Changing the Narrative
Of course the attack on the Libyan consulate was a terrorist operation. It was, the administration said, ‘self-evident’ that it was so. The NYT reports:
WASHINGTON — The White House, after more than a week in which it has come under fire from Republicans, is now calling last week’s assault on the American diplomatic facility in Benghazi, Libya, a “terrorist attack.”
“It is self-evident that what happened in Benghazi was a terrorist attack,” the White House press secretary, Jay Carney, told reporters traveling on Air Force One on Thursday. “Our embassy was attacked violently and the result was four deaths of American officials.”
But it was not so self-evident to Carney a week ago.
Nor was Hillary aware of the self-evident. Here she is going on and on about the escalation of “violence from protests” and how reprehensible the hate-video was.
Below is a photo of the culprit being led away for questioning. The line being pushed by the administration was that America was beloved in the Arab world and it was only thoughtless haters who were spoiling their success.
But wait? Does the latest admission that the attack was self-evidently planned mean the video didn’t cause the trouble? Wasn’t Romney excoriated for his “gaffe” suggesting that apologies for the video were not in order? Does this mean that Romney is right?
Of course not. He’s still wrong. President Obama has taken out ads in Pakistan apologizing to the whole world for the anti-Mohammed video. Whatever is self-evident to Carney is not self-evident to him. And between two types of self-evidence, what is evident to the One should be evident to the many.
The U.S. embassy in Pakistan is airing a public service advertisement on Pakistani television that features President Barack Obama denouncing an anti-Islam video that has sparked protests across the Muslim world.
The U.S. State Department said the embassy spent $70,000 to run the 30-second announcement, which features the president talking about America’s history of religious tolerance. In the same ad, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is seen saying the U.S. government had nothing to do with the inflammatory video that insults the Prophet Muhammad.
I Ruined the President's Genius Plan
The administration’s policy has descended into literal incoherence. It is fragmented. No two parts of it fit. It is a like a database where the same query returns a different answer each time. It’s like a telephone that connects to a different person each time you punch in the same number. But it’s not broken. As George Will once observed: this is what a liberal administration looks like.
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Good work by Bret Stephens at the WSJ today juxtaposing the Broadway play “Book of Mormon” with Innocence of Muslims”. Well made argument.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444450004578002010241044712.html?mod=WSJ_hp_mostpop_read
“It’s self-evident” is a self-centered, vacuous phrase used in The Fountainhead by one of the more useless, rich yet socialist characters (Mitchell Layton)(sounds suspiciously like Mark Dayton)(oops, actually turns out it’s used by his wife, Eve). I purposely used it the other day in a post hereabouts. Wonder from just where it popped into the heads at the White House.
http://book.zi5.me/books/read/1719/52
Of course, Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia. Especially at the Jamestown Foundation.
Last week the administration declared that if they agreed with Romney they would both be wrong. Now they are saying they agree with Romney. Is the Administration saying they have decided to be wrong like Romney or that two wrongs make a right; or is it still all Romney’s fault?
Those expensive educations The Boy King and Hildebeeste received sure were worth the money. I feel sorry for Carney. Being a graduate of Clown College, he has trouble keeping up. Oh wait … he’s a graduate of Yale just like Hildebeeste.
Did Carney have “self” written on one hand today and “evident” on the other?
Apropos of another changing narrative:
At the Univision forum today, President Obama said the “most important lesson” he’s learned since taking office is that “you can’t change Washington from the inside. You can only change it from the outside.”
It would have been nice if he’d discovered this piece of wisdom four years ago, before he ran an entire campaign based on a promise to change Washington . . . .
It’s Obama as the Wizard of Oz: “All this time you were looking for someone to fix Washington, and it turns out you’ve had the power of change inside you all along!” How patronizing can you get? The country elected Obama in 2008 based on his vow to transcend partisan politics and transform Washington. Now he’s acknowledging he has no control over any of it. If Washington has problems, it’s not his fault. All of you outside Washington just didn’t work hard enough to change it.
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/09/20/obama-you-cant-change-washington-from-the-inside/#more-806100
The film maker is a convicted methamphetamine dealer and a convicted bank fraud felon.
He was taken in by the LAPD for suspected probation violations-he was not allowed to use or instruct others to use the internet on his behalf.
He is facing 4 years in state prison for violating his probation
In short he is a convicted liar, thief, drug dealer and felon-trying another scam.
Not a pleasant character-a double felon-and not an appropriate figurehead for any worthy cause.
Metro-sexual wannabee pundits like M J Totten are trying to make a hero out of this felon-and trying to make their drivel somehow relevant-to make a $
The real narrative is that of incompetence by the State Department in this matter.
McCain is forcing a Senate investigation in this security matter-good for him
The Benghazi matter was an act of AQ terrorism and a result of incompetence in providing appropriate security for US diplomatic staff in the face of known threats and danger.
At the Univision forum today, President Obama said the “most important lesson” he’s learned since taking office is that “you can’t change Washington from the inside. You can only change it from the outside.”
Obama: I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.
Timing. In politics, as in life, timing is critical. By holding off a week to admit the facts, the administration has made it impossible for Congress to investigate before going home for the election run at the flag. They are coming down the home stretch and it isn’t looking good for the donks. Cairo Carney will be the rear guard. He will stay behind and give covering fire while the rest run like ‘ell.
Don’t feel sorry for him. He will get a couple mill off his book deal. The worst that will happen is he goes to prison and gets buggered. Nothing new for someone that once worked under Rahm.
Does this mean that Romney is right?
Yeah, good luck with getting the prissy, baying hounds to admit it. As has been noted, if they didn’t have their double standard, they’d have no standard at all. I don’t know who’s going to win this election, but I know hands-down who’s going to lose it, and it’s the partisan clown show, that detestable mob filling the chairs in the White House press room and dogging Romney’s steps. For even the dimmest bulbs watching this campaign coverage — coverage, get it? joke — there can be no doubt where the sympathies of the Fourth Estate lie. One more piece in an avalanche of evidence that the people who have been hanging the wallpaper that has defined our political discourse for the last 40 years and more are corrupt, contemptible, and completely lacking in credibility. And they make no connection between their plummeting circulation/ratings and their precarious financial positions, and their egregiously biased reporting.
Nah, it’s all technological and societal trends. Couldn’t be that we’ve been telling the 40 percent or so of the population that consider themselves conservative they’re knuckle-draggers and hateful for their fixation on that quaint founding document, the Constitution.
Schadenfreude doesn’t begin to describe it. When it’s all done, there won’t be any point in wasting spit on them.
Victor 6. Oh, I agree that this guy is a scum bag, and dumb scum bag to boot. In his case, however, we are not concerned with his probation violation, but with the fact that an American citizen was arrested in the middle of the night evidently at the behest of foreign powers. In my village we used to have a thing called “due process” which seems to be vanishing into the PC twilight. What’s it like in your village?
The emperor
Has.
No.
Clothes.
Never had any.
0. Tamquam
My understanding is the LAPD took him in to visit his probation officer to check out probation violation.
He made the request to have his face covered and the LAPD collected him at night to avoid the press zoo.
M J Totten claims he is a hero for free speech
Garbage- the guy manufactured and dealt in meth and other dangerous illegal drugs and then defrauded many banks- both felonies.
M J Tottens claiming that he is a hero damages both the conservative and American freedom causes-he is a double felon who have been deported years ago
-fools and tools like M J Totten ignore this truth-as they are media whores
-very poorly paid whores-because they have well passed their sell date.
The facts are that our security at the Cairo and Tunis embassies were a success-
-the situation in Libya was a major security fail.
The Old Left spoke of people who were “premature interventionists” in WW-II. That referred to people who wanted to join the fight against Nazi Germany between The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of August 23, 1939 and the German invasion of the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa on June 22, 1941. The modern disciplined Leftist was sure that the Libyans had been won over by Obama until inflamed by McChimpybushitlercheney inspired Tea Party hate video producers sent by the ghost of Breitbart on September 12, 2012 and then can embrace the new Party Line that the abusive presence of hateful (you know who) Romneyites enables the infiltration of terrorists into the peaceful Obama inspired precincts of liberated Libya.
Obama now believes that effective change comes from outside. May he soon get to test that theory from an enforced retirement in Qinghai province.
Free Speech is Free Speech. You have the Right to be Wrong. You do not need to agree with video producer. You do not have to view his product. You can ensure that not a dime of taxpayer money supports him. If he approaches a member of your family you can set the dogs on him. You have the right to make a video condemning him. He may even belong in jail for other reasons. He has the right to speak. The government exists to defend that right.
The constant drip of poisonous hate and meme twisting from our Turkish emissary is getting old. We have our Putin apologist, our Beidaihe apologist and our Sublime Porte apologist. We are now as fully staffed as we were in 2008. That is a leading indicator that the game’s afoot.
Tocque and the Ignore feature are missed.
It’s never been clear to me why anyone would think THIS video among all others set it off or added fuel to the fire.
Visit YouTube. Type in the name of your favorite, ahem, peace-loving religion at the end of phrases that say “Horrors of …”, “Genital mutilation in…”, “Submission in…”, “Pedophilia in…”…you get my drift.
When I last checked there were at least 746 videos (I got tired clicking through to the next page) that were manifestly more likely (than IoM) to get the ummah’s undies in a knot.
People are behaving as if this video is a freak or, at any rate, not a common thing. The evidence suggests the opposite.
That does not include all the other video sites, newspaper cartoons, blog posts, and the like.
Separate note: Special points for the weasel#uck Rushdie who says he can’t sympathize because the “intent” was to offend and provoke. Intent? Really? So, now we have to have an ‘intent’ test to our speech? So, Joe Biden’s ‘chains’ speech would throw him in prison? I mean, it’s obvious that he had a certain intent, right?
Events, dear boy, events.
Doesn’t it seem the pace of events is picking up? I can’t keep on top of it all any more. Every day new calamities, from fake gold bars to dead ambassadors to fiscal cliffs to flag desecration as part of the re-election campaign of the President of the United States, and the endless whirlwind of Obama’s lies. But all the media tells me is 47%! 47%! 47%! So I guess this Romney guy must be somebody pretty terrible.
Somebody wake me when it’s over. Time to watch Honey Boo-Boo Child.
The tenses change from present to past. At first the attack on the Benghazi consulate IS the result of an obscure YouTube movie trailer that no one had seen, and now, a week later, the administration admits it WAS a planned attack, as those dirty Republicans insisted. But now, it seems, the whole thing is best forgotten as an unfortunate and unforeseen incident, to join other unfortunate and unforeseen incidents in the past tense.
Benghazi was a peaceful place
Indeed had not a single trace
Of Muslim men attacking like some Huns
So sayeth State, and what is more
They saw no need to guard the store
And so they hired locals armed with guns
That had no bullets just in case
Some peaceful men might rush the place
And burn it down and curse the Yankee flag
And kill and thrill the cheering crowd
Who loved what Allah had allowed
And cheered and spit on that star spangled rag
But State had seen no need for guns
For we don’t want to be the ones
To foster violence where there was no cause
They had some locals there to guard
The consulate inside the yard
When trouble came they ran without a pause
But not to worry State did say
There is no trouble on the way
Although some peaceful protests there may be
But in Benghazi don’t you know
The people there just love us so
Their love is just quite wonderful to see
But then on an unforeseen day
A nine eleven by the way
A group of men armed with both bombs and guns
Attacked and killed four of our men
The State Department acted then
By saying such a thing just simply stuns
They said the fault was some poor slob
Who did a horrid hatchet job
On their beloved Prophet who they claimed
Was much insulted by the flick
Produced by some poor redneck hick
And so it was that this was who got blamed
At first it was the present tense
Yes even though it made no sense
To say the killings were no fault of those
Who peaceably had gathered there
To say they didn’t think it fair
That some dumb movie made them so morose
But now the tense has turned to past
The lies of State just could not last
They now admit attacks were quite well planned
Of course denying they’re at fault
They want the stories now to halt
That claim it’s they who saw the place not manned
By men with guns who shot to kill
And all because State lacked the will
To face with force the mob who stormed the gates
And so the tenses twist and turn
As O and State just never learn
That lies and cover ups just tempt the fates
And so the story that they told
Is changing now it’s grown so old
That Muslim movie critics said thumbs down
On a brief piece of what some said
Was quite enough to see us dead
And State instead of learning just dumbs down
Newt Gingrich was just on Greta’s show and nailed it, as usual.
“What I am concerned about is that we do not have a strategy for the region.”
Exactly what I have been saying. G.W. Bush had a strategy for the Middle East. Obama has no evidence of one, simply a strategy of spinning the news in his favor.
At best, Obama has adopted the “professional” approach. We have pofessionals on the job and they will handle things properly, as professionals are expected to do. And that was the approach adopted by NASA that led to the loss of the Challenger and Columbia, among other disasters.
At worst, he is simply utterly clueless, operating on a mythology that is the product of leftist minds.
I think the point will be linking the Gitmo released terrorist to the attack. Thus since he was released in 2007
–boys and girls can you say
“it’s Bush’s fault.”
I thought you could.
While I think the Stevens piece is good, I think it bears pointing out that one of the basic problems we face in the Ummah is the fact that actually Islam is as much a farce as Christianity is here viz. the dominant culture of actual people. Our Christian tolerance is actually expressed by an enormous number of people through their concept of “inclusiveness,” and all the other PC crap. These people do not care how you interpret the Koran except in the way that resonates with them: which resonates with their real motivations, which is ravine and bloodlust. Besides, what is the real meaning of all opposition to capitalist republicanism if not the will to power? Heroic, totalitarian power? This is their DNA, their character, their personality. Don’t even bother with Islam. If Islam was all faith, hope, and love, they would hate it.
Why can’t the US president just say something like that, implicating those generally? Do you really think Japanese, or Chinese, or French, or British or Italian of Canadian people disagree? Do you really think Arabs disagree? We can only make progress once we can get away from having to pay attention to this stupid makeshift idol doing the job of an Arab Trojan Horse.
Victor-I have never heard, seen or been aware in my 21 years as a state prosecutor, a police department arrest an individual for a “suspected” probation violation. Probation officers have the power to arrest and they are specifically tasked with supervising a probationer. They are given the power of warrantless searches of the probationer’s person, business and residence at any time. An alleged probation violation does not trigger the alleged right and duty of a police force to yank this guy out of his house and take him down for “questioning. There’s this thing called the 5th Amendment also-these cops weren’t gathering evidence, they were intimidating him into a confession,(or better an apology).
The procedure for an alleged probation violation is to serve the probationer with a violation report setting forth the alleged violations and date and time of the probation violation hearing. A judicial official then must advise him in open court of his 6th Amendment right to counsel in the probation hearing. The date for a hearing is then set and evidence is heard on that day.
These cops weren’t looking for evidence of an alleged PV or they would have just seized the computer hard drive or other relevant evidence and had it examined. This “movie” had been out for sometime-why didn’t law enforcement give a damn about it till that night. There also appeared to be no evidence the guy was a flight risk-his passport would have been yanked at trial. What’s with the “perp-walk” in the dark of the night? They couldn’t have arrested him that day or the next day?
This was without a doubt not only an attempt to not only punish this guy without a hearing but more frightening, an attempt to send a message to our citizens-”you offend the terminally aggrieved radical muslims with your expression and this will be you.”
Of course. It is so, and ever was so, and ever will be so under the Sun King Buraq Hussein I, PBUH. Except when he says something different.
I offer the concept of “Doublethink”, and suggest that our calendars are running 28 years late, at least under the old reckoning, pre-Anno Obama Exsultans
#6 Victor
I will grant that Nakoula Basseley Nakoula is a waste of protoplasm and proof that evolution is a wasteful and untidy process. No problem there.
However, I have spent my career in law enforcement. Now retired. I have dealt with probation, probation violators, and the probation system. Granting that it is as functional as a football bat, and the average probation officer has a caseload more suitable for a platoon rather than an individual; there is a system and a process.
This:
http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.1160329!/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_635/filmmaker16n-1-web.jpg
is not how it is done.
If there is a belief that a probation violation has occurred, the Probation Officer has a choice. If he/she believes the probationer is not a flight risk, and that the violation is not a criminal offense in itself, more than likely it is a matter of calling the probationer and telling him to get his a** down to the office at a specified time.
Was he a flight risk, surrounded by the press and with CNN giving out his address and a description of his house for the benefit of the Muslim Brotherhood? Not bloody likely. Granting that his film was arguably a crime against the cinematic art [I've seen the trailer], it was not a criminal offense itself under the laws of this country. And that is all that can be enforced against him.
Is his posting the film a violation of his parole? If he was mandated to stay off the Internet, absolutely. Is there a probable cause to believe that imminent harm, for which he was legally liable, to someone under our laws was present? No.
So, if they decided that he had to be brought in instead of being told to report, how is that done? Picking up a suspected probation violator whose violation is non-violent normally does not involve sending a squad of Sheriff’s Deputies under command of a SGT. [There are three Deputies visible in the picture, but other pictures show several others.]. You send a car to pick him up with one or two Deputies. And you do it in during day shift, for the convenience of all concerned.
If there is no probable cause to expect violent resistance, flight, or destruction of evidence [and believe me, I do tend to define those broadly as a matter of officer safety]; you don’t go in at zero-dark-thirty with a small army. I have yet to see any such probable cause adduced. This is not a trip to Lefortovo. And the squad car is not supposed to be used in place of a Black Maria.
This was deliberate political theater. Not how we do things in this country, at least pre-AOE.
If he was such a threat, if his violation was heinous in the statutory and not the PC sense, one would expect that he would remain in custody in a detention facility pending a revocation hearing before a judge.
He was not. After the interview, he was taken to an undisclosed location to rejoin his family and released from custody. He is not in custody now, and has freedom of movement as per his previous probation restrictions. A judge may or may not be asked to revoke his probation. If that happens, it will be deserved; but hopefully not for the crime of being selected as the scapegoat for the incompetence of the regime. As of now, he has apparently judged to be neither a risk of endangering the public, or a flight risk.
Subotai Bahadur
More should be made of Libya’s special role in Obama’s Middle East policy.
The Libya intervention was supposed to be THE model case for ‘responsible’ intervention under Obama. In his 2011 speech explaining the Libya intervention, Obama explicitly contrasted the Libya intervention to the Iraq intervention. As narrative, Obama’s Libya policy was purposely shaped as the anti-Iraq, where Obama did right everything that Bush supposedly did wrong with Iraq. (Never mind that the circumstances of the two interventions were different.) Colin Powell famously said of Iraq that the ‘you break it, you bought it’ principle applied to us in Iraq, and the US had a moral duty to stay and help build the post-Saddam Iraq.
A main feature of Obama’s Libya intervention was the US would play a minimal role in post-Qaddafi Libya, despite the major role the US played in removing Qaddafi from power. In other words, Obama chose a principle of ‘you break it, you leave the mess’ for anyone else (like Islamists) eager to build the post-Qaddafi Libya the way they want.
By diverting attention from the actual problems in post-Qaddafi Libya underlying the Stevens killing, the Obama administration is avoiding a change of course in Libya that would show Obama’s post-Qaddafi Libya policy was fundamentally wrong – at least until after the election.
If Obama does change course in Libya, he’ll probably do it without a ‘mea culpa’ justification for the change in policy. Maybe beef up on the down low with CIA, Special Forces, killer drones.
It’s not the video any Muslim is pissy about- it’s only two minutes of the notably oscure 14 minute video that were overdubbed in Arabic and rolled out by Egyptian government TV.
Call it the Two Minute Hate.
PBUH- Place Bomb Under Hood?
Jim@18,
Accused Terrorists – that is, a trainload of vicious murdering bastards mostly caught with weapons at hand on the battlefield, or busy micturating on the freshly mutilated bodies of their victims in alleyways and households – were released NOT as a result of the fuzzy-headed weakness of President G.W. Bush.
They were almost to a man released as a result of the cynical, treasonous legal casuistry of battalions of leftist-paid attorneys who care more for the rights of those murdering perverts than for the safety of children in the U.S.
Sorry to spoil your impression BftP, but maybe you should spend some time on Twitter. Get to follow a chap named @ReginaldQuill. He’s rather obsessed with worshipping BigSis and trying to connect the alleged dots between the Russkies and Ron Paul or for that matter anyone who thinks the fiat dollar’s days are numbered. He is basically a raving lunatic conspiracy theorist, but one whose conspiracy theories all serve pro-Establishment ends. He’s an early indicator of an effort to poison the U.S. Right against true champions of liberty, and to deny that the anti-Assad and anti-Gaddafi fighters he worships were in fact part of the Muslim Brotherhood and/or riddled with Al-Qaeda, which the attack in Libya confirmed.
If you want to look at games afoot, go Google up those original purchase orders from BigSis for loads of ammo, including now .308 sniper caliber by the multi-million load. What if the J.R. Nyquists of this world got you addled about the Russkies while BigSis has something planned right here at home, no Red Dawn necessary?
As for 2008, you mistook expats living abroad who stumbled into your breathless predictions that the punitive expedition against the Soros-and McCain backed Tie Eater would soon turn into a revival of the USSR with tanks for Lubyanka spawn.
Thank God there are BCers who understand the gravest threats to the Republic still all come from within.
d @ 20: I have never heard, seen or been aware in my 21 years as a state prosecutor, a police department arrest an individual for a “suspected” probation violation.
I’m just Joe Citizen, but it’s my impression that this kind of thing happens all the time. Some suspected miscreant shows up on the news, maybe heckling the mayor, and the first thing TPTB do is check him for outstanding warrants and probation violations, and whether they phone him and he surrenders or the sheriff perp-walks him to the car, they get him in the hoosecow on any available pretext.
Besides, in this case, maybe he *wanted* to be taken into custody, as in protective.
@ #6 Victor. The LAPD officers you spoke of are gonna be in big trouble. They were all wearing LA County Sheriffs Department uniforms and badges. Probably some mix-up when they went to wardrobe.
There are other narratives now about the attack on the U.S. embassy in Libya. This one for example that includes some things based on hearsay. I can’t judge whether the assertions in the linked article are likely to be true or false.
VICTOR
M J Totten is a ex active duty Special Forces Sargent who’s wandered , lived and written in the muslim world for a decade and a half. You aren’t fit to lick the bottom of his boots.
Victor (6): Go away, you’re polluting this place.
Paul (29): Sorry, while you’re right about the wandering, living, and reporting part, Totten is most definitely not former SF. Perhaps you’re confusing him with Michael Yon?
The Lord works in mysterious ways.
The (English language) “National” in the UAE carried an article by a prominent Muslim cleric saying that Muslims were out of line with violent protests over insults to the Prophet (Peace Be Upon Him, of course). He advised Muslims to show some cultural sensitivity: citizens of the decadent West are used to insults being hurled at Jesus (PBUH too, since he is also accepted as a prophet in Islam — should Andres Serrano be thinking about going into hiding?). The cleric stated that if Muslims want others to demonstrate respect for their religion, they need to start by demonstrating respect for other faiths in their midst, such as for the Copts.
Now, no-one can say how much play this will get in the broader world of Islam. But it is a definite crack in the wall of Muslim solidarity in a world that is scheduled for major convulsions in the next few years, regardless of the results of any election.
Of course, the internal contradictions willingly accepted by illiberal backwards-looking Western “liberal progressives” show that unthinking blind tribal loyalty must have had real Darwinian survival value over thousands of years of human breeding. Maybe the problems we discuss here will be with the human race until those traits are finally removed from the gene pool? Should we actually be applauding the “liberal progressive” infatuation with homosexuality and abortion as an excellent start toward editing no-longer-useful tribal loyalty out of the human genome?
The Lord indeed works in mysterious ways.
“What I am concerned about is that we do not have a strategy for the region.”
Obama does have a strategy. Get re-elected. That is a global strategy. covering ALL fronts and all issues. One hopes it is a failing strategy. Finding that hint of silver yet again, IF re-elected, Obama will inherit the worst EVERYTHING any POTUS has ever received. So the next term he can complain about the mess he left himself. I wonder if that can be worked into an ad?
Something along the lines of;
At least the voters will not be hearing whining about problems passed down from the previous administration. I know whining about a problem never fixes it and Obama owns the problem. So at the least the election will end the lame excuses.
Or something like that. As a writer I have always had problems going from 3rd party to 1st person conversational mode. Must have slept through that part of English.
“Victor (6): Go away, you’re polluting this place.”
No, he is exercising his 1st amendment rights. The same rights Mr. Totten served to defend. Those rights belong to everybody, not just you. We ALL keep them or lose them together.
“Sorry to spoil your impression BftP, but maybe you should spend some time on Twitter.”
Not a chance. Using twitter compares to eating the pink mints in the local restroom.
No one rational does it. No security al all. Not unlike having an orgy in the syphilis ward. You WILL catch something unsavory.
As far as the ammo, you do realize that stupid people spending YOUR money can be dangerous? How many .308 rounds do you suppose they are in America? 2 billion? 10 billion? Not sure but I know there are not enough Journalists, Politicians, ACLU Lawyers, and others in need of shooting types to soak up more then a fraction of the supply. Besides, Guerilla logistics consists of taking from the enemy. You would have to be as stupid as a clown posse underling to think the government buying up all the fresh production of .308 will make a difference. Then there are those that load their own.
Rule .308; No mercy asked, none given.
We are witnessing the Truth conquering the Lie!
The Lie was 0bama and even Hildabeast where the smartest man and woman on the Planet, bestowed with all the accolades of the Progressive/Liberals could do and give to them!
The Truth is they are being “Schooled” by Reality and it is a very ugly lesson even with the best of the White Washing the MSM can put on it!
The Problem is Class isn’t out yet and it could get every nasty for all of America… Only thing that remains is has America learned its lesson or is it still going to continue believing the Class Clowns? Does America Graduate (from) or Flunk (back into) these last 3+ years?
The whole Nakoula story smells fishy. The guy is a petty crook and meth dealer on parole. People like that do not take risks and spend hard earned cash making videos because of some idealistic motivation. He has no past history of political activism or film making. The trailer was dubbed and edited and does not fit the original script. He tried posing as an Israeli Jew. Nothing fits. Nobody saw it or heard of it until AQ somehow found it among the thousands of you tube postings every day and distributed it with Arabic subtitles.
He may or may not have known it but this was a setup. I hope that he is not just taken in for parole violations. The Feds need to have a word with him.
PBUH- Place Bomb Under Hood?
Fair warning! I’m stealing that for a tag line.
We have a strategy. It’s always seemed to me that Obama’s strategy for everything is the only one he really knows: Cloward-Piven.
We — white people, the West, Christendom — are “mean-spirited,” evil, a force for destruction and responsible for the suffering and poverty in the world and in the hearts of depressed liberals everywhere.
So we must suffer and be destroyed. The central tenet of the Obama presidency has always been cohesive and self-evident: reparations and, beneath that, nihilism. Everything, everyone must be fundamentally transformed, and the best way to do that is to tear down the existing structures.
It’s really a very simple strategy, although probably not conscious for most of those that harbor it. This is how narcissism and the associated paranoia work, projecting self-loathing onto everything and everyone else.
The vectors of evil can be very convoluted, but it’s still just the same old vinegar in new bottles.
There was no PV to be served on him-they were perp-walking him down to interrogate him about whether he had committed one. This was done bass-ackward to send a message. It would be like taking a probationer into custody and asking him whether he had flunked a drug test instead of giving him one. There is a warrantless search provision given to P.O.’s so all they had to do was enter his home, seize his computer and check it.
This was all about sending a message, the law be damned. Can you imagine the hue and cry from the race hustlers had this guy been black? The cops would be forced to attend a beer summit and get sensitivity training for “acting stupidly.”
My recollection is that RTP — “Responsibility to Protect” — as a US policy was first enunciated by Samantha Powers in response to the deteriorating security situation under Qadaffi in Libya. How ironic is it that the USG should invoke RTP for Libyans but not for US diplomats working in Libya? And of all the millions and millions of rounds of .40 cal. hollow-point bullets being ordered in the last 6 months by Homeland Security, why didn’t we ship a couple of thousand to Benghazi? Clowns.
Many of these narratives include burning an American flag. In the Moslem world it seems there is always one handily available to burn . There’s a side discussion going on up here in Canada asking how many American flags are distributed throughout the Middle East? Is a neatly folded Stars and Stripes part of a man’s standard kit, along with the Koran?
Who supplies these flags? Is there a shadow industry producing them especially for the faithful?
I’m with Spindok on this. The official story doesn’t add up. But I can’t find the energy to dig too deeply into who’s running what scam here. I’m inclined to ignore the whole Nakoula angle, the whole “inciting video” angle for that matter. A bunch of muslim terrorists staged a planned attack and a Democrat administration bungled the preparation and response. Meanwhile the economy is still a disaster. Those are the important things, Nakoula is just a distraction.
Re. R2P, I believe Powers has been prattling on about that for at least a decade.
Re. what’s caused this, it’s just the Iranian Hostage Crisis, exactly, writ very, very large.
40. stevesmith
Who supplies these flags? Is there a shadow industry producing them especially for the faithful?
The Mossad, maybe?
From Ace:
Fantastic: Islamist Extremist Killed By You Tube Video and Old Glory’s Sulfurous Vengeance But Mostly Old Glory’s Sulfurous Vengeance
Dude burns an American flag.
American flag decides to be totally awesome and kill him with the smoke of fiery liberty.
“One of the participants of the rally, Abdullah Ismail, passed away after he was taken to Mayo Hospital. Witnesses said he had complained of feeling unwell from the smoke from US flags burnt at the rally.”
http://minx.cc/?post=332978
Ultimate source of the story: http://tribune.com.pk/story/437772/ultimatum-to-us-criminalise-blasphemy-or-lose-consulate/
F @ 39
We probably did ship some rounds to Libya, probably some pretty sophisticated ones, you know, as part of our “lead from behind” effort. Where they ended up, and how they were or will be used is anybody’s guess. It will be interesting if/when we are able to see what types of weapons were used against our consulate and ambassador.
Yes, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula is a criminal. Yes, he appears to be more adept at cooking crystal meth than producing movies. And yes, D.W. Griffith would have done a better job of what he was attempting to do. So what? The fact remains that various Muslims throughout the world want people to watch that crap. Otherwise, they would never have drawn attention to it. It is almost as if al-Qaeda had arranged for the production of the movie itself!
The demonstrators are saying that they have a God-given right to murder Americans if some idiot posts something on YouTube they don’t like. That fact is, they just want to murder Americans. There are some pretexts so flimsy that they are like putting somebody on trial for killing a fly.
The trailer for Innocence of Muslims is low budget, low quality, and low brow. It is as crude and stupid as the idiots who are demonstrating against it. The film’s crudity is reminiscent of the “Thousand and One Nights” and “The Canterbury Tales” – it aims an audience of illiterate villagers and slum dwellers with medieval minds.
This film hits a nerve on several levels vis a vis the “Muslim Brotherhood”. First of all, it exists on their own wavelength – it is just as crude and stupid as they are. Secondly, its theological commentaries about Islam are old-fashioned medieval Christian propaganda. The commentaries neither new nor interesting – they look like they came straight out of ancient manuscripts. If anything, the producer had a far better acquaintance with the Hadith and various biographies of Mohammed than one would normally expect from a non-Muslim. Thirdly, it was a dhimmi who supposedly produced the film. And under Islamic custom, dhimmis are never supposed to complain about how badly they are treated.
Nakoula Basseley Nakoula does not deserve the attention that Islamists are giving him. If he produced the film all by himself, he committed no crime. If, however, he worked as a cutout for the Muslim Brotherhood as part of a criminal conspiracy, that would be an entirely different matter.
That said, Innocence of Muslims is a highly unethical production, not because it insults Muslims, Mohammed, or Islam, but rather because its actors were not informed about the film’s content when they were hired. As a matter of professional ethics, actors must be informed of the content of a film and if there is a reasonable chance that someone will issue a fatwa against it. There is a good chance that a content advisory would attract a better grade of actors. Indeed, films critical of Islam may attract pro bono talent so long as the proceeds go to a charitable purpose.
Now, when is there going to be a movie version of The Satanic Verses?
Fouad Ajami has a great editorial in WSJ today, if you can cruise through Google to get past the paywall (or have it on dead trees). It’s mostly about Obambus’ ignorance of the Middle East and his attempted electoral exploitation of his warped version of things. But in passing Ajami also says:
More important, trouble has spilled into Turkey. The Turks have come to resent the American abdication and the heavy burden the Syrian struggle has imposed on them.
To which I just wanted to add: LOL. Erdogan and his Islamists *now*, ten years after the fact, want something from the US military, hmmm? And of course it’s another laff riot that the one who won’t give it to them is the pseudo-crypto-Muslim-dhimmi Obambus.
here’s the google URL, fwiw:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444165804578005880751641560.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
–
a @ 45: Now, when is there going to be a movie version of The Satanic Verses?
There was just a long article about Rushdie and the whole Satanic Verses thing in the New Yorker. Apparently there’s pretty much nothing very satanic about the book, and the whole thing refers entirely respectably to the standard history of Mohammed and the writing of some verses in the Koran, and that Mohammed revised a few because the first versions were faulty, “satanic”. It basically refers to a character in the book trying to revise his life. Evil stuff not in the least, but as usual in these cases, the facts are lost in the hubbub.
Stoicheion (33): Yes, and I’m exercising mine. I don’t see anywhere that I called for Victor to be arrested or otherwise have a single hair on his head touched by the state. I simply applied more speech in asserting that his kind of gratuitious* ad hominem nonsense was stinking up the place and we’d be better off without it–and without his presence if that’s all he wants to do.
————————————————————
*Wait, you ask, are there degrees of ad hominem? Well, all of it is a bad argument, but in the current thread, as far as I can tell, Totten wasn’t even an issue–why bring him up? Gratuitous…
Muslims collect grievances like coupons. Anybody who thinks (or says) that these organized and coordinated attacks and demonstrations were actually caused by a film is a buffoon. That includes the POTUS.
Steven B: No question about sophisticated rounds going to Libya. In fact the two Seals who were killed were reportedly there as consultants to a company that was trying to track down missing manpads. I’m trying to juxtapose the very large — unreasonably large — recent order for .40 cal rounds for Homeland Security with the fact that the embassy and consulate were not equipped or staffed to protect themselves.
As for R2P (I got it wrong in the original post), it grew out of the genocide in Rwanda. Again, I was trying to contrast the USG use of the word “protect” v-a-v Libyan rebels and NOT protecting our own offices there. Since I used to work in similar offices in different countries (including in neighboring Kenya when Rwanda went south), this hits home for me.
It is all Romney’s fault. He jumped the gun.
The videos caused this spontaneous terrorist attack.
The TV ads by Hilary and Barack in Pakistan are a resounding success.
There was just a long article about Rushdie and the whole Satanic Verses thing in the New Yorker. Apparently there’s pretty much nothing very satanic about the book…
I know. My point is that creating a film version of The Satanic Verses would show resolve – particularly since there is nothing offensive to Islam in it. Such a movie would become wildly popular in Muslim countries, albeit as contraband.
In the 1700′s, Voltaire wrote a play Le Fanatisme, ou Mahomet le Prophete that expressed Enlightenment ideals in opposition to tyranny, intolerance, and religious bigotry. An English translation of the play, Mahomet the Imposter, was widely popular throughout the eighteenth century. During the American revolution, Mahomet the Imposter played in Baltimore. Yet, in the twenty-first century, that play has not been publicly presented; no movie version of it has been made either. There was one attempt in France to put on the play in 2005, but it was closed down after Muslim protests.
We may very well have less freedom of speech now than ever before. If nobody dares to cast a play by Voltaire, what does that say about us?
47. Kirk Parker ;
Excellent, well exercised. The way to deal with the Victors of the World is demonstrating how idiotic their opinions are without attacking the idiot. Then we can all have a good chuckle. I’m not defending Victor, I don’t particularly care for him. I’m defending his rights to free speech.
I made a mistake by using ‘you’ when it should have been ‘one’ or some other neutral pronoun. My bad, I apologize. I in no way intended insult. It was just a head past sphincter moment on my part.
Let’s not get too down on the decisive old epistemological term “self-evident”.
Don’t many of us here “hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”?
was reading an account of the Benghazi attack by the “White House Insider”, and his view is that the dead ambassador was involved in smuggling arms into the country, and was CIA. he also went on to speculate that the ambassador was getting cold feet about all of the shenanigans and that Obama did a Ron Brown on him.
40. Stevesmith
No mystery there. Anybody with a sewing machine and fabric can make any flag you like. They can sell fast if you can reproduce the flag and get it out for sale when country x is the hated of the day.
Watching clips of mideast protests, I noticed a common thread not addressed to my knowledge on this blog. The language may be different but the cadence of the chants is exactly like the cadence of typical demos of the Left in the West. Even the chant cadence of the Yippies in ’68 and Vietnam protests prior sound similar. Is this evidence of the Red/Green alliance?
I think so.
Any additional insight is appreciated.
m out.
CJM:
Sounds pretty far-fetched. Think about the role of CIA caseworkers in an embassy: they are there to recruit and run agents or to maintain liaison with local security forces. Why place a caseworker in an embassy under the cover of ambassador? That would make his work kinda hard. On top of which I think I remember he was Peace Corps at one time? CIA has (or at least had, when I was in the Foreign Service) a policy of staying away from PCVolunteers. And why ship arms into Libya? It’s not like the country isn’t awash in arms already.
Or maybe the theory is that the CIA was running guns into Libya without the ambassador’s approval? That sounds like the kind of inter-agency dispute that would quickly move up to more senior levels, where instructions would issue forth that pretty much settled the argument.
So it all sounds pretty hard to believe. CIA might do some pretty wild stuff, but shipping arms into Libya using the Ambassador as a conduit just doesn’t make good sense.
57. F
CJM:
Sounds pretty far-fetched.
It does indeed. Typically CIA agents embedded in State Department posts are vice-consuls. Having the person in charge at either the embassy or consular level be a CIA operative makes little operational sense, and is asking for huge trouble if discovered.
just repeating what i read
how far fetched is it with regard to all the other things obama has done? like F&F to Mexico. so at least the part about shipping weapons into syria clandestinely is reasonable (if not true). just google “Butcher of Bengazi” if you want to read it for yourself.
The ‘insider’ has already been debunked elsewhere on the web — quite some time back.
He just throws stuff up to see if it sticks.
“CIA has … a policy of staying away from PCVolunteers.” Oh good one. Did they also have a policy of not running agents inside of Peace Corp as well or running logistics supply lines that supported them? I’d be curious to know.
Marzouq @ 56:
When I first arrived in Jakarta in 1994 one of the first things I noticed was the encampment of protestors by the US Embassy. They were a permanent feature, very much like the OccuPoo’ers. And they struck me as entirely Western in their ways, cut from exactly the same sorts of things I’d seen everyday on American college campuses. I think the cause of the day was East Timor, but then again I think it really doesn’t matter. Each cause they take up is but a mere pretext, as we learned when Obama took power and all the hot, 8-years running criticism from the left over everything military simply went “Poof”.
And we learn this again today. All this unrest across every Muslim country now in protest of the USA has seized on an obscure video that nobody (including the protestors) has ever seen. And nobody would have even noticed it, absent the attention given it by the very protests themselves.
The radicals in Islam and the Left have been fellow travelers, each learning from the other, and also with some leadership and membership crossover no doubt. Think of Rachael Corrie, and all these types you see running around campuses with Hezbullah tee shirts on and the like.
Guerilla warfare and terrorism have been enthusiastically embraced by the Left through most of my lifetime. A synchronicity of aims exists between the Leftist radical and the Islamist radical, namely the destruction of traditional Western norms and the power which sustains it.
The Declaration of Co-Dependence: ‘We hold these lies to be self-evident….”
@52: Then again, you don’t solve the “echo chamber” problem by adding a chorus of lunatics to the conversation.
What strikes me as odd is the photo of the blood-stained wall. The finger lines are too clean, too good. I’m too simple-minded to figure the particulars, the imagery just seems contrived and unnecessary.
It does however make for even stronger imagery when compared against the very, very creepy imagery of the Obama flag.
What you see happening in the afpak theatre and elsewhere in the moslem world is the outworking Ayman al-Zawahiri’s belief that jihad should take place in the arab world–not in the west which bin laden wanted. (This is a bit like the argument among communists between Stalin and Trotsky; and also Castro and Che. In all three cases the internationalist lost and died.)
All of the riots around the moslem world are not aimed at the US but rather at any moslem elites that support the USA.
With the Afghan war winding down–the next big target will be Pakistan.
Consider this post from the Long War Journal.
http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2012/09/taliban_release_vide_3.php
The post shows the heads of Pakistani soldiers. They are on display like the heads of trophy deer.
Then read the comments on the same page linked to above and listen to the intelligent pride of the arab minder who brags about the “lions in the caves” of Western Pakistan. He reasons that if the lions of Islam can defeat the USA–then they can defeat India.
What he doesn’t mention is that Pakistan would be a juicier and more logical prize for the jihads–and more in keeping
with Ayman al-Zawahiri’s goals now that Bin Laden is dead.
Just to be certain everyone understands what’s at play — Ayman al-Zawahiri’s brother has already put forward the peace plan.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/09/14/brother_of_al_qaeda_leader_offers_peace_plan
In it you can clearly see that an organization like the ISI and a country organized like Pakistan would not be what the jihadists would want for that part of the world. Never mind the nukes. But of course jihadists would like to have the nukes to point at Saudi Arabia–which is the ultimate goal for Ayman al-Zawahiri’s jihadis — now that bin laden is gone.
The reason for obama’s bowing and scraping to America’s enemies is that like the Jihadis he wants a peace with America enemies so that he would have a free hand to make war on all that he hates about America. Trouble is, things are not working out the way he planned.
64. Richard Cranium; Love the nic!
Adding the occasional lunatic to the echo chamber is like tuned porting for your speakers. It is a cost free way to increase amplitude at a selected freq.
“He reasons that if the lions of Islam can defeat the USA–then they can defeat India.”
Charles, if they have a comments section, I suggest you point out that if his aunt had balls, she would be his uncle. Logic has it’s limitations, or maybe I should say that those using logic have limitations. How many of those ‘Lions of Islam’ ended up as throw rugs?
America went in when we wanted to, we killed those we wanted to, we left when we wanted to. How were we defeated? The fool is seriously delusional.
Those that think we lost in Vietnam need to get a clue. You can find it on Youtube. Search there for Vietnamese Rap. We might have lost the shooting part, but our culture slaughtered them. What I noticed most is how many kids are Euro-asian. Maybe the dick is mightier then the sword?
Charlie surfs now.
Charles @66
FWIW I agree, but I think it more likely -in the short to medium term- that the jihadis want control of Pakistan and its nukes so as to secure a safe haven from which to continue the consolidation of the Ummah into ‘the Caliphate’. Unlike with Afghanistan, Nuclear Pakistan offers the jihadists a real [demonstrated] haven that would be essentially immune to western military or diplomatic intervention…At least until The West regains its self-respect and confidence. If indeed the west can regain its self.
Of course we in the west face our own existential internal struggles. Will a self-confident west reemerge to recognize and respect the legacies of Christendom and the Enlightenment -with their evolved understanding of Life, Liberty, and the Happiness to be had in growing old on ones own porch with the grand-kids running around ones own yard- or will some fundamentally transformed brave new western world more closely resemble the totalitarian endarkenment described in the visions/nightmares of Orwell and Huxley. Which continuum will it be? The one described by Christ Jesus in a society based upon the idea of individual free will, or are we to be finally subsumed into a state-driven moral delusion envisioned and manifested by the likes of Robespierre, Marx, Engels, Stalin, Mussolini, Hitler and Mao?
Anyway, the jihad loses unless we commit cultural suicide by finally surpassing the LD50 of the host of progressive poisons we’ve been imbibing.
New York Times reports: In a show of mass frustration at the armed groups, protesters seized control of several militia headquarters on Friday night and handed them over to Libya’s national army in what appeared to be a coordinated sweep. They also stormed the headquarters of Ansar al-Sharia, a hard-line Islamist militia that has been linked to the attack on the United States Mission in Benghazi that killed the ambassador and three other Americans
CJM -
I went to the site and read the interview. Not a lot of meat on those bones. Commenting on it would give it more credence than it deserves.
Annoy Mouse: Yes
JMH @ 41,
Many share your confusion. I was confounded, too, at first. But then…
It struck me that Americans, and by extension the rest of the America-centric world, are being treated to an elaborate, purposeful charade: We have been ushered into a Victorian theater to watch a didactic fiction.
We are supposed to learn from the stageplay and the presupposed lessons are manifold. First, we are expected to learn to distrust anti-American media products. Global warming scares overlay hyped oil-spills and political trype predominates in the fiction’s rhythmic plots. “Learn from this!” says the didact. Second, we are being conditioned to disregard the Academies’ credentialisms, speech codes and balkanized, victimology nonsense. Learn on!
Third, we are learning first hand that America IS exceptional. We stand alone in opposition to Latinate oppressions of free expression, calls to face quasi-religious inquisitions, and mob rule. Hillary is but a bit-player in this act, but her “road to Damascus” moment with regards to SyriaIranGazaEgyptPalestine is produced belatedly for our consumption. We are being taught something here.
Fourth, we are learning that politics IS theater, not problem solving, in the media age. Who could ever guess that an intellect as dull as Joe Biden’s would ever field the Vice President’s spot on the Democrat(ic) ticket? And, of course, it is inconceivable that a mediocre Chicago race-baiter with no discernible legislative achievements and a “community organizer’s” resume and Marshall Davis’ reference might be the most powerful man in American politics in the real world. So, it has to be fantasy, right?
And Elizabeth Warren’s “Cherokee Heritage?” Fantasy. “Gay Marriage” and Queer “studies,” hitched to a queer cultural Saidism (remember Edward Said’s “Orientalism,” hatched at Princeton and infused into a generation of foreign studies majors? If you ain’t Queer, or Muslim, or a “Womyn,” then you can’t understand and shouldn’t bother looking!)? Fantasy. “Extraordinary Rendition?” “Bushitler?” “We have to pass the bill to know what’s in it?” “Worst economy since Herbert Hoover?” All were fantasy. For us to ponder in toto, to help us to reason our way back to reality.
Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” should cue your memory of the sort of theater we are witnessing right now. Politics…Theater. The Daly Show…News. Donkey’s heads…moonlight. Fairies…news “experts? We live surrounded by fantasists with agendas. Is it so hard to imagine that the past three years have been scripted knowing that we absorb nonsense alongside hard facts regularly, unwittingly and uncritically, and that a simple, scripted, pro-American play might not inhabit the global media effluvium? No, it isn’t if you try.
Wouldn’t it be delightful if the geniuses behind Fast & Furious were caught also shipping weapons into Libya? They might even have produced an argument that they could track weapons to locate the jihadis. The Mexican drug gangs are linked to Chavez and Islamic terrorists, so it would be a logical extension of the policy. We should exhume the chest beating speeches the Democrats made about Reagan and Oliver North shipping guns to Nicaragua and a cake to Tehran during Iran-Contra.
Wretchard, how are we supposed to contact you with complaints about some of the postings that are finding their way on to your board?
Please email me on my posed emal for your guidance.
Alexis, voltaire’s play was criticizing the catholic church through “Le Fanatisme, ou Mahomet le Prophete”, but he couldn’t officially name it, without risking jail, and or different proscriptions
Tarik Ramadan pressed on Geneve Mayor for cancelling the play, folloing that the play in France found troubles to be performed
72. Blast From the Past
You must be listening to the same sources that I am. a virtual conrnucopia of CIA possibilities.
@73
I have to say, cuz I gotta big mouth, that if you have a problem with someone’s post why don’t you call them out and not go crying to the administrator.
not an appropriate figurehead for any worthy cause.
You’ve not read many SCOTUS BOR decisions I take it? (that’s pretty obvious or you’d never write such patent nonsense) Very very few of participants in those cases that define the law’s boundary conditions make admirable poster children. Quite a few are rather reprehensible and vile examples of humanity.
About that “hate video”: was it really?
I’ve seen it: every incident in it is taken from the koran. Yes, portrayed in an insulting way, but how could you Not be insulting to a man who behaved like their prophet did?
And if this Egyptian Christian fellow WAS insulting, maybe, just maybe, this stuff had Something to Do With It: the moslems are murdering his fellow Christians.
From Frontpage Magazine — originally published by Gatestone Institute.
“U.S.-backed rebels are committing Christian genocide in Syria, where they are sacking churches and issuing threats that all Christians will be “cleansed” from rebel-held territory. A mass exodus of thousands of Christians is taking place, even as mainstream Western reporters like Robert Fisk demonize those same Christians for being supportive of the secular regime.
The bloody jihad waged against Nigeria’s Christians, which has seen hundreds killed this year alone, now includes plans to kill Christians with poisoned food, as part of the Islamic organization Boko Haram’s stated goal of purging Nigeria of all Christian presence.
During Egypt’s presidential elections, Al Ahram reported that “the Muslim Brotherhood blockaded entire streets, prevented Copts from voting at gunpoint, and threatened Christian families not to let their children go out and vote” for the secular candidate.
Meanwhile, under President Obama, the U.S. State Department, in an unprecedented move, purged the sections dealing with religious persecution from its recently released Country Reports on Human Rights. Likewise, the Obama administration insists that the Nigerian crisis has nothing to do with religion, even as Obama offered his hearty blessings to Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood president, in the midst of allegations of electoral fraud.
Categorized by theme, June’s assemblage of Muslim persecution of Christians around the world includes (but is not limited to) the following accounts, listed in alphabetical order by country, not severity.
Church Attacks
Egypt: Because many visitors were in attendance, Muslims surrounded a Coptic church during Divine Liturgy “demanding that the visiting Copts leave the church before the completion of prayers, and threatening to burn down the church if their demand was not met.” The priest contacted police asking for aid, only to be told to comply with their demands, “and do not let buses with visitors to come to the church anymore.” Christian worshippers exited halfway through liturgy to jeers outside. As they drove away, Muslims hurled stones at their buses. Also, repairs to a Coptic church that was torched and gutted a year ago by rioting Muslims were woefully inadequate, leaving the congregation with a staggering debt from further necessary repairs.”
[More here: an international roundup of the latest mass murders and persecutions -- http://frontpagemag.com/2012/raymond-ibrahim/muslim-persecution-of-christians-june-2012/ ]
But all our State Dept. and Hillary can whinge about is the video by this poor soul.
Well, well, well. Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, along with Code Pinkos, stirred up the shite in the Middle East to help get the “arab spring” rolling:
http://www.wnd.com/2010/01/120711/
The Left + Islam, again and again.
We know the MSM is in bed with 0bama. All of the MSM reports on Benghazi attack white wash what actually happened. The MSM left out the number of terrorists killed by Navy Seals, Woods and Doherty.
According to Black Five these Navy Seals killed a number of terrorists. But, what happened to the bodies of the dead terrorists?
Did the Libyan government cover up their removal? If so there was collusion between the Libyan government and the terrorists.
Terrorists body’s usually contain important information about the actual individuals and who was leading them. At the very least they bodies could be identified (and prior movements could be traced).
Even if the terrorists where wounded they would probably have to go to a hospital. The Hospital staff would know about them (nationality, language spoken and accents).
Where are the dead terrorist’s bodies?
http://www.blackfive.net/main/2012/09/when-you-find-yourself-in-a-firefight.html
I have thought of another possibility: No terrorists were killed. But that is doubtful.
Josh @2 – “It’s self-evident” is just the latest verbal shellac by the Left to smooth over the bumps reality keeps throwing before them. William F. Buckley pointed out this trend years ago, in his 1977 essay on that grande menteuse Lillian Hellman. In her case, the telltale slug trail of mendacity was the phrase “Facts are facts”. Buckley described this as “Like the Daily World’s ritual introduction of a lie: “As is well known . . .”” But the Left has an ever-growing repertoire of such ritual incantations; they change with the political season. “Make no mistake” is another one.
On Fox News this morning they are pointing out a curious fact. Of Administration senior officials, only Hillary Clinton has outright called the Benghazi attack a clear act of terrorism. As Rush pointed out yesterday, Obama was still promoting the Video Outrage Theory.
Aside from illustrating a totally inept Foreign Policy, calling the attacks terrorism shows that the Democrat “Law Enforcement” approach has broken down completely. They must read too many comic books. You take out The Joker, Dr. Doom, The Goblin, The Penguin, Doctor Octopus, or the super-villain de jour and it’s all over; you look at the advertisements for the X-ray glasses on the back cover. The real world is not so neat and simple. As Wretchard has said more than once, you never have to stop taking out the trash.
Rumsfeld’s “long hard slog” is back.
Flickin’ from station to station doing the usual rounds and it is non-stop Romney bashing. Really shameful. It is also amazing the level of complicity. TWANLOC
Alexis @45 – “The film’s crudity is reminiscent of the “Thousand and One Nights” and “The Canterbury Tales” – it aims an audience of illiterate villagers and slum dwellers with medieval minds.”
Splf…khht…wh…wh…what??
“The Canterbury Tales”? Crude? Illiterate…slum…medieval minds…?
I can’t be understanding you correctly. Is there some movie version of ‘The Canterbury Tales’ that fits this description? Because you can’t be such a barbarian as to be talking about Chaucer’s poetry. There are low jokes in Shakespeare too, it’s called “crowd-pleasing”. It’s hardly for the degenerate culture of the 21st century to scoff at the “crudeness” of the classics.
62. Cowboy
Thanks for your insight and agree wholeheartedly. You mentioned Rachael Corrie. I have actually met her mother, sister and cousin at some rallies. There were some lying liberal “Jews” there too.
I swear, those “Jews” who ally themselves with the Left/Palestinians must be suicidal!
OT, interesting developments in Libya.
m out
Egypt: Death Penalty for Americans Who Blaspheme Mohammad!
The Egyptian prosecutor’s office said in a statement that the accused, which includes the film’s alleged producer, face charges of harming national unity…
Get used to the phrases “harming national unity” or “threat to public order” because we will start seeing them here in the not too distant future to punish political heretics and push dissenting voices out of the public square.
We are already seeing only a slightly less aggressive form of control in the so called speech codes that permeate academia. The Left gets away with it because normal due process does not apply in academia.
Existing Hate Speech laws are the inroad for dissolving the 1st Amendment within the public square. In Canada and Europe it is already illegal to teach or preach that homosexuality is a disorder. Nobody is being killed for it but being bankrupted and driven out of your profession is a damn good proxy for civil death.
A universal rule of Leftism everywhere and for all time is that dissenting voices which challenge the virtue of the regime only emanate from criminals and crazy people.
Dr. Mabuse/84: what you said. Chaucer was a genius.
Sgian Dubh 75,
No, honestly I don’t. While I do agree that the Administration sending poorly controlled weapons into Libya would be so stupid and arrogant as to be possible given their other outrages, and given that it would show the same mentality that produced F&F, and even that if my speculation proved true I would be outraged but not shocked, my comment was based on no evidence and is merely a theoretical construct. Now such constructs or theories are necessary in science so you can formulate a plan for further research. They are not proof. Internet sites that confuse speculation of evidence that would be found if a theory was correct with the real thing serve to discredit the hunt for the truth. We do need journalists citizens and Congress investigating to determine if a scenario such as I proposed could exist. One problem with easily discredited conspiracy advocates on the Internet is that they can be used by malefactors to discourage investigation and cover up real crimes.
The Ambassador to Libya was almost certainly not a CIA officer. He was the quintessential State Department gay Arabist. As such he may have been aware of operations but he did not manage them, any more than the US Ambassador to Mexico would have been the point man for Fast & Furious. If there are cables between the US Embassy and the Amateur Hour Crew back in Foggy Bottom and the White House detailing misconduct or stupidity we want that pursued. My point about the conduct of the Democrats during Iran Contra could prove valuable when they try to nail down a can of worms, if any is discovered.
Lending some credence to the argument that they can be this arrogant and stupid and that therefor a possibility of misconduct in how the US related to and supported dangerous groups in Libya is not only the fact that they did something in Mexico. Today there is a story that the pig’s breakfast party with prostitutes in Columbia not only involved the Secret Service but at least one White House Staffer.
How can anyone call the “Thousand and One Nights” crude entertainment? Have you seen the silent version of the “Thief of Baghdad?” Both Chaucer and the Nights have been inspirational for film and stage.
3/4
By crying “Wolf!” everytime Romney breathes, the MSM will become unable to distinguish real gaffes. The result is either the public tuning it out completely or if they do pay attention, they will figure Romney, the buffoon and idiot, has zero chance in the debates. The public assumed Jimmy Carter would wipe the floor with the senile idiot Ronald Reagan. Once the public found him competent, they could safely vote for change.
bftp @ 88: He was the quintessential State Department gay Arabist.
LOL. Serving the POTUS who is the quintessential gay pseudo-Muslim-dhimmi Kenyan pothead affirmative action socialist Alinskyite golfer.
Things are always getting more like they always were, then they’ve ever been.
BUT I warn again, there is some chance that Stevens was simply brave and dutiful and/or foolish and went to Benghazi fully aware of the threats because he’s been traveling in dubious Arab lands for his whole career, that that’s what his job is. In fact, it’s yet one more mark of the gross incompetence of Hildabeast and all about her that they haven’t advanced this theory, yet. I suspect they will. And Hillary, just send payment for my advice here to wretchard @ pjm, to help support the blog. Thanks ever so much.
Watching the TV networks I see that the LSM has redefined fair and balanced reporting as:
“I didn’t say it was Romney’s fault, I said I was blaming Romney.”
76. Ashen
@73
I have to say, cuz I gotta big mouth, that if you have a problem with someone’s post why don’t you call them out and not go crying to the administrator.
That’s a heck of a good idea, even coming from a self-described big mouthed Jackleg.
80. T2costkeeper
Where are the dead terrorist’s bodies?
“They pick them up. They do that.”
89. dlsada
Fascinating to me is that the RINOs in charge decided to pick Romney because in comparison to all the other candidates, he was the one that was “squeaky clean” and unassailable.
But the Dems tricked the ever-out maneuvered Repubs and made stuff up that took even longer to debunk than a known “chink in the nominee’s armour.”
The folk who win the street fight will never be the elegant and well-groomed and tactically savvy croquet team.