Joe,

And who is the US State Dept standing shoulder to shoulder with?

In its first comment on the furore, the State Department said: "These cartoons are indeed offensive to the belief of Muslims."

Answering a reporter's question, its spokesman, Kurtis Cooper, said: "We all fully respect freedom of the press and expression but it must be coupled with press responsibility. Inciting religious or ethnic hatred in this manner is not acceptable." [The Telegraph]

Nitin,

Don't criticize Joe for the cowardice and appeasement of the US State Dept. Joe is a Canadian citizen.

As an American citizen, I can only say that this statement is both shameful and enraging. Freedom of speech and freedom of the press are two of the core freedoms enshrined in our Constitution's Bill of Rights. The fact that we are supporting the attempts by militant Islam to limit freedom of speech and freedom of the press in Europe is heart breaking.

The only explanation I can offer is that there is massive cognitive dissonance in Washington right now. On the one hand, everyone recognizes that the terrorists we are fighting in the Global War on Terror (GWOT) are exclusively Islamic terrorists. The President and other senior officials will even occasionally state that the ultimate goal of the radical Islamists is the establishment of a worldwide Caliphate and the conversion or subjugation of all non-believers.

On the other hand, no senior official ever misses an opportunity to state that Islam is a Religion of Peace (ROP). No one ever attempts to explain why so many adherents of the ROP delight in killing non-Muslims. No one ever probes the question of why so many ROP adherents support the jihadis with their public statements, their money, and their sons (and some daughters). All senior officials resolutely deny that jihad against the infidel is a core teaching of Islam, particularly the increasingly dominant Salafi version. (Or the militant Shia variety that is dominant in Iran).

Resolving this cognitive dissonance by openly recognizing Islamic hostility to liberal, pluralist democracies, to non-believers, and to modern Western civilization as a whole may simply be impossible for our present leadership. We have made a very large bet on the strategy of democratically transforming the Middle East into a peaceful, non-threatening region. The core assumption is that the vast majority of Muslims really just want to lead peaceful, middle-class lives in liberal, pluralist democracies that are reasonably competent, reasonably non-corrupt, and definitely non-belligerent.

You can guess what the implications are for the success of this strategy if it turns out that large numbers of Muslims actually believe in militant Islam. What if they are a plurality in many regions? What if they are a majority in some regions? (See the Hamas victory in the Palestinian voting). What if, God forbid, Sam Huntington was right about the clash of civilizations between Islam and the West? (and the Hindu and Orthodox civilizations). And the really scary one, what if Huntington was right in predicting a de facto or de jure alliance between Sinic civilization and militant Islam against the West, the Hindu, and the Orthodox civilizations?

Of course, it's also possible that the State Department spokesman is simply a victim of too much multiculturalism training.

Nitin isn't blaming me. and I'm grateful to him for pointing that episode out and enhancing the debate.

Nitin, You may not have recognized the situation surrounding your quote of Kurtis Cooper.

LGF, posts up on the confusion of having quotes on the subject from at least 3 "spokesman" at the State Department -- Kurtis Cooper, Janelle Hironimus, and Sean McCormack. Guess which one is the Spokesman, and which ones are Press Officers.

LGF has the extensive comments from the Press Briefing on the suject of the cartoons.

State Department Criticism of Cartoons - a Hoax?

I have found no transcripts of a Press Release or Press Briefing by Cooper or Hironimus. The Telegraph, which quoted Cooper, got it flat wrong in calling him "it's Spokesman". At least the AP, which accurately called Hironimus "a Press Officer" got it right.

The Telegraph dated but didn't time the publication of their report but AP did. AP's came at least 4 hours after the McCormack briefing.

Does the Telegraph not have a rep in Washington? Do they not have access to the web? Are both second tier reporting orgs and aren't yet approved for playing in the senior briefing leagues?

Or were the AP and the Telegraph phone trolling for a "quoteable" quote, finding McCormack's extensive explanation undesirable?

I can't trust reports (e.g., with clipped quotes) that present info the way in which the Telegraph does -- their wording is too manipulated to achieve a result. That is the same with AP, but at least they put a name on their reports ... most times.

James,

As Joe himself pointed out, it was not at all my intention to criticise him.

What I was pointing out is that largely for reasons of expediency, the United States (and the UK) take care to be oversensitive to irrational, dogmatic regimes while taking liberal, rational, democratic ones for granted.

I should say I was appalled to read the report in the Telegraph, and I hope, as Dusty in #4 says, that it is not true. But I fear that it is, or it was, until someone realised what a stupid thing that was and clicked on the undo button.

JJ:

I can agree there is massive cognitive dissonance in Washington right now, when you compare the respective government functions, i.e. administration, legislative, and press, yes press, because the government relies so heavily on it to communicate everything. Some of that is endemic and is to be expected. Some is manufactured and that is the result of the press, again partly endemic but also often despicable.

I think you are speaking mostly of cognitive dissonance relating to the Administration acting expediently due to the situation we find ourselves in. I, too, am bothered by an Administration stance that is too deferential regarding the ROP, for example. (I would ask that you read McCormack's answer wrt the 'Cartoons War' -- I only read it once but it seems particularly good.)

But the Administration is stuck on a high wire. There are many issues which need to be balanced and, unfortunately, some things are more important at this particular point in time.

For instance, my inclination is that the Admin has to be concerned with Global economic meltdown should certain actions be taken that cause a large disruption in the oil market. Being a little less forthright/equivocal in defense of free speech eases us past a not known future on that issue, not known because, while we can to an extent manage events, we cannot control them.

That is why we should do all we can to remove the impediments to being as forthright as possible. In this case, it is imperative we break free of the greatest impediment -- our addiction to oil.

I do hope that the Administration has conveyed the message to all countries of our resolve to find every way of accomplishing our goals as well as some worthy common goals while keeping their economies from going to hell in a handbasket (and ours along with them) without applying any cognitive dissonance. It's certainly the message (as well as an explanation of why his foreign policy seems like a mash of contradictions at times) Bush gave to the me when he said we are addicted to oil. So I will accept some CD wrt the ROP and more equivocation wrt free speech than I would prefer.

Nitin,

I suspect the quotes are essentially correct. I also suspect the reporters who asked the question purged the answers of everything they didn't want conveyed. That's why you so often see the reporter contextualize the information themselves and then insert the part of the answer they prefer, rather than say, we called so-and-so and here's the transcript.

I ran into this scenario with the one time I followed up on a source used. It was a Murtha story and at the tail end there was supportive info provided wrt National Guard. The reporter suggested by her report that they were stretched and underequipped. She was completely correct and completely wrong and the problem was that she presented her conceptual view based on a static point in time of her choosing, for instance, the National Guard returning home without equipment, therefore, they are underequipped.

The dynamic view is the NG left their equipment there and received different equipment at home after a brief delay.

Which is more accurate, the static or dynamic? Which is more efficient, sending, for example, a PANG (actually it is an Army one not a PANG one) Humvee home with the PANG team, and sending a TANG Humvee to theater with the TANG replacements, or, shipping a Humvee from Texas to PA?

I do not trust the MSM. Take the hint from the MSM that something happened and then go find out ( not meant to imply calling your travel agent) what it was. There's no other way to be informed.

CNN International and BBC World news channels have a long tradition on pleasing as many viewers as posible adopting a sickening neutral or even leftist bias.

I'd rather watch Cubavision and its Bolivarian revolution (or better, robbolution) against the Empire. At least they are clearly leftist, they don't try to disguishe it, and they tell loud and clear their objectives.

Hey - is it just me, or are we actually taking action about some cartoons that are "sacrilige" to the Islamists?
WHAT ABOUT THE NUMEROUSE KIDNAPPINGS, IED'S, RPGL'S AND HEY, LET'S NOT FORGET THE BEHEADINGS, WHICH ARE HORRIBLE IN THEIR EXECUTION AND TO US ARE EXTREMELY OFFENSIVE.
Quite frankly, I don't give a rat's ass what the Islamists are up in arms about. They show themselves to be a race of idiots who fire guns into the air, not realizing how many people are killed when the bullet comes back down. DUH! Their religion is so simple it should be put in a first grade primer book, but hey - that's why it catches on so fast: You barely need a brain to follow their claptrap.
Signed: A very pissed off American who cannot wait for when the backlash of revenge starts.

Solution to the "Middle East Mess":
Bomb Jerusalem, Mecca and Medina into the stone age. Then the Muslims, Jews and Christians would just wander around in a daze because they would no longer have any thing to fight about.
Religion is the crack-cocaine of the masses, my friend.

Just so you know, state department spokespersons are all press officers. The Spokesman (with a capital S) is Sean McCormack. But press officers act as spokespersons when dealing with the media. That's just the way it is. Statments are always released in the Secretary's, Spokesman's, or when both of them are out of the country, the Deputy Spokesman's name.