# I pit the statement from the US Embassy in Cairo **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [September 11, 2012, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-statement-from-the-us-embassy-in-cairo/634432 "2012-09-11T21:24:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-statement-from-the-us-embassy-in-cairo/634432/141 "2012-09-12T18:29:54Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > Yep. Go tell those people (like some SDMB’ers are trying to) that Obama’s strongly-worded statements make him “presidential and statesmanlike”. Still pretending this is just a simple question about Obama’s next move? Look, just because Romney steps on his dick doesn’t mean you need to kiss it and make it all better. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-statement-from-the-us-embassy-in-cairo/634432/142 "2012-09-12T18:33:53Z")
Any one else feeling nostalgic for Gaddafi? ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-statement-from-the-us-embassy-in-cairo/634432/143 "2012-09-12T18:38:53Z")
NM ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-statement-from-the-us-embassy-in-cairo/634432/144 "2012-09-12T18:44:30Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > Yep. Go tell those people (like some SDMB’ers are trying to) that Obama’s strongly-worded statements make him “presidential and statesmanlike”. So what would you be doing in his place? ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-statement-from-the-us-embassy-in-cairo/634432/145 "2012-09-12T18:46:04Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > So what would you be doing in his place? Based on **Terr** ’s posts so far, he wouldn’t say anything because saying stuff raises people’s expectations. And he’s said it’s not really possible for Obama to do anything here. So- the answer seems to be say nothing and do nothing. That’s the kind of thing people want from presidents when something bad happens, right? ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-statement-from-the-us-embassy-in-cairo/634432/146 "2012-09-12T18:47:56Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > So what would you be doing in his place? Nothing different. And I would look just as weak and ineffectual as he is looking right now. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-statement-from-the-us-embassy-in-cairo/634432/147 "2012-09-12T18:58:49Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > Any one else feeling nostalgic for Gaddafi? [shrug] This is as if a group of Klansmen or neo-Nazis attacked a foreign consulate in the U.S. That probably could not happen under an American dictatorship, but that’s not much of an argument for one. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-statement-from-the-us-embassy-in-cairo/634432/148 "2012-09-12T19:01:51Z")
[QUOTE=Martin Hyde] Something Muhammad did regularly, as he married and raped a six year old child. [/QUOTE] Just filling in on voice-of-sanity duty until **Martin Jekyll** gets back: In the medieval period (in both Islam and Christendom), especially for politically powerful figures whose marital alliances were matters of grave political importance, going through an official marriage ceremony with a pre-pubescent spouse wasn’t necessarily a sign of pedophilia. The child might live for several years in the house of the adult spouse or of his/her parents before the marriage was consummated, as Ayesha is said to have done after marrying Muhammad at the age of six. (AFAIK there is no suggestion that she ever became pregnant, btw.) Medieval societies did not have age-of-consent or statutory-rape laws, and in Europe as well as the Islamic world it wasn’t uncommon for married children to lose their virginity before they reached their teens. We wouldn’t want to live like that in modern society, any more than we’d want to keep slaves for domestic labor, but that doesn’t mean that the pre-modern peoples who lived like that were automatically some kind of unspeakable monsters. Trying to claim that Muhammad was a rapist and child molester because he married a child bride is kind of like trying to claim that Jesus was an unjust and inhumane oppressor because his family kept slaves. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-statement-from-the-us-embassy-in-cairo/634432/149 "2012-09-12T19:06:30Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > …Trying to claim that Muhammad was a rapist and child molester because he married a child bride is kind of like trying to claim that Jesus was an unjust and inhumane oppressor because his family kept slaves. Uh, what? A Scriptural cite for that? ---
**Author:** ![RedFury](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ec9cab/32.png) [@RedFury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RedFury)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-statement-from-the-us-embassy-in-cairo/634432/150 "2012-09-12T19:25:44Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Happily, agnostics with vaguely Buddhist inclinations seldom come under attack. Something to with the fact that you guys don’t [look all that scary](http://www.thalatta.org/ALP/images/20110122163548_buddist_monk%20%20001.jpg)? ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-statement-from-the-us-embassy-in-cairo/634432/151 "2012-09-12T19:25:54Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Uh, what? A Scriptural cite for that? No New Testament reference that I know of: I have a vague memory that somewhere in the apocryphal “Gospel of Joseph the Carpenter” there may be a mention of a slave in Joseph’s family, but I wouldn’t swear to it. But what does it matter? That wasn’t my point. I wasn’t trying to pronounce on whether or not a particular artisan’s family in Roman Palestine happened to keep a household slave, but rather to point out that if they did (and they well might have), that does not automatically taint their characters with the pathologies that we associate with slaveowning nowadays. ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-statement-from-the-us-embassy-in-cairo/634432/152 "2012-09-12T19:46:14Z")
nm ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-statement-from-the-us-embassy-in-cairo/634432/153 "2012-09-12T19:47:55Z")
> [@RedFury](#): > > Something to with the fact that you guys don’t [look all that scary](http://www.thalatta.org/ALP/images/20110122163548_buddist_monk%20%20001.jpg)? Remember never to forget Rule One. ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-statement-from-the-us-embassy-in-cairo/634432/154 "2012-09-12T19:51:09Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > These are not protesters. They are terrorists. They use murder to attempt to force their theocracy on the rest of the world. Obviously, but the point is that we can’t just send out some drone to target these individuals as though they were some Taliban in the remote mountains of Pakistan. ---
**Author:** ![kwimby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/dc4da7/32.png) [@kwimby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kwimby)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-statement-from-the-us-embassy-in-cairo/634432/155 "2012-09-12T20:02:42Z")
It’s not about Mohammed depictions, oil or any of that nonsense. These are just diversions to abet the disenfranchised young men of the middle east, now organized under various terrorist brands, to strike out at their perceived enemy. It was after all, 9-11. > [@Spavined\_Gelding](#): > > At least one of our friends seems to think that the appropriate response to mob violence in Egypt and Libya (and apparently anyone else who deviates from some hypothetical model of a US subservient secular society) is to bomb any offending population into the Stone Age. That hardly seems rational. Well, not in the strictest sense of the word. But plenty of well aimed precision guided munitions accompanied by thousands of well armed soldiers gunning for them with lots of close air support has been a viable tactic for over a decade now. At least a couple of embassy attacks is the best they can muster these days. ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-statement-from-the-us-embassy-in-cairo/634432/156 "2012-09-12T20:21:19Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > Nothing different. And I would look just as weak and ineffectual as he is looking right now. To paraphrase Bill Clinton: “You’ve got a lot of brass to attack a guy for doing what you did” ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-statement-from-the-us-embassy-in-cairo/634432/157 "2012-09-12T20:31:02Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#): > > “You’ve got a lot of brass to attack a guy for doing what you did” Can you point to an “attack” from me on Obama on this subject? ---
**Author:** ![Gangster\_Octopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a8b319/32.png) [@Gangster\_Octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gangster_Octopus)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-statement-from-the-us-embassy-in-cairo/634432/158 "2012-09-12T20:48:37Z")
Can someone tell me if this is the right timeleine? 1. WSJ publishes a story about a obscure movie that mocks Muhammad as a womanizer and child molester or something or other; 2. Folks in Egypt and Libya get nnoyed and upset and tensions rise; 3. US Embassy in Cairo issues a statement essentially saying that the movie does not represent the views of the US in terms of religious freedom; 4. Not surprisingly, a statement form an embasy officials does little to t quell the tension and some soccer fan ULTRAS attack the embassy…a bit; 5. Later in Libya a rocket launch attack on the US embassy kills 2. So step 3 basically was an attempt to say this movie is an oulier and we kind of think it sucks and we are condemning them for that? ---
**Author:** ![RedFury](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ec9cab/32.png) [@RedFury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RedFury)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-statement-from-the-us-embassy-in-cairo/634432/159 "2012-09-12T20:52:53Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > Remember never to forget Rule One. Of course not. Rule Number One: There are NO girls on the Internet. ---
**Author:** ![RedFury](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ec9cab/32.png) [@RedFury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RedFury)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-statement-from-the-us-embassy-in-cairo/634432/160 "2012-09-12T20:55:29Z")
> [@kwimby](#): > > …Well, not in the strictest sense of the word. But plenty of well aimed precision guided munitions accompanied by thousands of well armed soldiers gunning for them with lots of close air support has been a viable tactic for over a decade now. > > At least a couple of embassy attacks is the best they can muster these days. Yet another a-hole who’s become what he hates. And oh boy! Are they ever coming out of the woodworks 2day! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-statement-from-the-us-embassy-in-cairo/634432.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-statement-from-the-us-embassy-in-cairo/634432.md?page=9)