The media, and our administration, would very much love for you to think that these Muslims have lit ablaze embassies over simple cartoons. They would love for you to associate Islam with mindless or petty violence. What they really don't want you to do is to place these riots in a greater historical context.
Soj has done an excellent job pointing out one part of the story that's missing. But there's another piece that has received no coverage: placing the cartoons in a greater historical context. These riots did not manifest themselves due to a singular cause, they manifested themselves due to a multitude of historical currents that happened to get slammed together due to a Dutch cartoonist. Do these riots happen without Abu Ghraib? Without shooting missiles at Pakistani border villages? Without Gitmo? Without saber-rattling at Iran? Without the Bush Crusade?
No.
But it makes such a tidy picture for Cheney and Co. By pumping the image of the violent Muslim into American households they know they can shore up support for the Iraq war, and future action against Iran. By ripping the "cartoon riots" out of their historical context they absolve themselves of any responsibility for the violence and at the same time capitalize on the violence for their own ends. Every time a Muslim committs an act of violence, Dick Cheney gets wood.
We cannot allow this to happen. The discourse over these events must be elevated from the simplistic stereotyping done by our media into a plane of real understanding. Without managing to do so these riots will only prove to be a boon for the administration. By reading many comments in the cartoon diaries so far, it is clear that some DKos users need to get this message. The cartoons are a cause not the cause of the riots and violence. This needs to be our repeated mantra.