Is It Really About the Cartoons?

As Jay Tea at Wizbang notes, it really isn't about the cartoons, or any other real or perceived slight against the Islamic world. Any excuse will do. After all, American businesses like MacDonalds have nothing to do with publishing cartoons, yet they were attacked by rioters in Lahore Pakistan.

Security forces fired into the air as they struggled to contain the unrest in the eastern city of Lahore, where protesters burned down four buildings housing a hotel, two banks, a KFC restaurant and the office of a Norwegian cell phone company, Telenor.

U.S. and British embassy staffers were confined to their compounds until police dispersed the protesters, some of whom chanted, ''Death to America!''

Witnesses said rioters also damaged more than 200 cars, dozens of shops and a large portrait of President Gen. Pervez Musharraf. Vandals broke the windows of a Holiday Inn, Pizza Hut and McDonald's.

Two movie theaters were torched, and clouds of tear gas and black smoke from burning vehicles drifted through streets in the city center.

The Islamists found yet another convenient excuse to whip their followers into a frenzy - with the usual assortment of rioting, torchings, and bloodshed.

After all, if this really was about the Danish cartoons, the Islamic community would have protested in September 2005 when the cartoons first came out, not months later after the Danish imams took the 12 cartoons published and a couple of additional cartoons that they added to the mix on a global tour to literally whip up trouble.

The protest was organized by a little-known religious group supported by local trade associations and one of the main Islamic schools in the city. Intelligence officials, however, suspected that members of outlawed Islamic radical groups may have incited the violence.

None of this is surprising. After all, this is a global riot spread from mosque to mosque - and it would seem that the more militant mosques are busy trying to outdo their neighbors for bragging rights.

Meanwhile, Victor Davis Hanson wonders if Europe will get it. One can only hope, but hope is no way to run foreign policy, let alone national security. We're going to need to see more active measures taken - whether behind closed doors or in public statements demanding those nations behind the rioting - Syria, Iran, and Saudi Arabia to cease and desist unless they want to face the repercussions.

And the Jyllands Posten (Jutland Post) has a new story out, courtesy of Ed Morrisey, regarding the genesis of the riots. And the cartoons were only a pretext:

The true reasons for the manufactured outrage turn out to have more connection to other Danish actions than just the cartoons. The proper context shows that the Muslims in Denmark and elsewhere have much more of an agenda than simply protecting the Prophet from satire and their religious sensibilities from criticism.

UPDATE:
Michelle Malkin has photos of the Pakistani riots, and also notes that the Iranians are firebombing embassies again - this time tossing firebombs at the British embassy and firecrackers at the Germany embassy in Tehran.

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