Well, mobs have torched Western diplomatic headquarters now in Damascus and Beirut. Motive: A few ridiculous cartoons. Thoughts:

1. Every religion gets criticized and made fun of. The Muslims who are rioting are showing that they are tremendously thin-skinned.

2. Muslim newspapers very frequently publish cartoons, articles, and the like that are much more offensive to Christianity and especially Judaism than anything the Western press has ever published about Islam.

3. Here in the West we have freedom of expression, and I have the right to say that Mohammed was obviously the model for the gay sheepboys in Brokeback Mountain if I want to.

4. You have the right to get offended at my self-expression, and there are legal steps you can take, like, say, writing a letter to your local paper disagreeing with me.

5. But you don't have the right to use violence, no matter how much you're offended by what I say.

I am particularly alarmed at foreign Muslims trying to force the Western press to censor itself. That is, these rioters are trying to change Western society by making criticisms of Islam grounds for fatwa, jihad, and death. Now, they can change the laws in their own countries all they wish, and if they want to make calling Mohammed a gay sheepboy punishable by death in their own countries, well, that's their business. But not here.

I am also disgusted by the US response, which criticized the publication of the cartoons. What a newspaper in a democracy chooses to publish is that newspaper's own business, not that of the US government. I do not like the US government criticizing Westerners for exercising their freedom of speech, and I do not like its justification of Muslims who were offended by twelve silly drawings. Hell, El Periodico and La Vanguardia and El Pais have all published cartoons that were much more offensive to Judaism than anything Jyllands-Posten printed was offensive to Islam, and no garments are being rent.

Finally, let's just say this straight out. The people who are by far the biggest threat to world peace today are militant Muslims. Without their rage at the rest of the world there would be many fewer wars and massacres. I seriously question whether militant Islam is capable of living peacefully alongside other religions. I don't think it is. As Samuel P. Huntington said, "Islam has bloody frontiers."

Minor aside on the misinterpretation of Huntington over here. The phrase "clash of civilizations" has entered Spanish vocabulary as a direct calque, but it's used over here to represent a situation that may appear in the future but that can be avoided. Prime minister Zap's proposed "Alliance of Civilizations," a massive Forumesque waste of everyone's time and energy that will serve for absolutely nothing except for employing more bureaucrats to have meetings with one another, is an attempt at staving off a clash of civilizations. Zap and his ilk fail to understand that Huntington's clash of civilizations is a permanent condition that has existed ever since different civilizations began to confront one another. It can't be prevented. It can, however, be won or lost. Fortunately, the West is winning, with no help from Zap.