Your Danish Cartoons Hangover Update: Jihad Jane’s Guilty Plea

* according to a massive wave of reports sweeping international wires starting Saturday morning, Colleen LaRose, the Pennsylvania woman believed to have participated in a plot against the artist Lars Vilks for making cartoon imagery that included Muhammed's head on the body of a dog, will switch her plea to guilty in a Philadelphia court on Tuesday. This is one of those cases where it's hard to get past the flash heat of the "Jihad Jane" nickname and all the easy, summary truths that come with such a depiction, but certainly the acts themselves are alarming and worthy of legal reprisal.

* this article on al-Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden suggests that they have transformed into a cultural force, and that one of the engines of the trouble they've caused over the last ten years includes events related to the Danish Cartoons up to and including the bombing of Pakistan's Danish embassy.

* this profile of National Review contributor and Montana politician Travis Kavulla is the first time I've ever read about the publishing of the Danish Cartoons as part of a U.S. citizen's political biography. He published them in the Crimson while at Harvard. While I don't share the bulk of this young man's political views, I do think everyone in journalism should have published the cartoons when they what they looked like became a key part of an international news story the killed dozens of people and caused untold politically-motivated strife.

* hey, if nothing else, responsibly running the cartoons as part of an overall news mandate would have avoided the goofy spectacle of the decision not to publish the cartoons being used by folks as an example of anti-Christian bias.

* this is the first time I've ever seen the Cartoons mentioned in a glamorous star profile, although it's really only a tiny aside.

* as expected, three men arrested by Danish officials over the holiday and believed to be planning a terrorist plot that would have included shooting up the Jyllands-Posten offices that originally published the Danish Muhammed Cartoons will be detained for another four weeks.

* here's more on Said Jaziri, the cleric that was smuggled into the US across the US/Mexico border near Tijuana. Jaziri's resume includes agitating against the Danish Cartoons. I can't imagine what my worldview might be like if I had go from the leadership of a large church in a major world city to the trunk of a car outside of San Diego, but it probably wouldn't be all that healthy.

* finally, this is the most detailed account of the plans to attack the Jyllands-Posten newspaper in which David Coleman Headley participated I've yet read. I'm not certain of the provenance of most of the information here, so I have to look at it with sort of a squinty eye and skeptical look on my face, but it's a compelling narrative. Apparently, one of the things that gummed up Headley's plan for the newspaper is that he wanted a couple of assassinations while his sponsors/contacts in the more militant terrorism world wanted a bigger, more general terrorist attack. To hear about such discussions being hashed out in meetings seems kind of chilling.
 
posted 7:00 am PST | Permalink
 

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