Iraqi Shiite residents of Baghdad’s Sadr City have expressed anger on over a picture of a grinning Jesus they mistook for a Shiite holy figure that appeared in the area after a joint US-Iraqi operation.  

Residents found a picture of “Buddy Jesus” from the 1999 film “Dogma” posted in the streets, accompanied by a badly photocopied pamphlet bearing a crude approximation of a US military crest and outlining a US “plan” to subjugate the neighborhood.

“That picture abuses our Imam Mahdi and his holy character, and mocks our sacred figures,” said resident Abu Riyam Sunday, apparently mistaking the satirical movie still of Jesus for one of Shiite Islam’s historical imams, whose images adopt a Jesus-like iconography. ~Agence France-Presse

Now Dogma is an appalling movie for all kinds of reasons, from its lapsed Catholic’s anti-Catholic bigotry to Ben Affleck’s acting (now that‘s an insult to humanity!), and I’m not going to say one word in its defense, but take note of two things: 1) Muslims will get offended by just about anything under the sun if it bears even the slightest resemblance to one of their most revered figures, even when it is precisely not referring to the revered figures they think it is and 2) “Buddy Jesus” is a mockery of the Lord, and since Muslims and their apologists will never miss a beat when they have a chance to tell you that “the Prophet Jesus” is respected and revered in Islam it is curious, to say the least, that these folks didn’t find the picture insulting because it actually mocks Jesus.  It only seems insulting because it vaguely resembles the Twelfth Imam.  Of course, all of this does raise the following questions: where did the pamphlets come from (one assumes and hopes that offhand references to raping the neighbourhood women are not typical of “coalition” propaganda efforts), and how many Iraqi Kevin Smith fans can there be?