American's make Christ look stupid

By Jason White

For the last couple of weeks, Muslims the world over have declared their dissatisfaction with Danes, mostly through peaceful protest – such as the occasional march outside a foreign embassy’s headquarters.

But seeing one’s religious benefactor portrayed in a newspaper in the first place, when it’s strictly forbidden by Islamic ordinances, let alone with a time bomb atop his turban, has caused uproars of a violent sort in some parts of this, our third rock, turning what should have been non-violent demonstrations into blazing infernos, riots, beatings and a couple of unneeded deaths.

It started at the behest of a Danish newspaper that, having commissioned 10 drawings in a statement against the worldwide media’s dumbed-down exercise of expression, simply strove to present a metaphor. But Muslims and non-Muslims decried the drawings as offensive, even sacrilegious. As Earth’s audience fiddled their thumbs, waiting to see what this newest wall would sever, it became apparent the drawings might not have been too far off their mark. After all, how better to make a statement than to tie two simple images together in a cartoon?

Simply put, Muslims aren’t stereotypically known to lay down their proverbial swords. Car bombs, roadside bombs, suicide bombs – news reports daily depict a group of people, while not representative of the whole, who can’t seem to control themselves, and in the process, inevitably, the very religion they’ve touted as so holy and right has been tainted to passersby. With that, oh dear Muslim extremists, the icon known as Muhammad became dirtied as well. The few, the extreme, have clouded the image of your true prophet – for the more moderate Muslims – before any Danish cartoonist ever had a chance to lay their quill to parchment.

Be angry, because you have every right to feel affronted that freedom of expression has roundabout parlayed your faith, especially when the Iraq and Afghanistan wars seem to be wars against Islam, a faith oftentimes referred to as “terror” by President Bush. Those in the west should take stock as well, and should use this time of expression-versus-faith to figure out how they’re treating, particularly, Christ’s image.

While Christians, Catholics and countless Protestant believers have backed the war without question, they may not be privy to every honest piece of evidence the war has birthed, not to mention things our great nation has committed against countries and cultures for the last 50 years. Remember, Bush has stated that he talks to God, that God tells him to do things, like go to war with relatives of old business partners and, particularly, to oust a regime his own father placed into power.

Therefore, Western believers of Christ, Bush admits he keeps an open line with your Lord, putting a level of legitimacy to your creator’s influence. But take a step back.
We went to war based on faulty information. Our Protestant-spun soldiers are abusing, hurting and, based on some reports, torturing inmates in Abu Graib. Bush gave his right-hand man, dear ole’ Dick Cheney, no-bid contracts to the lawyer-shootin’ goob’s old company, Halliburton, over operations in Iraq. Our efforts in Iraq have overshadowed any pain and damage those planes caused four years ago on our soil.

Over 180,000 civilians are dead in Afghanistan and Iraq, compared to barely 3,000 deaths on 9/11? Has that hit home, that we have killed above and beyond the call of duty? There have been scandals – the Scooter Libby and the CIA-leak case, Frist’s insider trading, Abramoff’s lobbying fraud schemes – that, day-by-day, slime the image of the great U.S.A., though maybe not so much for a majority of its denizens.

If a Danish cartoonist were to draw Christ in a single panel for print, what crazy icons, words or other assorted images would lie atop his head, dangle from his ears or nest in his flowing hair?