The Gawd-Awful Video That Enraged The Gawd-Awful Islamists

[Robert Campbell]

Egypt has charged 7 American-based Copts (though not Nakoula) plus terry Jones with whatever blasphemy crime the film is under Egyptian law.

This is unfortunate. They all seem to be part of the Spencer/Geller crowd and will make a total field day out of their persecution, while they are safe in California.

Carol,

Well, the idiot Baptist minister named Terry Lewis resides in Florida.

But that isn't the point.

Robert Spencer and Pam Geller didn't make up this Egyptian law. Nor did they invent the attitudes of Mohammed Morsi and others in the present Egyptian regime.

Would you prefer that the Obama Justice Department prosecute Nakoula, Sadek, Lewis, et al. for defaming Muhammad? With an old-timey shari'a penalty on the table?

Robert Campbell

[Robert Campbell]

MSK,

If any of this had to do with American weapons falling into the hands of jihadis, I'd imagine the jihadis already brought a few Made in USA weapons with them when they attacked the consulate.

Killing agents of the Great Satan with Satan-made hardware, and all that...

Robert Campbell

[caroljane]

MSK,

If any of this had to do with American weapons falling into the hands of jihadis, I'd imagine the jihadis already brought a few Made in USA weapons with them when they attacked the consulate.

Killing agents of the Great Satan with Satan-made hardware, and all that...

Robert Campbell

MSK,

If any of this had to do with American weapons falling into the hands of jihadis, I'd imagine the jihadis already brought a few Made in USA weapons with them when they attacked the consulate.

Killing agents of the Great Satan with Satan-made hardware, and all that...

Robert Campbell

That is a neat metaphor for the propaganda weapons, also.

[caroljane]

Egypt has charged 7 American-based Copts (though not Nakoula) plus terry Jones with whatever blasphemy crime the film is under Egyptian law.

This is unfortunate. They all seem to be part of the Spencer/Geller crowd and will make a total field day out of their persecution, while they are safe in California.

Carol,

Well, the idiot Baptist minister named Terry Lewis resides in Florida.

But that isn't the point.

Robert Spencer and Pam Geller didn't make up this Egyptian law. Nor did they invent the attitudes of Mohammed Morsi and others in the present Egyptian regime.

Would you prefer that the Obama Justice Department prosecute Nakoula, Sadek, Lewis, et al. for defaming Muhammad? With an old-timey shari'a penalty on the table?

Robert Campbell

Of course not, and you know that I do not believe in prosecution for such things at all, and i have clearly stated that/ (Why does any statement an Objectivist doesn't like , instantly evoke a "would you prefer (worst possible opposite/ the other side does it response? Is it the black-white "between two things" Rand worldview?)

Egypt however does have such a stupid irrational law. I was remarking that this will make a good publicity platform for the United Artists involved.

The idiot Baptist named Terry Jones does indeed live in Florida, and Morris S. lives in DC, where he is not in fact so safe from his shoe-wielding co-parishioners.

The others I am guessing were the financiers, interestingly Jack A. is a realtor, although not Israeli. And consultant Steve Klein (not charged) has described himself as a failed real estate developer who lost a bundle in the recession.

[Selene]

During the radio broadcast this morning, I heard John Fund (a Canadian you must be familiar with) praise Glenn to the skies for the "wonderful work" he is doing. (If memory serves me correctly, "wonderful work" is an exact quote. If it wasn't that, it was something very similar.)

This John Fund is no Canadian. As Robert pointed out, WSJ columnist. Good man. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Fund

He may have commented on Canadian elections:

John Fund's Report on Canadian Elections

In the January 24th WSJ Political Diary, as part of his reporting on the Canadian election results, John Fund stated:

That said, Canada's election is a watershed. The Liberals have so dominated the country's politics that they were in office longer during the 20th Century than even the Communists in the Soviet Union. The country was in danger of becoming a permanent one-and-a-half party state. Having been chastened by the voters for their rampant corruption and insider dealing, the Liberals will now have a chance to clean up their act. For his part, Mr. Harper will end the gratuitous America-bashing of recent years and at least make a stab at more sensible economic policies. Grading on a Canadian curve, yesterday's result amounts to a welcome political revolution.

John’s commentary is probably intended to be light-hearted, and some of his observations have merit, but overall that paragraph reveals some serious problems with his thinking. First, to compare a voluntarily-elected government with the brutal, totalitarian regime in communist Russia erases all the vital distinctions, i.e. that the government in Canada is limited, that its electorate could have voted it out every four years, that the government didn’t use force to maintain its position, etc. -- to instead focus on an essentially perceptual level observation, i.e. how long the government was in power. Or to look at it another way: if we ever manage to elect a great government, should we vote it out after a few years, simply in the name of not having them in office for too long?

[caroljane]

Interesting, I had never heard of Fund. I did not know there were Canada watchers in the US like the US watchers here!

The length of a government's term in our respective countries was the subject of my very first post on Canadian Boring. We operate on the If-it-Aint-Broke-We-Wont-Fix-It model, but with the proviso that if it breaks we can stop it at any time within any given five years.

[caroljane]

Another difference is in the way your two-party system has held steady, while ours has evolved to a three (or four if you count the Separatists). I think this is why there are proportionately fewer libertarians here. The fiscal libertarians are happy in the Conservative party (as they should be, since the prime minister is one of them), and the social libertarians are happy in the NDP or Liberal parties. The extreme wings did not need to be stuffed wholesale into the mainstream parties, causing the strange bedfellows we see in the GOP for example.

[Robert Campbell]

Of course not, and you know that I do not believe in prosecution for such things at all, and i have clearly stated that/ (Why does any statement an Objectivist doesn't like , instantly evoke a "would you prefer (worst possible opposite/ the other side does it response? Is it the black-white "between two things" Rand worldview?)

Carol,

While the Morsi regime has made it most clear what they want to happen, I still don't know what you believe ought to happen in this case.

You haven't criticized CNN for letting all the jihadis know what Mr. Nakoula looks like, and where they might find him—just in case they might like to kill him (as everyone at CNN, from the CEO to the janitor, knows they might).

You haven't criticized the Obama administration for any of the remarks made by Ambassador Rice, Secretary of State Clinton, or the President himself.

And while it's been years now since I called myself an Objectivist, I continue to think that posing diametric alternatives does sometimes help to clarify matters.

Meanwhile, if Mr. Nakoula was trying to incite murderous violence, there ought to be evidence available as to his intent.

His lack of artistry is apparent to all. But outstanding inability as a film-maker does not make him responsible for the deaths of Ambassador Stevens, an embassy staffer, and two Marines.

Nor do Muslims receive an entitlement to kill when the person at whom they claim to take offense lacks redeeming artistic value.

Robert Campbell

[Robert Campbell]

The extreme wings did not need to be stuffed wholesale into the mainstream parties, causing the strange bedfellows we see in the GOP for example.

There are strange bedfellows in today's Republican Party, all right. Todd Akin and Ron Paul, Mike Huckabee and Paul Ryan, Peter King and Scott Walker...

But is the present-day Democratic coalition any stranger: Gentry liberal environmental campaigners and poor African-Americans from the inner city have what in common, exactly? Members of the National Education Association and parents of kids stuck in lousy schools?

Robert Campbell

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Dayamm!

I'm getting old.

I could have sworn John Fund was Canadian. So I did come checking.

I confused him with David Frum.

This isn't the first time I've done that, either.

It must be the F-U in the last name of both that rings a bell in my subconscious and causes me to switch them around.

But it gets worse.

I even met John Fund briefly (see my Report on TAS’s 50th Anniversary Celebration of Atlas Shrugged to see where).

So there's no excuse...

Michael

[caroljane]

Of course not, and you know that I do not believe in prosecution for such things at all, and i have clearly stated that/ (Why does any statement an Objectivist doesn't like , instantly evoke a "would you prefer (worst possible opposite/ the other side does it response? Is it the black-white "between two things" Rand worldview?)

Carol,

While the Morsi regime has made it most clear what they want to happen, I still don't know what you believe ought to happen in this case.

You haven't criticized CNN for letting all the jihadis know what Mr. Nakoula looks like, and where they might find him—just in case they might like to kill him (as everyone at CNN, from the CEO to the janitor, knows they might).

You haven't criticized the Obama administration for any of the remarks made by Ambassador Rice, Secretary of State Clinton, or the President himself.

And while it's been years now since I called myself an Objectivist, I continue to think that posing diametric alternatives does sometimes help to clarify matters.

Meanwhile, if Mr. Nakoula was trying to incite murderous violence, there ought to be evidence available as to his intent.

His lack of artistry is apparent to all. But outstanding inability as a film-maker does not make him responsible for the deaths of Ambassador Stevens, an embassy staffer, and two Marines.

Nor do Muslims receive an entitlement to kill when the person at whom they claim to take offense lacks redeeming artistic value.

Robert Campbell

Nice apple and orange pudding, Robert.

I hereby criticise CNN, for displaying the face and whereabouts (although those are now unknown even to CNN) of a person who, along with thousands or maybe most of the US citizenry, terrorist Islamists want to kill.

In the remarks of Obama and his administration I cannot discern any incitement to violence, or appeasement of murder, or condemnation of free speech. When I do I will criticise them.

as to Nakoula's intent, I have said repeatedly he is a fall guy and as you point out, the likeliest to get knocked over, It is the intent of his employers which is not in question,

Diametric alternatives are only clarifying when they are true alternatives,

Edit, I forgot your first sentence.

NOTHING ought to happen in this case, nothing. Nobody should get killed, there should be no rioting, no violence, no further sparks of hatred flowering into fire. That is what I think ought to happen, and I hope and pray does happen. But I fear that it won't.

[caroljane]

Dayamm!

I'm getting old.

I could have sworn John Fund was Canadian. So I did come checking.

I confused him with David Frum.

This isn't the first time I've done that, either.

It must be the F-U in the last name of both that rings a bell in my subconscious and causes me to switch them around.

But it gets worse.

I even met John Fund briefly (see my Report on TAS’s 50th Anniversary Celebration of Atlas Shrugged to see where).

So there's no excuse...

Michael

That's Ok, you should see me greeting my Fatimas and Fawzias, Lee Chin Chos and Chow Chin Los, it is a nightmare.

Of course I know Frum of Axis of Evil fame, I read him regularly. I don't agree with his conservative stance but he is an excellent political analyst. and tho he is a Washingtonian, he is indeed Canadian.

[Robert Campbell]

An excellent piece by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, mentioning the excuse-making that abounded after the murder of Theo van Gogh:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/09/16/ayaan-hirsi-ali-on-the-islamists-final-stand.html

Who are Mr. Nakoula's employers? I've seen various allegations, but I don't even know whether he was working for anyone else.

And I guess I should take it that cooperation with the Organization for Islamic Cooperation vis-à-vis blasphemy laws doesn't make Secretary of State Clinton an appeaser of the religiously violent.

Or that President Obama's decision to have the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff make a phone call to an idiot Baptist minister was not intended to produce any chilling effect on free speech.

After the attacks took place in Cairo and Benghazi, did we once hear President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, or Ambassador to the United Nations say that

— Killing foreign embassy officials and staffers is an act of war

— Physically attacking foreign embassies is unacceptable under any and all conditions

— No one is entitled to kill on behalf of his religion

— The United States government neither insults religions, nor compels silence on the part of private individuals who might insult a religion

Their failure to say these things already constitutes excuse-making and appeasement.

Robert Campbell

PS. David Frum used to be a conservative. He's now like a less sour counterpart to Bruce Bartlett.

[caroljane]

I do not know of Sec. Clinton's craven cooperation with the Islamic anti-blasphemists but I am sure you can enlighten me,

When one general calls a dingbat fundamentalist and asks him to lay off already, and he doesn't, this could have a chilling effect on free speech. When a second general calls him up and asks him to lay off, and he says, "Oh I might and I might not", ... fool me twice.

Silence, or the choice not to state the obvious, in diplomacy does not constitute "appeasement".

Who is Bruce Bartlett?

[anthony]

After the attacks took place in Cairo and Benghazi, did we once hear President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, or Ambassador to the United Nations say that

— Killing foreign embassy officials and staffers is an act of war

— Physically attacking foreign embassies is unacceptable under any and all conditions

— No one is entitled to kill on behalf of his religion

— The United States government neither insults religions, nor compels silence on the part of private individuals who might insult a religion

Their failure to say these things already constitutes excuse-making and appeasement.

Robert Campbell

Robert,

I'm noticing a disturbing trend here to attempt to inject 'objective' standards.

Only an Objectivist could observe that things that were NOT said and done, can be as

significant as those actually said and done.

Only an Objectivist would have the gall to insist on a principled stand, when we know

that the killings were carried out by people who have no self-responsibility, little

volition, and therefore easily excitable and prone to violence. In other words, they can't

help themselves - we should pity them in their savagery, excuse how quickly they are incited,

and never, ever hold them accountable as equally rational men. (Men like us, Robert, we know these are um, rather uncivilized people - [nudge, wink] - but it's necessary to keep our egalitarian flag flying, y'know, and not let anyone see the double morality we apply them.)

Only an Objectivist would be against appeasement. Don't you know these people are dangerous?!

The pragmatic approach is to back down, ease off, and save their pride.

We buy some time, and let the next generation deal with the fall-out: get it?

Only an Objectivist would be ludicrous enough to insist that his government civil servants

actually protect his self-interest and security, now and in future.

A laughable notion! Is this that weird individual rights and "egoist morality" thing??

Lastly, only an Objectivist would be so...objective. We know all these events involve human emotion, psychology, mystical belief and, well - hurt feelings. Are you so insensitive, sir?

[Robert Campbell]

Carol,

Bruce Bartlett is an economist who used to be a libertarian. He fell out with Cato during the Dubya years because he thought they weren't being rough enough on Dubya.

Now he publishes occasional op-eds that wearily portray fiscal conservatives and libertarians as deluded wretches, envision Federal spending growing without bound till the end of time, and champion a cartoon version of Keynesianism not terribly distant from Paul Krugman's.

David Frum is an ex-Republican who started out criticizing the socially conservative elements in the Republican Party but some years ago began rejecting fiscal conservatism as well. From his current point of view, all Republicans are always wrong about everything. I think the only reason he doesn't register to vote as a Democrat is that if this were to become known he would no longer be employable as a token conservative. He would have to compete with a much larger pool of non-MSNBC Democrats.

You still haven't said who Nakoula Basseley Nakoula's employer was (or is).

Robert Campbell

[caroljane]

Robert,

The employers are the people who arranged and financed the production of the movie. The idea of Nakoula as a lone artiste who wrote a screenplay (and arranged financing for it) from prison, then start filming it two months after his release, is not credible to me. But a 55 year old ex-con with a a$700,000 debt and a background in meth-cooking, drug-dealing, snitching and credit card fraud, is likely to be open to any offers he can get.

The personal identities of these employersI of course do not know although I have my theories. The proudly-acknowledged link of the Media for Christ organization is certainly a clue.

Thanks for your info on Bartlett and Frum. I agree with your analysis of DF, over the years I have noticed him sounding much more sensible! It must be his inbuilt Canadian centricism emerging as he ages.

[Robert Campbell]

Carol,

You gave the impression of actually knowing not only who was behind Mr. Nakoula's piece of crap, but the precise agenda of this person or organization.

OK, suppose it turns out that Media for Christ was funding Mr. Nakoula (and not merely being conned out of a few simoleons). Is getting people in Egypt to kill other people in Egypt over religion part of MfC's agenda?

Here's an article on the Hillary Clinton-OIC link. I just picked the first one to come up on Google. It's pretty long-winded, but you'll get the idea.

http://cnsnews.com/n...ssion-tolerance

Now a reasonable rejoinder might be that Secretary of State Clinton has no intention of actually giving the OIC anything that it wants. She is merely placating OIC representatives with occasional public meetings at which she emits soothing generalities and promises to support some declaration, so long as it is entirely toothless. Indeed, those are among the functions of diplomacy, as many people understand it.

But let's inquire a little bit further here. If there were an organization calling itself the Association of Christian Lands, or the Alliance of Buddhist Countries, would this be considered legitimate, and a fit partner for diplomatic bargaining of any sort? Would a high official like Hillary Clinton even be considering meeting with such an organization?

Robert Campbell

[Robert Campbell]

When one general calls a dingbat fundamentalist and asks him to lay off already, and he doesn't, this could have a chilling effect on free speech. When a second general calls him up and asks him to lay off, and he says, "Oh I might and I might not", ... fool me twice.

The question is not whether any general in the US military establishment has to power to enjoin an individual who is not serving in the military from speaking out against another religion. Or the power to fine, imprison, etc. Under the American legal system, no general does.

The question is what the general's legitimate sphere of authority is. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has a broad sphere of authority—over the military, on military matters.

In a legal-political system where the military has a sharply delimited sphere of authority, and the military is ultimately under civilian control, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is way out of line making such a phone call. The President is even farther out of line instructing him to make it.

I could add that our current President used to be a lecturer on constitutional law, but given his evident belief that most of the Constitution means only whatever he wants it to mean, that seems pointless in this context.

Silence, or the choice not to state the obvious, in diplomacy does not constitute "appeasement".

If those to whom you are speaking would most definitely prefer that you not state the obvious, infer that their power is enhanced because you have chosen not to, and conclude that your objections to their conduct will carry even less weight next time around...

then it's appeasement.

Robert Campbell

[caroljane]

"Carol,

You gave the impression of actually knowing not only who was behind Mr. Nakoula's piece of crap, but the precise agenda of this person or organization"

I did not mean to give that impression at all. I have just been speculating aloud, trying to figure out the players and what motives they might have. It is because we do not know all the facts that as a story this is so intriguing.

The agenda of Media for Christ is fairly well known, but the "precise" agenda of this particular effort, I really cannot fathom. Maybe they did not have a precise agenda at all. We'll only be able to speculate on that if the money can be followed to its source and names attached to the various parts of the project.

Added: Klein (spokesman/consultant for the movie) and Nasralla(head of Media for Christ) were handing out leaflets at California schools last year, depicting Mohammed as a pedophile etc, Trying to generate a pre-buzz?

e

[Robert Campbell]

Carol,

You should link to your sources.

If Klein was indeed handing out such leaflets, or if he said on a radio broadcast some of the things that a September 12 article in the Christian Science Monitor attributes to him, he's a sick, nasty bigot.

http://www.csmonitor...tor-Terry-Jones

No shortage of those, is there?

But one of many questions that then arises is: why didn't Klein take one of his leaflets denouncing Muhammad as a pedophile, get it translated into Arabic, and (if they weren't on the original) add a couple of unflattering cartoons of Muhammad for good measure?

Then he could rile up Muslims in Egypt for a lot less money than Mr. Nakoula's dopey overdubbed 14 minutes of video would have cost him.

Any article (like the Christian Science Monitor piece) that relies on the Southern Poverty Law Center needs double and triple-checking. And not just because it means the Monitor is too cheap and too lazy to do its own investigative reporting.

The SPLC was founded to fight the Ku Klux Klan. It succeeded in its aim. The Klan is dead. But SPLC wanted to keep going, even though its mission had been fulfilled. You'd be amazed at how many "hate groups" the SPLC professes to be finding these days.

Robert Campbell

[caroljane]

Robert,

I apologise sincerely for not linking, (I hope Adam is not reading this, as he has patiently told me several times how to do links.I am afraid he will punish me. The sad truth is I am too techno-dumb and lazy to learn to link. I do not even know how to cut and paste although I used to when I worked on oldtime computers. At least unlike Phil Coates I will admit it though it embarrasses me. Also unlike him I very seldom engage in debate which needs citation, I usually do general commentary or meaningless blather).

My speculations were based on an interview Klein gave to his hometown newspaper the Hemet Press-Intelligencer.

[Robert Campbell]

Here's an excellent column by a guy I once thought highly of and then gave up on completely, Tom Friedman.

This is at least a flash of his old form:

http://www.nytimes.c...1&smid=fb-share

ON CHRISTIANS Hasan Rahimpur Azghadi of the Iranian Supreme Council for Cultural Revolution: Christianity is “a reeking corpse, on which you have to constantly pour eau de cologne and perfume, and wash it in order to keep it clean.”http://www.memritv.o...lip/en/1528.htm — July 20, 2007.

Sheik Al-Khatib al-Baghdadi: It is permissible to spill the blood of the Iraqi Christians — and a duty to wage jihad against them.http://www.memri.org.../0/0/0/5200.htm — April 14, 2011.

Abd al-Aziz Fawzan al-Fawzan, a Saudi professor of Islamic law, calls for “positive hatred” of Christians. Al-Majd TV (Saudi Arabia),http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/992.htm — Dec. 16, 2005.

ON SHIITES The Egyptian Cleric Muhammad Hussein Yaaqub: “Muslim Brotherhood Presidential Candidate Mohamed Morsi told me that the Shiites are more dangerous to Islam than the Jews.” www.memritv.org/clip/en/3466.htm — June 13, 2012.

The Egyptian Cleric Mazen al-Sirsawi: “If Allah had not created the Shiites as human beings, they would have been donkeys.” http://www.memritv.o...lip/en/3101.htm — Aug. 7, 2011.

The Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan video series: “The Shiite is a Nasl [Race/Offspring] of Jews.” http://www.memri.org...0/0/51/6208.htm — March 21, 2012.

ON JEWS Article on the Muslim Brotherhood’s Web site praises jihad against America and the Jews: “The Descendants of Apes and Pigs.”http://www.memri.org...0/0/51/6656.htm — Sept. 7, 2012.

The Pakistani cleric Muhammad Raza Saqib Mustafai: “When the Jews are wiped out, the world would be purified and the sun of peace would rise on the entire world.”http://www.memri.org...0/0/51/6557.htm — Aug. 1, 2012.

Dr. Ismail Ali Muhammad, a senior Al-Azhar scholar: The Jews, “a source of evil and harm in all human societies.”http://www.memri.org...0/0/51/6086.htm — Feb. 14, 2012.

ON SUFIS A shrine venerating a Sufi Muslim saint in Libya has been partly destroyed, the latest in a series of attacks blamed on ultraconservative Salafi Islamists.http://www.bbc.co.uk...africa-19380083 — Aug. 26, 2012.

If Americans were morally entitled to kill anyone who comes from a country where the government encourages the republication of Protocols of the Elders of Zion, there would be carnage on a scale that Craig Biddle and Ron Pisaturo have failed to dream of.

If Americans were morally entitled to kill the ambassador from any such country, there'd be smoking ruins up and down Embassy Row in Washington, DC.

Everyone needs to get a sense of proportion.

Robert Campbell

[Robert Campbell]

Carol,

To link, all you have to do is copy and paste the URL of the linked item into a separate line of your post.

I haven't had to use the link feature above this post window for quite some time now, unless I wanted to give the link a different name from the URL I was linking to.

Robert Campbell

[Robert Campbell]

Carol,

I figure this is a version of the interview you mentioned:

http://www.pe.com/lo...lamic-movie.ece

Here's a quote I liked:

Klein, 62, said Bacile contacted him because of his activism on issues involving Islam.

“Sam found out about me through the grapevine and knew that I wouldn’t back down, that I wasn’t afraid to tell the truth on this stuff,” Klein said.

In other words, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula decided he'd found an easy mark.

Robert Campbell

PS. Hemet's not a high-profile locale. After the original Mothers of Invention broke up, the guy who did the "swell vocals," Ray Collins, took a job in Hemet selling Chryslers. This would have been in 1970 or 1971. I can't recall a reference to the place since then.