It's the only thing that there's just too little of."
Both violence and peaceful protests continue around the world in the latest reaction to the 12 Mohammed caricatures originally published in Demark's Jyllands-Posten in September and recently reprinted in European media and elsewhere, according to various news sources, including ABC News, BBC News, CNN, the Telegraph and Yahoo! News. The drawings have touched a raw nerve in part because Islamic law is interpreted to forbid any depictions of the Prophet Mohammad and because of the ongoing global war on terror.
U.S. allies Afghanistan and Iraq struggle with the violent reaction:
Afghanistan: At least five were killed in violence in Afghanistan. Afghan security forces opened fire on demonstrators Monday, leaving at least four dead. The worst of the violence was outside Bagram, the main U.S. base in Afghanistan, with Afghan police firing on some 2,000 protesters after their peaceful protest turned violent and they tried to break into the heavily guarded facility. Two demonstrators were killed and five were injured, while eight police also were hurt. U.S. military spokesman Lt. Mike Cody said American troops did not fire on the crowd and security was left to the Afghan police. Afghan police also fired on protesters in the central city of Mihtarlam after a man in the crowd shot at them and others threw stones and knives, Interior Ministry spokesman Dad Mohammed Rasa said. Two demonstrators were shot to death, and two police were injured. In Kabul, about 200 protesters tried to break down the gate of the Danish government's diplomatic mission office but failed, said police who were guarding the building. The protesters then threw stones at the mission and beat some officers guarding it, as well guards at a nearby house used by Belgian diplomats. Police later used batons and rifle butts to disperse demonstrators walking toward the presidential palace. An Associated Press reporter saw at least three protesters bleeding from injuries, and at least seven more were arrested and driven away in a police vehicle. "Long live Islam! We are Muslims! We don't let anyone insult our prophet!" chanted the demonstrators. They also chanted, "Down with America!" and slogans against the Afghan and U.S. presidents. (Since George Bush personally ordered publication of the cartoons, didn't he?) Demonstrators shouted "death to Denmark" and "death to France", and called for diplomats and soldiers from both countries to be kicked out of Afghanistan. Both France and Denmark sent troops to Afghanistan as part of international efforts in the U.S.-led war on terror. Afghan President Hamid Karzai reiterated his condemnation of the cartoons and called on western nations to take "a strong measure" to ensure such cartoons do not appear again. "It's not good for anybody," he told CNN. - Iraq: In Kut, a city in southern Iraq, about 5,000 Iraqis congregated, burning Danish, German and Israeli flags and an effigy of the Danish prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen. Protesters called for diplomatic and economic ties be severed with countries in which the caricatures were published. They also called for the death of anyone who insults Muhammad (sure -- we'll get right on it . . .) and demanded withdrawal of 530-member Danish military contingent operating under British control. Danish Capt. Philip Ulrichsen said Danish troops were shot at and targeted by stone-throwing youths on Sunday. A roadside bomb planted in the area also was defused. No soldiers were wounded in any of the incidents. Iraq's transport ministry said it was severing ties with the Danish and Norwegian governments, a move that includes terminating all contracts with companies based in those countries. Denmark's troops in Iraq have gone on a "charm offensive" to explain that they respect the Prophet Mohammed, as one insurgent group called on followers to capture Danish soldiers and "cut them into as many pieces as the number of newspapers that printed the cartoons." (Now, see, that's just not nice.) The Islamic Army in Iraq also named France, Holland, Norway and Spain - where last week newspapers published the cartoons - as enemies of Islam whose citizens should be targeted. The latest threats came after thousands of Iraqis took to the streets across the country to demonstrate against the publication of the cartoons. Demonstrators burnt the Danish flag and an effigy representing Danish journalists. More than 500 people gathered in the former terrorist stronghold of Fallujah chanting pro-Islamic slogans and burning Danish dairy products. Christians said they feared retaliatory attacks after church leaders said they have have evidence that recent bombings at four churches were linked to the confict. "Innocent people were killed because of these cartoons," said Louis Sako, the Chaldean archbishop in the northern city of Kirkuk. "This is terror." Denmark has about 500 troops in Iraq, most of them based in the British-controlled zone around Basra. A British spokesman for the coalition said: "The Danes are actively engaging with the local population to explain the situation through leaflets, appearing on TV and by meeting local officials. "They are saying Danish soldiers respect Islam and the Prophet Mohammed and cannot be held accountable for what independent newspapers are doing back home." He said Danish troops were still going on patrol, but the situation was being closely monitored.
Violence also continued in other parts of the world:
Palestinian territory: Palestinian police in Gaza City used batons to beat back stone-throwing protesters who gathered outside the European Commission building. About 200 protesters waved green flags symbolizing the Islamic Hamas movement and the yellow flags of the secular Fatah Party. - Syria: There were protests in Syria, including the burning of the Danish and Norwegian missions. The United States accused the Syrian government of backing the protests in Lebanon and Syria, an accusation also made by anti-Syrian Lebanese politicians.
- Somalia: The unrest also spread to East Africa as police in Somalia fired in the air to disperse stone-throwing protesters, triggering a stampede in which a 14-year old boy was killed and several others were injured.
Iran: About 200 people in Iran threw stones at the Austrian Embassy in Tehran, breaking windows and throwing firecrackers that started small fires. The demonstration lasted two hours, but police quickly extinguished the blazes and stopped some protesters from throwing stones. 
In Indonesia, police fired warning shots at protesters outside the US consulate in Surabaya, the country's second largest city. Video showed a protester with a bloody shirt sitting on the ground next to police. Earlier, demonstrators hurled stones and broke windows at the Danish consulate in the city, and there were protests in the capital, Jakarta
Other nations attempted to soothe tensions:
- Lebanon apologized to Denmark a day after thousands of rampaging Muslim demonstrators set fire to the building housing the Danish mission in Beirut to protest the series of cartoons satirizing Islam's holiest figure. Lebanese Information Minister Ghazi Aridi said the government had unanimously "rejected and condemned the ... riots," saying they had "harmed Lebanon's reputation and its civilized image and the noble aim of the demonstration." "The Cabinet apologizes to Denmark," Aridi said. Police investigating Sunday's fire and riot at the building housing the Danish mission said that, contrary to previous reports, the mission offices were intact. The fire and wrecking of offices had been confined to Lebanese businesses on lower floors. At least one person died, 30 were injured — half of them security officials — and about 200 people were detained in Sunday's violence, officials said. Prime Minister Fuad Saniora said the arrested included 76 Syrians, 35 Palestinians and 38 Lebanese.
- The European Union issued reminders to 18 Muslim countries that they are obliged under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations to protect foreign embassies;
- Spain and Turkey: The prime ministers of Spain and Turkey issued a Christian-Muslim appeal for calm, saying "we shall all be the losers if we fail to immediately defuse this situation." But Turkey's Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said media freedoms cannot be limitless and that hostility against Muslims was replacing anti-Semitism in the West. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero published a column in the Paris-based International Herald Tribune in which they appealed for "respect and calm," saying the dispute "can only leave a trail of mistrust and misunderstanding between both sides."
There were peaceful, or at least semi-peaceful or initially peaceful, protests in some parts of the world:
- Egypt: Several thousand students massed peacefully in Cairo on the campus of al-Azhar University, the oldest and most important seat of Sunni Muslim learning in the world, to protest the drawings.
- In Afghanistan, where there were the violent protests described above, thousands of other people demonstrated peacefully in at least five other cities.
- In Thailand, protesters shouted "God is great" and stamped on Denmark's flag outside the country's embassy in Bangkok, the Associated Press news agency reported.
- In England, London police were under pressure to arrest Muslim protesters who carried signs threatening death and terrorist attacks at a demonstration over the cartoons on Friday.
India: In the main city in Indian-controlled Kashmir came to a standstill as shops, businesses and schools shut down for a day to protest the caricatures. Dozens of Muslim protesters torched Danish flags, burned tires, shouted slogans and hurled rocks at passing cars in several parts of Srinagar. In the Indian capital of New Delhi, riot police fired tear gas and water cannons to disperse hundreds of students from Jamia University, who chanted slogans and burned a Danish flag.- In Turkey, members of a radical Islamic group held anti-European banners and burned a Danish flag in front of the French consulate in Istanbul.
New Zealand became the latest nation unwillingly drawn in at the weekend, after two newspapers ran the cartoons "in a move likely to cost the country its $NZ100 million ($A92 million) sheep trade with Iran." (Did you even know that New Zealand had a sheep trade with Iran?) Tim Pankhurst, editor of Wellington's Dominion Post — owned by John Fairfax, which also owns The Age — said the paper published the cartoons as an issue of solidarity and press freedom, and he was not setting out to antagonise Muslims. (Hmmm.) The New Zealand Government condemned the newspapers, but that did not stop Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad yesterday ordering the cancellation of economic contracts with countries where the media have carried the "repulsive" cartoons. New Zealand diplomats in Muslim countries have been warned to take precautions against possible threats to staff and property. NZ Prime Minister Helen Clark yesterday described the cartoons' publication as "gratuitous". "New Zealand press is free and politicians don't say what the press can print and what it can't. It is a question of judgement and I don't think myself either the publication, nor the reaction to it, do anything to bring communities and faiths together here or around the world." More than 700 angry Muslims marched through Auckland yesterday, many wearing black arm bands. (But notice that they did not burn any embassies.)
So if protests and violence haven't come to your part of the world yet -- count your blessings.
"What the world needs now is love, sweet love,
No, not just for some but for everyone.
No, not just for some, oh, but just for everyone." (More lyrics if you can't get enough . . . .)
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