American Consulate Attack in Libya

[Kätzchen]

I have a Muslim friend who lives in the Middle East and also a dear married lady friend's husband who has been serving on the front line (Adriatic coast). I am deeply worried for both of them (and of course, all of them) who are involved in the newest outbreak of conflict.

This is heartbreaking for Arabs and Muslims overseas in the Middle East, here in America, and in other places of the world too.

My heart goes out to Arab and Muslim people who suffer persecution and are disenfranchised members of societies because they are being denied equitable access to communal, life sustaining resources and opportunity to lead as peaceful a life as possible.

[Words]

I was in Israel at the time of the Twin Tours attack and found it very interesting how the Palestinians differentiated between the American Government and the American people. On the one hand, yes, there was a feeling of 'FINALLY, someone has dared stand up to the American Government and show it that, in its arrogance, its completely forgotten that it's not invincible'. On the other, however, there was genuine sadness at what doing this had cost in terms of human life. In other words, they saw the attack on the US Government as something completely different from the attack on the American people in general and those who were killed/injured in particular.

I know it's hard for Americans to believe or understand that, but I witnessed it first hand and can attest to it - with a very few exceptions - being true.

Words

[Martina]

I know that most Muslims do not hate Americans. But I do think we have a very questionable history in the regions -- North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia. There are reasons that some ordinary people support Al Qaeda and other extremist organizations.

I want us out of Iraq and Afghanistan. I understand that Al-Qaeda has infiltrated -- deliberately -- the Afghan police force, and that the murders of U.S. service men and women are not an expression of Afghan popular sentiment. I also respect the efforts of Afghani civil servants to re-vet police and armed service recruits. I KNOW that there are efforts being made on the part of Afghan nationals, Egyptian nationals and others to keep citizens of other nations safe.

NEVERTHELESS, I am tired of hearing of the senseless deaths. And I truly think they are senseless. I no longer think that U.S. influence in Afghanistan is salutary in any respect. It's time to go.

I am happy that both Obama and Romney have agreed to the 2014 deadline. It can't be too soon as far as I am concerned.

Re Libya, of course we should continue to have a diplomatic presence there. Also in Egypt and Yemen. But we need to provide better security for our people. When the risk is too great, we need to pull them out, as we have in the past in a number of different circumstances.

My understanding is that Al Qaeda controls or is influential across that corridor between northern Mali and southern Libya -- including southern Algeria and northern Niger. I don't know if it's a stronghold, but they are very active there. And we know they have control of areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

We aren't going to change that on the ground. Economic and cultural change, supported, we hope, by U.S. diplomatic efforts -- that is what we can hope will aid residents of those areas to create healthy social and political change. But we need to get the hell out of Afghanistan and keep our people safe around the world.

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by Words

I was in Israel at the time of the Twin Tours attack and found it very interesting how the Palestinians differentiated between the American Government and the American people. On the one hand, yes, there was a feeling of 'FINALLY, someone has dared stand up to the American Government and show it that, in its arrogance, its completely forgotten that it's not invincible'. On the other, however, there was genuine sadness at what doing this had cost in the terms of human life. In other words, they saw the attack on the US Government as something completely different from the attack on the American people in general and those who were killed/injured in particular.

I know it's hard for Americans to believe or understand that, but I witnessed it first hand and can attest to it - with a very few exceptions - being true.

Words

I think it is terribly sad that most Americans don't realize that distinction. On 9/11 I was teaching at a business school in Portland and I had students asking me why this had happened and why people in Palestine seemed so pleased with it. I told them that I wouldn't answer their question no that day but that I would try to explain it on Friday when things had calmed down. That night I almost lost my job giving the following explanation. I told them:

Imagine that Mexico annexes the West Coast of the United States and creates a new nation calling itself Northern Mexico. We are all displaced and are now second class citizens on the lands that our fathers and their fathers before them toiled on. The Mexican government has the backing of Canada in this endeavor such that we know, with the certainty of things that have actually happened, that should we step out of line the whole weight and force of the Canadian military will fall down upon around us. How long does it take you to start hating Mexicans and Canadians? I then explained that in this thought experiment, California, Oregon and Washington were the Palestinians, Mexico was Israel and Canada was the United States.

I went on to explain that this did not justify the attacks but it explained why Palestinians seemed celebratory that it had happened.

As it turns out, two other night teachers--two of us veterans--had independently done something similar in our classes that same night. The head honcho of our campus took us all into her office that Monday and laid into us hard, culminating in a "if you don't like the United States you can leave".

At those words Bob, a retired Air Force officer (I think he'd made Colonel) jumped up out of his chair and in his very solid voice challenged our boss saying, "You served when and where?" To which our boss replied, "I was never in the military, Bob." At which point he took her to the woodshed saying, "Well then, I will thank you never to question my patriotism or the patriotism of this young lady (pointing at me) our years wearing a uniform on your behalf paid for our being able to say what we want about this matter." With that he turned on his heel and walked out of the door.

I always respected Bob but in that moment, I loved him.

Cheers
Aj

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by Martina

I know that most Muslims do not hate Americans. But I do think we have a very questionable history in the regions -- North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia. There are reasons that some ordinary people support Al Qaeda and other extremist organizations.

I want us out of Iraq and Afghanistan. I understand that Al-Qaeda has infiltrated -- deliberately -- the Afghan police force, and that the murders of U.S. service men and women are not an expression of Afghan popular sentiment. I also respect the efforts of Afghani civil servants to re-vet police and armed service recruits. I KNOW that there are efforts being made on the part of Afghan nationals, Egyptian nationals and others to keep citizens of other nations safe.

My son's last overseas term, before he got out of the Army, was in Afghanistan. It will be a good day when we leave that nation. I once read that Afghanistan is where imperial powers go to learn humility. I hope our foreign policy elites are more circumscribed after our experiences there. I supported the invasion of Afghanistan because they harbored people who attacked us instead of turning them over. I did not support our decade long occupation of that nation and I am convinced that the Iraq war will go down as one of the truly spectacular blunders of foreign policy ever.

NEVERTHELESS, I am tired of hearing of the senseless deaths. And I truly think they are senseless. I no longer think that U.S. influence in Afghanistan is salutary in any respect. It's time to go.

Past time. We should have gone in on '01, found Bin Laden and his followers, captured or killed them, and then left. Instead we did the stupid thing.

I am happy that both Obama and Romney have agreed to the 2014 deadline. It can't be too soon as far as I am concerned.

Given that the GOP has gone insane and Romney's general fecklessness I don't know that he would abide by the 2014 timeline. Keep in mind that his party has gone *so* insane that they disagreed with the 2011 timeline Bush the Younger negotiated with the Maliki government in Iraq. I mean, there are GOP foreign policy hacks who are saying that SOFA (Status Of Forces Agreement) or no SOFA we should have stayed in Iraq. That this would be an act of aggressive war appears to make no difference to them. Since the Afghanistan SOFA requires us to leave in 2014 I fear that a Romney presidency (which, blessedly, I think is safely in the improbable column) could see us trying to hang on when we no longer have any buy-in from the local government for us to stay.

Re Libya, of course we should continue to have a diplomatic presence there. Also in Egypt and Yemen. But we need to provide better security for our people. When the risk is too great, we need to pull them out, as we have in the past in a number of different circumstances.

Agreed. I think we have a window of opportunity with Libya and, quite honestly, I'm rather pleased with how Obama has handled Egypt. Instead of doing the normal thing and propping up Mubarak, he recognized it was time to make good our claims to care about democracy and that it was time for the dictator to go. Then, when the Egyptian people did what anyone familiar with the region might have predicted and voted in a populist government in the form of the Muslim Brotherhood, instead of saying that the election was rigged because we didn't like the outcome, simply said that the Egyptian people had made their choice. That was the harder tack. I know that he has taken heat for that but really, that's how it works. Democracy is responsiveness to the popular will and if that popular will brings forth a government that is antithetical to our values or has geopolitical interests that conflict with ours, so be it.


Cheers
Aj

[Kobi]

Tragic and horrible news events like this make me start twitching these days.

One thing the Bush-Cheney regime taught me was to not be consumed by the surface stuff in horrible, tragic events. It taught me to take a step back, and look and keep looking and keep listening.

I see lots of disturbing stuff here. I see a "film" being blamed for this starting.
This "film" has reportedly been circulating the net for weeks. So, why did it take so long for a reaction to develop?

Why is it that attacks in Yemen and in Egypt involve smashing windows, burning cars, and hurling stones while the initial attack in Libya was a military style attack with guns, mortar, and grenades? Kind of odd eh?

There are reports coming out about the film maker himself. Associated Press originally reported the film maker was a man named Sam Bacile, an Israeli Jew. Now, there are reports that the film maker may actually be someone named Nakoula Basseley Nakoula aka Nicola Bacily, Erwin Salameh and others according to Federal court papers. He is described as a "California Coptic Christian convicted of financial crimes who acknowledged his role in managing and providing logistics for the production." Story here. Hmmm, interesting.

Part of me also thinks....in a close US Presidential election, who gets the upper hand in a tragedy like this? Sitting Pres always gets the glory unless something goes really really wrong.

And, I am not saying the Pres or the government, per se, has any part in this. What I am thinking is there are many well connected, well financed people with much at stake in the outcome of this election on both sides of the aisle.

And, I also look for what else is going on that the people might need to either be distracted from or might be in need of some kind of convincing. And I find this:


"The White House will deliver to Congress a report on possible automatic spending cuts on Friday, spokesman Jay Carney said on Thursday.

The spending cuts would go into effect under a process called sequestration if lawmakers cannot reach a deal on preventing them by the end of the year. President Barack Obama is required under law to specify how funding for specific programs would be affected.

Cuts are expected to total $109 billion in 2013, to be split among defense and non-defense programs."

Well, kind of hard to consider military cuts if we have a "problem" to contend with. A "problem" to contend with would be justification of expanding the deficit even more. Expanding the deficit would impact the weak economic recovery that is sputtering already. A sputtering economy may need another whopper of a stimulus program. Funny how things can snowball sometimes.

I expect as more and more info becomes available, things might get clearer.....or not.

The surface stuff is scary enough. The below the surface stuff is even scarier.

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by Medusa

God, me too, Aj. It serves as such a deep reminder that the people of Libya are not the Borg collective of extremists as some of our American news outlets would have us believe. They are human beings just as scared of war as we are. And yes, they have their crazy assholes just like we do.

I cringe to think of how we look to the Muslim community with the uprising of overt racism with regards to our own POTUS. White folks all over tv hanging the President in effigy and spouting the most hateful and ignorant shit imagineable. How in the hell are other countries able to respect us when our own people do things so disgusting.

My hope and wish is that many people see the photos circulating on Facebook and that it sparks their humanity toward "they are more like me than I thought" and away from "Let's get those terrorist Muslims".

Since you mentioned the Borg collective, I wanted to run something past y'all. I'm writing a blog post for Skepchick and since this incident was on my mind I wrote about it. In it I said this about Mittens and I'm curious if the imagery 'works' for people (relevant bit in italics):

Mittens might have chosen to leave it at the customary expressions of condolences and outrage at the attacks. Nothing wrong with that. He had a chance to show that he was human and not the product of a particularly wild night between a member of the Borg and a Ferengi wherein they got their freak on and he was the blessed and unintended result.


I'm just curious what people's reactions are to that last bit.

Cheers
Aj

[Medusa]

Originally Posted by dreadgeek

Since you mentioned the Borg collective, I wanted to run something past y'all. I'm writing a blog post for Skepchick and since this incident was on my mind I wrote about it. In it I said this about Mittens and I'm curious if the imagery 'works' for people (relevant bit in italics):

Mittens might have chosen to leave it at the customary expressions of condolences and outrage at the attacks. Nothing wrong with that. He had a chance to show that he was human and not the product of a particularly wild night between a member of the Borg and a Ferengi wherein they got their freak on and he was the blessed and unintended result.


I'm just curious what people's reactions are to that last bit.

Cheers
Aj

That is a very apt sketch of Mittens! Although I wonder if he is more "Borg Queen meets Data"?
But I guess Data's way of thinking is way too logical for a Mittens comparison.

[yotlyolqualli]

I hate war.

I hate it.

Mennonites, traditionally, will go to prison, and some have even died, before they would pick up arms, and fight. Not because they weren't patriotic, but because they served God, first and foremost, and would not kill. Period. I hate war.

Truth is, though, war is a necessary evil. It exists for two reasons. Political or monetary gain, or humanity interests. Sadly, the wars we have fought in the Middle East, in the past few decades, have had more to do with the former, than the latter. Having said that, I agree with the idea, that when a nation "votes" in a government, (as long as the election spoke for the people) we, as a nation, MUST respect that outcome, whether we like it or not. However, the German people voted in Adolph Hitler. Thus, no case is ever as black and white as we want it to be.

So war is a necessary evil.

I am a huge WWII buff. Mostly because of being in the genetic line of Jews, but also because of the complete lack of humanity, that many normal ordinary people engaged in when it came to their hatred and fear of the Jews.

We, the USA, are in a very precarious position. We are damned if we do, and damned if we dont. If we don't address atrocities against human kind, then we MUST agree with it, or at least are seen as turning a blind eye to it. But when we DO address it, then we are "policing" and "forcing" our political and ethical and moral views on other sovereign nations.

Words from a Jew who "helped" gas his fellow Jews at a concentration camp... he remembers crying out..."God, where ARE you? Why won't you hear us?" When I first read those words, my heart broke, because his God, is my God. Then a revelation came to me... God did hear, God heard the cries of His people, and He responded. I know, full well, that had the USA not gotten involved in that war, we'd be living in a MUCH different world than we do now. We'd, quite possibly, be living in Hitler's Germania. We may have gotten involved in that war because Japan stupidly "awoken a sleeping giant" but when the atrocities of that war came to light...

Both sides did things no human should do to other human's. But the absolute extermination of men, women and children... had to be stopped. And it was.

I am sure that there are atrocities around the globe, happening today, that cries out for intervention. That screams out for humanity, and I agree, the USA can not answer all of those cries, but we cannot, we MUST not, ignore all cries for help, ignore all needs and simply tend to "our own" because, if we do, we become them.

Having said ALL of that... in light of what is taking place globally, if I had my druther's, the people responsible for this film, that was made and released in part, with the FULL KNOWLEDGE of it's creator's, the possible reactions it would get, should be held responsible. Freedom of Speech does NOT ALLOW for anyone to incite a riot. At the very least, this incited a riot. Maybe if the world see's that we can police our own, they will begin to see that while our freedoms are at the core of our beliefs, even WE have to respect our rights within that structure of law. Those men who created that film, had every right to make it, every right to believe, passionately, what they portrayed in that film. But in exercising those rights, they also took on the responsibility of what the consequences of putting that film out, meant and means.

I have every right to bear arms, but if I pull that gun up and shoot and someone gets killed, whether that was my intention or not, I will be held accountable for it.

The hatred of some extremists for America was the weapon. The few extremist American's who despise and disrespect the Islamic faith and beliefs were the bullets, and those men who created that film, with that film, pulled the trigger.

They should be held accountable.

I am not as politically savvy as some. I allow logic and my thought processes to be influenced, strongly, by my heart. I can't force my focus onto the political arena right now, it's too tied up in humanity, for those who are hurting because this "gun was fired". I have no "political" point in this. When I look at the world, I don't see economy or politics, I see people. It's those people I want to help. It's those people whose cries reach my ears... not the governments, but the people. I close this missive with the following quotes... they speak much for how I am feeling right now.

But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint.

All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing

[~ocean]

r we all forgetting this is all beacuse of someones ignorance.. insulting the muslims on u tube.. the person who started all of this should be punished as well..

[Martina]

There is no excuse for this violence. I am sure that many Muslims were offended, but the people charging our embassies are probably those with a political agenda.

I do not care about the film. Last I heard it was a Coptic Christian behind it. That's an old fight. There are always going to be religious folks offending each other. That's no excuse for killing. Egyptians Muslims have been, IMO, persecuting Christians ever since Mubarak was ousted. They were before, but it has gotten worse. I try to read more objective sources on this. I know there are a lot of right wing assholes who try to exploit every incident. Point is that this is an old fight. And someone is always going to do something. I don't think the point is the film. The point is the violence.

Maybe that makes me very western or just an old lady. But I don't give a rat's ass about the film. I have no doubt it was offensive. So? Lodge a protest. Fight for laws that address such issues. Make your own film. I get feeling helpless. I am sure it's more offensive to be insulted by the people you see as having more power than you, a culture you see as potentially a danger to your own. Fight back in a way that can make a difference. This sure is not it.

But I don't think most of these people were losing their minds with rage and lashing out. I think they were extremists looking for an excuse.

http://www.twincities.com/localnews/...-us-ambassador

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by ~ocean

r we all forgetting this is all beacuse of someones ignorance.. insulting the muslims on u tube.. the person who started all of this should be punished as well..

Ocean;

I found your statement chilling.

I have to ask three questions which I'll front load and then expound on. Who should do the punishment? What should the punishment be? What *crime* has he committed?

Each one of these questions is important and I'm taking you at your word that you believe he really should be punished. Should the US government punish him? If so, for what crime? Making a hateful video that insults this or that group isn't a crime in the United States. If it were, then D.W. Griffith would have gone to jail for "Birth of a Nation" which was horrifically racist. The person who made this film has a Constitutionally protected right to do so and can only be punished for doing so by our government under the most extreme circumstances. Are you ready to see Dan Savage driven off the air or out of the newspapers because I guarantee you that if we punish this guy for his insulting Muslims then we're going to, if only for the sake of consistency, punish Savage for insulting Christians.

Perhaps you think he should be punished by the people in Libya or Egypt or Yemen? If that is the case there's a word for that--it's called a lynching. Are you really going to sit there and say you are advocating mob violence? Perhaps you think we should turn him over to the legal authorities of a Muslim-majority nation. If so, again, on what grounds and do you want to open *that* can of worms? Are you prepared to turn over Salman Rushdie to, say, Pakistan which has blasphemy laws? Rushdie's "Satanic Verses" had him living under a fatwa for two decades and if he were turned over to the Pakistani courts he could be tried and put to death for violating Pakistan's *blasphemy* laws. If you turn over the maker of this film, whoever he turns out to be, you have to turn over Salman Rushdie and Ayaan Hirsi Ali who has also written and made utterances that could have her tried for blasphemy in any country that still has such laws on their books.

And then, what should the punishment be? Should he have jail time or should he be executed? These are all questions that are *inescapably* raised by your statement. While I understand that it is emotionally satisfying to shout for his head on a pike, don't you think that we should resist that urge?

I'm not defending his movie, I'm not even defending him because I think he made a movie that was bigoted with the intention of inflaming anti-American sentiment abroad and anti-Muslim sentiment in the USA. But that is not a *crime*, it is simply odious behavior. I am defending a principle and it is this: people have a right to make utterances that I find offensive and wish that they wouldn't make. Hell, I'll go so far as to say that, at times, I wish they didn't have the *right* to make those utterances but that is me in the heat of emotions. Today the government can shut down the speech of someone we all think is odious, tomorrow they can shut down the speech of someone we all admire, the day after that they can shut down *our* speech.

I am sympathetic to the protesters right up until they set foot on embassy grounds. But I do not think we should let ourselves be tempted to go down the road of censorship. There are people, fellow countrymen of mine in the USA, who think the very *existence* of this web site and every single word posted on it is a deep offense to their religion. They are free to blog about it, write songs about it, find the ISP that hosts the site and stand outside holding signs from now until the sun expands in a few billion years and vaporizes the Earth. But once we go down the road of censorship, they will shut this site down because it offends their religion and then, when we protest because our site was shut down, they will have us arrested for offending their religion because we protested their action. And when people speak up for us in solidarity they *too* will be arrested for insulting the religion of the censors.

You can tell when someone really believes in a right, it's actually rather easy. Ask them if they believe that right extends to the person or group they most oppose. If that person answers no, they don't really believe in that right on principle, they're simply advocating their self-interest. The easiest thing in the world for someone here to say is "I think that queer people should be able to write, speak and publish as they please". That tells us nothing about whether the speaker believes in free speech. The person who really believes in free speech is the one who will say "I wish this person did not have this right for their every word and utterance is odious to me and were it up to me, they would never be allowed to say such things. Fortunately, it's not up to me." That person believes in free speech down to the very atoms in the marrow of their bones for they are willing to pay the price of free speech, which is having to put up with speech you find repulsive.

Where do you stand?

Cheers
Aj

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by Martina

There is no excuse for this violence. I am sure that many Muslims were offended, but the people charging our embassies are probably those with a political agenda.

I would put money on the Libyan attack being Al Qaeda seizing an opportunity to attack the consulate in Benghazi in retaliation for the killing of Abu Yahya al-Libi earlier this year.

Cheers
Aj

[Toughy]

worth repeating:

Between Tuesday and Wednesday, however, Mittens showed himself undeserving of the Presidency. His lack of judgment and his utter disregard for consensus American values makes him unworthy of our trust. Utterly and completely unworthy.

I entirely agree with this.......plus it made me laugh...

Mittens might have chosen to leave it at the customary expressions of condolences and outrage at the attacks. Nothing wrong with that. He had a chance to show that he was human and not the product of a particularly wild night between a member of the Borg and a Ferengi wherein they got their freak on and he was the blessed and unintended result.

As to the film and it's maker.......the hardest, hardest part of democracy is free speech. Yelling fire in a crowded theater is not free speech. Making that awful film is free speech. It could well be a film about Jews, Christians, __________. Our task as a country is to help others understand our brand of democracy and free speech....both secular concepts.

I also know that separating radical fundamentalism (Christian, Jewish, Islam, ______) from the feelings of the people is a difficult task. This country is not hated around the world. A small percentage of folks in the world hate everything and everybody that is not like them and will do their best to incite more violence. The answer to offensive speech is not violence and most humans understand that.

As the peaceful protests happen and we see violence occur, I would remind us all of what happened with the Occupy movement protests....particularly in the Bay Area. Very large peaceful protest with a small handful of anarchist violent destructive asshats. The asshats get the largest part of the news cycle and that leads to uninformed bullshit like what Mittens and Factless News are saying.....

------------

Just as an aside...........seems Pat Robertson told some letter writer to his show that he should convert to Islam or go to Saudi Arabia so he could beat his wife to get her in line with his rightful authority as head of the family........he really did say that.....

[Martina]

What a trip! Diplomacy via Twitter. From the NYTimes.

But the war of words was continuing in Cairo on Thursday.

The United States Embassy publicly mocked the Brotherhood for sending out conflicting messages in its English and Arabic Twitter accounts. “Egyptians rise up to support Muhammad in front of the American Embassy. Sept. 11,” read an Arabic language post the Brotherhood sent out on the day of the attacks — one of several over the last few days emphasizing outrage at the video or calls for its censorship.

So on Thursday, when the group sent out a message of sympathy and support from its top strategist, Khairat el-Shater, from its English-language Twitter account, the Embassy responded tartly via Twitter. “Thanks,” its message read, “By the way, have you checked out your own Arabic feeds? I hope you know we read those too.”

[Martina]

I found this blog article interesting. It discusses Indonesia struggling with the free speech issue in terms of religious teachers promoting hatred.

http://blogs.aljazeera.com/blog/asia...er-back-heaven

[Martina]

Commentary from a UC Irvine professor -- published in Al Jazeera. I don't agree with it all. But it was informative. I had thought, for one thing, that Mubarak had protected the Copts.

This guy writes:

In Egypt, it turns out that the Mubarak government, which pretended to be a last line of defense for Copts, in fact incited and even directed violence against Copts by Salafis in order to strengthen its argument that without a secular authoritarian state the situation would be far worse.

[Words]

Originally Posted by yotlyolqualli

Words from a Jew who "helped" gas his fellow Jews at a concentration camp... he remembers crying out..."God, where ARE you? Why won't you hear us?" When I first read those words, my heart broke, because his God, is my God. Then a revelation came to me... God did hear, God heard the cries of His people, and He responded. I know, full well, that had the USA not gotten involved in that war, we'd be living in a MUCH different world than we do now. We'd, quite possibly, be living in Hitler's Germania. We may have gotten involved in that war because Japan stupidly "awoken a sleeping giant" but when the atrocities of that war came to light...

Both sides did things no human should do to other human's. But the absolute extermination of men, women and children... had to be stopped. And it was.[/I]

Hi yotlyolqualli,

First off, I want to tell you that I have tremendous respect for the way in which you are open about your belief in God. We might not have the same religious beliefs but I appreciate your willingness to share yours even at the risk of coming under fire for doing so.

I would like to say this though. It is indeed true that someone responded to the plight of the Jews during World War II and that the absolute extermination of men, women, and children was stopped. The problem is....in stopping that, the world - not God - neglected to ensure that some of the atrocities that happened throughout the Holocaust were never repeated elsewhere, albeit on a smaller scale. In creating a homeland for the Jews, for example, it neglected to ensure that the Palestinians living in (then) Palestine would benefit from the same privileges as the thousands of Jews coming there not only from Poland and Germany etc. but also from all over the world. It neglected to ensure that the Palestinians living in (then) Palestine would benefit from respect for the same human rights as the Jews coming there not only from Poland and Germany etc. but also from all over the world. It neglected, in short, to protect the lives and liberties of Palestinians living in (then) Palestine period.

My point here is this. I believe - as all Muslims do - that what separates humans from animals is free will and that it was God who gave us that 'gift'. So in my opinion, it wasn't God that intervened in the case of the Holocaust, it was those He'd empowered with the ability to bring it to an end. And that's what the Muslims seek now...to be shown exactly the same consideration, the situation in Palestine/Israel being a prime example. And no, I'm not comparing the plight of the Palestinians with that of the Jews and thousands of others who perished under Hitler. But from a Muslim perspective, it does appear that there's definitely a double standard here in terms of how those with the ability to help them make use of their God given gift.

Words

P.S. As a side note. The God to whom that Jew cried out is also my God and that of millions of Muslims worldwide. Different name, same God.

[Martina]

From the Levine article again:

Americans and Europeans are no doubt looking at the protests over the "film", recalling the even more violent protests during the Danish cartoon affair, and shaking their heads one more at the seeming irrationality and backwardness of Muslims, who would let a work of "art", particularly one as trivial as this, drive them to mass protests and violence.

Yet Muslims in Egypt, Libya and around the world equally look at American actions, from sanctions against and then an invasion of Iraq that killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and sent the country back to the Stone Age, to unflinching support for Israel and all the Arab authoritarian regimes (secular and royal alike) and drone strikes that always seem to kill unintended civilians "by mistake", and wonder with equal bewilderment how "we" can be so barbaric and uncivilised.

Russia receives little better grades on this card, whether for its brutality in Afghanistan during the Soviet era, in Chechnya today, or its open support of Assad's murderous regime.

Meanwhile, the most jingoistic and hate-filled representatives of each society grow stronger with each attack, with little end in sight.

Let us assume that the attack was in fact not directly related to the protests in Benghazi but rather was the work of an al-Qaeda affiliated cell that either planned it in advance or took advantage of the opportunity to attack. If correct, we are forced to confront the very hard questions raised by the support for the violent insurgency against Gaddafi instead of following the much more difficult route of pressing for continued non-violent resistance against his murderous regime.

[Ciaran]

Originally Posted by yotlyolqualli

We, the USA, are in a very precarious position. We are damned if we do, and damned if we dont. If we don't address atrocities against human kind, then we MUST agree with it, or at least are seen as turning a blind eye to it. But when we DO address it, then we are "policing" and "forcing" our political and ethical and moral views on other sovereign nations.

Actually, in my opinion, this touches on why there's an antagonism towards the USA across many parts of the world. It's incredibly arrogant for the USA to view itself as the world's policeman (or policewoman for that matter). No nation or collection of nations should think that they have the carte blanche right to interfere in the internal affairs of other parts of the world. Values are not absolute.


Added to this, where the US interferes overseas, whilst it may be under the rhetoric of human rights interests, there's invariably an underlying selfish strategic and / or economic motivation. Those parts of the world where USA interferes militarily represent only a small proportion of territories where human rights abuses are the norm. The USA picks and chooses not on the basis of the human rights abuses in the foreign parts but, rather, on the basis of its own short-term interests.


Why else would the USA be in such a close alliance with the despotic Saudi Arabia and why else is the US government now willing to bend over backwards to reach a settlement with the Taliban whilst, at the same time, allowing continued numbers of US men and women to be slaughtered in a hostile, foreign land. The US military funerals are impressive, as is the rhetoric of the importance of servicemen and servicewoman. The reality appears very different to me.


I should add that, if anyone things I'm coming out with some sort of deliberate anti-USA stance, nothing could be further from the case. I think the same way about my own beloved United Kingdom (and I am a strong British nationalist) whose approach to foreign affairs is along similar lines, just on a smaller scale these days.