Why not?

Random thoughts begin, in this case with Islam, and the furor over the innocuous Danish cartoons. Orchestrated insanity - and do believe that it is orchestrated.

In his almost unknown essay "The Prevention of War", Reginald Bretnor writes that we have all "swallowed several Great Simple Myths", one of which is that "All cultures everywhere are of equal value" (read a larger excerpt). Islamic countries are universally brutal and suppressive - culturally, Islamis stuck a millenium in the past.

Even so-called "moderates" of Islam, meaning those who do not advocate violence, protest that their religious sensibilities are more important than our freedom of speech. Note that the Danish cartoons were published in a Danish newspaper in Denmark. By what right to muslims in Lebanon, Turkey, or whereever else claim any right to dictate what we do in our own newspapers in our own countries?

Islamic extremists are right about one thing: there can be no peace here. Freedom is anethema to Islam - this is a fundamental conflict of cultures, and one of them must and will lose. Either Islam accepts the idea of individual freedom, or we must accept their right to dictate our behavior. Which will it be?