Hitch puts it very well
Christopher Hitchens gets it right in his latest Slate column (refering to the fatwa put on Salman Rushdie)
Now, everything in me is revolted by the burning of books, let alone the attempt to murder writers, and I claim the right to feel this at least as strongly as any illiterate fanatic may choose to feel about a story in Newsweek. Some of us can be offended at insults to our culture, and we, too, possess unalterable convictions and principles. Many people take the same view of the desecration of Old Glory. But we would never dream of venting ourselves in random assaults on mosques or Muslims, and if anyone on our soil did dare to commit such atrocities, I hope and believe that they would not receive moist and sympathetic treatment in the pages of the American press.
Hitchens is one of the very few commentators that does not treat Muslims as exotic pets.
On a related note this CNN.com article was interesting for a few reasons, money grafs
Women in black veils marched through Kashmir, where schools and businesses were closed as part of the protest, and set American flags and copies of the U.S. Constitution ablaze.
“The defilement of our holy book is outrageous because we consider it to be the word of God,” thundered Asiya Andrabi, head of the women’s group Daughters of the Community, through her veil. “Guantanamo Bay is a cage. It is not a prison.”
- They burned copies of the Constitution? That’s a first. Maybe they DO hate us for our freedom.
- “Daughters of the Community”?
- “Thundered…. through her veil”. Who writes this stuff? Are they trying to work jokes in?