Writing in the International Herald Tribune, Mona Eltahawy takes President Bush to task for sitting next to King Abdullah while discussing the Danish Cartoons:Two Jordanian editors and a Yemeni editor who dared to publish some of the cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad are under arrest, accused of insulting religion under their countries' press and publication laws. For them, it was not so much an issue of joining the chorus of European and then international newspapers that sang in defense of Jyllands-Posten, the Danish newspaper that published the cartoons in September. Rather, it was a chance to challenge state-sanctioned religious rules....
...It is ironic that President George W. Bush is asking these same leaders to help calm Muslim anger when they were so instrumental in inflaming it in the first place. It is particularly telling that he made this call as he stood with King Abdullah of Jordan, while making no mention of the jailed editors [who published the cartoons in Arab countries].
Perhaps the ultimate double standard, though, is the repeated calls from Muslim dictators that the freedom of expression must be exercised with responsibility. Why isn't anyone telling them that an equally healthy dose of responsibility must accompany the enormous power they wield?
I am a Muslim who fully supports Jyllands-Posten's right to publish the cartoons of Prophet Mohammed, as I defend the rights of Muslims to be offended. But I find the daily human rights violations by our dictators to be more offensive to the memory of the prophet's life than a few cartoons ever could be.
UPDATE: IMHO, The Bush administration's handling of this crisis has been so terrible that it poses a threat to American national security. It revealed a panicky administration that made public statements without even bothering to research the facts at issue. Any web-surfer who reads Michelle Malkin would know enough about what is going on to tell Bush one simple truth--the Danes were not irresponsible, the Danish press was not irresponsible, the Danish cartoonists were not irresponsible. Rather, the Danish imams, and their extremist supporters around the world who agitated for violence, were the irresponsible ones.
Which makes George Bush's statements on the Danish Cartoon crisis--"irresponsible."
