So no problem. Just send some planes back to bomb some protesters in the street.
We did that in Sudan in 1998 and it took care of everything. Simple.
Hey, look, I agree with Der Trihs in a thread (sort of) about religion. That almost never happens. Well said, buddy!
I wonder: what, specifically, does Martin Hyde think Obama has to do? Other than strongly denounce the attacks, which of course he will do.
BTW the Embassy statement referenced in the OP went out *before *the protests escalated to lethal level. It was an attempt to say “look, we don’t endorse this”; it failed. Not just in the Muslim world but in a huge swath of other parts of the world, hundreds of millions have no real idea of what is true free speech, they can’t believe that hate speech in western democracies can happen without at least an official wink and nod. As it is, it’s being spread along the Muslim world that this crappy little vid is part of a massive campaign being launched by establishment American Media on 9/11, and millions are willing to believe it.
I hope Pastor Jones is satisfied now. I also pit the “revolutionary governments” who depend greatly on Western diplomatic and economic support and yet just sit there and do nothing, seeing it’s to their advantage to let their people’s frustrations spend themselves against “outsider” targets.
The worst-case scenario (for Obama) is if Obama tries to sweep this all under the rug, and offers only a few empty “let’s all play nice”-type statements. If that happens, the he’s effectively proven that he’s spineless. Martin Hyde is right: the killing of an ambassador must have consequences. Diplomatic consequences at least; withdraw US recognition of the new Libyan government until they’ve apologized and grovelled enough.
These are not protesters. They are terrorists. They use murder to attempt to force their theocracy on the rest of the world.
Do we have any evidence that the government is responsible?
Oh, and the statement by the embassy was, of course, the right one to make (and not just for practical, self-preservation reasons). One could perhaps quibble with the choice of words when it comes to “abuse the … rights of free speech,” because without context that’s somewhat ambiguous. But the sentiment is exactly right: ‘We disavow the actions of these horrible assholes who are trying to get a rise out of you, and whose behavior is anathema to the very ideals that our country was founded upon.’
It’s important for us to highlight, at every opportunity, the difference between these types of Islamaphobe provacateurs and the Untied States in general, since some Muslims seem to have a very hard time understanding the distinction. Just as some Americans look at the actions of relatively small groups of Muslims and throw all reason and empathy to be wind as they entertain juvenile fantasies about reordering all of Muslim society.
Rubbish, secularization has massively reduced the power of Christianity in the Western world.
They killed the US ambassador over a movie that two people would have seen and effectively made sure that millions of people will now see the offending material. Fucking brilliant.
I’m guessing we could cripple these country’s economies with a series of well-timed cartoons designed to ensure that they can accomplish nothing but protests.
“Oh look, Haggar the Horrible called Ayesha a child-bride. Another day off! Let’s burn down a church.”
It doesn’t matter if you say violence will not be tolerated. Religious extremism causes violence. Are you truly ignorant of the history of the West in the last 1,000 years? Only secularization can ever stop it.
The same way we reconciled that same commitment with our secular society, unless you think America is a theocracy. The goal is political secularization, and has been coextant with religious freedom for over 200 years in this country.
Religious freedom does not mean a tolerance for violent religious extremism, but instead vigorously shutting it down. We had no problem putting an end to the Mormons crazy violent religious State in the West.
You’re an imbecile and I don’t tend to respond to the arguments of people who make moronic comments like this. If you’re too stupid to fathom an argument so contrary to your own beliefs without imagining someone is putting on a show for you then that is your idiotic fault and not mine.
In our own countries in the West we shut down religious violence and extremism through gradual education and liberalization of society. We are now so far socially advanced as compared to the backward babaric Muslim countries that we essentially cannot meaningfully relate to them.
Unfortunately we are so far ahead of them there is no way we can interact with them in the way we interacted with ourselves to gradually liberalize and secularize. Instead we must treat all Muslim states (meaning any non-secular, Muslim state…or most of the Muslim world aside from Turkey and a few other exceptions) the same way we treated Communism during the Cold War. We must not accept, or deal with them in any way.
But secularization in the Western world mostly did not come about through other countries “mandating secular societies onto [us] and kill[ing us] if [we] resist”, as you jokingly proposed implementing for the Islamic world.
There is no historical reason to think that such an approach to secularization would have had net beneficial results in the case of the West, any more than it likely would in Islamic countries today.
The Romney camp is blaming Obama for the attacks.
I’d like to believe that politicizing the murders of American citizens abroad will backfire, but I’m afraid this is exactly the kind of bullshit Romney’s supporters will eat up with a spoon.
You seem to have misread his post. He wasn’t saying that forcing Muslim countries to be more secular would work, but that Muslim extremists would then be able to kill more people. He was saying that trying to impose this kind of change from outside WOULDN’T work, and that millions would die in the effort if we were serious about it.
I don’t really like either Obama or Romney, but this is just some fucking bullshit here. Blaming Obama for this? Really? That’s fucking rich. Morons.
To what end? By what specific mechanism would this speed them along to your stated goal?
Your own quote says the statement was made “before the deaths were reported”, so I don’t see how this is blaming Obama for any deaths or politicizing murders.
Exactly.
Both the original Embassy statement and the original Romney reaction happened before deaths were reported; the one was a vain attempt to distance US officialdom from Jones’ rantings, the other was an attempt to cast that as an example of weak apologizing-for-America.
Things turned out to be worse than either side thought.
So what’s next for our embassy over there? Its going to be a reluctant ambassador that replaces Stevens. Beefier security (more Marines)? Taller walls, electrified fences? What does the US government do in this situation? Just never go back, like Iran?