Forum Post: Is it all just because of a video? - UPDATE Ambassador's Journal Found
Posted 12 years ago on Sept. 14, 2012, 8:42 p.m. EST by TrevorMnemonic
(5827)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
Protesters in a number of countries across the Muslim world vented anger against the West on Friday as the controversy over an anti-Islamic film raged, with a KFC restaurant torched in Lebanon, violent attacks on U.S. embassies in Sudan and Tunis and fierce protests in Egypt, Jordan and Pakistan.
See more: http://nbcnews.to/QZdVEz
Journal of US Ambassador in Benghazi found.
In the months before his death he talked about being worried about the never-ending security threats that he was facing in Benghazi and specifically about the rise in Islamic extremism and growing al Qaeda presence. Also mentions he was on a hit list. - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/22/cnn-christopher-stevens-personal-journal-libya_n_1905650.html
Having given this whole issue some serious thought, it seems to me that everyone is trying to decide what to do about radical demonstrations and attacks on US Embassies and the suggestions are all over the map. We may have the expertise right here to deal with the problem.
The demonstrators are described as disorganized mobs not under the control of any government and possibly not under the control of any political party.
What does that sound like? Anarchists? Tea Partiers? Libertatians? Libertarian Socialists? Others?
Since we have had protests that have gotten "out of control" with property destruction by several of these groups why don't we just ask them, what worked? How or why did the violence stop? What did the responsible governments do if anything that restored order?
We saw the Arab Spring happening, what should our next steps be, or have been?
Lets ask the GOP, the OWS GA's, the Muslims in Dearborn, Michigan, others around the world. What should be the next steps in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Sudan, Somalia, Malaysia, Myanmar, etc.?
Is it bluster and tough talk? Is is cutting off foreign aid? Is it sanctions? Is it patience? Have their issues just begun in the last 3 years, 3 decades or 3 centuries?
Identify your profile and tell us what to do.
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If these attacks happened solely because of the anti-Islam video, then 9/11 happened like Bush said, "they hate our freedom"
Could it happen to also be in retaliation to bombs and sanctions in their countries? Does anyone else find the timing of 9/11 to be odd?
Yes.
Bombs and sanctions are always happening without international Islamic protest. The film is the reason for the reactions. It is the fuse that brings all other grievances to the forefront of rage. Added to the fact that Muslims and secular Arabs don't seem to feel a need to go around making insulting movies and cartoons about Judaism and Christianity or burning Bibles, it's also an ongoing one way cultural assault that people are prone to react to.
Even in America, with no insults to anyone's religion or to the nation, the mere suggestion of AMERICANS building a mosque a few blocks from "ground 0" sends other Americans into a frenzy.
Imagine if radical yet non-violent Muslims in America were to exercise their freedom of speech every 9/11 by saying that America got what it deserved and made cartoons and videos ridiculing the day. How long would that be allowed to continue? What if, like one Christian group, they were to show up at the funerals of soldiers and protest them by saying that they got what they deserved for their opposition to Allah. How long would that be tolerated?
There are protesters here in America at funeral of soldiers protesting not for opposition to Allah but just the same they are criticizing and it's tolerated.
They are Christian i.e. members of the dominant society's religion and are therefore tolerated. If any group that was not of the dominant society's religion were to do it, how long would that be tolerated? This is almost a meaningless question since all groups around the world that are not members of the dominant society's religion know better than to openly agitate the masses in such a way no matter how much a society may claim to be tolerant.
anti islamic films are all over youtube
God bless atheism
How many of them are getting the targeted press that this one has received?
just the one
This is all very sad, breaks my heart, really. Of course it is more than just a movie that has caused this. It's decades of oppression and disrespect.
it's hard to believe he media sites would carry such a hogwash story that muslim attacks US embassy over youtube video
Media sites are carrying the hogwash (and it IS hogwash) because that is what the President/White House is TELLING THEM-
"White House Press Secretary Jay Carney on Friday insisted that the protests in the Middle East are not “directed at the United States” but are instead the direct result of an anti-Muslim YouTube clip."
“This is a fairly volatile situation, and it is in response not to United States policy, obviously not to the administration, not to the American people. It is in response to a video, a film, that we have judged to be reprehensible and disgusting — that in no way justifies any violent reaction to it.”
"Carney went on to repeat this point at least two more times during his daily press briefing with reporters."
“But this is not a case of protests directed at the United States writ large or at U.S. policy, but it is in response to video that is offensive to Muslims,” said Carney.
“The unrest we’ve seen is in reaction to a film in which the United States government had no involvement,”he added.
thanks
the media should not be following the white house lead(lies)
I figure briton may have a similar statement
the MSM are nothing more than stenographers for the white house.
The media believes nearly everything the White House says these days.
or at least repeat it
Oh, and, historians would deem the video a triggering event, not a cause. There's a big difference there.
So you didn't see protesters screaming about the video (that they hadn't seen!). & you didn't see the protesters state they were outraged at US govt slow condemnation of said film/youtube video?
Do you not believe that religious extremists in the US and Egypt were behind the film and created it to incite violence?
Do you not believe that this was done in Egypt months after the creation of film/youtube trailer coincidentally on the 9/11 attacks, in an attempt to prevent the moderates from establishing a stable govt in Egypt?
Do you not believe that Libyan Al Qaeda took advantage of this to attack the US embassy for the same reason of attempted to destabilize the movement to a moderate democratic gov't, and as revenge for our drone assassination of Al Libi?
None of that is happening?
oh, the attack on the Libya embassy was real and the protest elsewhere are real
I'm sure the people want to see the drone attacks end
I don't believe in Al Qaeda
No such thing as Al Qaeda?.
Do you believe there are religious extremist Muslim groups coordinating attacks against the west, because our crimes against them over the last 100 years?
a bunch of protests is hardly a coordinated attack
I was not referring to these 9/11 anniversary attacks.
I was talking over the last 20 years.
Do you believe there are religious extremist Muslim groups coordinating attacks against the west, because our crimes against them over the last 100 years?
Do you believe that Ayman Al-Zawahiri is the leader of an organization that put out a video message a few days before 9/11 asking everyone to seek revenge for the drone killing of his Libyan #2 (Al Libi.)?
no
I do not believe in the religious extremist are behind the counter attacks over US drones
probably did
Wow.
Whose killing all our troops? Just random people.?
where was killing the troops referenced ?
are those US troops or Blackwater security ?
Who killed our troops & security mercs in Afghanistan? Iraq? African Embassies?, USS Kohl?
If it wasn't the group who claimed responsibility, then who?
troops die when the US commits to wars of aggression
So that is why! I agree. US wars & 100 yrs of oppression. We've already established that.
So if not Al Qaeda the question still stands. Who?
the natives of the lands we invade
people organize
haven't seen them. wouldn't trust the source
.
Al qaeda is to convenient of a US excuse for aggression
Yes! We agree again. But you do not believe they are organized into groups?
Have you seen the film of the training camps? Do you believe the video messages they put out claiming they are Al Qaeda in the Arabian peninsula, Yemen, Iraq.
And that Al Zawahiri is the leader of Al Qaeda central.?
The claims they make that they are Al qaeda you don't believe?
Why not? Do you believe maybe someone is making it up?
You don't believe in a group that openly declares it wants to kill all Americans and establish a global caliphate? You don't believe the videos and newspapers and statements THEY actually make themselves?
Are you saying that you don't believe Al Qaeda exists-at all?
not significantly
there existence is amplified to excuse aggressive US policy
Then would you please start a movement to get the people living in countries where Al Qaeda and other militant, extremist Muslim groups are killing, extorting, raping, murdering, and kidnapping the innocent citizens of that country to stop dreaming/hallucinating/amplifying the number of terrorist cells they are gathering intel on and sending out because all it does is make the US policies more "aggressive".
Very well said Matt, and harder to believe that Americans buy into that. How bad is our education system after all?
Why is it that the more the government has involved itself in the education of it's citizens, the less educated they have become? Seems like we have more "programs" than ever and less results overall.
It's not the government's involvement per se, it is a sick consumerist society obsessed with materialism as opposed to intellectualism.
So why has our education system produced a sick consumerist society obsessed with materialism instead of intellectualism?
Which comes first, the chicken or the egg? You tell me, Betsy.
a desperate media
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In many ways, it’s familiar territory. In fifteenth century Spain, Christian cartoonists drew illustrations of the Prophet committing unspeakable acts. And – just so we don’t think we have clean claws today – when a Paris cinema showed a film in which Christ made love to a woman, the picture-house was burned-down, one cinema-goer was killed, and the killer turned out to be a Christian.
With the help of our wonderful new technology, however, it only needs a couple of loonies to kick off a miniature war in the Muslim world within seconds. I doubt if poor Christopher Stevens – a man who really understood the Arabs as many of his colleagues do not – had ever heard of the ‘film’ that unleashed the storming of the US consulate in Benghazi and his own death. It’s one thing to witlessly claim that the US would go on a “crusade” against al-Qaeda – thank you, George W. Bush – but another to insult, quite deliberately, an entire people. Racism of this kind stirs many a crazed heart.
The roots of Muslim frustration and anger are much deeper than a cartoon or a book or a movie. They are rooted deep in history and these occasions are merely things that trigger those feelings.
i sent this to the zen dope and will follow with a piece from my boy noam - this is from robert fisk - In many ways, it’s familiar territory. In fifteenth century Spain, Christian cartoonists drew illustrations of the Prophet committing unspeakable acts. And – just so we don’t think we have clean claws today – when a Paris cinema showed a film in which Christ made love to a woman, the picture-house was burned-down, one cinema-goer was killed, and the killer turned out to be a Christian.
With the help of our wonderful new technology, however, it only needs a couple of loonies to kick off a miniature war in the Muslim world within seconds. I doubt if poor Christopher Stevens – a man who really understood the Arabs as many of his colleagues do not – had ever heard of the ‘film’ that unleashed the storming of the US consulate in Benghazi and his own death. It’s one thing to witlessly claim that the US would go on a “crusade” against al-Qaeda – thank you, George W. Bush – but another to insult, quite deliberately, an entire people. Racism of this kind stirs many a crazed heart.
Thanks, flip. You said it very well right there.
just because we do not know the history doesn't mean that they don't know it. to me a big problem is that when people who are educated and interested (like vq and zen dog - well i think he is more dog than zen but that is another story) do not understand very well what is happening we are in deep trouble. hicks from alabama may be blinded by nationalism but when people on ows don't get it then we have a lot of work to do! here is a quote from bin laden that sums up much of what is being discussed here - "This is contrary to Bush's claim that we hate freedom. Let him tell us why we did not strike Sweden, for example. "
I agree with everything you say there.
everything! now i am nervous - you keep at it beauty - you do a much better job discussing than i do - and we need people who can get through to those who will not see. well they are really not the ones that you reach. it is those who have open minds but have been misled by the system - you are doing a great job if they are reading. i am guessing that is a big if - seems like a small circle here.
Osama was a CIA asset as we all know. After the Iran Iraq war ended, the checks stopped coming, we stopped shipping weapons, Osama and his began bombing US interests as an attempt to lash out. But soon, his people lost interest and he began to lose popularity and eventually all he had left was some douche bags in the Afghan desert. Remember, war lords in some parts of the world are like rock stars, and Osama was reinventing himself with the towers attack plan.
Crazy? Hell yeah he was. Same reason I loath the perpetual melding of the CIA in foreign affairs. One can only see so much carnage before they lose their fucking minds and begin doing stupid shit.
don't quite agree with that history but no need to go into it - he was certainly a cia asset
I understand. Extraordinary events seem to require an extraordinary answer. There certainly are a lot of screwy things surrounding it but they only seem connected. A lot of dirty laundry from our security apparatus was aired for all to see under those series of events. It woke people up the the chaos that is our police state under construction.
So people had to digest the disillusionment with our security apparatus and learn that we have weaknesses, all at once. Since most people before that were Hollywood infected zombies, this was a lot to swallow.
yea, this is not the best place for good ideas and educational discussions. the war machine is one huge problem - eisenhower had that one right. the whole thing is so far in the wrong directon that it is discouraging. i spent the last week in quebec - they are so far ahead of us it is crazy. no tolls on the bridges, highways or any ferry. people there seem to have time and money - the infrastructure is in great shape and they work on it constantly. free health care and cheap college. our waiter in a very nice restuarant was 62 yrs old - his wife a nurse, retired at 58 - full pension - he was getting a partial pension while he worked.
Sounds nice.
i assume you know this - can't tell from your writing exactly what you think - here is a bit from chomsky -"The U.S., along with Egypt, Pakistan, French intelligence, Saudi Arabian funding, and Israeli involvement, assembled a major army, a huge mercenary army, maybe 100,000 or more, and they drew from the most militant sectors they could find, which happened to be radical Islamists, what are called here Islamic fundamentalists, from all over, most of them not from Afghanistan. They’re called Afghanis, but like bin Laden, they come from elsewhere.
Bin Laden joined very quickly. He was involved in the funding networks, which probably are the ones which still exist. They were trained, armed, organized by the CIA, Pakistan, Egypt, and others to fight a holy war against the Russians. And they did. They fought a holy war against the Russians. They carried terror into Russian territory. They may have delayed the Russian withdrawal, a number of analysts believe, but they did win the war and the Russian invaders withdrew. The war was not their only activity. In 1981, groups based in that same network assassinated President Sadat of Egypt, who had been instrumental in setting it up. In 1983, one suicide bomber, maybe with connections to the same networks, essentially drove the U.S. military out of Lebanon. And it continued.
By 1989, they had succeeded in their holy war in Afghanistan. As soon as the U.S. established a permanent military presence in Saudi Arabia, bin Laden and the rest announced that from their point of view this was comparable to the Russian occupation of Afghanistan and they turned their guns on the Americans, as had already happened in 1983 when the U.S. had military forces in Lebanon. Saudi Arabia is a major enemy of the bin Laden network, just as Egypt is. That’s what they want to overthrow, what they call the un–Islamic governments of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, other states of the Middle East and North Africa. And it continued Q: Is there anything else you want to add?
A: There’s a lot more. There is the fact that the U.S. has supported oppressive, authoritarian, harsh regimes, and blocked democratic initiatives. For example, the one I mentioned in Algeria. Or in Turkey. Or throughout the Arabian Peninsula. Many of the harsh, brutal, oppressive regimes are backed by the U.S. That was true of Saddam Hussein, right through the period of his worst atrocities, including the gassing of the Kurds. U.S. and British support for the monster continued. He was treated as a friend and ally, and people there know it. When bin Laden makes that charge, as he did again in an interview rebroadcast by the BBC, people know what he is talking about.
Let’s take a striking example. In March 1991, right after the Gulf War, with the U.S. in total command of the air, there was a rebellion in the southern part of Iraq, including Iraqi generals. They wanted to overthrow Saddam Hussein. They didn’t ask for U.S. support, just access to captured Iraqi arms, which the U.S. refused. The U.S. tacitly authorized Saddam Hussein to use air power to crush the rebellion. The reasons were not hidden. New York Times Middle East correspondent Alan Cowell described the “strikingly unanimous view” of the U.S. and its regional coalition partners: “whatever the sins of the Iraqi leader, he offered the West and the region a better hope for stability than did those who have suffered his repression.” Times diplomatic correspondent Thomas Friedman observed, not critically, that for Washington and its allies, an “iron–fisted Iraqi junta” that would hold Iraq together just as Saddam’s “iron fist” had done was preferable to a popular rebellion, which was drowned in blood, probably killing more people than the U.S. bombing. Maybe people here don’t want to look, but that was all over the front pages of the newspapers. Well, again, it is known in the region. That’s just one example. These are among the reasons why pro-American bankers and businessmen in the region are condemning the U.S. for supporting antidemocratic regimes and stopping economic development.
Thats a lot more than Osama. I'm also aware of all that. Most of us are. Sucks. But I don't see the war machine being talked about much on here beyond crazy bs and the occasional comment. Try having a look at Executive Order 12333 (1981-2012). Everyone bitches but when I show them the source, they get bored.
"zen dope"? if you can't make the argument without childish insults then just admit defeat like an adult and stay quiet.
Otherwise I think the key to you statement is "crazed heart" The people creating violence over this ridiculous film are insane. Some who use the film to incite the violence may be simply evil because they are using the well known insanity.
"Using the well known insanity?" What's that VQkag2?
the insanity of killing people over cartoons & bad films is insane!.
In fact just believing in the bronze age fairy tales of religion lends itself to a mental disorder, no?
Look, when people rage like that it is due to something. There is a cause. If we want to make this world a better place we better try to uncover the cause or causes (usually it's quite complicated.) Ever here of the Rwanda genocide? The Taiping Rebellion? Events like these occur because people are suffering or oppressed. Something is wrong. Humans do not rage like that unless something is wrong.
Exactly.
Thanks, hchc.
Sure. I'm familiar with those horrible human catastrophes, And I recognize the wests oppression, for at least 100 years in the ME for their resources.
Obviously, that is at the root of much justified rage and violence. Should I pretend that religion is not being used by a small group of those who feel that justified rage.
I'm not gonna say "it's ok for them to misuse religion, incite violence, perpetrate violence, & form a theocracy"
I'm against violence. Even violence against the west. I think we must change our ways, and embrace moderates everywhere. I think we must join with those moderates against extremists because it is the only way to end the fear mongering endless war on terror that has been used to justify the drone bombings, and the civil rights violations.
No?
Okay, I'll agree that that is one way to help get past this. Good.
Whew, That was close. I always support you comments.
I am against the drone bombings. I have protested against them, and will again. I've been protesting against US military action since MX missiles, and helicopter rattle & humming gunships in central America!
I believe it is progressives that must rise up we are going to force the change we need. The govt, the 1%, the conservative may be guilty of these strategies, and actions, but it is our fault for allowing it too.
I don't shirk my responsibilities. I'll be leaving for another march in NYV this morning. Yesterdays was only so so. Not enough people! No media coverage.
Not much encouragment from citizens and I see much infighting if we don't agree 100% with each other. That will never happen.
We gotta learn to be a little more tolerant of nuanced perspectives.
Here "Mr. Fukn 'Liberal Selective Outrage', VQkag" - LOOK at "the insanity of killing people over" oil, resources ; geo-fukn-politics, Imperialist Supremacy & whatnot :
"Afghan officials say a NATO airstrike killed eight women and girls who were out gathering firewood before dawn Sunday in a remote region on the east of the country. The coalition says it believes only insurgents were hit. Villagers from Laghman province's Alingar district brought the bodies to the governor's office in the provincial capital, said Sarhadi Zewak, a spokesman for the provincial government."
Any cogent, joined-up thoughts to offer ? Or are these victims (of which there are example after example from not just just Afghanistan - but from Libya. through the ME, Yemen to Pakistan - just "casualties of WAR" or "collateral damage" ? Are you capable of stringing two thoughts together ? Even if you are unsure of which came first - do you have a concept of 'chicken and egg' ?
Go ahead, 'Mr.DemoCrap Wet Liberal', 'enlighten-up' and 'light me up' !
cave - bellum se ipsum alet ....
[Beware - War that feeds itself]
It's horrible.
The only way to end it is to join with moderates against extremists. We must end the fear mongering, endless war on terror if we are going to get our govt to stop the drone bombings, and civil rights violations.
We must protest against our govts horrible actions! Pressure all pols! The atmosphere in our country created after the exploitation of the 9/11 attacks is the reason we are where we are.
I know it isn't just the wests govt! I know it isn't just the 1%! I know it isn't just conservatives.
It is progressives who have started laying down and rolling over 30 years ago that has allow this to happen. When the Wet Liberals wake up and reassert them selves, things might change.
I've been protesting against this for almost 40 years. I know why we are here.
You ridiculous, gratuitous, unapplicable insults are useless! They simply indicate you have no control of your ability to argu in a respectful way.
It is that inability to deal with people of different opinions that has brought us where we are.
And WE agree these bombings most be stopped. You are trying to make me your enemy! Your kind will resort to verbal violence and then bombing in a ny minute.
I am non violent. I will work with my enemies (even extremists( without violence (verbal or otherwise)
We must find common ground or we can just have a verbal war of clever insults. I don't come here for that. You have done that repeatedly, I won't be one of your partners in that war of words. My goals are to find peace in discussion and in the world.
"You are trying to make me your enemy!" - NOPE. Though that sounds a strangely familiar rationale !
"Your kind will resort to verbal violence and then bombing in a ny minute." - What "kind" is that then ?
Your duplicitous comment could almost have been written by Two People !
Will the real 'VQkag' speak up please ?!
ad iudicium ...
"duplicitous"? More insults. I disagree. No contradiction in my comment. please provide evidence if that is a real accusation.
The "kind" I refer to are those that resort to violence. In your case verbal violence. Physical violence is a short jump.
I am not your enemy! I am against the drone bombings. I recognize the wests century long violence. I'm against violence against the west as well. I know that our extremists just use it to feed the fear mongering we must end. To incite us to violence or at least to accept it.
Your attacks on my are not rational. What do we disagree on? Why are you resorting to verbal violence against me?
I respect 'flip' & yes am on friendly terms with him. But re. below, I do not know what he said or the particulars of your squabble with him or that I agree with all he may ever say - so I ought not have referenced him and thus I can concur on this matter.
I offered a conciliatory comment below but you clearly would rather keep at it. So be it. What do I "disagree with" you on here ? It really would be rather clear to any third party here, imo. 'Insane' reactions to targeted provocations are no less 'insane' than than 'targeted' drones raining silent death upon people. 'Violent reactions' are as insane as 'violent actions' and 'insanity' knows no borders. Your words on this matter really no longer matter to me tho this line "Your kind will resort to verbal violence and then bombing in a ny minute" - was really beyond the pale but I'm over it.
ad iudicium ...
Listen I'm against the drone attacks. I recognize the connection of our violence to the violent retaliation against us. I also recognize the insanity of religious extremists who kill over cartoons, books & videos.
In addition I extend my non violence to discussions. I KNOW that violence begins with the way we interact in debate. Obviously you don't like that, and I suppose disagree because you seem to "go there" wuite often.
I don't come here for that. I don't prefer to be verbally violent. I have been, but I prefer not. It only leads anger, which leads hate, then suffering.
So if that is our disagreement so be it. I can't say it is ok to verbally attack OWS supporters. It is counterproductive to my mission of growing the movement.
Peace
@ VQ : Re. below & "not making sense" - you matey are a natural born querulous individual. Get over it. Re-read our exchange here or don't ; in any event --- Calm Down man. I see that you're squabbling with 'flip' as I type this. He's one of the wisest posters on this forum & has been here a long time. Most of us here are men who do not have bw's (as a prime example) calm, equanimity and empathic wisdom. So, maybe we all should reflect and take a leaf from that example. Consider also that 'post factum' editing comments ill behoves us all. If you are going into NY for OWS #S17 then be well, safe and enthused.
fiat pax ...
Your friend flip said protesting is "meaningless" is thatthewisdom you're talkin about.?
He is wise. LOL. No reason to encourage protester numbers!
I am calm just fine. You continue to avoid the simple question I submitted.
What do you disagree with me on.?
You should really reflect on your answers to me here as well as what you contrived to say to me. I felt within my rights to take umbrage at your words & your argument style 'can dish it out but can't take' a dig at yourself. You said what you did as did I and neither of us will retract I suppose. I have no idea Wtf this "cone of shame" is all about but you must as pissed someone else off so 'if the cap fits', etc., etc., etc. -- tho' I have a problem with public humiliation and thus vote against this sanction, whatever it is for.
nosce te ipsum ...
Your still not makin sense.
Your attacks on my are not rational. What do we disagree on? Why are you resorting to verbal violence against me?
Re. below : Are you on drugs ?
ne quid nimis ...
Nope.
Your attacks on my are not rational. What do we disagree on? Why are you resorting to verbal violence against me?
You can't take it. You think that you can dish it out - but you can't take it. You just equated my utter outrage at 'Liberal Selective Memory and Hypocrisy' to "bombing ny". That is "duplicitous". You want to cherry pick a single word or phrase and make this about you. It isn't. Get over yourself.
multum in parvo ...
I don't know what you are talking about.
I can't take what? You're childish insults?. Stop. I'm born & raised in the projects of bklyn. I have "taken" more than you can imagine. I object to your offensiveness because I prefer to interact non violently here..
I think I can dish what out? Your meaningless childish insults? LMFAO. You think very highly of your simplistic approach. I CAN dish it out. I choose not to because I prefer to interact non violently here.
I equated what to bombing ny? I think you have losttrack of who you're talkin' to. I did not mention Lib selective anything.
This ain't about me. I agree. I ain't made it about me! Which is my point in saying your personal attacks against me are meaningless!
It's about the wests oppression and killing in the ME andthe killings of westerners in ME by extremists misusing religion.
Did you forget? Your comment neglected to mention the issue.
Your attacks on my are not rational. What do we disagree on? Why are you resorting to verbal violence against me?
OWS will be out in full force today as it celebrates it's anniversary. A crowd of at least 50 to 100 warriors / protesters are expected to converge on Wall St today.
I'm watchin'. leaving soon to join them. but it does appear to be only about 150.
Not enough! We MUST grow the movement. This is not being covered enough on the MSM, and will be buried. The message is getting lost.
Too many 99%'rs are not responding positively to our actions.
Voted down for making sense. Geesh.
'Truth Is TREASON In The Empire Of Lies' ... so please take a ticket for :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlHOV5DOI80 .&.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-wcrJgecWY ..~*~..
Thanx for your 'sanity' here on this 'bw' & in The U$A .. Peace ..
fiat pax ...
ok, i will stay quite - whatever that means. and thanks for being so thoughtful and intelligent
No prob. Thx for pointing out my typo, fixed now.
always trying to be helpful - unlike some here
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Need a hearing aid?
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: )
here is noam on a bit of middle east history - sorry if i have sent this to you already - So, for example, The Wall Street Journal, to its credit, immediately after September 11th, began raising questions about what are actually the attitudes of people in the part of the world to which this terrorist act was traced. Everyone assumed it, rightly, to be somehow connected to networks like the al Qaeda and others who were organized by the CIA and the British for their own purposes. In fact, the people who are now chasing them in caves in Afghanistan were the same ones who were training them fifteen years ago -- trained by the US Special Forces... So "What are the attitudes of people in that region towards the United States?" and these questions were explored with some minimal care, really, for the first time. I mean, it wasn't really done seriously. If you would do it seriously, you would not just ask the way The Wall Street Journal did: what are the opinions [of] what they called "moneyed Muslims"? Rich, rich guys -- bankers, professionals, partners in US multinationals -- people who were right inside the US system. I mean, it's interesting to know what they think, too, but that's not everything. And it's to their credit that they even looked that far.
And what they found, and if someone went a little bit further with minimal effort, they would discover that this question -- you know: "Why do they hate us when we're so good?" -- George Bush's poignant question -- it's a very old question, for it was asked by President Eisenhower in 1958 -- actually, in secret at that time. But now it's a pretty free country, we have a lot of documentary evidence so we know what's been going on. Back in 1958 -- which turned out to be a very crucial year in world history -- that was the year, in particular, in which the US fought a major clandestine war to try to break up Indonesia, and a number of other things. ... The US at that time had three major crisis areas, according to the internal discussions, all in Islamic countries, all in oil-producers. One was Indonesia, one was Algeria, one was basically Iraq -- the Iraqi region. Those were the three crises. It was made explicit in the internal meetings. In fact, Eisenhower, vociferously, according to the minutes, insisted on this: there was no Russian involvement. The enemy is indigenous nationalism. In fact, that's true throughout the Cold War, but very explicit then, and Eisenhower did discuss it with his staff, said there is a campaign of hatred against us -- not on the part of governments but on the part of the people, and we wanna know why that's true. And he got some answers. John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State, said the problem is that the communist -- "communist" just means anybody who's a nationalist, and the CIA was telling them strongly that their main enemy wasn't communist but it didn't matter, "communist" just means the ones we don't like -- and they said the communists have an advantage over us, an unfair advantage. He said they can appeal to the masses of the population. That's an appeal that we can't counter. And the reason is they appeal to the poor and the poor have always wanted to plunder the rich. That's the big problem with world history. And we somehow find it hard to sell our message that the rich can -- should -- plunder the poor. That sentence I added -- the rest was his.
But there was a more serious and considered answer given by the National Security Council, the highest planning agency. They pointed out that there's a perception in the Arab world that the United States supports status quo regimes which, of course, are brutal and oppressive, and does so in order to secure its own interests in obtaining oil, and then they said, well, it's hard to counter this perception because it's correct. They said it's natural for the United States to link itself up with the status quo regimes and try to sustain them and to pursue its interest in obtaining oil. So the end result is that there's a campaign of hatred against us among the people who we're basically robbing and on whom we're imposing harsh, brutal, repressive and corrupt regimes, and it's pretty difficult to counter that campaign. You know, that's exactly what The Wall Street Journal is finding after September 11th. It wouldn't take much research to discover this. Do a little more research you'd find out quite a lot, that this is very consistent.
Thanks, again, flip, for making so many good points. I would argue that the history reaches much further back, as well, to 19th century and early 20th century colonization, and then farther in terms of trade and contact throughout time.
muslims have been at war with the civilized world ever since islam was invented in the 7th century. their" frustration" and "anger" is their doing.
No, read some history. Making comments about things you know nothing about makes you look foolish.
you read some history. you're the foolish one.
post the information thanks
www.thereligionofpeace.com
Islam's Latest Contributions to Peace
They just aren't keeping up with the drones
Theo Van Gogh killed over his movie
Submission
And he was not American or Israeli or Jewish
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6bFR4_Ppk8
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I'm sure there is a plethora of anti-islam/mohommad videos on the internet
I don't see the islam community reacting to those
What I would BEG to see is the American Muslim community denouncing this.
From ZD's link:
Community organizations condemn attacks on Americans overseas
DEARBORN — The Lebanese American Heritage Club (LAHC), the Michigan Muslim Community Council (MMCC), the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), the Arab American Institute (AAI), the Arab American Civil Rights League (ACRL) and the American-Arab Anti Discrimination Committee (ADC) all issued statements strongly condemning the brutal attacks on the U.S. Emabssy in Libya.
The LAHC said it stands against all of those who continue to preach hatred and intolerance or discriminate on heritage or religion. The statement also read: "On the other hand hatred must be returned with righteousness and love not with criminality and violence. These unjustified attacks against diplomats and innocent civilians will not be tolerated. LAHC extends its deepest condolences to the families of those killed and urges Muslims around the world to always react with wisdom against any ignorant attack on any religion, with intention to create with the intention to promote division and hate among nations."
ADC-MI also issued a statement: "While ADC is committed to the right enshrined in our nation's Constitution of free speech, there is no question that the purposeful provocation of any religious group is divisive and reprehensible. However, responding with violence only plays into the hands of those who seek to divide us and inevitably leads to painful loss. ADC extends its deepest condolences to the family, friends, and colleagues of those killed; and urges Muslim Americans and Muslims around the world to always react with reason, not anger, against any ignorant attack on Islam."
Local mosques including the Islamic House of Wisdom and Islamic Center of America also issued statements condemning the actions of the attackers overseas.
Dearborn is actually pretty peaceful, and they do have a paper they produce there.
http://www.arabamericannews.com/news/index.php?mod=article&cat=Community&article=5946
Dearborn Mi. is home to Americas largest Muslim community.
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a cartoonist got attacked y a mad man who claimed islam
poenguine publisher received bomb threats but was never attacked
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go to www.thereligionofpeace.com read and read and read.
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the site is about what muslims have been doing all around the world. it provides places and dates. you can verify them with your owm searches. it also provides other things pertaining to islam. go through the entire site, scroll down to the list.
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not relevant to the current US embassy protests
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in totalitarian theocracies ( muslim) , gays are executed,.........for being gay. being gay is a crime, punishable by death.
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thanks for the backup.
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again not retentive to the current attacks on US embassies
"they" as in the 4 convicted
the Media should apologize for it's reporting
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no.
The USA was held in high regard throughout the muslim world for most of The 20th Century. It was seen as a new nation which had overthrown its colonial overlords and liberated itself to be into a democratic, progressive country where faith and hard work could uplift people. US science, engineering, culture and education was respected and its stance on 'Godless Communism' was hugely respected and admired.
However despite the mass perception & sentiment, The US consistently sided with the most reactionary and autocratic elements of the monarchies, sheikhdoms, emirates and dictatorships. All the while, all progressive, liberal and leftist forces in the society were violently repressed for decades. Arch US allies, The Al-Saud Gangster Monarchy have promulgated a strident, hard right, illiberal Islam as The Al-Saud family clan cult (Wahabism) has been pushed as a faux 'Islamic Orthodoxy'.
The people see the alliance of their rulers and The US. They know their oppression. They chaff. They see the nexus. They react. Senseless violence & mayhem are to be condemned ; there's no justification for murder but alas these events have their root in history & actual socio-economic and political realities.
There is a push for conflict on all sides but good people resist everywhere. An important & relevant link :
"Inside the Bizarre Cabal of Secretive Donors, Demagogic Bloggers, Pseudo-Scholars, European Neo-Fascists, Violent Israeli Settlers, and Republican Presidential Hopefuls Behind the Crusade".
This is a powerful piece by the consistently incisive Max Blumenthal but it is only for the clear sighted, open hearted and strong minded.
caveat ...
Thanks. I still feel sad. :(
((hugs))
Thanks.
I'm sorry and in which case, sadly also - please do not read Max Blumenthal's article yet ;-(
ne quid nimis ...
Okay. Another time. LOL.
"Blowback of the Ugliest Kind : The lessons no one will learn from Benghazi", by Mark LeVine :
Here's hoping that the previous Max Blumenthal article wasn't too onerous a read and that this one isn't either. Only greater understanding can prevent the conflict which a minority on all sides seem to desire.
fiat pax ...
I agree with that sentiment regarding knowledge. Without it, we are doomed. Thanks.
http://occupywallst.org/forum/nyc-subway-ads-call-for-defeat-of-jihad-savages/
What about looking behind the scenes? Could it be that some elite group is manipulating religious hatred for fun and profit? Nah! That's just a conspiracy theory.
a bit more history - World War I transformed the Middle East in ways it had not seen for centuries. The Europeans, who had colonized much of the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century, completed the takeover with the territories of Arabia, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Palestine.
The modern boundaries of the Middle East emerged from the war. So did modern Arab nationalist movements and embryonic Islamic movements. NPR's Mike Shuster reports on World War I and its aftermath as he continues his series on the history of Western involvement in the Middle East.
With the onset of WWI, the French and the British sent armies and agents into the Middle East, to foment revolts in the Arabian Peninsula and to seize Iraq, Syria and Palestine. In 1916, French and British diplomats secretly reached the Sykes-Picot agreement, carving up the Middle East into spheres of influence for their respective countries. That agreement was superceded by another which established a mandate system of French and British control, sanctioned by the new League of Nations.
Under the mandate system, Syria and Lebanon went to the French. The British took over Palestine and three Ottoman provinces of Mesopotamia and created modern-day Iraq.
"Everyone understood at the time that this was a thinly disguised new form of colonialism...," says Zachary Lockman, professor of Middle East history at New York University. "The British and French had no thought of going anywhere anytime soon, and fully intended to remain in control of these territories for the indefinite future."
But almost immediately after the war, Arab resistance movements emerged to challenge European dominance.
here is noam for those who do not read history (but should) - So, for example, The Wall Street Journal, to its credit, immediately after September 11th, began raising questions about what are actually the attitudes of people in the part of the world to which this terrorist act was traced. Everyone assumed it, rightly, to be somehow connected to networks like the al Qaeda and others who were organized by the CIA and the British for their own purposes. In fact, the people who are now chasing them in caves in Afghanistan were the same ones who were training them fifteen years ago -- trained by the US Special Forces... So "What are the attitudes of people in that region towards the United States?" and these questions were explored with some minimal care, really, for the first time. I mean, it wasn't really done seriously. If you would do it seriously, you would not just ask the way The Wall Street Journal did: what are the opinions [of] what they called "moneyed Muslims"? Rich, rich guys -- bankers, professionals, partners in US multinationals -- people who were right inside the US system. I mean, it's interesting to know what they think, too, but that's not everything. And it's to their credit that they even looked that far.
And what they found, and if someone went a little bit further with minimal effort, they would discover that this question -- you know: "Why do they hate us when we're so good?" -- George Bush's poignant question -- it's a very old question, for it was asked by President Eisenhower in 1958 -- actually, in secret at that time. But now it's a pretty free country, we have a lot of documentary evidence so we know what's been going on. Back in 1958 -- which turned out to be a very crucial year in world history -- that was the year, in particular, in which the US fought a major clandestine war to try to break up Indonesia, and a number of other things. ... The US at that time had three major crisis areas, according to the internal discussions, all in Islamic countries, all in oil-producers. One was Indonesia, one was Algeria, one was basically Iraq -- the Iraqi region. Those were the three crises. It was made explicit in the internal meetings. In fact, Eisenhower, vociferously, according to the minutes, insisted on this: there was no Russian involvement. The enemy is indigenous nationalism. In fact, that's true throughout the Cold War, but very explicit then, and Eisenhower did discuss it with his staff, said there is a campaign of hatred against us -- not on the part of governments but on the part of the people, and we wanna know why that's true. And he got some answers. John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State, said the problem is that the communist -- "communist" just means anybody who's a nationalist, and the CIA was telling them strongly that their main enemy wasn't communist but it didn't matter, "communist" just means the ones we don't like -- and they said the communists have an advantage over us, an unfair advantage. He said they can appeal to the masses of the population. That's an appeal that we can't counter. And the reason is they appeal to the poor and the poor have always wanted to plunder the rich. That's the big problem with world history. And we somehow find it hard to sell our message that the rich can -- should -- plunder the poor. That sentence I added -- the rest was his.
But there was a more serious and considered answer given by the National Security Council, the highest planning agency. They pointed out that there's a perception in the Arab world that the United States supports status quo regimes which, of course, are brutal and oppressive, and does so in order to secure its own interests in obtaining oil, and then they said, well, it's hard to counter this perception because it's correct. They said it's natural for the United States to link itself up with the status quo regimes and try to sustain them and to pursue its interest in obtaining oil. So the end result is that there's a campaign of hatred against us among the people who we're basically robbing and on whom we're imposing harsh, brutal, repressive and corrupt regimes, and it's pretty difficult to counter that campaign. You know, that's exactly what The Wall Street Journal is finding after September 11th. It wouldn't take much research to discover this. Do a little more research you'd find out quite a lot, that this is very consistent.
Dangerous and Deepening Divide between Islamic World, West
By Peter Apps, Political Risk Correspondent | Reuters – 2 hrs 40 mins ago
http://news.yahoo.com/dangerous-deepening-divide-between-islamic-world-west-145536305.html
WASHINGTON (Reuters)- For those who believe in a clash of civilizations between the Islamic world and Western democracy, the last few weeks must seem like final confirmation of their theory.
Even those who reject the term as loaded and simplistic speak sadly of a perhaps catastrophic failure of understanding between Americans in particular and many Muslims.
The outrage and violence over a crude film ridiculing the Prophet Mohammad points to a chasm between Western free speech and individualism and the sensitivities of some Muslims over what they see as a campaign of humiliation.
There seems no shortage of forces on both sides to fan the flames. The tumult over the video had not even subsided when a French magazine this week printed a new cartoon showing the prophet naked.
"It's ridiculous," Zainab Al-Suwaij, executive director of the America Islamic Congress, said of the violence that on Friday killed 15 in Pakistan alone as what were supposed to be peaceful protests turned violent. "Yes, this video is offensive but it is clearly a grotesque over reaction that in part is being whipped up by radical Islamists in the region for their own ends. But it does show you the depth of misunderstanding between the cultures."
Starting last week with a few relatively small embassy protests and a militant attack in Libya that killed the U.S. ambassador and three others, violence has since spread to more than a dozen countries across the Middle East and Asia.
Despite the focus on religion, few doubt there are other drivers of confrontation. The war on terrorism, U.S. drone strikes, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the Guantanamo Bay prison simply continue, in many Muslims' perceptions, centuries of Western meddling, hypocrisy and broken promises. Meanwhile, many Americans see those regions as an inexplicable source of terrorism, hostage-taking, hatred and chaos. In Europe, those same concerns have become intertwined with other battles over immigration and multiculturalism.
"It has always been a difficult relationship and in the last decades it has become even more delicate," said Akbar Ahmed, chair of Islamic studies at American University in Washington. "Even a seemingly minor matter can upset the balance. ... What is needed is more sensitivity and understanding on both sides, but that is difficult to produce."
Not all the news from the region indicates an unbridgeable gap. Many Libyans, especially young ones, came out to mourn Ambassador Chris Stevens after his death and make clear that militants who killed him did not speak for them. Thousands of Libyans marched in Benghazi on Friday to protest the Islamist militias that Washington blames for the attack. SPREADING DEMOCRACY AND MAKING FRIENDS Still, the "Arab Spring" appears not to have made as many friends for America as Americans might have hoped. The very countries in which Washington helped facilitate popular-backed regime change last year - Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Yemen - are seeing some of the greatest anti-West backlash.
The young pro-democracy activists who leapt to the fore in 2011, Washington now believes, have relatively little clout. That leaves U.S. and European officials having to deal with groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood.
There is concern that regional governments such as Egypt might now be playing a "double game", saying one thing to the U.S. while indulging in more anti-Western rhetoric at home. It may be something Washington must get used to.
"What you're seeing now is that (regional governments) are much more worried about their own domestic population - which means being seen as too close to the U.S. is suddenly ... a liability," says Jon Alterman, a former State Department official and now Middle East specialist at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies.
The current U.S. administration is not the first to discover democracy does not always directly translate into the sort of governments it would like to see. In 2006, the election victory of Islamist group Hamas in the Gaza Strip was seen helping prompt the Bush White House to abandon a post-911 push towards for democratic change, sending it back towards Mubarak-type autocrats. Rachel Kleinfeld, CEO and co-founder of the Truman National Security Project, a body often cited by the Obama campaign on foreign policy, said the new political leadership often had less flexibility than the dictators before them.
"Is that difficult for the U.S.? Yes, of course. But it would be a mistake to simply look at what is happening and decide we should go back to supporting autocrats," she said. The popular image of the United States in the Middle East stands in stark contrast to the way Americans view themselves. Western talk of democracy and human rights is often seen hollow, with Washington and Europe only abandoning autocratic leaders when their fate was already sealed and continuing to back governments such as Bahrain still accused of repression.
"The simple truth is that the American people are never going to understand the region because they never ask the right question - which is what it feels like to be on the receiving end of American power," says Rosemary Hollis, a professor of Middle Eastern studies at London's City University.
MINEFIELD AHEAD Whoever wins the White House in November will face a string of challenges across the region.
As it faces down Iran over its nuclear program, while backing rebels in Syria and governments in the Gulf, Washington risks being drawn ever deeper into the historic Sunni-Shi'ite sectarian divide within Islam.
Already having to face up to its dwindling influence over Iraq, it must broker its exit from Afghanistan and try to keep nuclear armed Pakistan from chaos.
Then, there are relations with its two key regional allies, Israel and Saudi Arabia, both troublesome in different ways.
Israel is threatening military action against Iran over its nuclear program, and U.S. officials fear Americans would feel the consequences if Israel does attack.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict remains deadlocked, and Obama's rival for the presidency, Republican Mitt Romney, indicated in comments earlier this year and made public this month that he sees little chance of any change there.
Saudi Arabia might be a key oil producer and occasionally invaluable ally, but analysts say some rich Saudis, if not the government itself, have long funded and fueled Islamist and Salifist extremism and perhaps also Sunni-Shi'ite tension.
Said Sadek, professor of politics at the American University in Cairo, said people in the Middle East still prefer Obama to the alternative. "He is seen as the only president to ever really reach out to the Middle East. But (it) is a difficult place," he said. "The countries that have gone through revolutions were always going to be unstable. ... You could have perhaps 5 to 15 years of instability."
While many Americans would like nothing more than to turn their backs on the region, Obama made clear this week he does not see that as an option: "The one thing we can't do is withdraw from the region," he said. "The United States continues to be the one indispensable nation."
(Editing by Warren Strobel and Claudia Parsons; Desking by Jackie Frank)
Why the Mideast Exploded, Really
Sunday, 23 September 2012 09:20 By Ray McGovern, Consortium News | News Analysis
http://truth-out.org/news/item/11709-why-the-mideast-exploded-really
"Why Is the Arab world so easily offended?" asks the headline atop an article by Fouad Ajami, which the Washington Post published online last Friday to give perspective to the recent anti-American violence in Muslim capitals.
While the Post described Ajami simply as a "senior fellow" at Stanford's conservative Hoover Institution, Wikipedia gives a more instructive perspective on his checkered career and dubious credibility.
An outspoken supporter of the war on Iraq, Ajami was still calling it a "noble effort" well after it went south. He is a friend and colleague of one of the war's intellectual authors, neocon Paul Wolfowitz, and also advised Condoleezza Rice. It was apparently Wolfowitz or Rice who fed Ajami's analyses to then-Vice President Dick Cheney, who cited Ajami's views repeatedly in speeches.
The most telling example of this came in Cheney's VFW address on August 26, 2002, in which the Vice President laid down the terms of reference for the planned attack on Iraq. Attempting to assuage concerns about the upcoming invasion, Cheney cited Ajami's analysis: "As for the reaction of the Arab 'street,' the Middle East expert Professor Fouad Ajami predicts that after liberation, the streets in Basra and Baghdad are 'sure to erupt in joy in the same way the throngs in Kabul greeted the Americans.'"
In his writings, Ajami did warn, in a condescending way, that one could expect some "road rage ... of a thwarted Arab world – the congenital condition of a culture yet to take full responsibility for its self-inflicted wounds." He then added:
"There is no need to pay excessive deference to the political pieties and givens of the region. Indeed, this is one of those settings where a reforming foreign power's simpler guidelines offer a better way than the region's age-old prohibitions and defects."
No One Better?
Ignoring the albatross of tarnished credentials hanging around Ajami's neck, the Post apparently saw him as just the right academician to put perspective on the violence of last week in Middle East capitals. As for his record of credibility: Well, who takes the trouble to go to Wikipedia for information on pundits? Nor were the Post's editors going to take any chances that its newspaper readers might miss the benefit of Ajami's wisdom. So the Post gave pride of place to the same article in Sunday's Outlook section, as well. What the Post and other mainstream media want us to believe comes through clearly in the title given to the article's jump portion, which dominates page 5: "Why a YouTube trailer ignited Muslim rage."
Setting off the article were large, scary photos: on page one, a photo of men brandishing steel pipes to hack into the windows of the U.S. embassy in Yemen; the page-5 photo showed a masked protester, as he "ran from a burning vehicle near the U.S. embassy in Cairo." So – to recapitulate – the Post's favored editorial narrative of the Mideast turmoil is that hypersensitive, anti-American Muslims are doing irrational stuff like killing U.S. diplomats and torching our installations. This violence was the result of Arabs all too ready to take offense at a video trailer disrespectful of the Prophet. Nonetheless, it seems to be true that the trailer did have some immediate impact and will have more. According to an eyewitness, the 30 local guards who were supposed to protect the U.S. consulate in Benghazi simply ran away as the violent crowd approached on Tuesday night.
Wissam Buhmeid, the commander of the Tripoli government-sanctioned Libya's Shield Brigade, effectively a police force for Benghazi, maintained that it was anger over the video trailer which made the guards abandon their post.
"There were definitely people from the security forces who let the attack happen because they were themselves offended by the film; they would absolutely put their loyalty to the Prophet over the consulate. The deaths are all nothing compared to insulting the Prophet."
Predictably, Islamophobes and Muslim haters with influence over Western media coverage are citing the violence as the kind of "irrational" over-reaction that "exposes" Islam's intolerance and incompatibility with democratic values and demonstrates that Islam is on a collision course with the West.
It is no surprise that Ajami gives no attention to the many additional factual reasons explaining popular outrage against the U.S. and its representatives – reasons that go far deeper than a video trailer, offensive though it was. Ajami steers clear of the dismal effects of various U.S. policies over the years on people across the Muslim world – in countries like Iraq, Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain, Tunisia, Libya, Afghanistan. (The list stretches as far as distant Indonesia, the most populous Muslim state.)
Last week's violence not only reflects the deep anger at and distrust of the U.S. across the Islamic world, but also provides insight into the challenges posed by the power now enjoyed by the forces of extremism long held in check by the dictators toppled by last year's wave of revolutions.
Cui Bono?
Who are the main beneficiaries of misleading narratives like that of Ajami. He himself concedes, "It is never hard to assemble a crowd of young protesters in the teeming cities of the Muslim world. American embassies and consulates are magnets for the disgruntled."
So, does that mean the notorious video trailer is best regarded as a catalyst for the angry protests rather than the underlying cause? In other words, if the video served as the spark, who or what laid the kindling? Who profits from the narrative that neocons are trying so hard to embed in American minds?
Broad hints can be seen in the Washington Post's coverage over recent days – including a long piece by its Editorial Board, "Washington's role amid the Mideast struggle for power," published the same day Ajami's article appeared online.
What the two have in common is that the word "Israel" appears in neither piece. One wonders how and why the Post's editors could craft a long editorial on the "Mideast struggle for power" — and give editorial prominence to Ajami's article — without mentioning Israel. Presumably because the Post's readers aren't supposed to associate the fury on the Arab "street" with anger felt by the vast majority Arabs over what they see as U.S. favoritism toward Israel and neglect for the plight of the Palestinians. The Israeli elephant, with the antipathy and resentment its policies engender, simply cannot be allowed into the discussion.
In the circumstances of last week, Israel may be less a centerpiece than the ugly Islamophobia that has found a home in America. But these factors tend to build on and reinforce each other. And the indignities suffered at the hand of Israel certainly has resonance is the larger context of Muslims who feel their religion and culture are under attack in a variety of ways.
"Why Do They Hate Us?"
On Saturday, during a live interview on Al-Jazeera, I tried to inject some balance into the discussion. I noted that one key reason for the antipathy toward the U.S. among Muslims is the close identification of the U.S. with Israel and the widespread realization that support from Washington enables Israel's policies of oppression and warmongering against the Palestinians and its regional neighbors. [As an example of that Israeli brutality and American complicity, an op-ed in Monday's New York Times detailed how U.S. diplomats in 1982 acquiesced to Israeli actions in Lebanon that led to the massacre of defenseless Palestinian civilians at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps.]
As to "why they hate us," I had time to recall three very telling things I had mentioned in an earlier article on this sensitive topic.
1 — From the 9/11 Commission Report of July 2004, page 147, regarding the motivation of alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed: "By his own account, KSM's animus toward the United States stemmed not from his experience there as a student, but rather from his violent disagreement with U.S. foreign policy favoring Israel."
2 — The mainstream-media-neglected report from the Pentagon-appointed Defense Science Board, a report that took direct issue with the notion that they hate us for our freedom. Amazingly, in their Sept. 23, 2004, report to Rumsfeld, the DSB directly contradicted what Vice President Dick Cheney and President George W. Bush had been saying about "why they hate us." Here's part of what the DSB said:
"Muslims do not 'hate our freedom,' but rather, they hate our policies. The overwhelming majority voice their objections to what they see as one-sided support in favor of Israel and against Palestinian rights, and the longstanding, even increasing support for what Muslims collectively see as tyrannies, most notably Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Pakistan, and the Gulf States. Thus, when American public diplomacy talks about bringing democracy to Islamic societies, this is seen as no more than self-serving hypocrisy."
The New York Times ignored the Defense Science Board's startling explanation (as it has other references to the elephant plopped on the sofa). On Nov. 24, 2004, the erstwhile "newspaper of record" did publish a story on the board's report — but performed some highly interesting surgery.
Thom Shanker of the Times quoted the paragraph beginning with "Muslims do not 'hate our freedom'" (see above), but he or his editors deliberately cut out the following sentence about what Muslims do object to, i.e., U.S. "one-sided support in favor of Israel and against Palestinian rights" and support for tyrannical regimes. The Times then included the sentence immediately after the omitted one. In other words, it was not simply a matter of shortening the paragraph. Rather, the offending middle sentence was surgically removed.
update
The problem is that those who practice radical Islam immediately take to violence instead of looking at why people view them the way they do and trying to change it and make a positive image for Islam itself in general. They are giving a bad name to the religion. I myself am not Muslim and am not against Islam as a whole. I am only against those who use it as the basis for violence.
them muslims are pretty violence, christians havent been that violent since they murdered the mormon prophet joseph smith.
What makes you think dropping bombs, fire from helicopter gunships, and drone attacks are not violent?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13qWADMfQnQ
oh good point... ill tell you something else, I dont need some stupid government bums to protect me bankrupting our country cause of a few saudi arabian "terrorists". Just get out of our way government and we will show you how its done for free. i.e. let us carry our weapon on them planes and we wouldnt have lost even one single plane let alone, gone trillions of dollars in debt.
muslims kill and rape and slaughter and massacre in the name of their god.
xians? not so much.
but as long as the lefty narrative is being forwarded, laughable moral equivocation rules the day.
real subtle. wow.
Americans slaughter and massacre in the name of their god, corporate profit. It has nothing to do do with left or right, christian or muslim. Just the same lust for wealth and power that's been perpetuated by man regardless of their faith or politics.
rape numbers are outrageously high in our country.... and that's without counting the unreported crimes.
nice try, but no.
muslims kill for god en masse. no other religion does.
I know that fact makes your panties knot up and put pressure on your privacy, but it is a fact and you have to live with it.
The Crusades were not religiously motivated? The Spanish Inquisition? Manifest Destiny?
"The Crusades were not religiously motivated?"
wow, are you really this desperate? what part of " no other religion does." is too complicated for you?
you know about tense in writing, correct? and that in this context, "does" means "presently," not 100s of years ago, correct?
right now, only muslims are killing en masse for god. no other religion does.
that's a fact. too bad if it hurts.
If all of the nearly 2 billion muslims on this earth are presently killing "en mass" (in a group, body, or mass; as a whole; all together), why isn't the media reporting this?
if you don't understand or recognize colloquial usage, you're an idiot who is in way above his head.
if you do recognize it, but go the literal route to suppress a conversation, you're an intellectual coward or a pc chickenshit.
whichever it is, I don't care. I'm much more amused at your fear of uncomfortable reality.
The uncomfortable reality is that violence is not limited to the muslim religion. Look closely at our own and you will find equal violence. But not because of the religion, it's because violence is a part of man's nature no matter what religion he professes.
"The uncomfortable reality is that violence is not limited to the muslim religion."
I never said it was limited to a single religion. why would you bother to respond to something I never stated or implied? the uncomfortable reality is that the majority of violence, especially this kind, comes from the islamic world. when was the last time any other group went batshit over something meaningless and killed a bunch of their own in "protest?" can you name ONE?
"Look closely at our own and you will find equal violence."
wrong. I have no religion, so there's no violence to find. religion is silly superstition.
"But not because of the religion, it's because violence is a part of man's nature no matter what religion he professes."
violence is part of the nature of man, but in the islamic world, violence is obviously much more prevalent and so much easier to provoke and often such a silly and sad display of emotional immaturity. watching a transcontinental hissy fit over something the civilized world takes for granted is just fucking pathetic.
sane muslims must be dying of embarrassment.
"I never said it was limited to a single religion. why would you bother to respond to something I never stated or implied?"
Because you said, "muslims kill for god en masse. no other religion does."
"wrong. I have no religion, so there's no violence to find. religion is silly superstition."
Logical fallacy. Atheists are not immune to violence.
"violence is part of the nature of man, but in the islamic world, violence is obviously much more prevalent and so much easier to provoke and often such a silly and sad display of emotional immaturity."
Based on what? TV news reports? Here are some facts about death from war. Tell us what religion killed the most people?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_and_anthropogenic_disasters_by_death_toll
" Because you said, "muslims kill for god en masse. no other religion does." "
--and to you that begets the response " violence is not limited to the muslim religion." ?? as if I said it was?
nice try, but you're full of shit.
"Atheists are not immune to violence" -- we're talking about killing for god or killing for one's religion. no one said atheists were immune to violence.
I see a pattern here. when something is uncomfortable to you, you zoom out or zoom in the scope to suit whatever it is you need to say to make you feeeeeeeeeeeeeel better.
intellectual dishonesty. or, as stated above, you're full of shit.
""Based on what? TV news reports?"
based on reality. when was the last time a groups went insane, like they are going insane all over the islamic world at US embassies, in the name of their god or religion over written or filmed speech?
you can't name one. so your bullshit zoom out on this point, like your bullshit on all other points, is just that. bullshit.
you've got nothing. this is reality you must deal with:
"in the islamic world, violence is obviously much more prevalent and so much easier to provoke and often such a silly and sad display of emotional immaturity."
Did you look at the link to the list of wars? Looks like the Europeans and Asians are the most violent.
Can you disprove this and show that the Muslims are more violent with facts to backup your statements?
Multiple Personalities of the Muslim Rage
By BRIAN MURPHY | Associated Press – 21 hrs ago
http://news.yahoo.com/multiple-personalities-muslim-rage-194454551.html
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — At the height of the latest Islamic rage, one of the Muslim world's first media-celebrity imams told worshippers they were indeed witnessing a clash of civilizations. But just not the kind you think.
This one also is within Islam, and it helps explain the multiple personalities of the fury.
It's political: The uncompromising ethos of extremism clawing for any gains against more moderate voices. It's social: Fed by an explosive blend of economic stagnation, anger over U.S.-led wars and — in some places — frustrations as the soaring hopes of the Arab Spring hit the grinding realities of rebuilding.
And it cuts deeply into questions that have added resonance in a hyper-connected world that moves at the quicksilver pace of the web: How to coexist with the free-speech openness of the West and whether violence is ever a valid response.
"Our manner of protesting should reflect sense and reason," urged Egyptian-born cleric Youssef al-Qaradawi in his Friday sermon in Qatar's capital Doha, where he has found a worldwide audience through the web and a show on the pan-Arab network Al-Jazeera. Yet such appeals — while frequent from many Islamic leaders and scholars in the past week — have competed against opposing calls that can tap deeper passions. Political factions and hardline clerics across the Muslim world have been quick to try to capitalize as after other perceived offenses against the faith.
"There's no doubt that every Muslim feels in some ways deeply troubled by any insults to the Prophet Muhammad, but how many have seen the video of this movie to make up their own minds? Very few," said Sami al-Faraj, director of the Kuwait Center for Strategic Studies. "You need someone to organize the protests and, in effect, throw the switch."
It's come in many forms.
Ultraconservative Islamists have apparently taken the lead in protests in Arab Spring countries such as Tunisia and Egypt attempts in a show of force against the new leadership and their Western allies. In a curious battle of perceptions, Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood-led government called out riot troops to protect the U.S. Embassy against protesters also claiming to "defend" Islam.
In Libya, U.S. investigators are examining whether armed militants used the uproar over the film as cover to launch pre-planned attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, killing the ambassador and three other Americans. The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, said Sunday the attack was not coordinated and premeditated, but others have challenged that view.
Crowds in Yemen condemned the film — but also chanted against the continued U.S. military presence such as drone strikes that have targeted suspected al-Qaida leaders.
"Obviously there's a latent anti-Americanism that is coming out," Salman Shaikh, director of The Brookings Doha Center in Qatar. "But that is only part of this," he said. "This is primarily about a struggle for the soul of these states."
Elsewhere — from Nigeria to Australia — hardline clerics and parties have mobilized demonstrations in both expressions of anger and messages to rivals. In Iran, protesters were given pre-made placards denouncing the U.S. in a clear sign of a state-organized demonstration.
On Sunday, Iranian newspapers reporting that a religious foundation has increased the reward for killing British author Salman Rushdie to $3.3 million from $2.8 million in response to alleged insults to the Prophet Muhammad in his novel "The Satanic Verses." Iran's late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a death fatwa against Rushdie in 1989, but Iran officials later distanced themselves from the edict.
Bahrain protest groups, meanwhile, have used Twitter to organize demonstrations the including burning American flags in the nation that hosts the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet. Pakistan's conservative Islamist parties sent out text messages, mosque announcements and made phone calls to bring out protest crowds, including about 1,000 people in the northwestern city of Peshawar on Sunday.
"What kind of freedom of expression is that which hurts the religious sentiments of others?" said Haider Gul, a grocery store owner who joined the anti-American rally.
This question is not new — tumbling back over centuries and different faiths. It flared anew in 2005 with a Danish cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad that was deemed offensive by many Muslims, and was a centerpiece of the debates after the 2004 slaying of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, whose film "Submission" criticized the treatment of Muslim women.
But the current video, "Innocence of Muslims," brings a new element: What if the sole intent was to provoke backlash and violence? It's unlikely to bring any clear-cut answers in the short term. America's free speech protections give a wide berth for the filmmaker, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, a self-described Coptic Christian whose movie denigrated the Prophet Muhammad.
There are cases, however, where boundaries have been set. Last year, two Florida pastors were blocked from demonstrating outside a mosque in Dearborn, Michigan, after a jury ruled it would have breached the peace. One of the pastors, Terry Jones, touched off a series of violent protests in Afghanistan that killed more than a dozen people after he burned a Quran in March 2011.
If anything, the cultural gaps may have been pried farther apart by the scope of the latest violence and bloodshed.
Google has refused a White House request to take down the video clip from its YouTube site. But it is restricting access in certain countries including Egypt, Libya and Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation. A YouTube statement said the video was within its content guidelines. "This can be a challenge because what's OK in one country can be offensive elsewhere," it said.
At the same time, it's also opened fault lines within the Muslim world over what's an acceptable response. In many ways, it's simply an extension of the same internal struggles over Islam's moral compass that has gripped the faith for decades.
An Indonesian Muslim scholar, Komaruddin Hidayat, said Muslims have the duty to oppose to anything they deem offensive to their faith, but must "avoid using violence in expressing their objections." At the other end of the Muslim world in Nigeria, a top Islamic leader, Sheik Sani Yahaya Jingir, said violence never brings "any benefit to Islam."
For Jumaa al-Qurishi, a 38-year-old Iraq librarian: "This is not freedom. This is an act of aggression."
"Yes, we understand the First Amendment and all of this stuff," wrote Khalid Amayreh, a prominent Islamist commentator and blogger in Hebron on the West Bank. "But you must also understand that the Prophet (for us) is a million times more sacred than the American Constitution."
He adds: "As Americans have their own idiots and fanatics, we, too, have our idiots and fanatics. And as Americans are utterly unable — probably unwilling as well — to stop their idiots, we, too, are less able to rein in ours."
There's no wonder why the loudest voices still tend to rule the day, said Issandr El Amrani, a Moroccan-American journalist and visiting fellow at the European Center for Foreign Relations, a pan-European think tank.
"The resulting cascade of outrage is now predictable," he wrote in Abu Dhabi's The National newspaper. "Islamophobes in the West will say, 'We told you they're fanatics,' and the crowd-riling demagogues here will say, 'We told you they disrespect us.' And politicians everywhere will use the language of outrage in their petty calculations."
In Gaza, 23-year-old Rawhi Alwan described a cycle of mutual blame: "Some crazy Muslims will commit devilish acts to respond to the devilish sin."
Before he left for a peaceful Friday demonstration against the film, he changed his Facebook profile picture. It became an image pledging loyalty to Prophet Muhammad.
Associated Press writers Ibrahim Barzak in Gaza City, Adam Schreck in Dubai, Riaz Khan in Peshawar, Pakistan and Lara Jakes in Baghdad contributed to this report.
Who ever sent the video - to where ever it got it's publicity in the Muslim world - did it to cause such a reaction. A reaction of honest people who hated their beliefs being shit upon and were within their rights to protest such filth.
The sender of the video no doubt intended it to set off violent reaction from fanatics. Which then took front stage in the violence that occurred.
And lets face a fact - "there are no Good Fanatics". Whatever their religion or ideology. One example : White supremacists. Their version of Christianity is polluted and vile.
No religion or group is immune from the actions taken by fanatics who act in "their" version ( twisted and polluted ) of any religion or ideology.
that's a big question still...
Who sent this to who and how did it get tossed around to who it did?
Who ever did it - did it intentionally to set off a violent reaction by fanatics.
violent fanatics will always find a reason to "set off" you cant co-exists with them.
why didn't bill maher's movie cause this?
why don't the 100s of videos online of korans being shit on and set on fire cause riots?
was the date of this attack just a coincidence?
can you be any more ridiculous?
good little DNC astroturfer, pushing the idiotic fallacy that the video caused the riots.
most adults know this is a lie.
this was a 9/11 attack, planned way before the rioting started.
screaming about a meaningless video was only used for cover and to fill out the crowd with the usual idiots on the "muslim street" who will riot over anything because their miserable, useless lives are occupied with little else other than obsessing over israel and america and the idea that western civ is 500 years ahead of them because of anything other than their own actions/beliefs/rulers.
islam is a global catastrophe.
slizzard! thank you so little for chiming in.
I have seen KFC videos. They aren't that bad.
the real video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oc7PqjD_S3s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whRaYuDRC_0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBSvExX_Nhc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXz0B_j9eHI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdpCOaJuBx4
An interesting correlation is the announcement of QE3.
QE1 and 2 were largely blamed for the high food prices over there, of which were a leading factor in the uprisings to begin with.
The week of QE3 meeting, and announcements, leads to another massive uprising.
Is it possible that the Middle East and North Africa have a better understanding of the consequences of our monetarty policy than the dumb Americans?
"Reign Of Terror" started because people could not afford to buy flour.
I would say all of the religious bullshit our politicians spew has something to do with it. You know, the christian extremist have plenty of time in the news cycle and CNN is global. The shit they say, they do not say in a vacuum. Anti-Muslim bs, "Obama is Muslim", "Sharia law is a threat to America". The extremists in other countries feed off our extremists and likewise the other way around. Meanwhile, the rest of us, including the rest of us in other countries, are stuck dealing with the consequences of it. No surprise that the religious extremists in all countries are the knuckle draggers of their people.
haha, good point. ..... knuckle draggers...
You do realize that most of the women in the Muslim world do not have clitorises, right?
You do realize that most of the men in the Christian world do not have foreskin on their penises, right?
That's not an apt analogy - we're not cutting the heads off penises. But the Muslims have throughout history. The point is, you can't be supportive of a woman's right to breath and be pro- Islam unless you're a really sick and twisted individual.
The term you are looking for is genital mutilation. Obviously you are showing gender bias in regard to the practice which is strange to see in your search for fairness.
Both the clitoris and penis foreskin is just that, skin. They are a part of the body that are removed for religious purposes. They are both barbaric practices.
Maybe you need to examine your own sense of fairness before preaching it to others.
I strongly disagree with the above statement; circumcision does not sexually equate to the removal of the clitoris.
Some 95% of women in many Muslim countries have undergone genital mutilation.
And they have castrated millions of males; some 50% died due to infection or blood loss.
I don't believe that Christians have ever employed such practices; for that reason they are not generally considered acceptable now, even in our more secular state.
There is no way I can overlook the more barbaric nature of their culture, or their vehemence towards those determined to be less barbaric.
Well, look at the conditions they perform these practices in, and look at their barbaric view of women. Of course there is little concern for the persons the practice is applied to. That is not what I was debating. Women in those countries have yet to have their first liberation movement, far overdue.
My only point is that I don't think we can befriend these people because I think they will challenge the very limits of our tolerance in an effort to empower themselves. We need to either increase our presence in the Middle East, reacquire our oil wells; or opt out, which I believe is what American corporations are gradually doing because they see better opportunities elsewhere.
America went through similar birthing pains both politically and religiously. Now we are friends with our enemies. Let them work it out and keep communication open for when they are ready. Force only begets more force.
Well, you're right... why we're getting involved militarily is beyond me.
islamic countries are totalitarian theocracies. islam and fascism are the same thing.
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The one is circumcision ( male ) - the other is mutilation ( female ).
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Medical reference material's are available.
Look up clitoris - it is not just skin.
Hello!
"And the conversation took a very unusual turn"
LMAO, yes, yes it did. We agree on this.
LoL yes.
It did indeed. GNAT is trying to compare male circumcision to female mutilation as being the same.
........
gnat thinking?
could be - could be.
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Trying to reinforce the gender bias? And here I've been calling you sir. You should have expressed to me the error in my addressing you as sir long before you made this attempt at gender bias.
Pleasure or the lack of is not the only thing to be considered in genital mutilation. Circumcision was recently outlawed in Germany with a large counteroffensive from the Jewish community.
Sex centered thinking, how American.
The removal of male foreskin is generally looked at as a cleanliness issue for men by the medical community. It's removal does not impair proper function. Leave it to you to make mutilating women trivial.
Still giving the issue a spin and still showing bias. They are both called circumcision and they are both forms of genital mutilation, and you are still downplaying that which you know nothing about aside from sexual interaction (the same knowledge Muslim men have about female circumcision). Keep showing your lack of maturity, it's winning the argument.
R U muslim? Because it is you who is woefully uneducated to the true facts. U show your total ignorance if you continue to hold that both actions are the same.
Here, some others feel as I do.
http://www.womenagainstmen.com/medical/male-genital-mutilation-circumcision.html
http://bocktherobber.com/2012/06/court-outlaws-religious-genital-mutilation-of-children/
Forget it - I am done talking to you SFB.
Read the fucking article, hypocrite.
http://www.womenagainstmen.com/medical/male-genital-mutilation-circumcision.html
A mans foreskin is not at all the same as a woman's clitoris. U are the one who is fucked up.
Well, I'm not going to entertain your male bashing. When you have a penis, or at least when you do enough reading to understand why they are both barbaric practices, I may entertain a debate. Debating however is not what you are doing here. What you are doing here is female > male sexism.
"My skin is worth more than your skin". I bet you still have yours.
U are an idiot. male bashing? U are a joke or very sadly uneducated.
Yes, male bashing. Down here we call them "Spam" Superficial Anti-Male, you know, almost like real women, but not.
People generally refer to you and your kind as Shit For Brains.
lol. Thx
and,the area is sewn up to make sex ( for the woman) nearly impossible and certainly not pleasurable.
It is a sick mutilation - conducted by sick men - to subjugate women.
you're correct. go to www.thereligionofpeace.com and read , and read, and read.
They should take responsibility for their own nature and sew their penis to their nut sack.
while you and i have different political views, i find it interesting that we agree about many things concerning islam. PLEASE go the site www.thereligionofpeace.com
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Yeah thats what I heard the protesters screaming. "NO QE3!"
Goddamn Bernanke did it.
LMFAO!
only the most drooling DNC asskissers ever thought the video caused the benghazi assault.
bitching about the video was only used to fatten up the crowd. the president and his goons lied.
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Are you sure it is not the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oc7PqjD_S3s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whRaYuDRC_0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBSvExX_Nhc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXz0B_j9eHI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdpCOaJuBx4
The official line of the powers that be.