Conservative pundit Pat Buchanan says he understands why Muslims are upset at the "foul" cartoons that led to the terror attacks in Paris last week — and people must be aware they risk death by insulting the Prophet Muhammad.
Buchanan, a former senior adviser to Presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford, said Wednesday on "The Steve Malzberg Show" on
Newsmax TV: "I've seen some of those cartoons … and they are really foul and offensive and understandably outraged the Islamic community and the decent Muslims of France and around the world.
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"Given what's happened since the Ayatollah put the fatwa out on Salman Rushdie, you ought to realize if you're going to insult the prophet and write foul cartoons about him, you're risking the real problem for yourself. That's just the real world."
Buchanan — who was referring to Rushdie's book "The Satanic Verses", which forced the author into hiding for years — said he understood President Barack Obama's desire to deal with the assassins who killed 12 people at Charlie Hebdo magazine as terrorists, not Muslims.
"There's no question about it, this is an atrocity, an act of terror. These guys acted in the name of Islam by what they said — 'Allahu Akbar' and we have avenged the prophet and we come out of al-Qaida," Buchanan said.
"They're trying to identify themselves with Islamic movements all over the world and what the president is trying to do is saying we will deal with them as terrorists, but we don't want this battle with the Islamic world. I understand that and I do believe this."
Buchanan, a former presidential candidate, said he was just as disgusted when the National Endowment of the Arts helped fund Andres Serrano's sacrilegious image of a crucifix in urine in the 1990s.
"When [John Frohnmeyer] ok'd those things at the National Endowment for the Arts … I went into the campaign of 1992 and said one of the conditions basically of coming back and supporting George Bush is firing that guy," Buchanan said.
Bush ended up axing Frohnmeyer, who chaired the arts group.
"Now, do I believe that I should have gone and had the right to do violence on anyone for these things … No. but do you think I was ticked off about it? You bet," Buchanan said.
"If you ask me if I'm going to march in defense of a magazine that portrayed the three persons of the Blessed Trinity in a sodomite relationship … I'm not marching with them.
"I don't say they should be shot and killed or that Muslims should shoot and kill them, but I thought that was disgusting, outrageous, and offensive and I would not march and say 'Je suis Charlie' on that. No."
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