The publishing of the Mohammed Cartoons is controversial, and many wonder why it was necessary to publish them.  To answer that question one needs to understand the dynamics of the European-Muslim relationship.  There is a history here that is completely relevant to what is now going on, and why the cartoons were published.  One individual with a unique perspective to speak on the matter is Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a member of Parliament and now in hiding because of threats on her life for speaking out against Muslim oppression of women and other issues.  So the German publication Spiegel interviewed her to see what she had to say about current events.  Here is a section of that interview of Ayaan Hirsi Ali in Spiegel Online on the cartoon controversy:

SPIEGEL: Why have the protests escalated to such an extent?

Hirsi Ali: There is no freedom of speech in those Arab countries where the demonstrations and public outrage are being staged. The reason many people flee to Europe from these places is precisely because they have criticized religion, the political establishment and society. Totalitarian Islamic regimes are in a deep crisis. Globalization means that they’re exposed to considerable change, and they also fear the reformist forces developing among émigrés in the West. They’ll use threatening gestures against the West, and the success they achieve with their threats, to intimidate these people.

SPIEGEL: Was apologizing for the cartoons the wrong thing to do?

Hirsi Ali: Once again, the West pursued the principle of turning first one cheek, then the other. In fact, it’s already a tradition. In 1980, privately owned British broadcaster ITV aired a documentary about the stoning of a Saudi Arabian princess who had allegedly committed adultery. The government in Riyadh intervened and the British government issued an apology. We saw the same kowtowing response in 1987 when (Dutch comedian) Rudi Carrell derided (Iranian revolutionary leader) Ayatollah Khomeini in a comedy skit (that was aired on German television). In 2000, a play about the youngest wife of the Prophet Mohammed, titled "Aisha," was cancelled before it ever opened in Rotterdam. Then there was the van Gogh murder and now the cartoons. We are constantly apologizing, and we don’t notice how much abuse we’re taking. Meanwhile, the other side doesn’t give an inch.

SPIEGEL: What should the appropriate European response look like?

Hirsi Ali: There should be solidarity. The cartoons should be displayed everywhere. After all, the Arabs can’t boycott goods from every country. They’re far too dependent on imports. And Scandinavian companies should be compensated for their losses. Freedom of speech should at least be worth that much to us.

SPIEGEL: But Muslims, like any religious community, should also be able to protect themselves against slander and insult.

Hirsi Ali: That’s exactly the reflex I was just talking about: offering the other cheek. Not a day passes, in Europe and elsewhere, when radical imams aren’t preaching hatred in their mosques. They call Jews and Christians inferior, and we say they’re just exercising their freedom of speech. When will the Europeans realize that the Islamists don’t allow their critics the same right? After the West prostrates itself, they’ll be more than happy to say that Allah has made the infidels spineless.

SPIEGEL: What will be the upshot of the storm of protests against the cartoons?

Hirsi Ali: We could see the same thing happening that has happened in the Netherlands, where writers, journalists and artists have felt intimidated ever since the van Gogh murder. Everyone is afraid to criticize Islam. Significantly, "Submission" still isn’t being shown in theaters.

There is more to the interview and I recommend that you go read it all.  The cartoons needed to be published, and we need to back up the right to critique Muslims.  We are not a free people if there are those among us beyond reproach or question, this is the status of absolute dictators or royalty.  The US revolted from England precisely over such issues over 230 years ago, among other things in order to establish a nation guaranteeing that ALL are equal before and answerable to the law.  If our nation means anything at all, it is that NOBODY has more rights than others or has the power to suppress the rights of others.