Embassy protests - Middle East
 

There are so many levels of issues here:

1) Freedom of Speech- for the film maker, for the demonstrators- are hate films ok? Would protests be ok without violence? Is this really about the film or is that an excuse to express their hatred of the US?

2) Government vs. citizens- Egyptian and Libyan governments have condemned the protests, provided security, Libya is a new democracy, protests are now happening in Yemen as well.

3) Significance of timing? - September 11th? In the middle of an election?

4) Politicizing the event-our presidential election- Someone from the Libyan embassy (employee) tweeted a statement before the protest became violent and Chris Stevens was killed, Romney criticized the Obama administration for being "soft" based on that tweeted statement, official statements from Obama and Hilary Clinton were stronger.

5) How do we respond? When it is a minority group of rebels and not a government supported action, how do we respond? This has been the challenge since the War on Terror began. And it's the biggest challenge we face, IMHO.

If the alleged film (I understand it is somewhat dubious in provenance) is the equivalent of yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater without there being any fire and someone was injured/killed then it is not considered protected First Amendment speech.

1) Freedom of Speech- I don't pretend to know what a bunch of animals think. I doubt many of them at all saw the video. That said, if you think it's okay to murder just because you've been offended religiously, you're an animal that deserves to be put down. We're not going to reason with someone like that. We're not going to satisfy them that we're good and decent people. I've seen parts of the video. It exploits racial stereotypes and are just generally a stupid movie. I'm kind of surprised it cost $5MM to produce. That said, curtailing the rights of Americans to speak their mind, even if they're being ridiculous is not something I'm willing to give up if the excuse is that someone thousands of miles away will have a ridiculous overreaction. They need to change. Not us.

2) Government vs. citizens- No comment

3) Significance of timing? No comment

4) Politicizing the event-our presidential election- The posturing on both sides is just silly season election year crap. I'm just glad no one is apologizing for the video.

5) How do we respond? Hopefully, we just support the governments of these respective countries in bringing these folks to justice.

Wow. Just.. wow. You just went too far in my book...


However, I do agree with you on how the US government needs to take action.. to support those counties in bringing those people to justice.

That is the behavior of a civilized nation, not all of our fellow citizens are civilized and they clamor for an "eye for an eye" or more. As for me, I refuse to descend to that level, the level of the animals that killed our diplomats. Those are not even good Moslems, so they do not deserve even our regard.

So if you commit murder because you've been religiously offended, what is the proper sanction for that?

Keep in mind, these are all countries with a long and storied tradition of capital punishment [for 12-year-old rape victims].

I hope we remember that it was not "Libya" who attacked the embassy, but a group of people very likely stirred up by outside extremist influences (and we have plenty of our own extremist pot stirrers here). Many, many Libyans tried to protect the embassy and its staff during the attack.

I found this article interesting:http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/0...i-and-Benghazi

I never said their actions weren't horrible, so don't put words in my mouth. I said that in my opinion saying people deserve to be put down like animals, is going to far.

This!

Pot/kettle. I never said you said that.

Well then, what should happen? These are countries with storied pasts of capital punishment. You think a lesser sentence than death is appropriate for killing a U.S. Ambassador?

We also have a storied past of capital punishment.

Salem Witch Trials and miscellaneous 19th century goings-on, we have a pretty storied past of allowing due process and not, for example, executing rape victims. I'm not at all bashful about saying that any culture which condones that sort of thing is savage and should be treated as such.

I must say I was really bothered by the Romney posturing. Here's what I said on my Facebook page

Adding to the list of things about living in Dubai that changed my life is getting to know my Consul General personally. Those people protect us as Americans and their role is invaluable. Plus they are real people with real lives. Using the death of someone who was undoubtedly the friend of a friend of mine as a tool to try to make the Commander in Chief look bad is really uncool and most definitely not presidential.

But I think how this could wash out in the end is this: the US needs a strong ally in North Africa. It has traditionally been Egypt, and while it would be really helpful to have Egypt as a favored ally due to it's common border with Israel, Libya could fill a lot of that void. Libya jumped in and apologized on behalf of some lunatics in their fringes. Egypt did nothing by way of apology for violence that also happened there. Egypt has a lot more to lose by losing us - tourism is about all they have left and I can tell you Americans aren't going anywhere near Egypt right now, even though the good parts of the country are perfectly safe - and Libya doesn't have nearly as much to gain from our friendship. They have oil, but we don't get our oil from there so us not liking them doesn't exactly keep their oil in the ground. But I think Libya will start popping up on people's radar as a vacation destination, it will start popping up on Mediterranean cruise routes, businesses will start opening offices there, and Americans will suddenly start finding themselves living the expat life in Libya. In otherwords, I think Libya will make lemonade out of this situation and Egypt will have a pile of rotten fruit. But that's me, and only time will tell!

I'm glad you chimed in, DubaiSis. I was wondering whether these kinds of incidents make you nervous.

Since I oppose the death penalty, that would be life in prison. And I can't imagine prison in Libya (or many other non-first world countries) being very bearable.

They do make me nervous. And while I'm itchy about all dogmatic religions, it bugs me when people completely misinterpret Islam. It is, on its face, very similar to pre-Vatican II Catholicism. So this kind of press starts bringing out the crazies who start blaming Muslims for everything that is wrong in the world.
A good explanation I like about Islam is this: it is 600 years younger than Christianity. Compare Islam now to the Christianity of 600 years ago, and they are further ahead in terms of women's rights, human rights and general nuttiness. Does that let them off the hook for the anti-feminist stuff they do now? Of course not. But through that filter at least it makes a certain amount of sense.

And you've never met a culture as fully absorbed in conspiracy theory as the Arabs. We know that this video, that was released only on the web as far as I can tell, has nothing to do with the American government or the vast majority of the American people. But a lot of people in Libya and Egypt could easily be talked into believing that's a likely story. Not understanding what freedom of the press really means, they wouldn't believe that the government didn't have any level of oversight.

What I would like people to do is just turn off the TV. You're getting very skewed information (the "huge" crowd of American supporters appeared to me to be about 20 people, and the "huge" crowd in Egypt was bigger than that, but by no means a Cairo-sized demonstration), and unless you have a direct reason to care, all you're going to get is frustrated from misleading information. And the next thing I'd like you to do is travel the world. It will change how you view all of these incidents and will give you a lot more sympathy for people who live differently from you.