Only two Canadian publications have the courage to print the cartoons...

Right now, it appears that only the Jewish Free Press in Calgay and the Western Standard Magazine (published by Ezra Levant) has the courage to publish the cartoons in Canada. Where is the National Post? The Globe & Mail??? All of them chicken.

Andrew Sullivan hits it on the head in this op-ed in the London Sunday Times.

To see or not to see: that is now our question. For the past week and a half, the biggest global story has been the rioting, violence and murder that has exploded over a dozen cartoons in a Danish newspaper.

Former president Bill Clinton has called the cartoons “totally outrageous”. Many mainstream Muslims have claimed that they are indeed offended by them. The Archbishop of Canterbury has opined that they have hurt many feelings and cast a shadow over Christian-Muslim relations.

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Others have claimed, in contrast, that the cartoons are tame and cannot even faintly be described as offensive — certainly no more offensive than any number of other cartoons that are published all the time.

That’s my position, by the way. I think that much of the “offence” is contrived, that it has been manipulated by Islamists and the Syrian and Egyptian governments to advance their own agendas, and that Jyllands-Posten, the Danish newspaper that first published them, deserves high praise for facing down Islamist bullies.

But enough about me. What are you to think? You’d think, wouldn’t you, it might be helpful to view the actual cartoons so you can see what on earth this entire fuss is about. But the British and American media have decided that it is not their job to help you understand this story. In fact it is their job to prevent you from fully understanding this story. As of this writing no major newspaper in Britain has published the cartoons; the BBC has shown them only fleetingly and other networks have shied away. All have decided not to give you this critical information, without which no intelligent person can construct an informed and intelligent position on the matter. You’re on your own.

The reasons given are conventional enough: the press doesn’t want to inflame matters further; the cartoons are indeed offensive, and no editor has to publish images that would appal readers; reprinting would merely play into the hands of extremists, and so on.

The one argument you haven’t heard is the one you hear off-camera. Many editors simply don’t want to put their staffs at risk of physical danger. They have “offended” Muslims in the past and learnt to regret it. In New York the editors of a free alternative paper, the New York Press, decided they wanted to run the cartoons so their readers could have a grasp of what this huge story is about. The owner refused. The staff quit en masse. The editor claims the owner gave him a simple explanation: “I’m not putting lives in danger. We’re not getting things blown up.”

None of these arguments is risible. An editor has no responsibility to publish anything he doesn’t want to. A publisher has every right to protect his own staff from physical danger. But what all the arguments amount to is simple: the press is refusing to do its job.