Cartoon Of Muhammad Stirs Outrage

First, the US military freaked out over a cartoon showing them indifferent to the fate of the average soldier. Now an even bigger scandal is sweeping Europe and the Middle east. A Dutch paper ran cartoons of the prophet Muhammad and Muslims went ballistic. (It is anathema to depict Muhammad visually.) Riots, protests, gunmen circling buildings, boycotts of Denmark, recall of ambassadors, closing of diplomatic missions -- it's all happening. My favorite comment comes from an MSNBC article that quotes someone from Hizbollah saying:

“Had a Muslim carried out Imam Khomeini’s fatwa against the apostate Salman Rushdie, then those low-lifers would not have dared discredit the Prophet, not in Denmark, Norway or France."

Wikipedia has the cartoons. A French editor was fired for reprinting the cartoons along with a new cartoon depicting Christian, Jewish and Buddhist holy figures comforting Muhammad by saying they too had been caricatured. So was the Dutch paper being insensitive and, even if so, can that justify Muslim outrage?