Could this really spark World War III? It seems hard to believe that matters will get so out of hand--yet one remembers that a simple visit by Ariel Sharon to Jerusalem's Temple Mount sparked the Palestinian Intifada; the National Endowment for the Arts' funding of "Piss Christ" led to a Republican takeover of the US Congress; and Paris's kidnapping of Helen of Troy led to the Trojan War-- as well as a line that seems appropriate in relation to the Danish cartoon crisis:
"Is this the face that launched a thousand ships?"
Little Green Footballs has a slideshow of the cartoons, here. Bigger than what we posted below, and makes clear that they are not very nasty, as Andrew Sullivan described them, "tame" by American standards.
For another historical reference, see Voltaire's play Le fanatisme, ou Mahomet le prophète. Background on a banned Geneva revival, here.
More about today's calls to war at Little Green Footballs.
Human Events has posted a cartoon gallery here.
Financial Times story here.
Telegraph stories here and here.
More reason to like Sarkozy:
This from the Guardian: But not everyone was acquiescent. France's interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, said he preferred "an excess of caricature to an excess of censure".