It wasn't just a movie.
It was less than a year ago that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was videotaped gleefully laughing at the brutal death of then-Libyan leader Gaddafi. "We came, we saw, he died!" giggled the Secretary of State like a drunk school girl on the sidelines of a national television interview.
It was, in large part, the military intervention of the US that brought about Gaddafi's death and the "liberation" of Libya. Gaddafi was evil. He had people tortured and had opponents killed. He was a dictator. The common wisdom on the Internet, and inside the State Department, is that while "unfortunate," a guy like Gaddafi had it coming. The same logic applied to the US' gunning down of bin Laden and our drone killings of any number of terrorist celebs, including several American citizens in Yemen.
With the tragic news that US Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens and several other Americans were killed in an attack on the American Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, one wonders if Hillary is still laughing.
It appears that the Ambassador was in Benghazi for the ribbon-cutting for an "American Corner." An American Corner is, in State's own words, a "friendly, accessible space, open to the public, which provides current and reliable information about the United States through bilingual book and magazine collections, films and documentaries, poster exhibitions, and guides for research on the United States." Ironic of course that Ambassador Stevens and his people died in what was nothing more than a propaganda gesture, a Corner that says happy things about America so that Libyans will love us. As if books and magazine could erase a policy of violence and killing by the US across the Middle East.
I mean no disrespect to the dead, and mourn with their loved ones. A few years ago it was my family stationed abroad at an American Consulate, so I know too well the tight feeling in my gut wondering what will happen, will someone die today simply because of where they work. Making light over the death of anyone is disgraceful.
America's actions abroad, particularly when we kill people because we do not like what they say or do, have consequences that are long and often tragic. Secondary, tertiary effects. I hate killing. I am not justifying any killing nor am I gleeful over Ambassador Stevens and his colleagues' deaths.
I am instead offended by US leaders who find happiness in the death of others for political reasons, and then seem shocked and surprised when it is visited on our own. Drone strikes call forth retaliatory terror acts. Terror acts beget more drone strikes. Eye for an eye. Live by the sword.
It is not about a movie. The anti-Islam movie was just today's trigger in Libya, was just the most recent spark to a smoldering flame. Behind the easy, casual "oh, it was our free speech that angered them" we seem to forget what filmmaker James Spione knows, that the invasions of multiple Muslim countries, the killing and wounding of hundreds of thousands of civilians to "free them," the displacement of millions more as refugees, the escalating drone attacks, the torture and rendition, Guantanamo itself as a symbol of all that is wrong with our policies, the propping up of corrupt regimes in Bahrain, Saudi and until we changed political directions, Libya and Syria, the relentless horrific violence unleashed year after year after year by America's military. Let's at least be honest about the miasma of hatred we've created that is the true context for this horrible incident.
Indeed, the US rendered human beings into Qaddafi's Libya for torture just a few years ago. Some of those who were rendered and tortured under US sponsorship now hold key leadership and political positions in the Libyan government.
It wasn't just a movie.
America needs a policy in the Middle East that is not based on killing if we ever want the killing to stop.
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But we would have to follow that new policy for at least a generation (25 years ) before we could realisticly expect a major change in regional attitudes toward us, it's not like this hatred was built in a few years nor that it will go away in a few years
However, the constructive and thoughtful engagement with his host country shown by Stevens is part of the solution you seek. The arab `street' longs for the freedom of expression and affluence that they see in the west. They like crazed ayatollahs and mullahs no more than you or I. However, their cultural identity is connected with religion, and so it's a flash point. You shouldn't judge a sub-continent by the shouts of its late teens in front of a camera. Is spring break the US's true spirit?
Don't forget that it was French-lead diplomacy that started the support and arming of the Libyan rebels, and a french air force attack that put him into the sewer pipe from which he was dragged and killed.
I believe that accusing the United States right now in this case is not going to lead to anything positive, and possibly cause more stupid things to happen. Like Russia will probably push it now and accuse the US of imperialism until we threaten to withhold wheat or somtheing from them, then they will be our friend until delivery. Right now we have the Government, such as it is of Egypt and of Libya on our side; that is something worth keeping.
Western influence on youth in their respective countries comes in the form of the computer and the boom box. Suggestive dancing, licentious lyrics, sexual imagery in film are all dangerous incursions into a restricted society. Our amazing, inexpensive and ubiquitous technology threatens to bury Sharia Law under an unstoppable wave of western culture. 'Death to America' is a motivator. Its used by the fanatic and by those who use them in a quest for control of the future. It won't cease because we stop killing those hunkered down in the bunker or the townhouse.
Those who wish Sharia Law to be that of the entire East are competing w/ those who see nothing wrong w/ women driving cars, of owning an iPhone, of shopping the internet for a camera, news or sex.
The installation of the Shaw into Iran and the recent killing in June of the 'enemy's' number two man are not the events driving the fight. The clerics, their ancient laws and the counties' youth and their desire for freedom from religion are the combatants here. America is the stand-in for modernity.
I'm sorry Mr. Van Buren, but your "blame America" attitude is misguided and simply wrong. This attack was directly tied to the movie and was the direct result of the movie that Mr. Spione made. By the way, from what I've seen, the movie is extremely offensive and an insult to all Muslims but I will defend his right to make the movie regardless of what we all feel about it.
While we can debate foreign policy until the cows come home, what happened in Libya was actually about the movie.
We've kept dictators in power, like the Shah in Iran, for many years..."paid" Egypt to be Isreal's good neighbor for many years and fought two wars for many years to keep Isreal's neighbors much weaker than they are...and with the rise of the Christian right in this country, have sold the "demonization" of Islam to a good portion of the American voters...with a neocon party that lives by these beliefs getting stronger and more hateful year after year. Seems that if they win the election, another "holy war" to protect Isreal will be just around the corner.
The deaths of Ambassador Stevens and three more Embassy staffers was certainly about a movie...and the hateful extremist in this country who deliberately put it on the internet...knowing that it would cause trouble...but we have had a lot of deaths already from the encouragement of extremism by a political party...and will have many more if they get elected.
You are right though, it wasnt just a movie. It was a move by extremist factions in the country to try and destabilize relatively moderate governments that were having friendly relationships with the west by disrupting foreign relations. In effect it was a terrorist action, but one that is not representative of the population of Libya.
This isn't a rejection of the US help by the Libyans, and it is utterly naive to claim that.
Yes, when we take sides in a civil war, the losers will strike at us, if they can. That doesn't make our intervention misguided, any more than post-WWII terrorism by Nazi holdouts meant that the US was wrong to occupy Germany.
Agree, and I am offended by anyone who find happiness in the death of others for any reasons!
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Yes, I hear you. The policies are wrong. However, they are not what drives Islamic terrorism. Muslims have launched terror attacks against countries that have never invaded them, and even at each other. When a suicidal Iraqi terrorist kills thirty fellow Iraqis by blowing himself up at the local market, it's not because he's sick and tired of America's policies.
The reason is Islam. And yes, I know that there are millions of peaceful Muslims. But the truth is still that Islam is an ideology that inspires deadly fanaticism far more than ANY OTHER ideology man has created.