An Italian Spectacle

It's been quite a weekend for the Religion of Peace.  Among other things, a US embassy was attacked in Indonesia, 16 people were murdered in a christian pogrom in Nigeria and Pakistani clerics and Indian government officials officials continue to offer financial incentives to for the beheading of the Danish cartoonists.  Michelle Malkin has the full round up here.  The most important development of the weekend, however, occurred in Italy where Roberto Calderoli, a cabinet minister who had expressed strong support for the Danish cartoonists was forced to resign because his support is believed to be the cause of violent protests in Libya.       

Eleven people were killed and others injured during a demonstration that ended in the burning of the Italian consulate in the Libyan port city of Benghazi.  The eleven deaths were protesters who were killed by Libyan security forces.  In spite of the fact that Muslim mobs have been demonstrating all over the world without the assistance of Calderoli, and the absence of any other western embassy in town (or the country) made Italian embassy the only choice for a cartoon demonstration, Calderoli's responsibility seems to have been assumed by all. 

Accepting arguendo that Calderoli's antics were one of the items on the protesters' list of grievances, the fact remains that he had about as much of a role in embassy burning and police shootings as Ronald McDonald did in the sacking of a McDonalds in Pakistan last week.  Based on that obvious fact, Calderoli's forced resignation seems puzzling, until you read the following threat statement issued by Muammar al-Qadhafi's influential son Saif al Islam:

"[Calderoli is] responsible for what had occurred and for the innocent victims and the regrettable incidents. The Italian government has to take the action required by such situation against this racist minister who is full of hatred. If the Italian government fails to do so, Italian relations with Libya will go through a serious and crucial stage during which these ties will be reassessed and reviewed,"

In other words, Libya is a very important Italian trading partner. Fear of economic reprisals, and concern that Italian citizens could become targets helps to explain Italy's actions, but the ghastly spectacle of Italy's dhimmitude is troubling.  And just when I thought it couldn't get worse - prosecutors in Rome are considering whether to bring charges against Calderoli for "offending Islam."   

So, just to recap: clerics and actual government officials in Islamic countries continue to incite murder and violence and raise funds for the beheading of artists, and Muslims everywhere (even America) endorse this violence.  In some places, the violence gets out of hand and people are killed.  The Italian model suggests that western governments should accept all blame for the consequences of the mayhem and adapt themselves as required in order to avoid further reprisals.  Hard to believe they once ruled an empire.

On a side note, and even though all of the cartoon protests have an engineered quality, there's something about this Libyan protest that seems fishy.  First, and although Qadhafi has been historically wary of Islamic fundamentalism, Libya was among the first Arab nations to recall an ambassador to Denmark. Now, in a country where people do pretty much what they're told, there is an eruption of civil disobedience.  Is the strongman losing his grip or, now that the sanctions have been lifted, is he trying to get back in the game?  Or could it be a little of both? I hope someones keeping an eye on him.   

UPDATE:  An interesting post at The Corner suggests that I might have been on to something about Qadhafi orchestrating the demonstration against Italy and possibly losing his grip.  According to Michael Ledeen's un-named emailer, the demonstration was planned by Qadhafi but got out of hand and may still be going on.