So cuddly Crikey leftists don’t believe we’re at war with fundamentalist Islam. But do they believe in free speech? It’s a fundamental value of Western civilisation, as Anne Applebaum has reminded us in The Washington Post as she discusses the uproar over the Pope’s remarks:

We’ve been here before, of course. Similar protests were sparked last winter by cartoon portrayals of Mohammed in the Danish press…

Western reactions to Muslim “days of anger” have followed a familiar pattern, too. Last winter, some Western newspapers defended their Danish colleagues, even going so far as to reprint the cartoons; but others, including the Vatican, attacked the Danes for giving offence. Some leading Catholics have now defended the Pope, but others, no doubt including some Danes, have complained that his statement should have been better vetted, or never given at all. This isn’t surprising: by definition, the West is not monolithic. Left-leaning journalists don’t identify with Right-leaning colleagues (or Right-leaning Catholic colleagues), and vice versa. Not all Christians, let alone all Catholics — even all German Catholics — identify with the Pope either, and certainly they don’t want to defend his every scholarly quotation.

Unfortunately, these subtle distinctions are lost on the fanatics who torch embassies and churches. And they may also be preventing all of us from finding a useful response to the waves of anti-Western anger and violence that periodically engulf parts of the Muslim world. Clearly, a handful of apologies and some random public debate — should the Pope have said X, should the Danish Prime Minister have done Y — are ineffective and irrelevant. None of the radical clerics accepts Western apologies and none of their radical followers reads the Western press.

Instead, Western politicians, writers, thinkers and speakers should stop apologising and start uniting… in our support for freedom of speech (surely the Pope is allowed to quote from medieval texts) and of the press. And we can also unite, loudly, in our condemnation of violent, unprovoked attacks on churches, embassies and elderly nuns…

Rod Liddle in the London Times is less considered – but much more quotable:

The Muslim world is in ferment, or even more ferment than usual, as a result of a speech given by Pope Benedict XVI at Regensburg University. Ben took a swipe at the notion that Islam is an inherently peaceable, easy-going, happy-go-lucky credo with a core philosophy that proclaims hey, why not live and let live, huh? Rather, he let slip: “Everything Muhammad brought was evil and inhuman,” which has an agreeably crusading, unequivocal ring to it, I think you’ll agree. He was quoting — as you will be aware — the 14th-century Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus and in doing so invoked outpourings of loathing from Jakarta to Jeddah.

You can bet your life that by the time you read this, some Catholic priest toiling away in a godforsaken, dusty hellhole — Sudan, perhaps, or Turkey — will have been smacked about a bit, or had his church burnt down or been arrested without charge. The Pope should have been aware that Islam always reacts to western allegations that it is not a peaceful religion by mass outbreaks of vituperation, denunciation and acts of jihadic violence.

That this is a paradox seems not to be even remotely recognised by many Muslims…

It’s a simple fact. Religious nutters are religious nutters. Religious nutters of all stripes. And they’re also almost always an anathema to our Western values – to little bits and piece like free speech.