fact anywhere you go.

The only reason why muslims are quiet in America is because they are a small minority here. Muslims have castrated and killed women and children of Christian and Catholic background in Mindanao, a muslim area of Southern Philippines.

Muslims have killed Christians in Africa, a sort of genocide. Muslims were given a territory (Palestine) and autonomy. And the first thing they did was try to rid of Israel.

And now, they looked around Iraq and found that there ain't much foreign troops to ease their war freak itch. What did they do? They turn on themselves.

Now, a cartoon was done. So they turn on Denmark.

Muslims (except for a small peaceful minority in the US) are in general war freaks who cannot co-exist with non-muslims. Those are facts. Take them wherever you want in a debate. But those are the facts.

Amen.

A growing train of thought for many in the west is that muslim's are publicly speaking out against the radical's within their faith but quietly supporting them.

Some of the post's in defense of Islam are written with such zeal and I have to wonder why they don't apply that same attitude to their own bad elements.

There may come a day in the not so distant future where you have to make a choice. Do we stand with the 10% who give us a bad name worldwide or do we purge ourselves of them?

It seems like a blind eye is being turned their way.. and yet such a public outcry over a few cartoons, which in the end cannot hurt you phyiscally. The atrocities being commited each day in the name of your faith should be where your real outrage is being directed. YOU are being misrepresented by these 10% and lumped in with all of them... Why? Because, many of us in the west believe you do nothing about them.

I have clicked to a few of foriign devil's links. They made me a "little" less upset in the knowledge that there are indeed moderate Muslims trying to throw water on the fire (and very good sites Devil). But the fact remains that these incidents go to show that this is a religion with elements so out of control, nothing can stop them. The leader of Iran wants to blow Israel into the sea. Hammas wins the election in Palestine. The problem is, the radical Muslims are winning the war over moderate Muslims in political hot spots. If they get a nuke, they WILL use it. Israel being the first target (the little Satan), the U.S. being the second target (the Great Satan), and now (for this month) Denmark (the... most congenial Satan)? Muslims indeed show tolerance, but only for other Muslims as far as I can tell. As devil showed in his links, there is nothing in the Koran about depicting the prophet Mohammed that is blasphemous- he pardoned a man from Medina who had been mocking him for a decade, and there are many fomous portraits of the prophet. Fine. What I see on TV is Muslims rampaging and burning after a few cartoons are published. I also remember watching TV after the 9/11 attacks- the only groups of Muslims I saw were dancing in joy in the streets. I'm also supposed to believe this is a peaceful religion. OK peaceful Muslims, prove it to me. I know your hearts are in the right place, but your radicals are so out of control that they have endless followers lined up to help them, and you can't do anything about it. It's a pity that the other religions of the world can control their extremists, but your religion fails to do so time and time again. If there is an armageddon within the next 20 years, I would lay 1000 to 1 odds it will be started by a radical of this very peaceful religion.

I'm sorry Onenoson. If I spoke Arabic I'm sure I would have understood what you wrote in English.

160 000 christian killed only last year in muslim counties..
Reply on that..

I am in the uncomfortable position of having to agree with Nermin again. armyscout43 is one sick puppy. I'm glad that the general position in this group is to ignore him. He is in the same place as the fellow who said for the Times that there was to be no apologies accepted by the Danish Editor but that he had to be turned over to Islamic Justice and be executed. There is not point in engaging these people.

http://www.arabnews.com/?page=1&section=0&article=77513&d=9&m=2&y=2006&p...

Your full of more "dung" then the entire world combined.  Yeah lets this so called "Baldur" save your damn ass.  If he can. HAH

I can understand how u hate arabic and muslim through your bad experience of marying to a muslim arabic man..but this is not fair…yes failure in marriage is most hard thing and sometimes women or men lose faith in each other an dget complicated…but of course u cannot deny that beating women in USA and europe is well known and widespread and recently ,I have read that one third of the dead french women are killed by the hands of their husbands.
You have this awful marriage with an english man you would have hated all english men an dmay be all english nation and you may think that the french or italian are more tender ..i advise you to go to a psychologist because it seems that you suffer a lot …
but I want to tell u that if you got married from a bad man an dfrom bad family this doesnot mean to juadage all because there are a lot of happy mariages between nonmuslism women and muslim men ..
if you got married from a muslim man who is alcoholic .does that mean that all muslim men are like that while islam forbide drinking even a drop .
if u find muslim house or cloths not clean will you say all muslims are not clean and islam is a religion of uncleaning while muslism are obliged to perfor ablutiuon before tehri five obligatory prayers and sometimes they must perofrm complete washing ..
I really hope any one discuss me or reply tome about that.
It is very stupid to judje over1.5 billion from individual actions or deeds.
It is even unfair if you are a teacher to judje a classrrom of even 30 students if you find 5 of thejm are bad or naughty.
also, may be there were failure factors which were present but both of u ignored it..may this man is from low standard social culture or education.he was not a hard worker post graduate student whom u met in your own countryfor sure..
and may be he married youto get the nationality or stable visa .so this type of marriage never succeed.
Marriage failure is major crisis which occur world wide.so be wise.
by the way if you are anew beliver in anythingthat satisfy u why you are so frustrated like this..faith must bring hopes and peace of mind my dear or it is useless.rethink about this new faith of yours an d goto a doctor.

please read this

http://www.salaam.co.uk/themeofthemonth/june02_index.php?l=42

You're saying that the killing of innocents by the Japanese justify the killing of hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians . Then I will use the same principle:
if you saw how the American sanctions killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis " most of them were children and infants, you will know why the 19 hijackers decided to crash the planes into the WTC and the pentagon, if you know that the Russian army has destroyed 80% of the Chechen capital Grozny, you will not blame the Chechens. If you read about how the terrorist gangs of Stern and Haganah came from Europe to kill the Palestinian villagers and terrorizing them to emigrate from their land , and how the israeli tanks were running on the Arab detainees in the desert, you will certainly find 10000 excuse to the Palestinians.
Think about this: why would somebody bomb himself to kill others ? is it a hobby ? who will be happy to kill himself and others? Muslims are under attacks in many parts of the world: Palestine , Iraq, Afghanistan, Kashmir, Chechnya, Philippines, Thailand, Kosovo, Bosnia, and many other places. And because we don't have weapon of mass destruction, F16,and Toma Cruse rockets, some Muslims decided to respond in this way.
It's too easy to condemn the attacks of the Palestinians but what will you do if you were in their position? Would you gave your land to the israelis and let them kill your people with the American Appatchi helicopter and F16 war plane without trying to defend yourself or respond. It's unfair to condemn the killing of some civilians while supporting or justifying the killing of others.
AS Muslims we are not happy when we saw innocent people getting killed in any part of the world, but it's impossible to stop this explosions? You know why ? because it's the reaction of the aggression against Muslims.
The western civilians are not more valuable than our civilians, and our blood is not cheaper than yours.
May baldur and odin both love you Ms. theology

The letter writer says:

Those, like yourself, who speak out in favour of freedom of speech
and press should also speak out against the raising tide in Denmark of
racial and religious intolerance. The Danish cartoon affair is NOT just
a test of basic freedoms, it is a concerted attack on a visible
minority and that attack is being waged not only by incendiary
cartoonists but also by government officials included the Queen of
Denmark herself.

Perhaps when the mass of Muslims can rouse themselves to speak out against terrorist attacks against civilians, against the murder in the street of artists, against threats to the lives of writers and speakers and filmmakers, against the horrifying images and depictions of Jews, Westerners, and other apostates in the Muslim media, when Muslims can express as much outrage against the violence and slander committed in the name of their faith as they can express against cartoons that point out all that violence, maybe then I'll share the letter writer's sentiment.  Until then, the actions of those protesting and burning Danish embassies only embody the very sentiments expressed in the cartoons, that the first response of the world Muslim community is to attack and destroy anything that does not agree with its agenda, while hypocritically refusing to turn the same critical eye on its own people.

To a New Believer...you only seen the badside of Muslims. Or you only chose to look at the bad side of them.  Did you ever take a chance to look at the good things in Islam and of our Muslims.  You cannot judge all people by their religion.  Just because your a Muslim doesnt mean you cant do anything wrong.  Crimes are happeneing all around the world.  By Muslims, Hindus, Christians, Jews.  You dont look at the religion when they do it though.  You look at that cirtain community or just that person.  You cant blame the whole religion or the whole Middle-East for what little you seen and or heard.  You just cant.  And your asking why we went to the West if we had a good life given by god.  Its because of greed by cirtain people, which i regret. But also to spread Islam.  That is what we were told to do.  Spread Islam and try and save as many souls as you can from the fire of hell.  Whats is this Odin and Baldur you believe in.  I've read about the and nothing seems special.  Special enough to choose over Islam or even Christianity or even Judiusm.  There are just a few people who are lead astray as they turn to Logic.  And also, as science is recently proving things about behaviour when looking at the moon and other things.  This has already been proven in the Quran written over 1000 years ago.  And to you armyscout43.  Why don't you for once study Islam.  Stop listening to all the shit your hearing about Islam on your damn TV, cause its usally lies.  Go and just research our religion. 

And about our Prophet Muhammed(P.B.U.H) as he and the Muslims took bak Makka(Mecca) from the non-Muslims.  He came across the man who killed his beloved daughter.  He instead of killing him forgave him and gave him two choices either leave the city of Makka peacefully or become a Muslim.  With these two choices that man became a Muslim and accepted our Religion.  Our prophet says that Forgive even your worst enemies for it may touch their heart and make them a close friend. 

Well....i totally agree with Onenoson.  The muslims in this world are usually average people like everyone else.  And like everyone else there are always the one that go wrong.  In every society, people do bad things.  Its just when a muslim does it, the newspapers always mention the religion.  If a Jewish person or a Christian person commited suicide or even murdered sumone. The religion wouldnt be mentioned. But if it was a muslim they would always mention it.  Its the way a bias newspaper works.  Not all newspapers are bias.  The most untrustwrothy according to me is the American CNN.  They cannot be trusted at all.  Also I really believe everyone should watch the movie Fahrenheit 9/11 if they havent watched the movie and also visit this site.  It is about the Pentagon Strike in the U.S.  You can take it as you wish afterwards. 

http://www.pentagonstrike.co.uk/flash.htm#Main

I have just one more thing to say just as Onenoson said, please learn and read about the Prophet Muhammed(P.B.U.H) and then talk about him.  You will have no evil thoughts about him.

John 8:1-11

81while Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. 2Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him and he sat down and began to teach them. 3The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery; and making her stand before all of them, 4they said to him, ‘Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. 5Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?’ 6They said this to test him, so that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. 7When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, ‘Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.’ 8And once again he bent down and wrote on the ground. 9When they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the elders; and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. 10Jesus straightened up and said to her, ‘Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?’ 11She said, ‘No one, sir.’ And Jesus said, ‘Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.’

(NRSV translation)

Does the Koran say "allah will promise if you lie you will go to paradise with 70 virgins"   Bashar swears he doesn't swear LOL.  Look out virgins cuz Bashar the venom spewer is on his way.  BTW I was against the Iraqi invasion because Bush was off by one letter it should have been Iran who was invaded.  I can't wait to see how the Sunnis will react when the shiite develop a nuke....They just love the Persians!  Remember all you muslims  and Bin Laden.....the Iranians want to make the middle east Persia.

Please don’t let those arrogant fools make you lose your nerves and abandon the way islam asked us to argue with those arrogant who don't know…remember what allah says in quran (argue them (non Muslims) with the patience and good fine advice ) . and remember also allah says ( are you just furious from us because we believed in our god).

By the way,if you are Iranian, I congratulate you fro having your president ahmed najad

Nermin,

We have one point of agreement - JustinOK seems to be as full of hate as the people he criticizes. He has several good points but they are mostly lost in visceral rhetoric. After that I would have to say that you are as misled as anyone on this site.

Islam as a peaceful religion? I suppose that there is a lot of peace taught in the Quaran and I believe that most Muslims are peace loving people who want the same as I do. It is also true, however, that the Prophet slaughtered an entire tribe of Jews near Medina before he Conquered Mecca - without a fight because of his demonstration of ruthlessness. It is also true that most of the terrorists currently active in the world proclaim a bastardization of Islam.

A lot of regular Muslims have called for the death of Danish cartoonists in some sort of Islamic Justice because they have "blasphemed" Islam. These are the same people who would blaspheme Christianity's central tenet of the Trinity without trying for a moment to understand it. This is the same people who descrated the most sacred place in Judaism - the Temple Mount - by building a mosque over it. Read what the Bible and see what God (Yahweh) thinks of other religions building altars on his sacred sites. This is the same people who similarly descrated Hindu temples in India by building mosques over their levelled foundations. Muslims have nothing to say about others "blaspheming" their faith.

With respect to World War II, have you ever heard of Haj Amin al-Husseini? He was the Grand Muffi of Jerusalem. He spent much of the war in Berlin as an honoured guest of the Third Reich where he had a significant part in the development of the "Final Solution" - all for the right of Palestinian Muslims to take care of the "Jewish Problem" in Palestine themselves. He developed Palestinian Nazi units for the Balkans and the Yugoslavs wanted him prosecuted for war crimes after the war but, because of his immense popularity in the Middle East they were denied. Middle Eastern Muslims were significant collaborators and partners in the Holocost and, as such, bear as much responsibility for their history as anyone in Europe.

The Holocost was not a European event separate and apart from a peaceful world of the Prophet. It is time that Islamic apologists own up to that and quit spouting lies that place themselves on a pedestal they don't deserve. Only after that - not the abandonment of Israel by the West - will there be a peaceful co-existance. I am not, however, holding my breath waiting for this mass weaning of from the addiction to self-righteousness.

LET THE CRUSADES BEGIN

you say that dispalys of anger as in burnings are done all over the world...we these are meant to strike an insult to the relative people, just like the cartoon, but if you burn a dummy or a flag no one declares war and demands the severed heads of those responsable. And those representations of real people where the cartoon is of a unproven(and in my opinion fictious)prophet.

But you are right about one thing. Muslims will never be red indians. Red indians had honor and heritage, muslims are a violent, hate driven plague on the earth

I heard some Islamic nutbag wrote here that all muslims that were angry at the freedom in the west to mock ANY RELIGION would move back to Ilamic countries if westerners would get out of the middle east.

DEAL!!!

I'm sure we could work something out! There are NO westerners in their right minds who would choose to live in countries like that, so it would be the US
and UK soldiers and western oil companies.

All of us want our soldiers back. They want to come home. As soon as new elections are over in the US and UK, the new governments will bring back the soldiers.

That will be easy to solve, as nobody here wants them in the Middle Esatern psycho ward that muslims call countries.

And all the western oil companies... the same people who came up with the technology to FIND the oil, to PUMP it out of the ground, to DISTRIBUTE the
oil... in other words invented and built the whole petro industry for you, and payed your depotic leaders billions and billions of dollars so that they could lay around the French Riviera and fuck 50,000$ a night whores and bet 5,000,000$ a night on baccarat, send their children to expensive western schools, WHILE THEY GIVE THEIR OWN PEOPLE NOTHING.

The worst leaders in the world history have made themselves billionaires many times over and kept their people in poverty and sickness. Instead, the give the
people ISLAM. Why is it that Islamic countries have such vast wealth in oil and the only people who profit from it is your two faced, lying leaders wh make deals with the west and keep all the money for themselves. So we get the western companies out and we buy your oil at whatever price you want, because lets see you EAT and DRINK oil.

Then everybody is happy. You are where you want to be, and we don't have to listen to you "DEMNAD" how we act in our own counttries. You won't have to threaten us with your big, bad Muhjahadeen fighters.

Your fighters are such cowards... they are REALLY GOOD at attcking WEDDING RECEPTIONS, SCHOOL BUSES, OFFICE BUILDINGS WITH HIJACKED JETS, CAFES, HOTELS and all soft, undefended targets. Every single time we get you on a battlefield we kick your ass and you turn and run like cowards.

Only in Afghanistan against the Russian army were you successful, ONLY BECAUSE THE CIA gave you weapons and training. How else would shoot down a Russian helicopter? Chase it on your camel and throw rocks at it? No, THE CIA gave you Stinger missles,
technology that you NEVER are able to come up with on your own because you are kept in such IGNORANCE by your depotic, criminal leaders that the only way you can get an education in the fields of science required to make weapons like that is if you try to get out (again) of your own pitiful countries and go to school in the West.

And if you think Iran or Pakistan can help you with their little pathetic nuclear programs... we have dozens and dozens submarines under all the oceans of the world, and JUST ONE of them could take out ALL YOUR CAPITAL CITIES AND THE PEOPLE IN THEM
IN TWENTY MINUTES.

So go ahead and try to start something. You may kill some of us, but 20 minutes later you will ALL be extinct. 

If we want to make cartoons to mock..there are a lot of things to mock about in this world. Is not that true…we can even mock those who eat donkeys and insects which are disgusting …what about Indians women give dowry to Indian men..what about Indian wives who were buried alive with her dead husbands. what about those who drink blood to give them  power for life as they claim …

If I am about to mention examples ,I will not finish..

But why I mock other human living with me in this universe. why I donot live in peace and in my own business and let others live too….

Why I donot give my concern to my own concern and my own problems

Why I make awful things then cover it with freedom of speech which is  a rubbery word….what I will gain from provoking other humans living with me in the same planet..

For the million of times,making cartoons criticizing or making fun of any politician or leader to attract the attention of eth society to the attitudes or action of that person who are supposed to work for the society is allowed and welcomed but interfering  even in personal life of  people or celebrities is not welcomed because it may hurt or destroy their life…

Can anyone reply tome giving me his or her opinions ..looking forwards reply from you .

N.B . I am not against Indian, as they are great ancient nation.

First of all to the kitten comment.  In the USA we know how to deal with animals who attack humans. You put them down with the bad end of a rifle.

To those who say muslims are victims in a hate filled world.  You all make me sick, you poor bastards think blowing yourselves up in the name of your god will bring you great rewards...then why don't you all follow suit so the world can be rid of you freaks(and you not freaks for your religous choices, it's your life choices)

And to the rest of you who talk of bringing war, GO AHEAD AND TRY!!!

The whole world say what the US did to you in such a short time.  What do you think will happen if you bring war and actually invade someone?  I'll tell you, the USA and the rest of the world will bend you poor, delusional, sub-human, pieces of shit over, and shove you precious Jihad up your turbin topped asses!

So in closing, if you can't live without trying to blow everyone up, then you don't deserve to live.  

That was very funny about stealing resources!  Hopefully in the near future, with methane , hydrogen and wind sources all the oil wells will be capped.

As a Canadian I embrace the limits on free speech when they prevent incitements to violence, particularly against identifiable groups (hate literature). I will, if necessary, give my life for the freedom in my country to free speech that simply offends. I am offended daily by extremist Muslim rhetoric against the West (now including Denmark) and Israel. I am offended by the common Muslim mocking of the Christian belief in the Holy Trinity and the desecration of the Temple Mount by Islam. I, however, live in a secular society - as do Muslims outside of the Middle East.

If I want to live somewhere where such blasphemies against Christianity and Judaism are crimes I must go and live there (I don't know where that would be if I wanted to go there). Muslims who want to live somewhere where blasphemies against the Prophet are crimes they can to to the Islamist Middle East. Otherwise they can buck up and fuck off.

Islam is truly a violent and evil religion and the reaction of the Muslims only proves the point.

first off, i am a muslim as well and i agree that threats to kill the author are completely wrong. Killing doesn't justify anything. it must be understood that just because some people have posed a threat to kill the author doesn't mean that its a muslim point of view. Those are radical people's point of view, not radical MUSLIMS. Everyone says there should be absolutely no limit to freedom of speech but think about it, everything good has to have a limit. Too much of a good thing is never good. You will never give a child infinite amounts of candy because it will make them sick. Think of anything good that you would enjoy....and then imagine endless amounts of it....it would eventually hurt you in maybe a small amount or a very large amount but it would hurt you, right?
In countries like USA, under the freedom of speech, if you verbally threaten someone, you will be imprisoned. Therefore, we have alredy imposed a limit on the freedom of speech because it would be hurting someone. By drawing cartoons of our prophet, they are hurting our prophet. Just because one does not believe in someone else's religion does not mean they can disrespect the beliefs of others. Is this not also the basis of democracy? That you may express your opinions and beliefs and follow them as long as you do not harm yourself or others. You may disagree with other beliefs and say why you disagree but you should not do so by ridiculing and insulting.

The reason Muslims across the world uproared to the cartoons is that they value prophets (ALL OF THEM). Other than the crazy osama and people who believe in terrorizing and kidnapping all the time, muslims respect all religions. We have otherwise not shown hostility to others. The only people who did so were osama and his followers. Other than that, muslims are just regular people wanting everyone to leave them alone and let them practice their religion. In the midst of all this post 911 stuff and constantly having their religion debated, posting such cartoons further insults and ridicules and hurts the rights of millions of muslims to practice their religion. The freedom of speech was put in place to be able to express opinions. Could the authors not have done so without drawing pictures of Mohammed (P.B.U.H) face thereby expressing their opinions without disrespecting other religons?I'm sure he could have. He would have expressed his opinion and nobody would have said anything.
Another might argue that well then again we are limiting ourselves. I would say but why not limit yourself? what's wrong with limiting yourself? does it hurt anyone? NO! isnt that how the world should go on? are we supposed to be trying to hurt others all day not just with weapons and war but now with words as well? Forgetting religions and beliefs, what are we basing our words and ways of life on if we just go on saying what we want not caring what happens to others?
Generally, societies follow the moral of reciprocity. If today you ridicule one religion, tomorrow they will ridicule you and it will keep on going and going but where would we get? because in the end there will still be people on both sides of the argument. It doesn't matter whether it is Islam vs. another religion. It could be any two religions. This isn't a fact or theory that we can solve through science or math. It is a matter of beliefs. If the author has the right to speech then so do muslims to practice their religion without insults and ridiciule day and night on the media and in their faces.

There are millions of cartoons and articles and books out there right now expressing opposing views to Islam and to our prophet and each has been returned equally with arguments in cartoons, articles, scientific articles, etc. Drawing a picture of his face was far more than an opinion or opposing argument. Drawing a picture of our prophets face was just plain disrespect. Muslims are fighting today for the respect of their religion. Osama and his followers are like the bullies you have in school when you are little. If you ignore them, they will die down and go away but the more you try and match up to them the worse they will get. So, when authors and cartoonists made millions of pictures and wrote articles ridiculing and insulting Osama, only his followers that are affected directly were the ones who revolted. Otherwise the rest of the sane true Muslim world agreed that osama is wrong and should be imprisoned and punished.

These cartoons are only insulting Islam because of Osama and 911 and all that, I would like to know how much the authors know about Islam to think up of that message? Did they actually pick up a Quran and compare numerous history books and articles to find out if that is what our prophet was like or did they just base it on Osama's interpretation? If I learn that they really did do thorough research on Islam and our prophet and their opinion remained unchanged, I would commend them for their unbiased opinions BUT still would go against them because they drew the face of our prophet. I respect their opinion no matter what it is and so do other muslims butttt all we want is for others to respect ours and not ridicule it. Others have the right not to believe in it and disagree with Islam but they do not have the right to make a joke of it. If Islam is being made a joke then so must be every other religion in the world and once we do that...what else is left to do? Can't religions, beliefs and values be left alone since they are supposed to be separate from politics? (i.e. separation of church and state)
If the authors did not do any research and based it on stereotypes and Osama's ideas of jihad, then it is an ignorant opinion BUT an OPINION nonethelss that he DOES HAVE THE RIGHT TO EXPRESS. HOWEVER, and i have said this again and again DRAWING THE FACE of the prophet was what was wrong.
Suppose relations between person A and person B are very hostile. Person A learns that a certain comment would provoke person B to become very very angry and person A then actually makes that comment, person B then reacts by using foul language and after some time of arguing person B's temper explodes and he starts to fight physically. Who's fault is it? Suppose person A and B were your children. Ofcourse you would yell at both kids. Person A was wrong because he provoked knowing that person B would react and be upset. Person B was wrong because he did not control his temper. But if person A had never said anything....nothing woud have happened right? Both sides would have stayed apart and minded their own business.
In sum, freedom of speech is a great thing butttt it should be used wisely.....heres a thought....let's use it to cause good and happiness for mankind instead of disruption, political unrest and unhappy people all over the world? we already have world hunger, aids, global warming and other huge problems.....why not make a cartoon that makes fun of rich people spending money on diamond encrusted eyelashes instead of donating to unicef?

In regards to Bjorn, producing pop culture artifacts that desecrate Christianity... who cares (that is among the Westerners)?! But probably according to the Muslim world, this is exactly where we've gone wrong, as the 'INFIDELS' THAT WE ARE... "Nothing is sacred to us... oh no... guess, maybe because we don't believe in the Quaran, but instead, practice Democracy, Capitalism and HUMAN RIGHTS?"

Try doing just that, imagine being a Muslim man of origin, who decides to express HIS DIFFERENCE OF OPINIONS AND EXPRESS HIS HUMAN RIGHTS, producing such artifacts that desecrate Islam in one of the Muslim countries...

A similar situation could never be imagined to be happening in the Muslim world because if one decides to express his / her difference in views of the matter, he / she will immidiately be shut down and killed, no questions asked. But of course, in the 'precious' religion of Islam NOTHING CAN BE QUESTIONED. Look at the fate of Salman Rushdie... and the fact that every Muslim is vowed to kill him on the spot, if found.

And speaking of the word 'PRECIOUS': seems like someone here, or maybe it's the collective Muslim world, have reached a stage similar to that of the Golum (of the Lord of the Rings), whenever they refer and think of Islam.

"Oh!! My Prreciousssssssss!!!"

"The Danish cartoon affair is NOT just a test of basic freedoms, it is a concerted attack on a visible minority"

But let us ignore the beheading of Christian girls in Indonesia, the bombing of churches in Pakistan and the jailing of Zoroastrians in Iran.

Some others wish to talk about the great tolerance which is Islam, tolerance which can be obtained only through dhimmi status and your payment of jizya. Talk about you institutionalized attack on a minority. But even this still doesn't really protect you from the Muslim mob because if they want what you have then all bets are off.

Some others mentioned the Coptic Church and conversion...what happens to would be converts from Islam, oh thats right Apostates are to be killed.

The most interesting fact is the overwhelming tolerance given to muslims from the West, even to those muslims who want to destroy it. Yet cartoons are such a provacation that danes are beaten in Gaza...tell me what is the bigger crime the cartoons or the assualt. It seems that the assualt was warranted due to the cartoons...even if those assualted had nothing to do with them. Where is the moderate tolerant muslim's rage over such injustice. No where to be found.