Who is to Blame?

The other day, a friend recommended I watch the new music video for Rihanna's song "We Found Love". The music video is filled with sexual references, drug use, overdose, and paints the picture of an abusive relationship. You can see the video here: (View Discretion is Advised).

After viewing the video, I was no surprised to read that it was in the center of a lot of controversey. In response to the music video, several different outlets have lashed out at Rihanna, claiming her music video condones drug abuse and rape. The rape crisis center said, "Rihanna's new video is a disgrace. It sends the message that she is an object to be possessed by men, which is disturbingly what we see in real violence cases."


A youth pastor, Brandon Ward, also commented, "The real issue is that it moves the moral center more towards the obscene. That it becomes more normal to be more sexually promiscuous, because they are bombarded with imagery that is loaded with innuendo, and that is seen as normal, even preferred"


My question is: Can the inspiration behind an action really be blamed? Someone may see this video, and emmulate it, but is that Rihanna's liability? To many Americans, she is simply excercizing her right to free speech, and what ever comes from that is not at her hands. true problem is deciding whether or not a muse of an action can be responsible for the actions that stem from it.

I have also seen this confusion in the War on Terror. As America became subject to terrorist attacks, many cited the "Jihad", an Islamic term meaning "struggle." Yet, many non-muslims translate the word as "holy war." A work written by the Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought entitled Jihad and the Islamic Law of War disputes this:

"Moreover, as the verses of the Qur’an and sayings of the Prophet below will show, jihad is also a name for a spiritual struggle or taking a principled stand in a difficult situation. Thus, not all war is jihad, and not all jihad is war. "

So, the jihad simply represents the struggle for spirituality. Many believers interpret this in different ways, whether it be violent or not violent at all, and those who get angry because of it blame the religion itself and it's values. Can the jihad be blame for this? Can the religion?
At what point can the idea behind an action be blamed? Is it an American value to allow all freedom of speech? Even though we give much of it blame and censorship? Is that supposed value just a story?