The Associated Press has a good roundup of Muslim riot news from the last 24 hours or so. Two significant themes are attacks on Christians and on the United States.

In Pakistan, rampaging Muslims burned down a church because of a rumor--false, in all probability, that a Christian man had burned pages from a Koran. (At least he didn't flush it down a toilet!) A day earlier, rioting Muslims in Nigeria murdered 15 Christians and burned down 15 churches.

In Indonesia, around 400 rioters attacked the U.S. Embassy:

The frequency of attacks on buildings and businesses associated with the U.S. indicates how little the current round of rioting actually has to do with the Danish cartoons. One of the organizers of the Jakarta riot said:

They want to destroy Islam through the issue of terrorism ... and all those things are engineered by the United States.

"All those things" appears to include pretty much anything the radical Muslims don't like, including, I think, the fact that we exist.

One of the pretexts for the Jakarta riot was the inclusion of Mohammed in the frieze depicting "lawgivers" on the U.S. Supreme Court building:

Reuters news agency said the protesters were angered over the depiction of Muhammad in a frieze that adorns the facade of the U.S. Supreme Court.

That depiction is, of course, complimentary--Mohammed is included along with Moses, Confucius, etc.--and has been there since 1935. The depiction of Mohammed on the Supreme Court building was mildly criticized by CAIR earlier this month; so far the Supreme Court has refused to alter the frieze. I suspect, though, that if the Court should some day decide to remove Mohammed from his position of honor among those who have promoted the resolution of conflict through law rather than violence, very few Americans would object.

Posted by John at 07:30 AM  |    |