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

[Robert Campbell]

Here's Barack Obama, after others in his administration had begun admitting that the attack in Benghazi was an organized terrorist operation, still blaming it on Mr. Nakoula's crappy video:

http://www.realclear...ts_natural.html

What we do know is that the natural protests that arose because of the outrage over the video were used as an excuse by extremists to see if they could also directly harm U.S. interests.

The natural protests.

If this isn't appeasement, what is?

Robert Campbell

Note added September 21: I corrected a small transcription error.

[Robert Campbell]

But what is the (direct) relevance of Israel in this?

Tony,

That is one reason why I very quickly quit visiting Ms. Geller's site.

Robert Campbell

[Selene]

Here's Barack Obama, after others in his administration had begun admitting that the attack in Benghazi was an organized terrorist operation, still blaming it on Mr. Nakoula's crappy video:

http://www.realclear...ts_natural.html

What we do know is that the natural protests that arose over the outrage over the video were used as an excuse by extremists to see if they could also directly harm U.S. interests.

The natural protests.

If this isn't appeasement, what is?

Robert Campbell

Robert:

Thanks. I thought I was the only one who noticed that absurd phrasing, I cannot stand this bastard.

Adam

[Richard Wiig]

I think it's more than appeasement. I think it's a softening up.

[Jonathan]

I just saw this photo on Drudge (photo 4 of 10 in a slide show):

http://www.reuters.c...0VU20120921#a=4

In the center of the photo of Pakistani protesters, a man is holding a sign which reads, "NO RELIGION IS BETTER THAN ISLAM."

Is he saying that atheism -- no religion -- is better than Islam, or did he mean that no other religion is better than Islam? If the former, are the Muslims surrounding him surprisingly tolerant of his atheism, or can't they read English?

J

[caroljane]

Allowing them to "hide" in the general Muslim population, and not killing or arresting them until they initiate force? Or until it is proven that they are plotting it.

Carol,

Really.

That's the extent of the enabling?

Beside, if it had a /sarc/ marker, I'd take you to mean that anything short of preemptively rounding up and imprisoning all Muslims constitutes enabling of the militants among them.

Are you familiar with the career of Nidal Malik Hasan? Would you say there was any "enabling" along the way—before he did anything his superiors might actually have considered arresting him for?

Robert Campbell

I looked up Hasan, of course I recognise the case. I am not familiar with his career. I take it that you are identifying the US Army as "liberal" in this instance. If his superiors knew he was a threat and did nothing to get him disarmed or rendered harmless, they most certainly did enable him.

[anthony]

The "enabling" concept, like incitement, is extreme subjectivism-skepticism, imo.

Politically, it contains a slippery slope to the Thought Police, like that Dick short story set in future America, in which the police can predict all future law-breaking and arrest the 'culprits' - in advance of the act.

The fallacy of enabling is that one can know the contents of another's mind, can

identify his intent, but further, can know for certain he will carry out his iniquitous thoughts.

On only the first count, half of us would be in prison, already.

There is also mis-applied causality to all this: the butterfly that flaps her wings over

the Amazon could conceivably be the cause of an oil-rig going down in a storm in the North Sea. But not the cause of a man murdering his wife in Washington DC. As soon as a human agent enters the causal chain, physical determinism breaks down - whether, or not, a person is a believer in either volition OR determinism. ( I stand to be corrected...)

What it boils down to is that Fundamental Islamism is an "effect", waiting for a "cause".

Any one will do. To excuse Islamists with acting causally, 'naturally', automatically - and even righteously - due to some 'provocation', is typical woolly-headed moralizing by liberal apologists.

[Robert Campbell]

Carol,

Do you consider "political correctness" a valid notion?

Or a fiendish rhetorical invention of the "ultaconservatives"?

We'll probably have a lot more ground to cover, but for now it I'll put it in the language of political correctness.

I'll also assume that you consider the US Army to be invariably conservative or ultraconservative.

If you do, you shouldn't. It is emphatically not the case, particularly in recent years when the US military has dealt with Muslims.

From what is publicly known about Major Hasan, he was protected at virtually every step by political correctness on the part of his superiors.

His actual performance would not have led to his being promoted. It's not clear that his actual performance would even have led to his graduation from med school.

Once he began ranting in official presentations about jihad and the purported duty of Muslims never to fight fellow Muslims, his actual performance should have led to his immediate discharge from military service.

Once he began his "spiritual" consultations by email with a nice friendly imam named Anwar Al-Awlaqi, he was collaborating with a known enemy of the United States and should have been court martialed.

Instead, his superiors finally "got rid of" their problem by arranging for his transfer to Fort Hood.

The Obama administration has refused, from the day of the shooting onward, to consider what Major Hasan did a terrorist act, or the act of an Islamic Imperialist.

It's enablement on steroids to refuse to admit that a fanatical Muslim—who's been getting "spiritual" guidance from a leading Islamic Supremacist, who shouts "Allahu Akbar" right before blowing away 13 people inside a military installation—might just possibly be a terrorist, might just maybe be motivated by Islamic Imperialism.

Now, I'm reasonably sure that you would classify Barack Obama and his top people as "liberals." (Well, Bill Maher now deems our President "center-right.")

Therefore, I think we have here a crystal clear case of Islamic Imperialist militancy being enabled by "liberals."

Robert Campbell

PS. You may note that the same Anwar Al-Awlaqi is now deceased, on account of a drone attack in Yemen that was ordered by ... President Obama. So all of this ongoing enablement is, among many other things, remarkably stupid.

[caroljane]

Robert,

"political correctness", to me, is a tired catchphrase used mostly in debates on social, not political issues. I don't know who invented it but I suppose it denotes a liberal mindset.

You demonstrate that the US army in this case certainly acted as "liberal enablers". Their treating it as an individual crime rather than a conspiracy (who were his co-terrorists?), as if he were a suicide bomber who survived, does not necessarily constitute an appeasement of Islamist extremism though, in my judgment. His personal motivations to murder cannot justify murder, ever.

[Robert Campbell]

Carol,

It sure looks as though Major Hasan had a co-conspirator, named Anwar Al-Awlaqi. You know, the same imam who worked for an organization called Al-Qa'eda in the Arabian Peninsula. Who was later a co-conspirator with Omar ibn Al-Mutallab, aka the Underwear Bomber.

If there were any others, their names have not been publicized.

The US military has not treated Major Hasan like a suicide bomber who survived. That would require the attribution of ideological motivation.

The official line has been that he was under horrible stress, maybe, it's sometimes insinuated, on account of being an unfortunate put-upon Muslim, and he flipped out; nothing more to see here. But people who commit violent crimes out of sheer, unadulterated craziness have not generally picked suicide bombing for their modus operandi.

Robert Campbell

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Robert,

Hasan was oppressed by his workplace and finally snapped.

Michael

[Robert Campbell]

Carol,

The term "political correctness" (and the abbreviation PC) were introduced into the language by British Leftists, who were upset at some of their political allies for making regular use of manners of speaking that they considered mealy-mouthed, euphemistic, or hypocritical.

George Orwell would have known where they were coming from.

The phrase is sometimes abused these days by conservatives who apply it to any statement by a Leftist about any social or political subject.

I don't consider a forthright expression of one's political or social views, whatever they may be, to constitute political correctness.

It's the combination of a modern Leftist viewpoint with evasive, circumlocutory, or obfuscatory language—particularly when the use of more straightforward language is concurrently being made out to be wrong or culpable—that makes it PC.

Robert Campbell

[Robert Campbell]

Anwar Al-Awlaqi's encomium to Major Hasan's shooting spree, courtesy of Wikipedia:

After the Fort Hood shooting, on his now temporarily inoperable website (because the web hosting company took it down), al-Awlaki praised Hasan's actions:

Nidal Hassan is a hero. He is a man of conscience who could not bear living the contradiction of being a Muslim and serving in an army that is fighting against his own people.... Any decent Muslim cannot live, understanding properly his duties towards his Creator and his fellow Muslims, and yet serve as a US soldier. The U.S. is leading the war against terrorism which in reality is a war against Islam....

Nidal opened fire on soldiers who were on their way to be deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. How can there be any dispute about the virtue of what he has done? In fact the only way a Muslim could Islamically justify serving as a soldier in the US army is if his intention is to follow the footsteps of men like Nidal. The heroic act of brother Nidal also shows the dilemma of the Muslim American community.... The Muslim organizations in America came out in a pitiful chorus condemning Nidal's operation.

The fact that fighting against the US army is an Islamic duty today cannot be disputed. No scholar with a grain of Islamic knowledge can defy the clear cut proofs that Muslims today have the right—rather the duty—to fight against American tyranny. Nidal has killed soldiers who were about to be deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan in order to kill Muslims. The American Muslims who condemned his actions have committed treason against the Muslim Ummah and have fallen into hypocrisy....

May Allah grant our brother Nidal patience, perseverance, and steadfastness, and we ask Allah to accept from him his great heroic act. Ameen.

Check out the sentences I've put in bold.

As Wikipedia further notes, Al-Awlaqi denied that he had encouraged Hasan to kill anyone.

If you believe that, I have a nice old bridge connecting Manhattan to Brooklyn that you might want to buy.

Robert Campbell

[Selene]

This is a fascinating exchange.

Robert...you cannot sell my bridge...I have dibs on it!

However, I am willing to let you in on the vertical land deal that Ninth Dr. and I are selling in Florida...it is slightly wet but has great potential because O'biwan the great marxist has pledged to lower the sea levels...

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Incidentally, Rush actually thinks the video is the cause of blood spilling. He just adds a bit to that narrative and wonders if it is not Obama, himself, through his own ineptness, who is causing all the riots sweeping the Middle East.

After listening to the mainstream Progressive media harp on and on about the timeline in Romney's comment, about how insensitive and misinformed Romney is, yada yada yada, one timeline fact got buried and Rush just brought it to light.



The fact is that the video was not a riot-level issue in the Muslim world UNTIL the Embassy made its public apology. According to the timeline (for example, see THE ANTI-ISLAM-FILM RIOTS on This Week, but note that it totally leaves out the Embassy apology), the video only started becoming news on September 8:

Sept. 8
Egyptian television firebrand Sheik Khaled Abdalla airs part of the the Arabic version of the clip on local channel Al Nas, condemning it harshly.

On Sept. 11, we get the memo from the USA Embassy in Cairo:

The Embassy of the United States in Cairo condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims — as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions. Today, the 11th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, Americans are honoring our patriots and those who serve our nation as the fitting response to the enemies of democracy. Respect for religious beliefs is a cornerstone of American democracy. We firmly reject the actions by those who abuse the universal right of free speech to hurt the religious beliefs of others.

I would give a link for that, but the USA Government has scrubbed it from its website. (See here, where it used to be. You can see a screenshot of the original here--at least I believe it's a screenshot.)

Now, let's take the main point the mainstream Progressive media made against Romney, over and over, which was that this memo happened hours before the storming of the Embassy in Cairo. So isn't it reasonable to presume that the bad guys, a few hours after detecting a sore point with the USA government and sensing a weakness, charged?

That makes more sense to me than them waiting for 3 whole days after a main TV show blasted a little-known work to get riled up and stage a riot against the USA government on USA premises in Cairo. I believe the Embassy put a target on itself with that memo.

The Obama administration has now made a career out of spotlighting the "Innocence of Muslims"--knowing full well that every time they mention the video, it causes Islamists to go berserk.

What's worse, with this policy, terrorists can do whatever the hell they want. They know Obama will not blame them. He will blame the "Innocence of Muslims" video.

There's plenty of other awful anti-Islamic material produced in the USA by people who are not famous, including stuff that mocks Mohammed. Not just that one single video. But there is only one work that the Obama administration continues to spotlight, over and over. And there is only one work the riots cite, over and over.

Why?

So maybe Obama has "blood on his hands" for his own Ambassador's death in Libya?

Not by practicing evil, but by sheer ineptness and an attempt at preemptive appeasement.

Interesting theory, no?

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Note--I'm being a bit of a smart-ass by saying Obama has blood on his hands for Stevens. This is just to give it back to the progressives who say the film-maker has blood on his hands.

Smart-assness aside, I hold that the ONLY people with blood on their hands are those who murdered and ordered the murders.

But it seems there are plenty of different ways to goad a bully. The film-maker's way. The Obama way. And so on...

Michael

[william.scherk]

The term "political correctness" (and the abbreviation PC) were introduced into the language by British Leftists, who were upset at some of their political allies for making regular use of manners of speaking that they considered mealy-mouthed, euphemistic, or hypocritical.

The first time I read the phrase 'politically correct' was in the Men seeking Men want ads of a Toronto weekly newspaper for the Lesbian/Gay community. This would be >1980 or so. I recognized it as shorthand: "Seeking aged-in-wood sporty senior with a swimmer's body. Must be politically-correct."

This puzzled me. What was the shorthand for? I looked further and discovered it meant 'support human rights' or 'support gay liberation' or 'support social forces that are liberatory.' This added extra complications. What does 'liberation' or 'liberatory' mean in context? What were the acknowledged common values implied to be strong on the side of Gay Liberation? How could this be tied to the PC (a new daily 'correct' political line delivered by the People's Daily, the course corrections of official party analysis).

In the sociology of science, Politically Correct was a different thing. The essential distinction between 'incorrect' meant that liberatory marxism trumped all other lines in certain British humanities departments. In those places (Edinburgh among others). It was a cheat, as it turns out. It was a dodge. To enforce a 'political line' in academia may seem a trifle; after all the very name 'humanities' suggests a universal doctrine humane. But.

But as ever, there was dissent. To have to toe a regnant Trots line in your work can chafe when you are a non-Trot. Who is right? I now wonder if the chafing among commies at The Line led to the first non-ironic stipulation of Correctness, which was borrowed by teh gays with a tincture of irony.

It became apparent that to be PC in the gay want ads meant being NDP+. Not only would the PC partner be expected to be vaguely leftist (the New Democratic Party, is the only electable left party in Canada, grown out of the Saskatchewan founding of the Cooperative Commonwealth Party), the PC partner would support as a matter of course all 'oppressed' peoples; be they women, gays, transgenders, visible minorities, unions, teachers, Yanomami Indians, whatever.

I tucked away my impressions of political correctness in the gay community until I joined the staff of Vancouver monthly rag ANGLES. The news editor was a Trotskyite, and a local commie honcho. The statement of purpose was explicitly PC, liberatory, on the side of the oppressed.

I learned a bit more, that the Chinese Communists originated Politically Correct as the standard for re-education (in Re-education Camps). To say in your Meet a Guy ad that you wanted a Politically Correct partner was implying that he had already been to Re-education and did not need further training. It was a way to guard against a Rob Ford-style boyfriend, irreconcilable differences. The sly adoption of the Chinese nomenclature was supposed to be arch and funny.

It was bit later that the term took on its Tone Troll/Language Police connotation for me. At the time, I understood in my work at ANGLES that we were in an oppositional stance to The Injustices of System. In practical terms the liberatory suffusion meant that any time there was 'victim' of some kind of state or patriarchal abuse, the 'right-thinking' man or woman would be at the barricades with the Tibetans, the Transgendered, the Doukhobors, Abuse victims, 'the poor,' yadda yadda yadda.

I ran straight into the awful side of Politically Correct when I realized that PC at ANGLES included a raft of issues of abuse. It became or had become 'correct' to side with the abused (Of course), to be aware of social realties like child sexual abuse, Residential School abuse, Catholic institutional abuse, etcetera. This left the way open for a collision, however, when ANGLES published its Ur-PC "Abuse" special issue.

It had what you would imagine: honest tales of child sexual abuse and domestic violence, shameful secrets and insufficient justice.

But it also had an interview with three anonymous survivors of Satanic Ritual Abuse. The article (by a local feminist gay lady) suggested in no uncertain terms that we Must Support, Must Believe the bullshit these ladies were spouting. The moral of the story suggested that it was PC to disregard any science or criticism of the ritual abuse scenario. The lines were drawn for the first appearance of William Scott Scherk, bullshit detector.

George Orwell would have known where they were coming from.

I bet there is a tome or two -- at least a thesis -- where is done actual historical work of the genesis and spread of the terminology of PC in Western use. You may be right that it was British Lefties who would have not-so-archly first used the term in the dreary sociology of science whoopups. Do you have any tips for tracking down the details?

"political correctness", to me, is a tired catchphrase used mostly in debates on social, not political issues. I don't know who invented it but I suppose it denotes a liberal mindset.

The term spoiled for me when it accrued too much meaning. It became a prototypical weasel-word, able to throb with borrowed 'bad vibes.' Its (probable) borrowing from communist literature already had a unpleasant cachet, and all that really did need to be done to stink it up bigtime was to attach it to stinky things. The 'campus speech codes' and 'chilly climates' and (real and bogus) campus sexual grifting by professors, the 'human rights tribunal' fumbles, all these things and more could have the PC brush slapped on. An all-purpose term of denigration that is none-too-precise, but with emotional punch. I tend to disregard it now since it carries too much meaning for a cognate. I now read it as if the writer meant bad/stupid/authoritarian. The term just has too much flab for me.

As the only two exemplars of the Socialist Horde, you and I, Carol, we should expect to be tarred with the broad brush. You seem to be carrying the sins of several generations of communist nitwits as judged by Robert's addressing his arguments in personal terms to you.

Not PC.

Edited September 22, 2012 by william.scherk

[Robert Campbell]

You seem to be carrying the sins of several generations of communist nitwits as judged by Robert's addressing his argments in personal terms to you.

WSS,

Fascinating stuff. You may be right about PC having a history going back farther than Leftist Britain in the 1970s.

I'm addressing arguments in personal terms to Carol because she has been taking very strong positions here on some aspects of the Big Picture while making cryptic remarks or none whatsoever about others.

I've assumed (rightly, so far) that Carol may in fact have thought about the other bits of the Big Picture, consequently may have views or arguments to express thereon.

Even if they have to be drawn out.

But I honestly still don't know what many of her assumptions actually are.

Robert Campbell

[Robert Campbell]

Note--I'm being a bit of a smart-ass by saying Obama has blood on his hands for Stevens. This is just to give it back to the progressives who say the film-maker has blood on his hands.

Michael,

Rush Limbaugh has a long record of hits and misses. I suppose anyone who loudly voices his opinions in public, several days a week, is going to compile such a thing.

I do hope that, each morning, El Rushbo is giving himself a few motivational repetitions of "Beware of traps named Sandra Fluke."

But I do believe Ol' Rush has catched on to something here.

The timing of the US Embassy Cairo's craven apologetics is just about right, if you assume that various loosely and not so loosely organized groups in and around the metropolis were following Osamian doctrine and looking to strike a blow against a "weak horse," if one could be found.

'Cause you might as well start issuing uniform shirts with Kick Us: We're the Weak Horse printed on them in Arabic, if you make the n^th grovel over hurting people's religious feelings in front of already chronically pissed-off Muslims.

I don't think Barack Obama is actually smart enough (or sinister enough) to try to spark more mayhem, either with repeated references to Mr. Nakoula's craptastically crappy piece of crap, or with his reiterated implied groveling whenever he mentions it.

He is merely refusing to accept the failure of his past groveling, is looking to blame anyone besides himself and his lieutenants for the mayhem, still wants to believe that his tiers-mondisme and pretensions to redeem America from its long catalogue of sins actually impress anyone in the tiers-monde—and is desperately wriggling out of getting a major policy failure pinned on him two months shy of an election.

Judging from his flapping and floundering on Univision, he's running low on wriggles.

But Barack Obama will be the last person on the planet to admit it.

Robert Campbell

[Robert Campbell]

Those with an investment in blaming what somebody in the United States said for all the recent mayhem in countries from Morocco to Australia might want to consider Joe Biden's boast at the Democratic National Convention:

Ladies and Gentlemen, I’m here to tell you, bravery resides in the heart of Barack Obama. And time and time again, I witnessed him summon it. This man has courage in his soul, compassion in his heart, and steel in his spine. And because of all the actions he took, because of the calls he made--and because of the grit and determination of American workers—and the unparalled bravery of our special forces—we can now proudly say—Osama Bin Laden is dead, and General Motors is alive.

Could it be that Joe did it?

Robert Campbell

[Robert Campbell]

Islamabad: Pakistani Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf Friday said freedom of expression could not be an excuse for insulting religious beliefs and inciting hatred.

Speaking at an official function in Islamabad as part of the nationwide protest against the anti-Islam film "Innocence of Muslims" made in the US, he said no one should be allowed to defame religion on the excuse of freedom of expression, reported Xinhua.

http://zeenews.india.com/news/world/don-t-insult-religion-says-pakistani-pm_800979.html

Looks like Mohammed Morsi isn't the only elected official who wants world-wide blasphemy laws.

Robert Campbell

[Robert Campbell]

And even after his Secretary of State, his National Security people, and his own press secretary have taken to referring to the attack in Libya as an organized terrorist action, President Obama still feels a need for a scapegoat.

According to Politico, which some detractors spell in all caps, with two Obama campaign O's:

http://www.politico....lim_unrest.html

National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor previews the president's speech to the UN General Assembly next week:

"UNGA always provides an opportunity for the President to put the international situation in context, and to put forward a vision of US leadership. I would certainly expect the President to address the recent unrest in the Muslim world, and the broader context of the democratic transitions in the Arab World."

"As he has in recent days, the President will make it clear that we reject the views in this video, while also underscoring that violence is never acceptable – a message that has been echoed by the leaders he has personally reached out to in places like Libya, Egypt and Yemen. He will also send a clear message that the United States will never retreat from the world; will bring justice to those who harm Americans; and will stand strongly for our democratic values abroad.

The "strong horse/weak horse" contingent knows which phrase to pay attention to, in the passage I've put in bold.

Robert Campbell

[Robert Campbell]

Mark Steyn on the latest way to say

KICK US: WE'RE THE WEAK HORSE

http://www.nationalr...mob-mark-steyn#

The more that U.S.-government officials talk about the so-called film Innocence of Muslims (which is actually merely a YouTube trailer) the more they confirm the mob’s belief that works of “art” are the proper responsibility of government. Obama and Clinton are currently starring as the Siskel & Ebert of Pakistani TV, giving two thumbs down to Innocence of Muslims in hopes that it will dissuade local moviegoers from giving two heads off to consular officials. “The United States government had absolutely nothing to do with this video,” says Hillary Clinton. “We absolutely reject its content, and message.” “We reject the efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others,” adds Barack Obama. There follows the official State Department seal of the U.S. embassy in Islamabad.

Robert Campbell

PS. For maximum effect, the logo will need translating into, at a minimum, Urdu, Punjabi, and Pashto.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Get a load of this:

Pakistani bounty placed on anti-Islam filmmaker

By Jibran Ahmad

September 22, 2012

Reuters

From the article:

"I announce today that this blasphemer, this sinner who has spoken nonsense about the holy Prophet, anyone who murders him, I will reward him with $100,000," Railways Minister Ghulam Ahmad Bilour told a news conference, to applause.

"I invite the Taliban brothers and the al Qaeda brothers to join me in this blessed mission."

If this film-maker has access to funding and wants to make a bigger statement--plus whop the bully right in the nose (and get some entertainment from what happens)--he could announce that he will reward any mercenary with $100,000 (or more) who kills the one who posted bounty on his head.

If the film-maker doesn't want to do that, I am sure there are other well-funded groups who will step up if they take a fancy to the notion.

I am not for this kind of thing, but a bully is a bully and the only way to stop a bully when he starts with violence is to whop him real hard. Most bullies break down like a little baby when that happens.

Michael

[9thdoctor]

If this film-maker has access to funding and wants to make a bigger statement--plus whop the bully right in the nose (and get some entertainment from what happens)--he could announce that he will reward any mercenary with $100,000 (or more) who kills the one who posted bounty on his head.

Nah, bomb the madrassahs, all of 'em. And be sure to do it while they're occupied. The dead children will all be the moral responsibility of this schmuck. And if/when some Moooooslim over here decides to take revenge by shooting up a school, we'll round up all Moooooslim's in this country! And don't ask what we'll do with 'em once their rounded up...suffice to say the ovens are on order.