Let's Play Connect the Dots With the Cartoon Controversy

[JCMach1]

-Provocative Danish cartoons published in September...
-Small outcry from a few clerics in the ME (dies down quickly)
-Bush's poll ratings in the toilet after the Gulf Hurricanes, et al
-U.S. begins to ratchet-up pressure Iran...
-Saudi clerics (something that makes you go hmmmmmm., most of these guys are in the pocket of the Gov.) re-out the story and start disseminating it around the world...


Saudi Arabia's top cleric has called on Denmark to punish a newspaper that ran cartoons portraying Prophet Mohammad, weighing into a row that has been raging across the Middle East for months.

Denmark's largest newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, ran 12 cartoons last September, including one in which Mohammad seems to be carrying a bomb in his turban. Islam considers images of prophets disrespectful and caricatures blasphemous.

"I call on officials in the Danish government to call to account the paper that published these cartoons and force it to apologise for its ugly crime," Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdulaziz al-Sheikh said in a statement published on Wednesday.

"It should impose a penalty as a deterrent on those who took part in provoking this subject. That's the least Muslims demand," it said... http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L25728869.htm


THIS IS CONCERNING THE MUFTI AL-SHEIKH WHO RE-IGNITED THE CONTROVERSY

On November 14, 2001, Saudi Crown Prince Abdallah ibn Abd Al-'Aziz called for a meeting of the kingdom's leading clerics to brief them on talks he had in recent months with U.S. President George W. Bush. Attending the meeting were Prince Sultan ibn Abd Al-'Aziz, who serves as second deputy prime minister, defense and flight minister, and inspector-general; the Saudi mufti Sheikh Abd Al-'Aziz bin Abdallah Aal Al-Sheikh, Supreme Judicial Council Chairman Saleh ibn Muhammad Al-Lheidan, Justice Minister Dr. Abdallah ibn Muhammad Aal Al-Sheikh, Islamic Affairs Minister Sheikh Saleh ibn Abd Al-'Aziz Aal Al-Sheikh, and high-ranking religious and judicial officials. During the meeting, the Crown Prince instructed the clerics to make efforts to curtail inflammatory preaching and sermons in the mosques. The following are the main points raised by the Crown Prince, the mufti, and others, as reported by the Saudi government daily Al-Watan... The Saudi mufti, Sheikh Al-'Aziz bin Abdallah Aal Al-Sheikh, concurred with the prince that "handling problems with deliberation and moderation is good for us all." His words reflected the moderate position he has held for some time, even before the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington. In an interview published in the Saudi government paper Al-Riyadh, <2> Sheikh Abdallah Aal Al-Sheikh warned against calls to kill non-Muslims in Islamic countries, telling his followers to "beware of listening to calls that give rise to civil strife and riots, which accomplish nothing." Months earlier, in an April 2001 interview with the London-based Al-Sharq Al-Awsat daily, <3> the mufti had issued a controversial religious ruling against suicide bombings and airplane hijackings. In that interview, he had said, "I am not aware of any aspect of religious law concerning killing oneself in the heart of the the enemy, or what is known as suicide. This is not part of Jihad, and I fear that it is killing oneself . Indeed, the Koran requires killing the enemy, even demands it, but this should be done in ways that do not violate Shari'a.... http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=countries&Area=saudiarabia&ID=SP30401
SEEMS A LITTLE OUT OF CHARACTER???

audi Arabia's grand mufti told more than 2 million hajj pilgrims yesterday that some of Islam's own sons have been "lured by the devil" to conduct violent attacks and are harming Islam.

"The greatest affliction to strike the nation of Islam came from some of its own sons, who were lured by the devil. They have called the nation infidel, they have shed protected blood and they have spread vice on Earth, with explosions and destruction and killing of innocents," al-Sheikh said.

Al-Sheikh pointedly asked of Muslim youth: "How would you meet God? With innocent blood you shed or helped shed?"

The fact that Saudi Arabia's top cleric delivered the sermon during the climax of the annual hajj pilgrimage -- which is attended by Muslims from some 70 countries -- is seen as adding to its significance...http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticleprint/2005/01/707263e5-cdd7-4a7a-85dd-8e5a849e9744.html

-Cartoon provovation takes on a life of its own in the Muslim world...
-Embassies burned... murdered Christians... ad nauseum...
-Surely 'they' can't be allowed to have a bomb... Need any further evidence to start your crusade...?

Or, at least the appearance of a war through the US mid-term elections... (The last part is CLASSIC Karl Rove)...