Tough decision for an editor. Your editors are brave to stand by their beliefs and our precious freedom of speech. However, the Danish and French do not have thousands of their boys on the front lines and have not seen 3000 of their citizens murdered in a single day. Printing the cartoons is what the terrorists and fundamentalist Islamics are looking for, it's their rallying cry. In America we enjoy freedom of speech, but one will be arrested for yelling "Fire!" in a theatre, or "BOMB!" on an airline. We cannot abuse these freedoms if it puts the public in danger (even if it seems as silly as a cartoon.) Clearly hundreds of thousands of American lives could be endangered. George W. Bush, whom the press loves to criticize and ridicule, has done a good job keeping the terrorists off of American soil. Printing those cartoons would be throwing gasoline on a fire. We have been lucky, but it's only a matter of luck and time, before the terror again spreads to our soil. And placards that say "DEATH TO FREEDOM" could easily be replaced by suicide bombers and the unthinkable - a suitcase neutron. Unfortunately, there is no rationality or reasonable dialogue with fanatics. I applaud the decision to show restrait.
Tough decision for an editor. Your editors are brave to stand by their beliefs and our precious freedom of speech. However, the Danish and French do not have thousands of their boys on the front lines and have not seen 3000 of their citizens murdered in a single day. Printing the cartoons is what the terrorists and fundamentalist Islamics are looking for, it's their rallying cry. In America we enjoy freedom of speech, but one will be arrested for yelling "Fire!" in a theatre, or "BOMB!" on an airline. We cannot abuse these freedoms if it puts the public in danger (even if it seems as silly as a cartoon.) Clearly hundreds of thousands of American lives could be endangered. George W. Bush, whom the press loves to criticize and ridicule, has done a good job keeping the terrorists off of American soil. Printing those cartoons would be throwing gasoline on a fire. We have been lucky, but it's only a matter of luck and time, before the terror again spreads to our soil. And placards that say "DEATH TO FREEDOM" could easily be replaced by suicide bombers and the unthinkable - a suitcase neutron. Unfortunately, there is no rationality or reasonable dialogue with fanatics. I applaud the decision to show restrait.