This isn’t writing, it’s typing.

Shall we censor Dante too?

The Jyllands-Posten cartoons are hardly the first time that the Prophet has been portrayed negatively in the Western media.

In his Inferno, Dante consigns Mohammed to a subcircle of Hell reserved for "Sowers of Discord" (which also includes Mohammed's cousin and son-in-law, Ali ibn Abi Talib, founder of the Shi'a branch of Islam).

From Canto XXVIII:

31                                 See how twisted and broken
           Mohammed is!  Before me walks Ali, his face
        Cleft from chin to crown, grief–stricken.

34    All the others you see in this place                
           Sowed scandal and schism when they were alive,
        And thus are now split wide.  Each time we pace

37    Around this sad, painful road we arrive
           Back at the devil who slices us up once more;
        Each one of this mob has just enough time to revive

40    Himself and close up his gaping wounds before
           He's subject again to that blade's cruel rip.

(Translated by Seth Zimmerman)

Should we follow President Chirac's advice to avoid "anything liable to offend the beliefs of others" and throw Dante on the bonfire before the jihadists do it for us?

My unfunny valentine

Give 'em an inch … and goddamn if those crazy Islamists won't take Valentine's Day too …

(From AFP)

Srinagar - An Islamic separatist women's group, known for its fierce opposition to Western-style romance, has vowed to prevent couples celebrating Valentine's Day in the Indian state of Kashmir.

Aasiya Andrabi, leader of the separatist Dukhtaran-e-Millat, or Daughters of Faith, said on Saturday: "We will not allow anyone to observe Valentine's Day as it does nothing but spread immorality among youth.

"Valentine's Day is against our culture and Islamic teachings."

The group supports a 16-year-old separatist insurgency against New Delhi's rule in Indian Kashmir, and is also engaged in "stamping out immorality" in the Muslim-majority region.

The group kicked off its campaign against "Lover's Day" in Srinagar on Friday. Supporters raided half a dozen shops, confiscating Valentine's Day cards and making a bonfire of them.

Andrab said the aim of Valentine's Day is to "pave the way for Western culture to invade youths' hearts and minds and distance them from their traditional culture and Islamic principles.

"We want to save our youth from indecency and desire to see them as true followers of Islam. We won't like them to follow Western culture."

"We will not allow anyone to observe Valentine's Day" because we don't want our youth to be corrupted.

There's some chilling logic for you.

To paraphrase Heine: Wherever they burn valentines they will also, in the end, burn human beings.

HT: Michelle Malkin

Paying the Jizya

Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold forbidden that which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, [even if they are] of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizyah with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.

—Qur'an, sura 9.29

None of us are totally free of stereotypes about people of different races, different ethnic groups, and different religions ... there was this appalling example in northern Europe, in Denmark ... these totally outrageous cartoons against Islam.

—Bill Clinton

The New York Times and much of the rest of the nation's news media have reported on the cartoons but refrained from showing them. That seems a reasonable choice for news organizations that usually refrain from gratuitous assaults on religious symbols, especially since the cartoons are so easy to describe in words.

—The editors of The New York Times

For our part, The Times has not reprinted these insensitive images, even as a means of shedding light on the controversy in Europe.

—The editors of The Los Angeles Times

The cartoons, whose vulgarity and offensiveness are beyond question, were published as a calculated insult last September by a right-wing newspaper in a country where bigotry toward the minority Muslim population is a major, if frequently unacknowledged, problem.

—The editors of The Washington Post

CNN is not showing the negative caricatures of the likeness of the Prophet Mohammed because the network believes its role is to cover the events surrounding the publication of the cartoons while not unnecessarily adding fuel to the controversy itself.

—Statement on CNN website

These cartoons are indeed offensive to the beliefs of Muslims. We all fully recognize and respect freedom of the press and expression but it must be coupled with press responsibility. Inciting religious or ethnic hatreds in this manner is not acceptable. We call for tolerance and respect for all communities and for their religious beliefs and practices.

—U.S. State Department spokesman Justin Higgins

I reach out personally to the Muslim community to say that I am sorry that their religious feelings were violated by what we did.

—Magazinet editor Vebjoern Selbekk

We express our apologies to the Muslim community and to all the persons that were shocked by the publication of the cartoons.

—Raymond Lakah, owner of the French newspaper France Soir

These and other inflammatory images deserve our scorn, just as the violence against embassies and military installations are an unacceptable and intolerable form of protest.

—Senator John Kerry

This seems to be an opportunity to condemn the cartoons and communicate directly with the Muslim people on a host of issues.

—Former congressman and 9/11 Commission member Timothy Roemer

Anything liable to offend the beliefs of others, particularly religious beliefs, must be avoided. Freedom of expression must be exercised in a spirit of responsibility. I condemn all obvious acts of provocation, liable dangerously to inflame passions.

—French President Jacques Chirac

The press will should the Muslim world the message: We are aware of the consequences of exercising the right of free expression, we can and we are ready to self-regulate that right.

—European Union commissioner for justice, freedom and security Franco Frattini

I believe the republication of these cartoons has been unnecessary, it has been insensitive, it has been disrespectful and it has been wrong. I place on record my regard for the British media, which has shown considerable responsibility and sensitivity.

—British foreign secretary Jack Straw

We have freedom of the press in our country, and everyone has to take responsibility within the frames of that freedom. But now there are apparently those who want to insult and provoke in this manner, and then I think they too should show some responsibility.

—Swedish foreign minister Laila Freivalds

Freedom of satire that offends the sentiments of others becomes an abuse—and in this case it has affected the sentiments of entire populations in their highest symbols.

—Cardinal Achille Silvestrini

Democratic pluralism requires full respect for different religions and faiths. Freedoms accompany responsibilities. With its huge influence over millions of people, the news media has to use its power to strengthen peace ties.

—Council of Europe parliamentary assembly president, Rene van der Linden

The publication of these cartoons was a deliberate and gratuitous insult to the Muslim community, designed to destroy trust and understanding. Had such images, bordering on racist, been used to portray other groups they would rightly have been condemned as racist or anti-Semitic.

—London mayor Ken Livingstone

Declaration of dhimmitude?

 

Leave it to the technocrats of the European Union to come up with a monumentally stupid response to Islamist bullying—a European press charter that would commit the media to "prudence" when reporting about religion.

From The Telegraph:

Franco Frattini, the European Union commissioner for justice, freedom and security, revealed the idea for a code of conduct in an interview with The Daily Telegraph. Mr Frattini, a former Italian foreign minister, said the EU faced the "very real problem" of trying to reconcile "two fundamental freedoms, the freedom of expression and the freedom of religion".

Millions of European Muslims felt "humiliated" by the publication of cartoons of Mohammed, he added, calling on journalists and media chiefs to accept that "the exercising of a right is always the assumption of a responsibility". He appealed to European media to agree to "self-regulate".

Accepting such self-regulation would send an important political message to the Muslim world, Mr Frattini said.

By agreeing to a charter "the press will give the Muslim world the message: we are aware of the consequences of exercising the right of free expression, we can and we are ready to self-regulate that right", he said.

The code of conduct, as envisaged by Mr Frattini, would acknowledge the importance of respecting religious sensibilities but would not offer a "privileged" status to any one faith.

The European Commission has long had ambitions to introduce EU-wide legislation on fighting racism and xenophobia but has seen them founder amid resistance from national governments.

Mr Frattini said he was keen to move ahead with a voluntary code of conduct, to be drawn up by European media outlets with the assistance of the commission. The code would not have the status of an EU legal instrument and would not be enforceable by Union institutions.

At the time of his appointment to the European Commission, Mr. Frattini was praised by Roberto Leonardi of the London School of Economics as team player—and a welcome change from the nominee he replaced, the controversial Rocco Buttiglione.

"He is not someone who has taken initiatives or distinguished himself," Mr Leonardi said of Mr. Frattini. He meant it as a compliment.

Interestingly, only a week ago, Mr. Frattini went on record with this statement about the Jyllands-Posten cartoons: "The fact is that deprivation of freedom has always generated suffering and sorrow, so we must defend freedom even when that means letting those we disagree with have their say. Preserving freedom is the foundation for dialogue."

In Mr. Franttini's don't-rock-the-boat view, the best way to preserve freedom is to renounce it.

UPDATE: Mr. Frattini seems to have backed away (sort of) from his comments to The Telegraph.

EUobserver.com reports:

Mr Frattini … denied wanting to create a code of conduct for journalists reporting on religious matters, as indicated by earlier media reports.

"There have never been, nor will there be any plans by the European Commission to have some sort of EU regulation, nor is there any legal basis for doing so," the commissioner stated.

Mr Frattini said he wished to clarify possible misunderstandings about his position in the Danish-Muslim row, in an interview with UK daily newspaper The Telegraph.

"It is up to the media themselves to self-regulate or not, and it is up to the media to formulate such a voluntary code of conduct if it is found necessary, appropriate and useful by them," he said.

"The freedom of speech is one of the European Union's pillars, and will remain to be one of its pillars," the commissioner said.

The European Commission finally seems to have found its very own John Kerry.

Publish or perish

Walid al-Kubaisi—an exiled Iraqi writer who lives in Norway—has called for Western news media to publish the Jyllands- Posten cartoons.

The Brussels Journal reports:

Mr al-Kubaisi said in a Norwegian newspaper yesterday that although he thought it was madness of Jyllands-Posten and of the Norwegian paper Magazinet, which republished the cartoons last month, to have published them, he would definitely publish them today if he were a newspaper editor. Mr al-Kubaisi explained that Islamists fanatics are currently trying to limit freedom of expression in the West. Consequently editors have an obligation to stand up to them and publish the cartoons.

“The only way to protect freedom of expression is for as many newspapers as possible in Europe to publish the cartoons. The Islamists cannot boycott the whole world. They cannot ask the whole world to apologize,” Mr al-Kubaisi told the Norwegian press yesterday. Asked if this would not make matters worse he said: “On the contrary, it will ease tensions.”

Why a Muslim like Mr. al-Kubaisi understands this—but folks like Bill Clinton and Jacques Chirac (not to mention nearly every major U.S. newspaper) can't seem to—is beyond me.

UPDATE: The Economist seconds Mr. al-Kubaisi's proposal:

There are many things western countries could usefully say and do to ease relations with Islam, but shutting up their own newspapers is not one of them. People who feel that they are not free to give voice to their worries about terrorism, globalisation or the encroachment of new cultures or religions will not love their neighbours any better. If anything, the opposite is the case: people need to let off steam. And freedom of expression, remember, is not just a pillar of western democracy, as sacred in its own way as Muhammad is to pious Muslims. It is also a freedom that millions of Muslims [like Mr. al-Kubaisi's fellow Iraqis] have come to enjoy or to aspire to themselves. Ultimately, spreading and strengthening it may be one of the best hopes for avoiding the incomprehension that can lead civilisations into conflict.

Indeed.

Epater les bourgeois (mais pas les musulmans)

French president Jacques Chirac has finally brought his great moral authority to bear on l'affaire des caricatures de Mahomet.

The BBC reports:

French President Jacques Chirac has condemned as "overt provocation" decisions to reprint cartoons satirising the Prophet Muhammad.

As another French publication printed the cartoons, Mr Chirac said any subject matter that could hurt other people's convictions should be avoided.

Any subject matter that could hurt other people's convictions should be avoided? As the Typowife commented, "What does he expect newspapers to publish? Pictures of puppies and bunnies?"

Don't be surprised when you see European newspapers reprinting another infamous cartoon …

And, after all, how could M. Chirac really complain? You can't hurt the convictions of someone who doesn't have any.

UPDATE: Here is the full text of President Chirac's statement, together with its official translation:

Sur la question des caricatures et des réactions qu'elles provoquent dans le monde musulman, je rappelle que si la liberté d'expression est un des fondements de la République, celle-ci repose également sur les valeurs de tolérance et de respect de toutes les croyances.

Tout ce qui peut blesser les convictions d'autrui, en particulier les convictions religieuses, doit être évité. La liberté d'expression doit s'exercer dans un esprit de responsabilité. Je condamne toutes les provocations manifestes, susceptibles d'attiser dangereusement les passions.

Je condamne également toutes les violences perpétrées contre les ressortissants ou représentations étrangères où que ce soit dans le monde et je rappelle que, conformément au droit international, les gouvernements sont responsables de la sécurité des personnes et des biens étrangers installés sur leur territoire.

Par ailleurs, je demande au Gouvernement d'être particulièrement vigilant sur la sécurité de nos ressortissants à l'étranger.

On the question of the cartoons and the reactions they are provoking in the Muslim world, I reiterate that while freedom of expression is one of the basic tenets underpinning the Republic, these also include the values of tolerance and respect for all faiths.

Anything liable to offend the beliefs of others, particularly religious beliefs, must be avoided. Freedom of expression must be exercised in a spirit of responsibility. I condemn all obvious acts of provocation, liable dangerously to inflame passions.

I also condemn all the acts of violence perpetrated against foreign nationals and representations anywhere in the world and reiterate that, in accordance with international law, governments are responsible for the safety of foreigners and their property on their territory.

I am asking the government to be particularly vigilant with respect to the safety of our nationals abroad.

So much for Voltaire's "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

You can send a message to President Chirac here. (Please be respectful.)

Terror link to cartoon riots?

This just into our newsroom:

A U.S. military spokesman said the United States and other countries are examining whether extremist groups may be inciting protesters to riot around the world because of the cartoons that have been printed in numerous European papers.

CBS News correspondent Sheila MacVicar reports U.S. officials are looking to determine if there's a pattern of global incitement.

"The United States and other countries are providing assistance in any manner that they can … to see if this is something larger than just a small demonstration," Col. James Yonts told reporters when asked whether al Qaeda and the Taliban may have been involved in days of violent demonstrations in Afghanistan.

And here I thought it was those damn right-wing bloggers who stirred the whole thing up.

Blogburst backlash

It didn't take long for liberal columnist Antonia Zerbisias to find the real villians in the cartoon wars.

No, it's not the imams who spent months whipping up a froth of outrage across the Middle East; it's the scores of people who re-published the Jyllands-Posten cartoons last weekend on their blogs.

Zerbisias writes in The Toronto Star about Friday's Malkin-inspired "blogburst":

Follow their politics and you'll understand why they're on this particular blogwagon: they hate Muslims. In fact, if they were to write about Jews the way they sometimes do about followers of the Prophet Muhammad, they'd be denounced as anti-Semites or Holocaust deniers.

So it isn't surprising that some of their more eager acolytes have gone far beyond denigrating the fanatical rioting, which has, at deadline, claimed six lives and left hundreds of wounded.

I was one of the bloggers in question—and I challenge Ms. Zerbsias to find one word of hatred toward Muslims on this website. (I don't doubt my fellow blogbursters could all offer the same challenge; and certainly Ms. Zerbsias produces scant evidence to support her charge of Muslim hating.)

I do, however, draw a distinction between the millions of peaceful followers of Islam and the minority of jihadists who find a "sixth pillar" of their faith that calls for an unrelenting holy war against unbelievers. (For a view of Islam very different from that of the jihadists, go here.) It's hard be neutral about people who publicly demand your death and dismemberment simply because you venture an opinion in the context of a putatively free society.

Ms. Zerbsias also scapegoats a Christian publication in Norway, Magazinet, that was among the first to reprint the cartoons. "One explanation for the sudden resurgence of these offending drawings after their initial appearance last September," she writes in conspiratorialist tones, "was that a so-called Christian magazine in Norway republished them. Why it chose to do so is unclear." (In fact, the magazine's editor, Vebjoern Selbekk, made his motives eminently clear: "Just like Jyllands-Posten, I have become sick of the ongoing hidden erosion of the freedom of expression," he said.)

Moreover, as The New York Times—hardly a mouthpiece for conservative thought—correctly noted on its editorial page yesterday, "the cartoons were largely unnoticed outside Denmark until a group of Muslim leaders there made a point of circulating them, along with drawings far more offensive than the relatively mild stuff actually printed by the paper, Jyllands-Posten."

Personally, I find it difficult to view the cartoon wars through the prism of left-vs.-right, even if much of the left (apart from mavericks like Christopher Hitchens) has so far preferred to remain above the fray. To my way of thinking, either you believe in the right of individuals to express themselves in a democratic society or you don't. And if you do, you should be prepared stand with them, even in the face of violent intimidation.

Hence the blogburst.

"It is not necessary to agree with these cartoons," argued the editors of The Los Angeles Times last week, "to defend another's right to publish them." But it is hard to be entirely convincing in your defense when you're afraid to publish them yourself, even by way of illustrating a news story.

Ms. Zerbsias seemingly understands this. "I would hate to think," she writes (evidently during a brief attack of lucidity), "that newspapers are backing away [from reprinting the cartoons] to avoid angry protests, to prevent ad boycotts, out of political correctness or a sense that some communities should get special treatment or, most of all, because they fear violent reprisals." Certainly the reluctance of the mainstream media here in North America to stand firmly in defense of Jyllands-Posten's freedom to publish the cartoons would appear to confirm her misgivings.

"The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance," wrote the great Irish statesman, John Philpot Curran, in 1790,"which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt."

In our post-Enlightenment world, that vigilance must begin with freedom of speech—the guarantor of every other right, including the right to worship as one pleases.

There was a time when those on the left would have unhesitatingly defended this freedom of all freedoms—just as in the late 1970s the ACLU championed the right of American Nazis to march on Skokie, Illinois.

"To me, freedom of speech is something that represents the very dignity of what a human being is," Free Speech Movement founder Mario Savio once said. "That’s what marks us off from the stones and the stars. You can speak freely. It is really the thing that marks us as just below the angels."

Nowadays, though, liberals like Ms. Zerbsias would prefer to let conservatives fight their free-speech battles, as they hiss and jeer loudly from the sidelines.

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin—the blogburst's, um,  godmother (and whom Zerbsias singled out in her column for a particularly petty personal attack)—remarks: "I've no more time to waste on Zerbisias and her ilk in the media who want to lecture us all about being hate-filled and misinformed--while spewing hatred themselves and refusing to fully inform." Glenn Reynolds weighs in here. Zerbsias, he points out, "isn't even good about being catty." The Anchoress, meanwhile, notes: "Michelle Malkin is being called a bigot, etc, again because she is unapologetic and direct. She links to (and excerpts) a particularly adolescent article which would like to, apparently, blame the blogs for unrest and deaths, and which is oooooohhhhh soooooo klever when it uses the phrase “Kartoon Karnage Kapers,” because, you know…Michelle is a conservative, so she must be the equivalent of the KKK. And liberals accuse conservatives of “writing in code!” What a punk." Finally, the irrespressible Sister Toldjah writes: "If you choose to call fanatical, hateful Islamists for what they are, you are an ignorant, repugnant right wing extremist to Ms. Zerbisias and furthermore have no moral authority to condemn the rioting and certianly should not support the reposting/reprinting of the Mohammed cartoons. We should show respect to fanatics who ‘don’t know any better’ (to paraphrase) — fanatics who would just as soon cut our heads off as show any respect in turn. I don’t THINK so!" (I'm breathless with admiration.)

UPDATE: A question for Ms. Zerbsias: Does she believe Ibn Warraq hates Muslims?

Put down the gun and then we'll talk

The cartoon protests continue today with an attack on a Norwegian military base in Afghanistan.

In related developments, ABC News reports:

A 14-year-old boy has reportedly been killed in clashes with police in Somalia. In Iran, protesters hurled rocks and firebombs at the Danish embassy as a newspaper launched a competition to test Western protection of free speech by asking readers to submit cartoons about the Holocaust.

An Italian Catholic priest was shot and killed in Turkey  Sunday—allegedly, it turns out, because his 16-year-old Muslim assailant believed him somehow responsible for the Danish cartoons. (Michelle Malkin has more.)

Meanwhile, the editors of The New York Times have finally weighed in on the crisis with an editorial that seems mainly designed to defend the paper's refusal to publish the "offensive" cartoons and to make sure its executives don't end up with bullseyes painted on their backs. (To their credit, the Times' editors did point out that the imams who have been urging their fellow Muslims to express their outrage at the Jyllands-Posten cartoons slipped some particularly offensive counterfeit cartoons into the mix.)

One telling feature of the Times' editorial was its characterization of the original Jyllands-Posten experiment in journalistic self-censorship as "juvenile." The question of whether our news media have the same courage to criticize a religion whose most extreme adherents are demonstrably capable of performing unspeakable violence against "unbelievers" as they do to criticize, say, Christianity or Judaism strikes me as one of the important the West will face in the coming decade.

As The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's redoubtable Jack Kelly explains:

Most of Europe's political leaders would like to respond with more appeasement. But ordinary Europeans wonder why they must accommodate the demands of bullying immigrants who have swollen their crime rates and welfare rolls.

Muslims deserve to have their faith respected, wrote Tony Parsons in the left wing British newspaper the Mirror.

"But when someone starts carrying placards in my city gloating about 9/11 and 7/7, when men with big mouths start promising death and destruction, when you tell us that we will be massacred if we offend you, then our tolerance is pushed to the breaking point," he said.

There's something inherently wrong about demanding "tolerance" and "respect" when you're making those demands at gunpoint.

Political power, Mao Zedong once famously said, grows out of the barrel of a gun. Although that point of view may be anathema to most citizens of Western democracies, it's one many followers of Islam—most visibly in Iran and Syria and among their terrorist allies—have lately come to embrace.

When a news organization like CNN alters its reporting in a Muslim country to appease that nation's despotic leadership, it's a tragic blow to a four-centuries-old tradition of press freedom. But it's infinitely more tragic when Western news organizations are similarly intimidated on their home turf.

That The New York Times finds it "juvenile" to test the freedom of a European press that's quite literally staring down the barrel of a gun is perhaps the best evidence yet of how jaded we've become.

If Muslims want to have a discussion about tolerance, fine.

But first they need to convince their jihadist brethren to put down the gun.

P-G weighs in: Muslim rage "unwarranted"

This morning, the Black-and-Gold Lady—"one of America's great newspapers"—finally deigned to share her views on the Jyllands-Posten cartoon wars.

I reproduce the editorial here in full:

Cultural schism / A furor over cartoons thwarts mutual tolerance

Europeans are feeling the lash of Muslim anger at the publication of cartoons lampooning Islamic links to terrorism, some of which displayed their prophet, Mohammed, in an unfavorable light. The cartoons first appeared in a newspaper in Denmark, a country generally viewed as an island of rationality in a world where religious intolerance has increasingly manifested itself in violence.

Muslims object to any image or representation of the Prophet, and one can respect that religious scruple without agreeing that any religion has a right to exercise censorship in any country that adheres to the human rights of freedom of speech and of conscience.

Demonstrations against European institutions in Muslim countries have backfired because indignant publications in several European countries have reprinted the offending cartoons. They do not accept the viewpoint expressed by a Palestinian Hamas legislator that "no one can say a bad word about our Prophet."

"No one" is a tall order in a secular and pluralistic society that has been familiar with musical and artistic depictions of scenes and stories in the Bible, ranging from the sublime to the mundane.

Westerners think that the great principles of Islam are being subverted by terrorists who kill in the name of their religion and wonder why religious leaders of Islam have not spoken out more forcefully against such acts.

At the same time, racial and religious discrimination against Muslims in Europe has been corrosive enough to prevent many of them from accepting the secular benefits of living in a society more free than the ones most of the new immigrants come from. Even so, events such as the annual pilgrimage of devout Muslims to Mecca have been covered in the Western press with fairness and good taste.

The furor over the cartoons in the Danish publication is unwarranted because it simply impedes the path of tolerance among people with differing customs and religious beliefs.

Okay, wait.

Read that final sentence over again: "The furor over the cartoons in the Danish publication is unwarranted because it simply impedes the path of tolerance among people with differing customs and religious beliefs."

As my 15-year-old daughter would say, "Well, like … duh!"

Consider, by way of contrast, Christopher Hitchens' words in Slate last Saturday:

The prohibition on picturing the prophet—who was only another male mammal—is apparently absolute. So is the prohibition on pork or alcohol or, in some Muslim societies, music or dancing. Very well then, let a good Muslim abstain rigorously from all these. But if he claims the right to make me abstain as well, he offers the clearest possible warning and proof of an aggressive intent. This current uneasy coexistence is only an interlude, he seems to say. For the moment, all I can do is claim to possess absolute truth and demand absolute immunity from criticism. But in the future, you will do what I say and you will do it on pain of death.

I refuse to be spoken to in that tone of voice, which as it happens I chance to find "offensive."

Heinrich Heine put it even more succinctly, back in 1821: "Wherever they burn books they will also, in the end, burn human beings."

Let's hope the editors of The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette were trying to say something along those lines on their editorial page this morning.

But it would have been far more reassuring had they actually done so.