… and speak loud and clearly into the microphone. However, please be advised that the complaint department is now closed….There is no end to the innocence. Innocence until proven fealty… After all , what could be a bigger insult to the prophet: theft of resources, American expansionism, absence of social justice, income inequality, or a crappy internet trailer…..
At the same time, and along the same road of post-modernism’s march of nihilism is the broader American perspective on Islam itself which is a synthetic, artificial creation that harms American interests by throwing the good, the bad and the bubbly into one pot, one stew fits all and lets the likes of Krauthammer, Hirsi Ali, Mark Steyn and their counterparts on the Left, essentially the same tripe but in a haughtier tone, maliciously Orientalist,dominate the public discourse. The full court media press is not going to compensate for American power being spread to thin in the current context. The are too many holes to plug….
(see link at end) …“We want these countries to understand that they need to take into consideration the people, and not just the governments,” said Ismail Mohamed, 42, a religious scholar who once was an imam in Germany. “We don’t think that depictions of the prophets are freedom of expression. We think it is an offense against our rights,” he said, adding, “The West has to understand the ideology of the people.”…
—While Israel’s role in the massacre has been closely examined, America’s actions have never been fully understood. This summer, at the Israel State Archives, I found recently declassified documents that chronicle key conversations between American and Israeli officials before and during the 1982 massacre. The verbatim transcripts reveal that the Israelis misled American diplomats about events in Beirut and bullied them into accepting the spurious claim that thousands of “terrorists” were in the camps. Most troubling, when the United States was in a position to exert strong diplomatic pressure on Israel that could have ended the atrocities, it failed to do so. As a result, Phalange militiamen were able to murder Palestinian civilians, whom America had pledged to protect just weeks earlier. ….In Tel Aviv, Mr. Draper and the American ambassador, Samuel W. Lewis, met with top Israeli officials. Contrary to Prime Minister Begin’s earlier assurances, Defense Minister Sharon said the occupation of West Beirut was justified because there were “2,000 to 3,000 terrorists who remained there.” Mr. Draper disputed this claim; having coordinated the August evacuation, he knew the number was minuscule. Mr. Draper said he was horrified to hear that Mr. Sharon was considering allowing the Phalange militia into West Beirut. Even the I.D.F. chief of staff, Rafael Eitan, acknowledged to the Americans that he feared “a relentless slaughter.” …Read More:http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/17/opinion/a-preventable-massacre.html image:http://m.ledevoir.com/culture/cinema/358108/ma-mere-m-a-tue
Even during the protests, some stone throwers stressed that the clash was not Muslim against Christian. Instead, they suggested that the traditionalism of people of both faiths in the region conflicted with Western individualism and secularism.
…In a context where insults to religion are crimes and the state has tightly controlled almost all media, many in Egypt, like other Arab countries, sometimes find it hard to understand that the American government feels limited by its free speech rules from silencing even the most noxious religious bigot.
In his statement after protesters breached the walls of the United States Embassy last Tuesday, the spiritual leader of the Egypt’s mainstream Islamist group, the Muslim Brotherhood, declared that “the West” had imposed laws against “those who deny or express dissident views on the Holocaust or question the number of Jews killed by Hitler, a topic which is purely historical, not a sacred doctrine.”
Never crazy for the writings, make that spewings of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the go-to girl for Muslim bashing. predictable and droning writing that ladles out Sam Hungton’s clash of civilizations…:Now I knew what it was like to be a combatant in the clash of civilizations. Having renounced Islam and openly criticized its political manifestations, I was condemned to a life cordoned off from the rest of society. I quickly learned the drill leading up to any public meeting or event. “Follow me,” the agent on duty would bark out, half-request and half-order, opening the doors to the armored car, doors I was not allowed to touch. Then a fast-paced walk, more like a march: a dash into basements and cellars; down dark corridors and elevators; through greasy kitchens and laundry rooms full of startled workers looking up, frozen in place. Agents whispering into wrists, elevators opening at the perfect moment, and I would be ushered into the occasion I was supposed to attend: a meeting of politicians; a town hall gathering; a reading; an intimate birthday party.
IT IS a dreary, enervating routine—one with which Rushdie is oppressively familiar. In Joseph Anton, he movingly relates the story of his ordinary life before the fatwa, how he lost that life, and then how he learned to adjust to it without losing his sanity. Read More:http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/09/16/ayaan-hirsi-ali-on-the-islamists-final-stand.html image:http://patwhite.com/node/14695
In fact, denying the Holocaust is also protected as free speech in the United States, although it is prohibited in Germany and a few other European countries. But the belief that it is illegal in the United States is widespread in Egypt, and the Brotherhood’s spiritual leader, Mohamed Badie, called for the “criminalizing of assaults on the sanctities of all heavenly religions.”…
…In the West, many may express astonishment that the murder of Muslims in hate crimes does not provoke the same level of global outrage as the video did. But even a day after the clashes in Cairo had subsided, many Egyptians argued that a slur against their faith was a greater offense than any attack on a living person.
“When you hurt someone, you are just hurting one person,” said Ahmed Shobaky, 42, a jeweler. “But
n you insult a faith like that, you are insulting a whole nation that feels the pain.”
World pease maker : Nasrallah. Lobbing his headgear into the ring for stateman of the year honors, or a comfy post at the U.N. Not a bright initiative here:In a move that could escalate tensions around the Arab world, the leader of the Hezbollah militant group called for protests against the movie and said the U.S. must be held accountable for the film.
In a televised speech, Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah pushed for the creation of an international law that would ban insults of Islam and other religions, citing similar laws that exist to prevent anti-Semitism.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2204445/Hezbollah-leader-calls-protests-says-people-support-offensive-Mohammed-film-punished.html#ixzz26mvlzWpr
Image:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/starsandstories/9511619/The-Queen-of-Versailles-farewell-to-the-American-dream.html
Mr. Mohamed, the religious scholar, justified it this way: “Our prophet is more dear to us than our family and our nation.”
Others said that the outpouring of outrage against the video had built up over a long period of perceived denigrations of Muslims and their faith by the United States or its military, which are detailed extensively in the Arab news media: the invasion of Iraq on a discredited pretext; the images of abuse from the Abu Ghraib prison; the burning or desecrations of the Koran by troops in Afghanistan and a pastor in Florida; detentions without trial at Guantánamo Bay; the denials of visas to prominent Muslim intellectuals; the deaths of Muslim civilians as collateral damage in drone strikes; even political campaigns against the specter of Islamic law inside the United States.
Long May You Run. Is the American template for the Middle East, “shovel ready” to use Obama’s phrase; except shovel ready to bury it: In his weekly address on Saturday, Mr. Obama referred to American anxieties about the unrest. “I know the images on our televisions are disturbing,” he said. “But let us never forget that for every angry mob, there are millions who yearn for the freedom and dignity and hope that our flag represents.”
During marathon meetings at the White House since the killings of American diplomatic officials in Benghazi, officials have tried to anticipate the next developments and contemplate a response. But they were surprised when an American-run school was ransacked in Tunisia, which they considered a successful transition. …Read More:http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/16/world/middleeast/us-is-preparing-for-a-long-siege-of-arab-unrest.html?pagewanted=2 image:http://www.cbc.ca/manitoba/scene/other/2012/08/24/neil-young/
…There are also purely local dynamics that can fan the flames. In Tunis, an American school was set on fire by protesters angry over the video — but then looted of computers and musical instruments by people in the neighborhood.
…Some commentators said they regretted that the violence here and around the region had overshadowed the underlying argument against the offensive video. “Our performance came out like that of a failed lawyer in a no-lose case,” Wael Kandil, an editor of the newspaper Sharouq, wrote in a column on Sunday. “We served our opponents something that made them drop the main issue and take us to the margins — this is what we accomplished with our bad performance.”
Mohamed Sabry, 29, a sculptor and art teacher at a downtown cafe, said he saw a darker picture. “To see the Islamic world in this condition of underdevelopment,” he said, “this is a bigger insult to the prophet.” Read More:http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/17/world/middleeast/muslims-rage-over-film-fueled-by-culture-divide.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1
Not sure about MEMRI t.v. being a reliable source; more washing and P.R. For some reason this kid inspires little confidence:
ADDENDUM:
The truth comes out. It was a good run while it lasted but the good times can’t roll forever:
As for the broader debate, Mr. Obama’s defenders argue that the legacy of American support for Arab autocrats complicated the situation. “Obama did his best, in a very difficult situation, to get the United States on the right side of history,” said Martin S. Indyk, a former ambassador to Israel in the Clinton administration. “But we had a good 40 years of U.S. policy backing regimes that the people in the street overthrew.” Read More:http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/16/world/middleeast/us-is-preparing-for-a-long-siege-of-arab-unrest.html?pagewanted=2
—The best plan is no plan? Yeah. Lets try that.—Lakhdar Brahimi’s bleak comments followed his first meeting with President Bashar Assad since taking up the job he himself has called “nearly impossible.”
Brahimi replaced former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan who left the job in frustration in August after his efforts failed to stem a conflict that started in March 2011 with an uprising to topple Assad.
Speaking to reporters at a news conference in Damascus Saturday, Brahimi said the crisis in Syria is “very dangerous,” and the gap between the political parties widening.
“I repeat that I currently don’t have a plan. We will build a working plan after listening ….Read More:http://news.yahoo.com/syria-envoy-warns-conflict-threat-world-peace-091824324.html
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