First, I'm sorry to all the normal, peaceful, law abiding Muslims out there who are maligned because of their (non-existant) association with the actions of the zealots overreacting to the Mohammed cartoons today.
I'm also sorry that your religion was disrespected by the illustrations of Mohammed.
I'm mostly sorry that a minority of psychopathic Muslims have caused so much strife for the rest of your community, creating a lasting association between terrorism and Muslims in many American's eyes.
However, I'm not at all sorry for saying that the reaction to these cartoons in the Middle East is demonstrative of a society that is totally out of control, has very little (no?) respect for the value of free speech, and contains strong elements that resort to violence and threats of death at the slightest provocation.
And I don't think (as some have suggested) that it is at all illogical to assume that a majority of Middle Easterners have "censorious" tendencies (to be nice). As CNN reports:
Tens of thousands of angry Muslims marched through Palestinian cities, burning the Danish flag and calling for vengeance Friday against European countries where caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad were published.
Muslims in Turkey, Pakistan, Indonesia and Malaysia demonstrated against the European nations whose papers published the caricatures, including one depicting the Muslim prophet wearing a turban fashioned into a bomb.
Angry protests against the drawings spread in the Muslim world.
Early Friday, Palestinian militants threw a bomb at a French cultural center in Gaza City, and many Palestinians began boycotting European goods, especially those from Denmark.
"Whoever defames our prophet should be executed," said Ismail Hassan, 37, a tailor who marched through the pouring rain along with hundreds of others in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
Westerners (and all people) should not be afraid to express their opinions, however rancid others may find them, simply because of the extreme sensativities of particular cultures. If someone disagrees with the illustrations of Mohammed, and finds them to be extremely offensive, the only acceptable reaction is for that person to explain their position. Threatening to murder those responsible for the drawings only exacerbates the misunderstandings of those who hate Muslims and believe Islam to be nothing more than a hateful, murderous, terroristic institution.