US Ambassador to Lybia, along with 3 others, killed

[endeavor]

Originally Posted by Rerun

I agree a lot with what you have said... that being said, I think a lot of us are looking for leadership and condemnation by Muslims of influence in the Middle East. In a lot of cases, now and in the past, the silence has been deafening. What is the world to think when this happens?

I am completely theorizing here, so please correct me if I am mistaken.

I think the reason we don't see condemnation from a lot of the leaders is because the peaceful practitioners of the religion fear they will be ostracized, or worse, attacked by the extremists.

It could also be a culture and education issue. Many children who are raised in that side of the world are brought up where obedience and submission is expected of them. So it takes a lot of courage to stand up and speak out, even for the good, strong leaders.

I also think social media has become a powerful tool, because it is now allowing some people to speak out. But we really do need the powerful and the elite to really take the lead and responsibility. Once that happens, the masses should follow.

[Bigtime]

Just found out that I kind of knew one of the guys killed in Libya through the internet. I've been a member over at the SomethingAwful forums for years, and for a time in 2005-2006 played the MMORPG "Eve Online" with my fellow goons in Goonfleet. Turns out that SA moderator and master diplomat for Goonfleet VileRat was one of the state department guys killed.

I know the goons over at SomethingAwful are setting up a fundraiser for his widow and kids.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

That strikes me more of an isolated incident. And there's a difference between a protest and storming foreign embassies. I don't think anyone was looking to storm Hollywood after TLTOC came out. By the end of the week I expect every Muslim dominated country will have similar protests/riots/incidents going on.

Not to mention that you have mentioned only 2 movies that trash religion, when in fact there are hundreds.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by carom

-in the immediate aftermath the film was said to have been financed by expat Egyptian Copts in the states. Obviously that is not the case now, but there is a recent history in Egypt of animosity between the Muslims and the Copts. It makes me think that this film was made with the explicit purpose of pissing people off and inciting violence.

I was under the impression that it was an Egyptian Copt that was responsible for the film in the end. Or at least that's the most likely theory, as this Sam Bacille (the suppossed Israeli Jew) doesn't seem to exist.

[driveway]

Originally Posted by HPLovecraft

Completely and utterly disagree. ...

I did not mean to offend you and I obviously had no idea your fiancee is muslim. I understand why you would disagree. I'll admit I am not set on my own position. It's something I feel emotionally and I'm trying to think it through rationally, but It's obviously a complicated issue.

I'd like to respond to your post. I respect you as a poster, what you say is always well thought out and well presented. but I need to sleep on it and think through my own ideas on the subject and how best to frame them.

[HPLovecraft]

Originally Posted by driveway

I did not mean to offend you and I obviously had no idea your fiancee is muslim. I understand why you would disagree. I'll admit I am not set on my own position. It's something I feel emotionally and I'm trying to think it through rationally, but It's obviously a complicated issue.

I'd like to respond to your post. I respect you as a poster, what you say is always well thought out and well presented. but I need to sleep on it and think through my own ideas on the subject and how best to frame them.

Thanks, and I will also add that, again, I have no issue at all with the call for more condemnation of these acts from moderate Muslims and prominent Islamic figures. In the West, pretty much every Muslim association with any size and clout already does, but we don't seem to see it as often in the Middle-East (this could be for a whole lot of reasons, one being moderates tend to not speak up, and once they do, they usually cease being moderates).

My fiancee being Muslim (while true) was only used as an example. I find, for myself, and probably for most others, it's better to think of things like this when able to put a face you know to it. It's easy to want to condemn a faceless Islam and all that belong to it in the initial visceral response to terrible acts like this (I feel the same way sometimes, I'm certainly no huge supporter of religion), as it is for most things, but harder to do when you're connected to something personally. It's why I brought the point up originally. There are a lot of people around the world that use the word Muslim to represent one single homogeneous and generalized group. "Muslims hate our way of life!" and I can't help but think it's the same way the insurgents and terrorists think of us. "Zionists and and Imperialists hate our way of life!"

[afc wimbledon]

70 years ago we 'christians' and I apply the term very loosly here, lost our isht over the flimsiest of pretexts and gassed 6 million jews over fears they were taking over the world, this has less to do with Islam and more to do with the fact that most of these people live in undereducated crapholes where superstition and ignorance are rife.

[KootenayFlamesFan]

They've made arrests in Libya already? Be interesting to find out how many arrests and how they found them so quickly.

[Senator Clay Davis]

Word is 4 have been arrested, and are accused of helping to instigate the attack.

"Four men are in custody and we are interrogating them because they are suspected of helping instigate the events at the U.S. consulate," Wanis Sharif told Reuters.

[longsuffering]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

"The Last Temptation of Christ", hugely controversial depiction of Jesus, multimillion dollar Hollywood film, no riots from Christians....

"The Passion of the Christ", hugely controversial for its perceived anti-semitism, multimillion dollar Hollywood film, no riots from Jews...

All anti-Islam films have been poorly produced pieces of crap and yet they all lose their collective isht every single time this happens. Its simply ingrained in the religion, that when someone disagrees or is even slightly intolerant of Islam, they need to be killed. How exactly you defeat that can of mentality I really don't know, which is why I think its pointless to even try.

You can't be serious. As others have pointed out, it has everything to do with poverty, living conditions and lack of education, not religion.

[Senator Clay Davis]

Originally Posted by longsuffering

You can't be serious. As others have pointed out, it has everything to do with poverty, living conditions and lack of education, not religion.

That sound like many parts of the United States, poor people in poor living conditions who lack education. I don't see them protesting and burning everything to the ground. You can try and say its not an Islam thing, but here's the test: Go to the Vatican and say something anti-Jesus and then go to Mecca and say something anti-Mohammed. In only of those two situations will you probably get decipated.

[jammies]

Clearly the correct response to violence justified by the incapacity to care about the difference between an independent filmmaker and the formal representatives of country he made the film in, is to blame every single adherent of the particular religion the perpetrators of this violence belong to. I applaud all efforts to affix collective guilt to "Muslims".

[longsuffering]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

That sound like many parts of the United States, poor people in poor living conditions who lack education. I don't see them protesting and burning everything to the ground. You can try and say its not an Islam thing, but here's the test: Go to the Vatican and say something anti-Jesus and then go to Mecca and say something anti-Mohammed. In only of those two situations will you probably get decipated.

Your ignorance is astounding. You believe a violent but minuscule minority represent all Muslims.

I spent a year working in Yemen and several years working in other muslim countries. All post 9/11.

I have literally hundreds of muslim friends from Yemen, Sudan, Ethiopia, etc., etc.

The violence you see on TV is not representative of the people.

The stereotype you're promoting is racist and offensive.

[longsuffering]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

That sound like many parts of the United States, poor people in poor living conditions who lack education. I don't see them protesting and burning everything to the ground. You can try and say its not an Islam thing, but here's the test: Go to the Vatican and say something anti-Jesus and then go to Mecca and say something anti-Mohammed. In only of those two situations will you probably get decipated.

Go to the poorest area of a major American city and shout "n***ers are lazy and stupid". See how than works out for you.

[Senator Clay Davis]

Originally Posted by longsuffering

Your ignorance is astounding. You believe a violent but minuscule minority represent all Muslims.

I spent a year working in Yemen and several years working in other muslim countries. All post 9/11.

I have literally hundreds of muslim friends from Yemen, Sudan, Ethiopia, etc., etc.

The violence you see on TV is not representative of the people.

The stereotype you're promoting is racist and offensive.

Not all Muslims are terrorists...but most terrorists are Muslim. Maybe thats a coincidence, or maybe its because Islam is the most violent of the religions in the world? If there's an incident of terror that occurs in the world, I'm sorry but you and I both know the odds are they are an Islamic fundamentalist group.

Originally Posted by longsuffering

Go to the poorest area of a major American city and shout "n***ers are lazy and stupid". See how than works out for you.

I'd give myself at least 50/50 odds of living in this situation. Dissing Muhammed in Mecca? 1/100 odds of living.

[Itse]

My pet peeves in life is the need for people to say "This is because x" or "this proves that x is bad/good". As is usual in the world, there's a LOT of things going on here.

- A history (part perceived, part real, but very much real to the people who believe in it) of oppression and violence by the US towards many muslim countries

- Frustration over many things in their everyday life making some people prone to take extreme action towards anyone they can find to be blamed

- Lack of education, lack of personal and economical safety, lack of political means of influence etc. all of which contribute to people resorting to mob behavior

- Apparently opportunistic extremists taking advantage of a riot situation

- A bunch of people being idiots

Even if religion was partly to blame (and that's kind of a complicated claim), it would still be a rather moot point, because what are you going to do about that? Tell people to stop being religious?

Things that a US citizen actually could do that might contribute somehow was to advocate for a foreign policy doctrine that would absolutely stop propping up dictators and various warlords as means of trying to control remote areas. There are propably some groups in the US that try speak up for that issue. And there are propably human rights movements and democracy groups in those other countries that could use your money to try and help make their countries better places to live in both politically and economically. Etc.

Now, I'm not very fond of religions on my average days, but I've learned long ago that blaming religions for anything is just a waste of everyones time and tends to make things worse, not better.

It's a lot like saying "you're only doing this because your mother was a terrible person". It doesn't matter if that's true, it wont contribute anything in any case.

[Itse]

Btw, in times of turmoil some people turn to violence, especially to violence towards perceived outsiders. That has nothing to do with religion as such.

Here's a scary read about something really bad going on in Greece (by the highly appreciated UK Independent newspaper).

It's not rhetoric to draw parallels to nazism

Actual fascists in actual black shirts are actually marching around Athens waving swastikas and burning torches, and maiming and murdering ethnic minorities...

Turning a blind eye would be bad enough. But now the Minister for Public Order, Nikos Dendias, has pledged to crack down on immigration, which he described as an "invasion" and "a bomb at the foundations of society".

We, as white people, are from an arab point of view "the other", and as such already make for a good target of xenophobia and racism.

Add to that the feeling of injustice, and a society in turmoil and you are sure to get violence. The embassies make for good targets of insane violence. It doesn't need a reason.

Hate speech is a classic way of diverting attention from real local issues.

[Rerun]

Lets face it... we're fighting a losing battle anyways....

Its been like this for the past 50 years and it will probably continue for another 50 years. You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink if he doesn't want to.

God help us though if a fundamentalist Islamic regime ever gets their hands on nuclear weapons.

[Rerun]

About the filmmaker...

Federal authorities say the shadowy figure behind the film is Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, 55, a California man once convicted of financial crimes and prohibited from using computers or the Internet as part of his sentence.

Authorities have connected Nakoula to the persona of Sam Bacile, someone who initially claimed to The Associated Press to be the writer and director of the film. The YouTube clips were posted under the username “sam bacile.” Nakoula told the AP in an interview Wednesday that he managed logistics for the company that made the film. He denied he was Bacile and said he didn’t direct the film, though he said he knew Bacile. Bacile turned out to be a false identity, and the AP traced a cellphone number used by Bacile to a home where a reporter located Nakoula.

Court papers in 2010 said Nakoula had many aliases, including Nicola Bacily, Robert Bacily and Erwin Salameh. The man identifying himself as Bacile claimed to be an Israeli Jew, but evidence shows he is a Coptic Christian. He told the AP he is a real estate developer, but his name does not appear in searches of California real estate licenses.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/nation...b_story_1.html#

[kirant]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

Not all Muslims are terrorists...but most terrorists are Muslim. Maybe thats a coincidence, or maybe its because Islam is the most violent of the religions in the world? If there's an incident of terror that occurs in the world, I'm sorry but you and I both know the odds are they are an Islamic fundamentalist group.

Now ask WHY it's that way. Removing the context of the nation is an easy way to make some pretty scary correlations. Let's look at it this way...the most violent nations in the world, by almost 100% above the 3rd (USA) are South Africa and Swaziland. Algeria is 15th, then that's about it on reliable data for African nations. Maybe it's coincidence that the nations of Africa are higher than the rest of the world. Or maybe is it that Africans are naturally more violent?

Correlation without causation. Africa is a problem area. Crime will of course be high. There are probably some good people out there committing violent theft to feed their family and there's going to be logical answers behind the how and the what of the statistic. We take that here and we have to believe that it'd be natural that people are on edge. The areas that hold heavily Muslim. You add in a vent to let out some frustration and concerns and away we go. I'm not convinced any other religious population would do much better given all that has impacted the area if you gave them the same problems.