The events in Libya attacking an embassy and killing some of its inhabitant simply for a stupid movie is not only a heinous act and completely inhuman, but does Islam a complete injustice. Allah and His Prophet do NOT need anyone’s help and assistance, thank you very much, so keep your violence and your disgraceful attitudes and criminal behaviour out of peoples’ lives.
My condolences to the family of Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and all of those who died in this heinous act, and my sympathies are with those who suffered from this in any way. To those who perpetrated this act do get my complete and unfiltered condemnation.
Comments
Being able to laugh off a harmless insult is a mark of maturity and confidence…two traits that Arabs as a civilization severely lack, as these recent tragic events have proved.
The film being protested is disgusting and hateful, but murdering innocent people in response is far worse. What could have been an obscure piece of bigotry for internet islamophobes to obsess over is now being publicized on international news channels for all to see, and had its point proven for it.
I used to furiously defend my Muslim and Arab culture against accusations of hate and terrorism, but it’s becoming increasingly difficult to blame the rest of the world for seeing us as a bunch of angry violent manchildren.
Ambassador Stevens went to Libya two years ago to support the “Arab Spring” rebels in overthrowing Kaddafy. His reward was to be murdered by the very Muslims he helped. I can’t say that I’m surprised nor shocked. This is what Muslims do. Stevens was asphyxiated, an IT staffer was shot, and two Marine guards were shot. Then Stevens body was dragged through the streets of Benghazi in triumph, because that is also what Muslim savages do.
In Iraq, we overthrew a Muslim tyrant with military force, which brought universal condemnation of Muslims. In Egypt, we sat it out and let the rebels take down a Muslim tyrant, which brought the universal condemnation of Muslims. In Tripoli, we gave enough air support to tip the balance in favor of the rebels, who overthrew a Muslim tyrant, which now brings universal condemnation of Muslims.
It doesn’t matter if you treat Muslims good, evil, or indifferently. No matter what you do, Muslims will hate you and seek to murder you out of sheer bigotry. Yesterday, most of America watched documentaries about Sep 11, saw the video of people leaping to their deaths. New accounts are made public of people seeing the bodies of fifty people in the courtyard, smashed from their hundred story fall. One guy tells of seeing a young woman’s head there. There are photos of streets near the WTC with bits of flesh strewn over them. Now this follows.
Islam is not above criticism. It richly deserves ridicule. It has earned our contempt with its insane violence.
Most Americans never heard of this private movie which Muslims have used as an excuse to go on another killing spree. However, we’re not about to give up our freedom of speech to satisfy Muslim savages who wish to impose a totalitarian state.
This goes to harden America further against Muslims and the Muslim nations, who are at best, false allies. Even the naive multi-culti lefties are hard put to defend this latest outrage.
Most Americans are persuaded that Muslims are our enemies. This new atrocity brings the holdouts over into the anti-Muslim camp.
With all the violence perpetrated by fellow Muslims, regardless of what colour we paint them by, I’m out of excuses. Something very drastic and fundamental must change in how we interpret our religion for us not to continue to have morons continue their massacres in its name.
This photo sums up all that is wrong with Islam and Muslim culture:
http://www.jammiewf.com/2012/photo-of-the-day-2/
Steve, this pic might explain the origin of the one you found. http://img818.imageshack.us/img818/1554/chrismerrett.png
Blaming these attacks on some unspecified Other is the same lame blame shifting the Muslims always do. Did the Jews put that beheading sign in that Muslim child’s hands? Why don’t you Muslims man up to your crimes instead of making up wild excuses and fictions to lay the blame elsewhere?
A digital image isn’t convincing proof either way these days, Stevie. Who but an imaging expert is to say the image I sent you was true or false?
Sadly the sign does not appear to photoshopped.
http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/behead-sign-child-deemed-safe-as-mother-talks-to-police-20120918-26368.html
So the image is real? Damn, those Aussie Lebs are going off the rails. That’s a family to watch …
Paul Brittan, Uk’s leading forensic psychiatrist, in his book ‘The Jigsaw Man’ states that in a population of 65 million (UK) it is highly probable that there are at least 3 couples engaged in and perpetrating serial murder.
“Muslims” number in excess of one billion, it is therefore inevitable that a number engage in murder regardless of whatever warped reasoning they adhere to. Steve’s insistence that ‘Muslims’ ,period, are to blame is misleading and trammels together all of that faith who, clearly, are innocent. I suppose his emotional reaction is understandable but I would warn him that his generalization comes from the same place as the murderers who try to justify their own emotional excesses with the same reactive fervor. “All of America is to blame for this blasphemy!! Let’s kill Americans!!” Clearly a psychotic outburst that exploits the pockets of intolerance in Islam, ignored for the most part by clear thinking Muslims.
Mahmoods assertion that Islam does not need defending may be true but it won’t find any traction among the Ummah. Without exception, the people who feel compelled to act as Islams champions, by their very nature, are deaf to logic and fraternity. To try and reason with them is frustrating in the extreme and generally stiffens their resolve to preserve their prejudice and ignorance. I know, I’ve tried.
Typically, an unimpressive stab at the body of Islam has resulted in a predicable over-reaction by that body’s wide eyed reactionaries.
Salman Rushdie, Danish Cartoons, Koran burning pastor and now this were all given energy and voice by the Muslim reaction to them, NOT, the quality or voracity of the pieces themselves.
This displays deep ignorance of media, communications, the internet, global marketing and more importantly…the nature of humans today.
Islam is increasingly isolating those followers who would intelligently defend it in today s world, by not condemning in the strongest religious terms, those who would exploit it’s more ‘dated’ tenets.
The Islamic world is populated, for the most part, by undereducated people who treasure their piety or fear God or both. To that end, the world is in need of a vital ‘interface’ between those who see a supernatural future, as defined in the Koran, and those who (possible due to time) have a patently terrestrial perspective. To further add tiers of complexity, Islam does not have a single head. Unlike Catholicism or the Church of England. Since the revelation a number of schisms have occurred resulting in divisions within divisions. As such Islam is a multi-headed entity that, in my experience, does not speak with one voice. This can be clearly seen in the Islamic banking world and the variety of interpretations of Sharia from cleric to cleric.
Within the Islamic world great fear exists at questioning, criticizing and challenging the moral fabric of the revealed word and overcoming that fear should be a priority to grounded individuals who see greater danger in ignoring it.
On the conspiracy theory that Muslims are being prodded in order to “get used” to the idea that Islam can and should be questioned? Well, maybe, but so what? An ideology this old with a rich history behind it need not fear criticism or for that matter down right lies.
I mourn every life lost, where religious ideology is carelessly thrown, by way of some tatty reasoning.
I’m saddened by the fear that Islam has been portrayed in, and I urge every Islamic Cleric of conscience, tolerance, love and a desire for the longevity of this religion, to renounce all violence and condemn to hell, those that would bastardize its’ most important premise of peace.
Time moves slowly in the hearts of the surrendered.
Pity.
Nader,
Your rebuttal is a fine example of taqqiya. Do even you believe the nonsense you are spouting here? If Islamic terrorism is merely the expression of the small number of psychopathic murderers found in every population, why are the majority of terrorists in the world Muslim?
Muslim terrorists always begin in a mosque, are supported by Muslim clergy and/or Islamic governments, and are celebrated by the Muslim world. Their bloody murders are endorsed by the Koran. Muslim terrorists follow the example of Mohammed, the perfect Muslim, who freely murdered non-Muslims with his own hand and assassinated critics.
There are moderate Muslims who disapprove of Islamic terror, but they are not driving the bus. They are a tiny minority, overriden by the radical majority who can cite suras to back their violent program. The reason why the majority of Muslims are uneducated is that Islam keeps them ignorant, demands that they stay ignorant.
It is futile to ask Muslims to renounce violence because violence is the core of Islam. To renounce violence is to renounce the Koran. It would renounce the last demand of Mohammed to fight every man until all the world until Islam is supreme.
Islam is irredeemably violent and backward. It can not be reformed. Our best hope is that it dies out, crowded out by the modern world, impoverished when the oil runs out, tossed in the dustbin of history like the Hashishin.
I found this. I’m not judging or anything, but I read it and felt upset.
http://myriamfrancoiscerrah.wordpress.com/2012/09/14/demonstrating-for-dignity-why-are-muslims-so-enraged/
I found this. I’m not judging or anything, but I read it and it moved me.
http://myriamfrancoiscerrah.wordpress.com/2012/09/14/demonstrating-for-dignity-why-are-muslims-so-enraged/
RIP Christopher Stephens, the other 3 Americans (whose names I don’t know) and the 10 Libyans who died trying to defend them (who a lot of people don’t even know about).
Steve.
Thanks for reading my posting.
You ask..”Why are the majority of terrorists in the world Muslims?”
It’s a fair question and an important one.
Firstly we must ask what is the motive.
If it were simply the summary spread of Islam by violent means, it would have been overt for over 1,400 years.That has not been the case. Rather, Arab expansionism has been punctuated by long periods of peace, prosperity, art, science and religious tolerance. Spain springs immediately to mind.
The rise of Arabs was due largely to the vacuum created by the collapse of the Roman and Persian empires. Their expansion was one in which Islam was a vital tool to the subjugation of the conquered as it, along with military might, offered moral justification and a book of Abraham that would not be unfamiliar to those in the Levant and North Africa or indeed, Arabia.
To that end, politics is the motive.
That Islam is a tool of politics won’t surprise anyone, but in examining the political reasons for ‘Islamic’ terrorism we can perhaps understand why Islam is solicited to provide moral justification.
Islam does not drive political change, the normal stuff does, poverty, loss of work, distribution of wealth, homes etc.
The crunch comes when those legitimate concerns are expressed in religions intolerance.
Your hope that the world will crowd out Islam in time, may come to fruition, but not in our lifetimes.
I would advocate a movement to separate mosque and state in order that no politically motivated ambition could ever be realized with apologist rhetoric.
You say “Islam keeps its’ followers undereducated” No. That’s just bluster. To start with, any goat herd would know that murder, assassination and fear are not tools usually regarded as effective, when trying to promote an ideology. No Muslim in the world is under any illusion as to how damaged the name of Islam has become at the hands of radicals.
Again I would ask you to look to the politics.
The more Muslims feel politically subjugated, the faster the rise of ‘Islamic’ terrorism. The correlation is blatant.
You are aware that many Arabs feel that their voices have been muffled by the U.S.’s alignment with Arab regimes, who without support from the U.S. may have made compromise long ago.
Question: If the Arab world had emerged from 1900, with leadership committed to the benefit and improvement of that society, without the establishment of Israel, without Britain and France imposing control of Suez, without major Western Corps exploiting oil reserves, without the British establishment of Iraq, Jordan and the UAE, without American support for the Shah….I could go on….in other words, if we had been allowed to organically emerge and we had a society, obviously not perfect, but of our own making…..would we still see religious abuse, as we do today?
I firmly believe that the historical burden of responsibility lies with the colonists, who let’s face it, only left here in 1971 in the obvious form of colonists, but who today continue to have huge influence on our day to day lives.
You wouldn’t put up with it, why are we expected to?
Nader
The Europeans also emerged from two terrible wars, with borders shifted, lands stolen from their original citizens, brutal dictatorships, millions dead, million more refugees and so on … and DID NOT fall into religious extremism. Same for Japan (two rather nasty bombs). To put the burden primarily on the colonials is specious.
The religious/sectarian/ethnic divides in the middle east existed long before the Euros showed up. The Euro presence was quite brief compared to centuries of Ottoman hegemony.
Toady,
I agree it is specious to blame the colonials, but I’m not trying to level blame. I want to try to understand the political motivations for events/actions/atrocities. My point is that Islam is almost incidental to the politics. I want to separate the policy from the theology.
Arabs almost exclusively answer a political challenge with a religious rebuttal. Why? because the vehicles for debate and open inquiry are all but absent from our societies. The one institution that offers a political medium also happens to be the one most open to interpretation and abuse. This is the issue of our times and you all seem absorbed with the religious side and its’ abuse rather than what lies beneath the religion.
ethnic intolerance and sectarianism are made worse by political inexpediency.
Also true, the European presence here was relatively short. I make reference to it simply as the last interference in our own affairs.
And in other news, the grounds of the Syrian embassy, whose government has killed some 20,000 people recently, remained empty of protestors.
After the Sep 11 attacks, weepy, whiny liberals wondered why do they hate us and searched for justification for the attacks. There were even protests in favor of Islam.
That’s all over. Eleven years of terror attacks has turned America hard against Islam and Muslims. Here is a video that explains the American and Western attitude now:
http://maggiesfarm.anotherdotcom.com/archives/20638-A-word-to-rioting-Muslims.html
Due to numerous terror plots uncovered in Europe against Europeans, Europeans aren’t that friendly either to Islam.
Hi Steve,
While you’re back on 9/11, could you please explain to us clueless non-Americans why it was that Iraq and Afghanistan have been attacked by US forces and uncounted thousands of civilians in these countries killed, when none of the hijackers of the planes were from Iraq or Afghanistan?
Anonny,
I would be ever so happy to clue you in. If you may remember, the Sep 11 attacks were staged from Afghanistan, a country Bin Laden had basically bought off cheap to make his base. Had we not invaded and cleaned out Al Qaeda and its Taliban hosts, Bin Laden would have continued to launch attacks from there, as opposed to being fish food on the bottom of the ocean, which we prefer.
Perhaps the news did not reach you about Saddam’s Iraq, either, which had violated the peace terms of the first Iraq war some nineteen times. It put a bounty on the capture or killing of our military members. It shot hundreds of surface-to-air missiles at our aircraft, incompetently, I’m glad to say. It attempted to assassinate former President Bush with a car bomb in an attempt to intimidate the US. Each is a quite satisfactory casus belli, which obviously went down the Muslim memory hole to disappear.
You see, Anonny, if you attack us, we attack back. My advice is to not launch suicide jets into America and don’t shoot missiles at our aircraft. Such actions guarantee bad outcomes for you.
Ah yes, Bin Laden masterminded it all from his cave while on dialysis. Ok, ok … Sad that you weren’t actually sending people in to find him like Barack Hussein eventually did. No, you had to use fuel-air bombs instead, the ‘carpet of bombs’ your leaders threatened Taliban reps with before 911 happened. And look at Afghanistan now. With all the dead and bereaved families you made, isn’t it just safer than ever? 😉
As for Iraq, you had been at war with Saddam for more than a decade, targeting the infrastructure and civilians, mostly. I should have thought about that a little harder. Madeleine Albrecht (yes, that’s her original surname) said that 500000 dead children were worth it on 60 Minutes. From the tone of your argument, I’m assuming you concur.
Interesting that the reasons you proffer weren’t cited by your fratboy-in-chief. Couldn’t he remember them? The world got a load of nonsense about AlQaeda in Iraq and WMDs instead. Why was that? Was Iran meant to get Iraq after all?
Anonny,
Bin Laden directed the Sep 11 attacks. If you deny that, you are a fool or a liar. The Middle East is chock full of them. What’s one more?
Bin Laden was not on dialysis. The search for him started under Bush. There was no time when the US was not looking for him. There were no “fuel-bombs” used in Afghanistan (nor fuel air bombs). There was no carpet bombing nor has there been any carpet bombing of anywhere since WWII.
In Iraq, it was the insurgents, particularly the Salafis, who targeted the infrastructure and civilians. It wasn’t Americans driving truck bombs into crowded souks. A half million children did not die in Iraq during the embargo. What civilians died during the embargo died because the goods the UN allowed in, Saddam sold on the black market. There really was an Al Qaeda in Iraq under Zarqawi and we have the snuff videos to prove it. There were also hundreds of WMDs. Google “500 WMD” and see what you find.
Congratulations, Anonny. Everything you claim in your short post is provably wrong. If a monkey typed a post, you’d expect him to type one right thing by chance. The bucket of nonsense you poured into your computer is typical of the ignorant propaganda that dumb as dirt Muslims take as fact. And that’s why most Westerners don’t respect Muslims nor much care what they say anymore. We know it’s all bullshit.
Stevie,
Re: WMDs:
” .. This is true even considering any degradation of the chemical agents that may have occurred …” said Colonel John Chu in 2006. These were the expired gases sold to them years ago by people who didn’t have the guts to show us the receipts and which had decayed beyond all usefulness and were ‘found’ by a bunch of hucksters clutching at straws.
Re: AlQaida in Iraq. Zarqawi’s boys declared themselves in … 2004. That’s AFTER the invasion you ignorant blowhard! Your media tells us he first went to Iraq AFTER the invasion of Afghanistan. That’s blowback, Steve.
Re: Thermobaric (that’s fuel-air to you, Stevie) bombs in Afghanistan, the below is quite clear:
“According to UK Ministry of Defence, British military forces have also used thermobaric weapons in their AGM-114N Hellfire missiles (carried by Apache helicopters and UAVs) against the Taliban in the War in Afghanistan.[58]
The US military also used thermobaric weapons in Afghanistan. On 3 March 2002, a single 2,000 lb (910 kg) laser guided thermobaric bomb was used by the US army against cave complexes in which Al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters had taken refuge in the Gardez region of Afghanistan.[59][60] The SMAW-NE was used by the US Marines during the First Battle of Fallujah and Second Battle of Fallujah.”
As for carpet-bombing, I said it was threatened, not that it took place.
Half a million children DID die during the embargo, otherwise your secretary of state Madeleine Albright would have disputed or at least questioned the figure. She merely said “yes” when asked on 60 minutes if that figure was worth it.
The rest of your post is ad hominem sulking. “Fool”, “dumb as dirt” and “Monkey” obviously constitute discourse in your circles. It’s ok to be bitter, I guess. Your culture is not at its peak right now and it’s easier to blame the other.
Stevie,
Re: WMDs:
” .. This is true even considering any degradation of the chemical agents that may have occurred …” said Colonel John Chu in 2006. These were the expired gases sold to them years ago by people who didn’t have the guts to show us the receipts and which had decayed beyond all usefulness and were ‘found’ by a bunch of hucksters clutching at straws.
Re: AlQaida in Iraq. Zarqawi’s boys declared themselves in … 2004. That’s AFTER the invasion you ignorant blowhard! Your media tells us he first went to Iraq AFTER the invasion of Afghanistan. That’s blowback, Steve.
Re: Thermobaric (that’s fuel-air to you, Stevie) bombs in Afghanistan, the below is quite clear:
“According to UK Ministry of Defence, British military forces have also used thermobaric weapons in their AGM-114N Hellfire missiles (carried by Apache helicopters and UAVs) against the Taliban in the War in Afghanistan.[58]
The US military also used thermobaric weapons in Afghanistan. On 3 March 2002, a single 2,000 lb (910 kg) laser guided thermobaric bomb was used by the US army against cave complexes in which Al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters had taken refuge in the Gardez region of Afghanistan.[59][60] The SMAW-NE was used by the US Marines during the First Battle of Fallujah and Second Battle of Fallujah.”
As for carpet-bombing, I said it was threatened, not that it took place.
Half a million children DID die during the embargo, otherwise your secretary of state Madeleine Albright would have disputed or at least questioned the figure. She merely said “yes” when asked on 60 minutes if that figure was worth it.
The rest of your post is ad hominem sulking. “Fool”, “dumb as dirt” and “Monkey” obviously constitute discourse in your circles. It’s ok to be bitter, I guess. Your culture is not at its peak right now and it’s easier to blame the other.
I note that the majority of contributors to Mahmoods Blog, try to be courteous and honest in their postings about the whys and wherefores of what effects us nowadays. In those posts Bahrainis and other Arabs have conceded and admitted considerable failings in our systems of governance, individual rights, judicial processes and general details of life,which is a positive thing, although difficult and painful sometimes.
However, the same is rarely, if at all, uttered by Steve The American who makes no admission or concession in respect of the USA and her foreign policy. In part it’s because, as a representative of the far right, he hates limp wristed liberals almost as much as he does Arabs! The Right does not compromise or empathize with others. It is the rhetoric of domination and subjugation. The warped belief that he stands for the moral right, heightens his outrage and fuels his prejudice. In many ways he represents the true America. Unashamed, morally superior, loudly xenophobic, aggressive and entirely unwilling to embrace diversity of opinion.
I urge you all to know him for what he is. A man trapped by his own bigotry and inability to advance the American cause through reason and compromise. He would be an embarrassment to any administration trying to resolve and heal Middle Eastern issues through dialogue and diplomacy. That said, note him well, because his country is littered with such as he. That ilk would have no hesitation in wiping us from the face of the earth in order to eradicate the rogue element among us. They do not see us as human. TO them that’s vital. Doing so risks hesitation at the trigger. They view us as a blight on humanity that needs urgent eradication.
It’s interesting that his posts always ejaculate the same impotent seed. The theme is constant as is the delivery. In the ,how many years?, he has been a contributor his position has remained the same, or even hardened, to the plight of the modern Arab world, but, and this is crucial, never never offering any concession or softening of position nor ever responding to anyone, save, to personally attack them.
What Steve the American has come to represent, on this site, is The America that all thinking Americans want to avoid at all costs. In time, Steve the American will become a caricature of that nation, if he isn’t already . A curiosity or freak of Nature, that will have future Americans scratching their heads and wondering how such as he could ever have had a voice, and marveling at the tolerance of an abused race, that, for a change, was not the Jews.
Rock on Stevie!
Nader,
Your grievances are mostly without merit. I have indeed admitted America’s faults, which you can find by reviewing the many threads here where I’ve commented. There is no heaven on Earth where human perfection has been achieved. The best you can do is to constantly self-correct when errors are discovered. This is in contrast with the Arab Muslim approach, which is to constantly cover up and deny when errors are discovered.
That said, I will slap down hard the many ridiculous criticisms of America floated by bigoted and ignorant Muslims. For example, your fervent assertion that America is carpet bombing anything anywhere.
Your problem, Nader, is that you expect me to accomodate your nonsense and when I don’t, you consider it racism or bigotry or jingoism or whatever. This is projection. Since you form your opinion based on the usual Arab Muslim racism and bigotry, you assume that’s how the rest of the world works. It doesn’t. Also, being polite about false criticisms of America from Arab Muslims is taken as weakness to be exploited. My courtesy toward such criticism ended at 9 AM, Tuesday, Sep 11, 2001.
I have no vision of annihilating the Arabs or Muslims. I have no mandate in heaven to destroy those of other races and religions, as Muslim Arabs do. Your accusation that I do is another example of you being unable to think outside your Arab Muslim box.
My vision of the future is one of tolerance, free minds, free markets, and democracy. I’d like to see a world that trades and visits one another without murdering for their religion. I want a world where everyone is engaged in peaceful commerce with each other and gets rich.
All of this is in opposition to the Muslim agenda which declares war against the world, wants to steal their land and belongings, and kill or enslave them. That vision will be defeated.
I read where the crazy ass Muslim fundamentalists of Bahrain turned out to riot against Kim Kardashian’s visit to Manama. Finally, a raging, idiotic, fevered Muslim riot I can support.