The increase of terrorists, both homegrown and overseas, influenced by radical Islamic clerics citing wide-ranging complaints - from offensive cartoons drawn in Europe to Western cultural influences in the Middle East to the presence of U.S. troops in Muslim countries and U.S. support for Israel - underscores legitimate public concern with transferring detainees into what would become a symbolic and accessible target in the country's heartland.

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Last week's violence in the Middle East-- and, indeed, so much of it for the last several years-- is only because this movie (or whatever pretext, cartoons, etc.) runs afoul of mainstream Islamic shariah law of slander and blasphemy.

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Then too, when Denmark's Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen reportedly agreed to apologize to the Islamic world for Denmark's independent Jyllands-Postens 2005 publication of cartoons of Muhammad in exchange for Turkish support for his candidacy for NATO secretary-general, he was accepting that it is Western civilization - with its freedom of speech - that is to blame for Islamic aggression and intolerance.

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"These cartoons spread hatred, and we call for peace, " he said, adding that Islamic leaders "fear the spread of hatred" against their religion and oppose "the mocking" of any religion.

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Whether illegally occupying Muslim lands, supporting un-Islamic leaders in Muslim territories, violating Shariah laws in our own land, or insulting the Prophet in cartoons, films, and novels, the critical maneuver is to place the West as the "cause" of Muslim behavior.

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: Center For Security Policy

The cartoons were published in spite of widening unrest over an American amateur video that has provoked violence throughout the Islamic world.

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