A pair of pictures has emerged from the cartoon controversy that shows just what is wrong with the West's let's—get—along crowd. One photograph depicts a group of angry Muslim students in Pakistan burning an effigy of the Danish Prime Minister. The other shows a group of young smiling Danish people burning candles to urge dialogue between Muslims and the newspaper that originally published the cartoons. They carry a sign that reads 'Where Did the Thread Break?'

These misguided souls are unable — or unwilling — to see that with Islamists no dialogue is possible. With Islamists you either accept their outlook or else. We in the West settle our differences through debate and democratic process. They do it through chicanery and brutality. They know of no other way and there is little hope for change as long as they continue to adhere to their ideology of intolerance and violence. Our values of free expression and open debate are anathema to them.

There is a lesson behind these photographs that the candle—burning young people and all those westerners who share their sentiments would do well to learn. It is this: Islamists cannot be talked to in this class of civilizations. They must be defeated.

Vasko Kohlmayer   2 05 06