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09/15/2012
Conservative con and I
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A weak foreign policy narrative
Romney falls back on an obsolete charge
 Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter (Getty photo / September 5, 2012) |
On Aug. 31, 1983, a South Korean airliner flying from New York to Seoul drifted off course and entered Soviet airspace. After tracking the civilian plane for more than two hours, Soviet fighter pilots were told to shoot it down. They did, killing 269 people, including 60 Americans. It was one of the most shocking atrocities of the Cold War.
It occurred during the first term of perhaps the most staunchly anti-communist president America has ever had, Ronald Reagan, an advocate of robust military power. And how did Reagan respond? He called it a “crime against humanity,” and then, um, postponed some cultural exchanges with the Soviets.
Some of his admirers were aghast at this display, as Steven Hayward notes in his 2009 book, “The Age of Reagan.” New York Times columnist William Safire said Reagan “has acted more pusillanimously than Jimmy Carter.” Polls showed most Americans thought he had done too little, prompting the president to ask, “Short of going to war, what would they have us do?”
- Steve Chapman
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Conservatives invariably claim that any show of weakness emboldens aggressors and endangers peace. But just six years later, the Soviet empire collapsed. By 1991, the Soviet Union was gone. Maybe in his restraint, which looked disgraceful at the time, Reagan was acting wisely.
Barack Obama has never done anything that could compare to Reagan’s limp response to this wanton slaughter of innocents. But conservatives with short memories regard Obama as the most feeble, weak-kneed president since … well, since Jimmy Carter.
They are employing a narrative that has worked for them at least since the Carter era: Weakness breeds aggression, and strength deters it. Democrats are weak, and Republicans are strong. When anything goes wrong overseas under a Democratic president, it’s because no one respects or fears him. Otherwise it wouldn’t happen.
Of course, Democrats used to have great success depicting Republicans as the party of Herbert Hoover, whom they blamed for the Great Depression. But they had to give that up after Reagan presided over an economic boom. Reality no longer supported the narrative. Voters knew better.
That’s the GOP’s problem with Obama. He expanded the war in Afghanistan, used U.S. air power to topple Moammar Gadhafi, and rained drone missiles on terrorists in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. Hmm. Was there something else? Oh, right! He killed Osama bin Laden.
Americans seem to have noticed. In the latest CNN/ORC International poll, Americans trust Obama more than Mitt Romney on foreign policy by 54 percent to 42 percent.
But in the aftermath of the violent protests this past week, Romney’s campaign reverted to type. “It’s a terrible course for America to stand in apology for our values,” he said. His foreign policy adviser, Richard Williamson, insisted the demonstrations erupted because “the respect for America has gone down, there’s not a sense of American resolve.”
Really? So why was there a wave of fierce anti-American protests across the Middle East in 2003, as President George W. Bush was preparing to invade Iraq? The State Department was so alarmed it advised Americans to avoid 17 countries across the region and beyond.
Our diplomats have nothing to fear when we’re strong? Under Bush, there were violent attacks on American embassies in Yemen, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, India and Turkey. A U.S. diplomat was assassinated in Sudan. Another was murdered in Pakistan.
Those are not proof that Bush was weak or even wrong in his foreign policy. They are proof that the president of the United States is not the Lord of the Universe. Even if he does everything right, nasty developments will ensue.
Certainly they did under Reagan. A U.S. Army major carrying out routine monitoring in East Germany, as allowed under a U.S.-Soviet agreement, was shot to death by a Soviet sentry. An American reporter was arrested on phony espionage charges in Moscow, forcing Reagan to negotiate to get him released. A barracks in Beirut was blown up, killing 241 American military personnel.
But somehow, these episodes did not discredit Reagan among conservatives or the broader public. The embassy attacks likewise won’t trump all the other things Obama has done.
The claim that the GOP represents strength against a president who is fatally weak and uncertain has worked for Republicans before. If the Democrats ever nominate Jimmy Carter, it might work again.
Steve Chapman is a member of the Tribune’s editorial board and blogs at chicagotribune.com/chapman.
Twitter @SteveChapman13
Copyright © 2012, Chicago Tribune
- Hello bakulaji
- Kathleen Parker
- Opinion Writer
In Libya and America, imbeciles affecting foreign policy
By Kathleen Parker, Published: September 14
“This time, the imbeciles have won.”
That was the assessment of French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy in his remembrance of U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens.
Kathleen Parker
Parker writes a twice-weekly column on politics and culture.
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Ann Telnaes animation: Romney stumbles into the pages of history.
And he wasn’t just whistling “Freres Jacques.”
BHL was referring to the fact that Stevens was a great friend of Libya and of the Muslim/Arab world generally. The imbeciles killed perhaps their bravest advocate in the Western world.
And they killed him (perhaps in part) because of the actions of another imbecile in the United States. One lowlife creates an anti-Islam film that looks like a blend of “The Blair Witch Project” and “Keystone Terrorists,” and the unhappy Muslim world goes ballistic.
I emphasize the word “unhappy” because it is no more accurate to condemn the Muslim world for the atrocities of a relative few than it is to indict America because one lowbrow decides to upload a lousy flick that nobody otherwise would watch or even know about.
Hey, demonstrators: Anybody can make a movie. It doesn’t mean anything.
And by the way, anybody can burn a Koran. Or a Bible. Or smear feces on a crucifix. Or . . . ad infinitum. We tolerate rudeness because the alternative — state-enforced politeness — leads to the guillotine.
Unfortunately, even we seem to have lost sight of the nature and causes of these incidents, which have less to do with reasons than with excuses. The demonstrations and attacks more likely are a function of post-revolutionary jockeying among the groups competing for power than they are about American anything. The storming of the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi on the anniversary of 9/11 may have been a planned attack, possibly orchestrated by al-Qaeda and possibly having nothing to do with the movie.
The extent of our role, alas, has been exaggerated by our own actions. At least two notable missteps should be reminders about the importance of getting it right. For handy reference, check the parenting manual: Do not indulge tantrums.
First, the U.S. Embassy in Cairo issued what amounted to an apology to the mobs for any hurt feelings they may have suffered because of the film in question. If you intend to watch it, be sure to take necessary IQ-lowering measures. It is so ridiculous and poorly made, no movie-going American could watch long without succumbing to laughter or . . . coma.
But then, the America-hating, unhappy Muslim mob isn’t familiar with RottenTomatoes.com or even Siskel and Ebert. They watch a homemade movie trailer on their computer and see a nation of haters. How does one deal with this kind of senseless rabidity?
Apparently, not through any civilized response such as, “Gosh, sorry about that awful film. We don’t really believe that.” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the film “disgusting and reprehensible.” Of course it is, but so what? Besides, I don’t think they’re listening.
Here on Planet Earth, where being goofy isn’t a head-severing offense, one reaches without strain the following observation: The film was idiotic and not worth the attention of our president or secretary of state. The response has made clear that an apology doesn’t work, which is why both the White House and the State Department initially distanced themselves from the embassy’s statement.
This is most certainly why Mitt Romney decided to enter the fray, for which he has been variously pilloried and heralded. Put me in the pillory column. His comments condemning President Obama’s “apologist” foreign policy were premature, inappropriate and too politically motivated to be effective either as proper criticism or as a campaign maneuver.
Attempting to clarify, Romney’s foreign policy adviser, Rich Williamson, subsequently asserted that events would have been different under a President Romney. Perhaps, but might we use the same powers of extrapolation to infer that 9/11 wouldn’t have occurred if George W. Bush hadn’t been president?
Obama critics have long held that his post-exceptionalist, lead-from-behind model invites only contempt in the Middle East. Since no policy thus far seems to have been very effective, we’ll have to rely on history for more information. On principle, meanwhile, Romney would have been better advised to keep his own counsel pending clarity — always the wiser course.
What we clearly must not convey to the Muslim world is that either a random, Koran-burning zealot or an anti-Muhammad filmmaker is remotely relevant to our foreign policy. By apologizing — and later by Romney’s commenting — we made events more of an American problem than they were, as The Post’s David Ignatius recently noted. And we lent unnecessary gravity and impetus to the conduct of imbeciles.
Obviously, they don’t need any help.
kathleenparker@washpost.com
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- tikakar
Anti-American Protests Flare Beyond the Mideast
Protesters in front of the burning German Embassy in Khartoum, Sudan, after Friday Prayer. More Photos »
By RICK GLADSTONE
Published: September 14, 2012
Anti-American rage that began this week over a video insult to Islam spread to nearly 20 countries across the Middle East and beyond on Friday, with violent and sometimes deadly protests that convulsed the birthplaces of the Arab Spring revolutions, breached two more United States Embassies and targeted diplomatic properties of Germany and Britain.
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The broadening of the protests appeared to reflect a pent-up resentment of Western powers in general, and defied pleas for restraint from world leaders, including the new Islamist president of Egypt, Mohamed Morsi, whose country was the instigator of the demonstrations that erupted three days earlier on the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
The anger stretched from North Africa to South Asia and Indonesia and in some cases was surprisingly destructive. In Tunis, an American-run school that was untouched during the revolution nearly two years ago was completely ransacked. In eastern Afghanistan, protesters burned an effigy of President Obama, who had made an outreach to Muslims a thematic pillar of his first year in office.
The State Department confirmed that protesters had penetrated the perimeters of the American Embassies in the Tunisian and Sudanese capitals, and said that 65 embassies or consulates around the world had issued emergency messages about threats of violence, and that those facilities in Islamic countries were curtailing diplomatic activity. The Pentagon said it sent Marines to protect embassies in Yemen and Sudan.
The wave of unrest not only increased concern in the West but raised new questions about political instability in Egypt, Tunisia and other Middle East countries where newfound freedoms, once suppressed by autocratic leaders, have given way to an absence of authority. The protests also seemed to highlight the unintended consequences of America’s support of movements to overthrow those autocrats, which have empowered Islamist groups that remain implacably hostile to the West.
“We have, throughout the Arab world, a young, unemployed, alienated and radicalized group of people, mainly men, who have found a vehicle to express themselves,” Rob Malley, the Middle East-North African program director for the International Crisis Group, a consulting firm, said in a telephone interview from Tripoli, Libya.
In a number of these countries, particularly Egypt and Tunisia, he said, “the state has lost a lot of its capacity to govern effectively. Paradoxically, that has made it more likely that events like the video will make people take to the streets and act in the way they did.”
Some of the most serious violence targeted the compound housing the German and British Embassies in Khartoum, the Sudanese capital, causing minor damage to the British property but major fire damage to the German one. The foreign ministers of both countries strongly protested the assault, which The Associated Press said had been instigated by a prominent sheik exhorting protesters to storm the German Embassy to avenge what he called anti-Muslim graffiti on Berlin mosques.
The police fired tear gas to repulse attacks in Khartoum, where about 5,000 demonstrators had massed, news reports said, before they moved on to the United States Embassy on the outskirts of the capital.
In Tunis, the United States Embassy was assaulted at midday by protesters who smashed windows and set fires before security forces routed them in violent clashes that left at least 3 dead and 28 hurt. Witnesses and officials said no Americans were hurt and most had left earlier.
The worst damage was inflicted on the American Cooperative School of Tunis, a highly regarded institution that, despite its name, catered mostly to the children of non-American expatriates, nearly half of whom work for the African Development Bank. School officials, who had sent the 650 students home early, said a few protesters scaled the fence and dismantled monitoring cameras, followed by 300 to 400 others, some of them local residents, who looted everything including 700 laptop computers, musical instruments and the safe in the director’s office, and then set the building on fire.
“It’s ransacked,” the director, Allan Bredy, said in a telephone interview. “We were thinking it was something the Tunisia government would keep under control. We had no idea they would allow things to go as wildly as they did.”
The school’s director of security, David Santiago, said a group of staff members formed a posse armed with baseball bats to chase lingering looters away hours after the assault. “Our elementary school library is burning as we speak,” he said angrily as he and his colleagues sought to assess the damage. “It’s complete chaos.”
Thousands of Palestinians joined demonstrations after Friday Prayer in the Gaza Strip. Since there is no American diplomatic representation in Gaza, the main gathering took place in Gaza City, outside the Parliament building, where American and Israeli flags were placed on the ground for the crowds to stomp. Palestinians also clashed with Israeli security forces in Jerusalem and held protests in the West Bank.
Witnesses in Cairo said protests that first flared Tuesday grew in scope on Friday, with demonstrators throwing rocks and gasoline bombs near the American Embassy and the police firing tear gas. The Egyptian news media said more than 220 people had been injured in clashes so far.
In the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi, where J. Christopher Stevens, the American ambassador, and three other Americans were killed Tuesday, militias fired rockets at what they thought were American drones overhead, prompting the government to temporarily close the airport as a precaution. The bodies of Mr. Stevens and the others killed in the Libya attack were returned to the United States on Friday.
In Lebanon, where Pope Benedict XVI was visiting, one person was killed and 25 were injured as protesters attacked restaurants. There was also turmoil in Yemen, Bangladesh, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, India, Pakistan and Iraq, and demonstrations in Malaysia. In Nigeria, troops fired into the air to disperse protesters marching on the city of Jos, Reuters reported. In Syria, about 200 protesters chanted anti-American slogans outside the long-closed American Embassy in Damascus, news reports said.
In the Egyptian Sinai, a group of Bedouins stormed an international peacekeepers’ camp and set fire to an observation tower, according to Al Ahram Online, a state-owned, English-language Web site. Three people, two Colombians and one Egyptian, were injured in the ensuing clashes.
In Yemen, baton-wielding security forces backed by water cannons blocked streets near the American Embassy a day after protesters breached the outer security perimeter there, and officials said two people were killed in clashes with the police. Still, a group of several dozen protesters gathered near the diplomatic post, carrying placards and shouting slogans.
In Iraq, where the heavily fortified American Embassy sits on the banks of the Tigris River inside Baghdad’s Green Zone and is out of reach to most Iraqis, thousands protested after Friday Prayer in Sunni and Shiite cities alike.
Raising banners with Islamic slogans and denouncing the United States and Israel, Iraqis called for the expulsion of American diplomats from the country and demanded that the American government apologize for the incendiary film and take legal action against its creators.
In Egypt, in particular, leaders scrambled to repair deep strains with Washington provoked by their initial response to attacks on the American Embassy on Tuesday, tacitly acknowledging that they erred in their response by focusing far more on anti-American domestic opinion than on condemning the violence.
The attacks squeezed Mr. Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood between conflicting pressures from Washington and their Islamic constituency at home, a senior Brotherhood official acknowledged. During a 20-minute phone call Wednesday night, Mr. Obama warned Mr. Morsi that relations would be jeopardized if the authorities in Cairo failed to protect American diplomats and stand more firmly against anti-American attacks.
On Friday, Mr. Morsi, on a scheduled state visit to Rome, called attacks on foreign embassies “absolutely unacceptable.”
Reporting was contributed by David D. Kirkpatrick from Cairo; Alan Cowell from London; Monica Marks from Tunis; Nasser Arrabyee from Sana, Yemen; Tim Arango from Baghdad; Nicholas Kulish from Berlin; Steven Lee Myers from Washington; Alissa J. Rubin from Kabul, Afghanistan; Kareem Fahim from Beirut, Lebanon; Fares Akram from Gaza; Isabel Kershner from Jerusalem; and Christine Hauser from New York.
US scrambles to rush spies, drones to Libya
Originally published: September 15, 2012 3:24 AM
Updated: September 15, 2012 3:27 AM
By The Associated Press KIMBERLY DOZIER (AP Intelligence Writer)
Photo credit: AP | Libyan followers of the Ansar al-Shariah Brigades chant anti-U.S. slogans during a protest in front of the Tibesti Hotel, in Benghazi, Libya, Friday, Sept. 14, 2012, as part of widespread anger across the Muslim world about a film ridiculing Islam’s Prophet Muhammad. One of the leading suspects in an attack that killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans is the Libyan-based Islamic militant group Ansar al-Shariah, led by former Guantanamo detainee Sufyan bin Qumu. The group denied responsibility in a video Friday but did acknowledge its fighters were in the area during what it called a “popular protest” at the consulate, according to Ben Venzke of the IntelCenter, a private analysis firm that monitors Jihadist media for the U.S. intelligence community. (AP Photo/Mohammad Hannon)
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WASHINGTON – (AP) — The U.S. is sending more spies, Marines and drones to Libya, trying to speed the search for those who killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans, but the investigation is complicated by a chaotic security picture in the post-revolutionary country, and limited American and Libyan intelligence resources.
The CIA has fewer people available to send, stretched thin from tracking conflicts across the Middle East, Africa and Asia.
And the Libyans have barely re-established full control of their country, much less rebuilt their intelligence service, less than a year after the overthrow of dictator Moammar Gadhafi.
The U.S. has already deployed an FBI investigation team, trying to track al-Qaida sympathizers thought to be responsible for turning a demonstration over an anti-Islamic video into a violent, coordinated militant attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi.
Ambassador Chris Stevens, and three other embassy employees were killed after a barrage of small arms, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars tore into the consulate buildings in Benghazi on Tuesday, the 11th anniversary of 9/11, setting the buildings on fire.
President Barack Obama said in a Rose Garden statement the morning after the attack that those responsible would be brought to justice. That may not be swift. Building a clearer picture of what happened will take more time, and possibly more people, U.S. officials said Friday.
Intelligence officials are reviewing telephone intercepts, computer traffic and other clues gathered in the days before the attacks, and Libyan law enforcement has made some arrests. But investigators have found no evidence pointing conclusively to a particular group or to indicate the attack was planned, White House spokesman Jay Carney said, adding, “This is obviously under investigation.”
Early indications suggest the attack was carried out not by the main al-Qaida terror group but “al-Qaida sympathizers,” said a U.S. intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the investigation publicly.
One of the leading suspects is the Libyan-based Islamic militant group Ansar al-Shariah, led by former Guantanamo detainee Sufyan bin Qumu. The group denied responsibility in a video Friday but did acknowledge its fighters were in the area during what it called a “popular protest” at the consulate, according to Ben Venzke of the IntelCenter, a private analysis firm that monitors Jihadist media for the U.S. intelligence community.
The U.S. had been watching threat assessments from Libya for months but none offered warnings of the Benghazi attack, according to another intelligence official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about U.S. intelligence matters.
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, questioned whether the consulate had taken sufficient security measures, given an attempt to attack the consulate in Benghazi a few months ago.
Carney said that given the 9/11 anniversary, security had been heightened.
“It was, unfortunately, not enough,” he said.
That paucity of resources also applies to the intelligence officers available to monitor Libya on the ground.
With ongoing counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen, as well as the civil war in Syria, the CIA’s clandestine and paramilitary officer corps is simply running out of trained officers to send, U.S. officials say, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the deployment of intelligence personnel publicly. The clandestine service is roughly 5,000 officers strong, and the paramilitary corps sent to war zones is only in the hundreds, the officials said.
Most of the CIA’s paramilitary team dispatched to Libya during the revolution had been sent onward to the Syrian border, the officials said.
The CIA normally hires extra people to make up for such shortfalls, often retired special operators with the requisite security clearance, military training and language ability. But the government mandate to slash contractor use has meant cutting contracts, according to two former officials familiar with the agency’s current hiring practices.
To fill in the gaps in spies on the ground, the U.S. intelligence community has kept up surveillance over Libya with unmanned and largely unarmed Predator and Reaper drones, increasing the area they cover, and the frequency of their flights since the attack on the consulate, as well as sending more surveillance equipment to the region, one official said.
But intelligence gathered from the air still needs corroboration from sources on the ground, as well as someone to act on the intelligence to go after the targets.
The Libyan government, though it claims it is eager to help, has limited tools at its disposal. The post-revolution government has been slow to rebuild both its intelligence capability and its security services, fearful of empowering the very institutions they had to fight to overthrow Gadhafi. They have made a start, but they lack a sophisticated cadre of trained spies and a large network of informants.
“The Libyans in just about every endeavor are just learning to walk, let alone run,” said Paul Pillar, a former senior CIA official and author of the book “Intelligence and U.S. Foreign Policy.”
“There is confusion and competing elements within the new provisional government which complicates the task of creating new institutions, including the intelligence service,” he said.
“There are still some aspects of the intelligence services that still work,” says Barak Barfi of the New America Foundation think tank, including eavesdropping on cellphone calls and spying on computer traffic using equipment from the Gadhafi era. Barfi spent months with members of Libya’s transitional government as they tried to rebuild the nation’s services and infrastructure.
But the Libyans have not yet even taken full command their own security services almost a year after Gadhafi’s fall, Barfi said. That’s given the tens of thousands of militiamen who helped overthrow Gadhafi the time they needed to organize and seek new targets, especially Western ones, he said.
___
Associated Press writers Eileen Sullivan and Lolita C. Baldor contributed to this report.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Anti-U.S. protests over Islam film spread to Australia
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SYDNEY (AP) â?? Riot police clashed with about 200 protesters at the U.S. Consulate in Sydney on Saturday as demonstrations against an anti-Islam film produced in the United States spread to Australia.
Ten Network television news showed a policeman knocked unconscious as the mostly male crowd hurled bottles and other missiles. Many of the protesters were wearing Muslim dress.
Police used pepper spray against the protesters, who chanted “Obama, Obama, we love Osama” and waved placards saying “Behead all those who insult the Prophet.”
A total of six police officers were injured, including two who were taken to a hospital. Two protesters were treated for police dog bites and 17 others for the effects of pepper spray, police said in a statement. There were no details of their condition.
Eight people were arrested on charges including assaulting police and resisting arrest.
Police said they were unsure who organized the protest.
“There was little or no organization or control of what they were doing, and their actions were disgraceful,” police Superintendent Mark Walton said in a statement.
Prime Minister Julian Gillard said the protest was unacceptable.
“Violent protest is never acceptable — not today, not ever,” she said in a statement.
U.S. diplomatic posts around the world have been targeted in recent days by protests against the film Innocence of Muslims, which ridicules the Prophet Muhammad.
In Sudan, police say two protesters were killed in a traffic accident during chaotic demonstrations outside the U.S. Embassy in Sudan, bringing the total killed in a wave of protests across the Muslim world against an anti-Islam film to at least five.
The Sudanese police official said Saturday on state radio that the accident outside the embassy, about 15 kilometers (10 miles) southeast of the capital Khartoum, was “unintentional.” He did not elaborate.
He said 6,000 participated in the protests. Demonstrators stormed the German Embassy before moving on in buses to the U.S. Embassy, where police used tear gas to stop them scaling the walls.
Two demonstrators died in Tunisia during Friday’s violence and another was killed in Lebanon. Egyptian police have not confirmed reports of the death of another protester in Cairo.
Tunisia’s governing moderate Islamist party condemned an attack on the U.S. Embassy in Tunis and the neighboring American school, saying such violence threatens the country’s progress toward democracy after decades of dictatorship.
The embassy compound and school were surrounded by Tunisian police and army vehicles and personnel on Saturday.
The embassy building itself — a fort-like structure — was untouched Friday, but a gym and parking lot within the compound were ransacked and set alight. The windows of the small building at the complex’s entrance used to screen visitors were smashed and computers stolen.
Several dozen cars in the parking lot were burned, sending up thick, black smoke. A reporter saw looters jimmying open car doors and taking whatever they could find inside before setting them on fire.
The same happened at the school, where computers and other valuables were also stolen before it was engulfed in flames.
The degree of violence in Tunisia surprised many and raised new questions about the direction of the country, where an uprising last year forced out its longtime president and set off pro-democracy revolts across the Arab world.
Tunisia is now run by the once-banned Islamist party, Ennahda, which has vowed to protect the rights of women and free worship, while building a robust democracy. But the moderate government has since struggled to quell protests by increasingly vocal ultraconservative Muslims known as Salafis.
The youth wing of Ennahda said in a statement emailed early Saturday that both the film that incited the protests and the violence should be condemned.
The party’s statement accused “enemies of the revolution” of turning peaceful demonstrations into destructive mobs and manipulating anger over the film to divide the country and prevent Tunisia from building a robust democracy.
“We call on the youth and on all Tunisians to maintain vigilance and unity in order to prevent all attempts at sowing divisions and halting the revolution,” the statement said.
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Anger that erupted on Sept. 11 over an amateur film denigrating Prophet Mohammed has spread throughout the Muslim world. But the roots of this rage go far beyond a simple film trailer. GlobalPost brings you the latest on this developing story and how it is playing across the Middle East, on the US campaign trail, and around the world.
A clash of civilizations? Not so much
Egyptians and Libyans denounce the “extremist” fringe responsible for attacks on US missions in their countries.
Erin CunninghamSeptember 12, 2012 14:38
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happened in Egypt.
On Wednesday, protests in Cairo had already died down, with only a handful still milling around the US embassy, which is located in an upscale district of the city just blocks from the iconic Tahrir Square.
“Egyptians are emotional when it comes to their prophet and religion,” said 24-year-old engineer and Cairo resident, Amro Hussein. “We condemn the film, but what happened in Libya — we are totally against what happened there.”
More from GlobalPost: The men behind the controversial film
While the so-called Arab Spring, a series of Middle East uprisings that began in Tunisia in 2010, was born of the want for political, civil and even religious freedoms, it also midwifed in some countries an Islamic-nationalist identity.
In Egypt, candidates belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood and, to a lesser extent, fundamentalist Salafi groups, triumphed in recent parliamentary and presidential elections.
According to a poll released by the Pew Research Center in May, 66 percent of Egyptians see Islam as playing a major role in the political life of the country.
This trend can make it politically difficult for Egypt’s leaders to speak out more forcefully against the actions of the extremists, lest the statements are misconstrued as being unsupportive of Islam.
“Today, there is a lot more room for Islamic political forces to organize,” said Ziad Akl, senior researcher at the Cairo-based Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies.
“And what happened [yesterday] is the result of a mix between a traditional cultural orientation to being very touchy with matters regarding the prophet, the political opportunity of Islamists, and radicalization and mobilization of Islamists under the auspices of protecting the image and legacy of the prophet,” he said.
More from GlobalPost: Libya attack becomes US campaign issue
This is not the case in Libya, where Islamists lost at the polls in July — and Libya’s current secular government condemned the attack and apologized to the US on live television. Middle East observers say Libya is battling a post-revolution security vacuum that likely led to the attack, where armed groups that fought Gaddafi’s forces are largely left alone due to their prominent role in the uprising.
Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, a longtime leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, first “condemned the transgression upon the prophet” before emphasizing that the Egyptian state is responsible for the protection of foreign embassies, according to a statement posted on the president’s official Facebook site.
The Muslim Brotherhood also called for mass demonstrations on Friday, a traditional day of protest, to express anger over the film’s disrespect for the prophet.
Morsi’s position is further complicated by his efforts to seek a $4 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund to resuscitate Egypt’s ailing economy. To secure those funds, Morsi needs US political and financial support.
But Morsi also doesn’t want to anger his Islamist base by condemning those who insist they are protesting in the prophet’s name, especially with fresh legislative polls looming on the horizon.
In addition, just 19 percent of Egyptians hold a favorable view of the United States, according to the same Pew survey released in May.
“Egypt is different. Here, Morsi belongs to the Islamic stream. He will never state that the problem is not with the movie, and that the prophet was not violent. He cannot condemn the action,” Akl said. “The Muslim Brotherhood is very much aware of the fact that this will create a division within the Islamic camp, that people will see the Brotherhood as un-Islamic.”
The result will be the marginalization of the mainstream moderates — the millions who did not protest and do not want to see further violence in the name of the prophet — and the empowerment of a groundswell of Islamist and, in some cases, anti-American sentiment.
“I blame the Obama administration for this,” Hussein said.
“He promoted [the Islamists] as moderates, and as calling for reform. But imagine if they had weapons. It would have been like Iran,” he said, referring to when pro-Islamic demonstrators stormed the US embassy in Tehran in 1979 and took dozens of Americans hostage.
Decoded: 3 questions with Middle East editor Peter Gelling:
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/middle-east/egypt/120912/egypt-libya-embassy-attack-islam-clash-civilizations
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elcidharthLess than a minute ago
US reaction was, as usual, notably, arrogant. The initial script maintained that Bengazi attack was preplanned by Al-Qaeda. According to Leon Panetta, Al-Qaeda is dead, almost dead. How come then the movement not led by Al-Qaeda could spread all over the world, including the Great Britain, Germany and Australia?
Fundamentalists exist in all religions, cultures and countries, Islam gets the most attention. I wish the news agencies, newspaper chains and partisan media moderate their flashy and trashy spin doctoring and report the news, as it should be reported. In these days and age, they are not the major news makers and providers. US media is suffering badly. Their ad revenue has gone down dramatically. They cannot and must not create news which does not exist. The truth, as I see is that anti-American sentiment in Muslim countries and Muslim neighborhoods in the Western countries is increasing. If not this particular sad incidence in Bengazi and Yemen, it could have been over another claim of assassinating yet another Al-Qaeda member, not necessarily of high position. Overt and covert wars led by Barack Obama for his entire presidential career has made an average, non religious and non political Muslim sick and tired of American foreign policy. Revenge is mine thus sayeth the lord. …and I am Sid Harth@mysistereileen.org 0
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John21 hours ago
They burn the Bible, the Torah and the flags of any nation they disagree with and expect nothing to befall them for their actions. But let them be offended in the slightest and they riot, attack foreign embassies and commit acts of brutal terrorism.
Then they profess to be a peaceful religion and beg for tolerance of their beliefs and societies from everyone else around the world. If they truly desire tolerance, they need to practice it themselves. Otherwise, it appears that they just want the world to wait for their next acts of violence and hatred, in which case we need to use a thermonuclear weapon on them and call it a day. Reply
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Adlan Nakh18 hours ago
John,
First of all, not a single Mislim person would burn Engil (Bible) or Torat (Torah)…those are Holy books to Muslims, so that is a lie!Second of all, Islam is the religion of peace…there were 160 000 000 people killed in wars in the 20 century…only 9 000 000 were killed in the wars involving Muslim countries and that number includes Mislims killed as well. So in comparisment to any other religion, simple cold math speaks for itself…so your second paragraph is a lie also! We do practise tolerance…considering the colonial nature of your treatment of our countries this is what you fairly deserve! As to calling it a day and using weapons of mass distruction…your own words speak clearly about who you are and the state of your moral values! Violence and hatred ahh? Reply
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Jack Atherton18 hours ago
Culture of Peace? I hear that all of the time. I have never seen any evidence to support it.
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TeeJayRat17 hours ago
How can one provide evidence of peace if not by showing statistics of war as Adlan Nakh has done? Let us not confuse the practices of a few for the belief of the many.http://www.slideshare.net/speed2kx/contributions-of-islam-to-civilization-presentation
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Demsare Loosers16 hours ago
There are thousands of them rioting / A few????
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Sanoj Kumar16 hours ago
Most of these contribution you mentioned for Arabs were taken from India. Go search the web. How long will you remain in dark? I have original book by Al-Biruni and one from a spanish writer, sometimes written in 1031AD. He has clearly mentioned that all these knowledge came to Arabia from Hindus in India. That book is published from University of Texas, Austin, USA.
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TeeJayRat17 hours ago
What everyone needs to understand on both sides is we are letting the actions of a few people filled with hate spread their hate upon us all, which was their intention. Additionally we need to look more towards actions today and very recent past if we are ever to achieve a greater peace. Yes past officials of America and other countries have done things in foreign lands I find personally reprehensible. Our current administration has done more than any previous to change course. The Arab Spring has offered greater hope than ever that real positive change is possible if we continue to strive for it. As a human being of planet Earth I am proud of the achievements made by Muslim and non Muslim alike in this regard. I also hope that freedom is not lost before it has a chance to grow health roots, there is perhaps an even greater challenge.Alas societies are great lumbering chaotic beasts, so changing course towards more justice is not something you decide to do and can accomplish overnight. Moderate voices on all sides further the common cause of humanity by using their voice constructively to educate and drown out the hate. Calling it out for what it is. A reaction driven by the fringe for goals that are opposed to the common good of humanity as a whole. Let us not let them lead us down a path no one benefits from.
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JimmyJ I17 hours ago
John is incorrect about Muslims burning the Bible or the Torah…however he DOES bring up a valid question about Middle Eastern culture. Muslims in the West aren’t rioting…they seem to get it that that video was just made by some fool who is just trying to offend and make people angry. I checked out the video and it is the dumbest piece of garbage…looks like something someone made on their home computer. To get offended to the point where mob after mob in country after country in the Middle East riots for days is totally ridiculous. To the rioters: There is always someone insulting someone else for just about anything including religion all the time. At some point you have to grow up a learn to ignore the fools. At some point, getting offended gives more weight to the insult then it deserves.To go into a rage ever time you hear the slightest insult for some unknown fool in some distant corner of the world is very immature to say the least. If a culture has just that much rage and hatred at its root, then I feel there really are some legitimate questions about the culture. Do Muslims really think the Bible is a holy book? ….how about reading the scripture that teaches us to turn the other cheek.
As for bringing up colonialism of the West….yes, in history the West has not always treated the Middle East well. However, the West DID support the recent moves towards democracy…in fact the US Ambassador to Libya risked his life to help them and they killed him for it. So, before you try to get the sliver out of someone’s eye, pull the log out of your own. Reply
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TeeJayRat17 hours ago
Muslims in the West have been exposed to a culture that has had time to develop and promotes tolerance and economic opportunity. If we can support the moderate voices in the Middle East I believe they can build the same types of societies. Some may think Islam is incompatible with this, but it has been done in the past, and Turkey stands as a modern day example.The key is economic opportunity. People who have jobs and families to support are not rioting in the streets. Most likely it is un employed or under employed people. A job is a great social program is it not?
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swev15 hours ago
The US has never had “colonies” in Muslim countries, so your hatred of the US is unjustified.In reality, your problems with the West are much simpler: you are poor and living in an oppressive and corrupt society with a broken political system. And instead of fixing your country, you’re looking for a scapegoat and you are jealous of the West.
Go take responsibility for your country and fix its problems. Religion won’t help you with that. Education, tolerance, secularism, and non-violence will. +2
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Wilf Tarquin16 hours ago
I don’t care if they burn flags and bibles. Let them, it hurts no one.In fact, I will defend to the death anyone’s right to burn bibles, korans, or flags, or mock any religion or political belief they see fit.
The simple truth is that freedom of expression is something that the West is right about, and the extremists wrong, and we need to be absolutely crystal clear about this. +1
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Bill Nahay21 hours ago
There clearly is a clash of cultures. In fact of reality, the Islamic populaces’ high unemployment, mysogynistic creed and practices and evident conflicting morale code as to the sacredness of life cast this more as cult, not a true religion. In further reality, Muhammed was illiterate, relying upon relatives to accurately and faithfully record his purported beliefs. Islam is the enemy of state of the United States and Western Europe. Theirs is a feudal aim to conquer and plunder the established economies rather than evolve honorably and responsibly and develope their own culture. Force of mailed fist is what is best understood in their primitive and simeon-like collective social existence.BJN
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TeeJayRat17 hours ago
You think Jesus wrote his own biography?
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T. Joseph Landry14 hours ago
so we in the west are firmly reminded that its “NOT ALL MUSLIMS” who do this yet when a minor movie that was altered insults Mohammed the same Muslims run and attack the nearest representation of the USA that they can think of even though none of its workers have any connection to said film. They get killed simply because they are Americans.Someone explain to me why I’m supposed to reserve judgement on Muslims rage yet the same Muslims seem to be unable to give the same consideration.
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Demsare Loosers16 hours ago
Why do we still fund and feed these people. If they had to work to gather their own food they would have less time to protest. Pull out and cut funding
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Diddlebop18 hours ago
Yes … I almost forgot .. it is a religion of Peace! (Oh thank God). BUT .. they do want to nuke Israel (kind of hostile you know) and the do behead Christians on global tv (Barbaric) and drag dead bodies through streets (bad). And msake mass graves full of their unarmed enemies. And gas Kurds. And hold children hostage in Russian schools. And theaters. And use children as bombs (to blow up other children). And commit felonies on women news reporters. and hijack planes full of innocent people (more than once) And murder innocent Olympic athletes. And shoot missiles into Israel at civilians. And blow up trains in Spain. And blow up ships tied in a harbor. And blow up barracks buildings. It is so heartwarming to hear they are a religion of peace. What do they do when they have a war?
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TeeJayRat17 hours ago
A religion cannot do these things, people do. Governments sponsor or allow it. Hitler used Catholicism in part to allow his message to resonate with people of that faith. Should we condemn the Catholic church as if it personally ordered his actions?
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swev15 hours ago
We can certainly hold the Catholic church responsible for installing Hitler as dictator (enabling act) and accepting money in return for ceasing its opposition to the Nazis and having its members swear allegiance to it (concordat). And that is hardly the first time Christian churches have done such things.
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Norris Stough18 hours ago
Frankly, I’m tired of hearing from apologist for radial Islam. They need to learn that their uncivilized, hateful, terroristic comments have consequences.The Egyptian government made a cynical decision to allow it’s official news media to incite the current unrest for short-term political gain. The Egyptian media fomented this unrest. Since the Egyptian government is in control of the media we can reasonably assume the government approved these inflammatory statements.
They should now bear the long-term costs of these actions. Including cancelling the $1.5B aid package and blocking their request for $4.5B in aid from the World Bank. Since it is unsure who is in control of the Egyptian government, all Egyptian assets in the United States should be frozen, their diplomats expelled, and all Egyptian nationals in the United States ordered to leave withing 72 hours or face arrest, detention and deportation. These actions should remain in place until the same mullahs and Egyptian state media representatives who instigated the violence go on Egyptian state median and apologize to the United States and run educational programs explaining why the United States government is not responsible for this video. This is the only way these individuals will learn the cost of their intentional ignorance and insulting the United States. Let them protest and then go home and look at their empty plates and bowls and ask themselves is ignorance is worth the cost. Reply
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swev15 hours ago
I seriously doubt that withdrawing aid from Egypt would “teach” Egyptians anything.The error that the administration has made is to effectively apologize for the video, thereby giving the impression that this actually has to do something with the US or administration. The administration should have said something to the effect “the US government doesn’t control what US citizens say or do, and it doesn’t comment on private expressions of religious views in any way”.
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Smail Buzzby21 hours ago
“This was an attack by a small and savage group,” US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in a speech from the White House on Wednesday. “Not by the people or the government of Libya.”
Gee, 9-11 was not the work of the government of Afghanistan (or Iraq), but we went to war with them. Here’s an idea – let us export some of OUR savage, militant groups to the Middle East and let them do a Jihad on some innocent people and see how these people from the dark ages feel about some good old fashioned eye-for-an-eye retaliation. They act with idiotic violence and we react with tolerance and acceptance…or wars that last decades and accomplish nothing. Surely there is something in between. +1
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Jeff23 hours ago
Moderate voices can dilute the influence of extremists if they understand the mechanics of social and religious indoctrination as explained in the YouTube video entitled, “Bikinis and Burqas: Narrowing the Gap.”
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TeeJayRat17 hours ago
Great video, thanks for sharing.
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John Cook14 hours ago
National security is complex. Newly minted democracies are by their nature unstable. Our steadiness and resolve are key to helping these unstable places become mature. That said, just a few days ago in Colorado was a massacre of a magnitude greater than what happened in Libya. And several years ago there was the Rodney King sparked violence. I certainly did not hear a call for a war on American violence as a war on terror.Systems matter. A reactionary CEO like person can make matters much worse. The same temperament needed for a smallish, fast paced company like Bain is not the same temperament needed when dealing with complex systems where the more things change, the more they say the same sometimes.
Our long term national security is linked with our Universities and Colleges graduating skilled graduate students. Romney’s policy paper hints of a reduction in graduate school support. Where will we get the skills needed to create the weapon systems and software needed to protect our selves? To make matters worse, the Romney budget calls for a reduction of 40% for college educational support. A person running for President has to have an understanding of systems as well as tools to make complex choices quickly. My guess is that Romney has the tool set, but not the necessary systems view or temperament or he would view Graduate school education differently. Those folks of all political views that value the schools that they went to and national security need to think carefully about what Romney wants to do with college and university funding. 0
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Diddlebop18 hours ago
Well we could just give up our Bill of Rights (freedom of speech, freedom of religion, eyc.) .. wouldn’t that APPEASE them and not kill our ambassador? We need to give up now before they really get mad at us. They might even do something bad in N.Y.city .. who knows? Just lay down and let them walk all over us. Be a kindly door mat. Let them impose Shia law and make women wear bags. Have nightly yelling from a tower. [no guts ... no glory .. you know?]
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TeeJayRat17 hours ago
No we should not give up our bill of rights, but we should not react as the perpetrators f the violence would like to. That would further their goals of overthrowing governments less radical than they desire.
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Angrybell21 hours ago
Ummmm…. Where is there any support in this article that this not a clash of cultures? Thye author lays out an argument and then does nothing to show that her position bears any resemblance to reality. Either the riots were a response to the video, in which case the Muslim world is again trying to push its agenda of restricting criticisms of Islam, or they were a coordinated assault on the US to celebrate 9/11 and the killing of various Al Qaeda murders, who by the way were committed to establishing a world Caliphate.Thhis article just says, “its not a clash of cultures, hinest, just like President Obama eants us to believe”. More PC/Liberal nosense.
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Tom Debrozla20 hours ago
From the text: “We condemn the film, but what happened in Libya — we are totally against what happened there.”
The author says one shouldn’t think all Muslims are like Al Qaeda, in fact most Muslims are against such behavior, and he provides quotes like above to support his point. I am a Muslim and I am 100% against Al Qaeda and what happened in Benghazi. Reply
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RabbiFollow19 hours ago
Islam is a cult, and it’s followers are savages. The disrespect that Muslims have for innocent lves proves this.
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TeeJayRat17 hours ago
I am a Christian and I have just as much contempt for the radical right in my nation. We should know better as well.
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Muhammad Jehanzeb14 hours ago
whyislam.com, actions of a people shouldn’t give you the wrong concept of religion. for example basing Christianity of the modern society, doesn’t show much about Christians at all.
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Middle East
Calm around US Embassies in Middle East after at least 6 killed in anti-Islam film protests
(Ahmed Gomaa/ Associated Press ) – Egyptian protesters run from the site of clashes with security forces, unseen, near the U.S. embassy in Cairo, Egypt, Friday, Sept. 14, 2012, as part of widespread anger across the Muslim world about a film ridiculing Islam’s Prophet Muhammad.
By Associated Press, Updated: Saturday, September 15, 8:13 AM
CAIRO — Egyptian police on Saturday cleared out protesters who have been clashing with security forces for the past four days near the U.S. Embassy as most cities around the Muslim world reported calm a day after at least six people were killed in a wave of angry protests over an anti-Islam film.
Security forces erected a concrete wall blocking the main street leading to the embassy in Cairo after finally dispersing several hundred youths who had been battling with police, trying to get to the building. They also cleared nearby Tahrir Square where protests were being held.
Images from around the world
Here is a look at some of the week’s best photographs from around the globe.
Protesters storm embassies in Sudan
Anup Kaphle and Olga Khazan SEP 14
Anti-American demonstrations spread throughout the Muslim world
Malaysian schools try to identify gay kids
Olga Khazan SEP 14
‘Guidelines’ include wearing V-neck sweaters
‘Innocence of Muslims’ cast disavows it
Olga Khazan SEP 13
A rumor roundup about the film that has set off protests.
Muslims angry over the film produced in the U.S. denigrating the Prophet Muhammad took the streets on Friday in more than 20 countries from the Mideast to Southeast Asia. In most countries, protests were peaceful, if vehement. But deadly clashes erupted in several places, protesters in Sudan and Tunisia tried to storm Western embassies, an American fast-food restaurant was set ablaze in Lebanon, and international peacekeepers were attacked in the Sinai.
In Cairo, the clashes Friday brought the first Egyptian to be killed in Tahrir Square protests since Islamist President Mohammed Morsi was elected and took office this summer. A 36-year-old died from wounds from rubber bullets, his family and doctors at a Cairo hospital said. Weeping relatives at the hospital held his 25-day-old daughter, named Ganna, or “Heaven.”
Two demonstrators died in Sudan, two died in Tunisia and another was killed in Lebanon. On Thursday, four Yemeni protesters were killed in protests that turned violent at the US Embassy in Sanaa.
The only report Saturday of violence linked to the film came from Sydney, Australia, where rot police clashed with about 200 protesters at the U.S. Consulate.
Ten Network television news showed a policeman knocked unconscious as the mostly male crowd hurled bottles and other projectiles. Police used pepper spray against the protesters, who chanted “Obama, Obama, we love Osama” and waved placards saying “Behead all those who insult the Prophet.” Six police were injured and two protesters were treated for police dog bites police said in a statement.
The anger was sparked by a film titled “Innocence of Muslims,” which was produced in the United States and mocked the Prophet Muhammad by showing him as a fraud, a womanizer, a homosexual and a madman. A 14-minute excerpt of the movie, dubbed into Arabic, was posted on YouTube. The film has been described by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton as “an awful Internet video that we had nothing to do with.”
President Barack Obama said Washington would “stand fast” against attacks on U.S. embassies around the world. He spoke at a somber ceremony paying tribute to four Americans — including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens — killed Tuesday when the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, was stormed by militants. The attackers are suspected of using protests of the anti-Muslim film to stage an assault on the 11th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Also on Tuesday, protesters swarmed up the walls of the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, bringing down an American flag and replacing it briefly with an Islamist banner.
For days afterward, the protesters were in stone-throwing clashes with police firing tear gas. On Friday, the crowd of protesters grew to around 2,000 in the melee near the embassy and several large hotels that overlook the Nile River. The dwindling group of protesters was chased away Saturday morinng.
The Interior Ministry said 220 people had been arrested
__
AP writer Mohamed Saeed contributed from Khartoum, Sudan.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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With anti-American demonstrations spreading across the Middle East and North Africa, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told Foreign Policy‘s National Security channel on Friday evening that the United States is positioning military forces so that it can respond to unrest in as many as 17 or 18 places that the Pentagon is “paying particular attention to.” But he cautioned against writing off the region’s recent moves toward democracy. “[O]ne demonstration of extremists, any more than a Ku Klux Klan demonstration in the United States, is not necessarily reflective of what the rest of the country feels,” he said.
In an exclusive interview in his Pentagon office, Panetta also dismissed the week’s unusually public debate between U.S. and Israeli leaders over whether the allies should identify “red lines” in Iran’s nuclear program that would trigger military action.
“The fact is, look, presidents of the United States, prime ministers of Israel or any other country — leaders of these countries don’t have, you know, a bunch of little red lines that determine their decisions,” he said. “What they have are facts that are presented to them about what a country is up to, and then they weigh what kind of action is needed to be taken in order to deal with that situation. I mean, that’s the real world. Red lines are kind of political arguments that are used to try to put people in a corner.”
Panetta’s comments were his first, publicly, since protests first erupted in Cairo and Libya, during which U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens, two former Navy SEALs, and a State Department worker were killed. The Middle East, Panetta argued, is going through “convulsions” after its momentous change in leadership since the eruption of the Arab awakening early last year, on which al-Qaeda and other extremists are trying capitalize, but they do not necessarily reflect a change in regional security.
A U.S. defense official later told Foreign Policy that the Pentagon was discussing, but had not decided, late Friday whether to send a third platoon of 50 anti-terrorism Marines to protect the embassy in Sudan, to follow the roughly 100 Marines that already have landed in Tripoli and Yemen.
“We have to be prepared in the event that these demonstrations get out of control,” Panetta said of the military.
Panetta did not say what he believed was behind the attack on the U.S. representative office in Benghazi, but he claimed the anti-Islam movie was at the heart of other demonstrations. “It’s something that’s under assessment and under investigation, to determine just exactly what happened here,” he said.
Panetta expressed concern that the fall of dictators across the Middle East has left a void for extremist elements to strike from “positions of weakness.”
He acknowledged that al-Qaeda had become seemingly more active in places like Yemen, Somalia, Libya, and across North Africa. But the secretary denied any change from his statement last year that al-Qaeda was nearing “strategic defeat,” explaining that he meant the original core elements of the group, not its extensions across the region.
“No, no. Clearly al-Qaeda, the al-Qaeda that attacked the United States of America on 9/11, we have gone after in a big way,” he argued, badly damaging their leadership and ability to conduct attacks. “We always knew that we would have to continue to confront elements of extremism elsewhere as well.”
Those elements, he claimed, were resorting to desperate tactics because of U.S. pressure and a lack of public support.
“Just like the Taliban in Afghanistan makes use of insider attacks, makes use of IEDs, largely speaks to their inability to regain any of the territory that they’ve lost,” he argued. “They’re going to resort to these kinds of tactics, because in many ways I think they have lost their voice in the Middle East.”
In any other week, the rift between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Obama administration would command larger headlines. Panetta swatted away the scuttle over “red lines,” insisting the U.S. would not allow Iran obtain a nuclear weapon and repeating intelligence estimates that Tehran had not yet decided to pursue a weapon despite its continued uranium enrichment.
“Let’s just say, when you have friends like Israel you engage in vigorous debates about how you confront these issues, and that’s what’s going on,” he said.
“It sometimes, in democracies, plays out in the public.”
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Panetta: Pentagon Pre-positioning Forces for Additional Unrest
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It is strange that Leon Panetta preferred FP’s National Security Channel to make a major policy statement. Never heard about it.
Zionists, lurking in the background, as is expected on FP, are reading their scripts. No wonder they carry such a heavy load to protect and defend their country, USA, Oops, Israel.
Life goes on.
If I were Leon Panetta, thank god I am not, I would go where no sane person would. In the middle of conflict, not at 11 Dupont Circle NW Suite 600. Jerusalem, Oops, Washington, DC USA
…and I am Sid Harth@mysistereileen.org
Panetta is a politician and not military. He either totally misunderstands the reason Netanyahu wants red lines, or is purposely mocking him. He provides Obama with feckless options or reflects Obama’s weakness. Dropping 50 marines in a city of millions is not going to stop a riot and prevent the mob from killing them unless they were given rounds for their weapons and authority to use them. This attitude is an insult to America.
He is right that the fall of dictators has left a “void for extremist elements to strike from “positions of weakness.”
Unfortunately it is Obama’s weakness. Apparently Panetta’s as well.
zionadvocate
“ He provides Obama with feckless options ”
How could you possibly know this?
zionadvocate
“ He provides Obama with feckless options ”
How could you possibly know this?
“Dropping 50 marines in a city of millions is not going to stop a riot ”
Never have to worry about you being a military strategist.
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@erinmcunningham I feel safer already…..place 17 and 18 are NY and LA 
@ForeignPolicy see Origins historians on go.osu.edi/conflicttermination by Guilmartin & http://t.co/kAdz4asI by Col Mansoor
@ForeignPolicy check out OSU’s Origins take on anti-American protests http://t.co/dDslTs9I & US intervention in Mideast http://t.co/fPCRKcdv
@ForeignPolicy why don’t we stop being stupid and pull all diplomats and aid from countries that are allowing this to happen.
@tolles aw, well I guess people will need to decide what Instagram filter to use for mushroom clouds.
@AntDeRosa Please go to http://t.co/JhWeUA0z – trust me, you NEED to know about this powerful film. It’s really important! #Child31
@ForeignPolicy them a lesson they’l never forget forget for the rest of history.my advice bring their population to nearly zero.
@ForeignPolicy it wasn’t true that if there’s no interruption they’l have peace.thats the way they are..I guess we should teach (cont)
@ForeignPolicy When are they going to step up protection USA especially everyone knows they are here.when is our govern going to fight back
@ForeignPolicy and forced their way of stupid living..they kill men and women who violates even a little part of the koran.
@ForeignPolicy look way back the former afghanistan.where no foreign interruption happens. the taliban oppressed the weakest (con’t)
@ForeignPolicy (cont) don’t know what is the right from wrong..we are just lucky we are ahead of them.
@ForeignPolicy we cant allow these men run free..just imagine what they could do to us if they rose to power..these violent men (cont)
@whpresscorps They are crazy! They are way beyond out of control! We picked up 4 American Bodies today, they are burning our flags!!!!
@whpresscorps They dragged our ambassador threw the streets, sodomized him, and killed him, I would say they have been out of control!
@bfrysworld @ForeignPolicy they’re right on top of this whole terrorism thing wouldn’t you say?
.@ForeignPolicy Leading from behind again, I see.
@FPBaron Nobody puts Leon in a corner?
@whpresscorps @AntDeRosa bullets or bean bags this time?
@whpresscorps @weeddude They are out of control. #GetAGrip
@whpresscorps @weeddude What will we do to the RW fascists who could very well be stirring up the hate in the middle east?
@BuzzFeedAndrew That’s great Leon. The horses are already out of the barn.
MT: @BuzzFeedAndrew Leon Panetta says Pentagon prepositioning forces for more unrest// He will tell them where to be at.
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Juana, dont be so simple. That video was propaganda used to stir up an already frustrated/pissed off people.
“We always knew that we would have to continue to confront elements of extremism elsewhere as well.” So, when does it end? At what point do we stop sending Marines into places that dont want our involvement?
Horrible! And all because of a video that a stupid Republican did
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Neoconservatism – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeoconservatismI believe it was the triumph of the so-called neo-conservative ideology, as well as Bush administration arrogance and incompetence that took America into this …
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What are the pros and cons of Conservative and liberals? – Yahoo …
answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid…8 answers - Nov 2, 2009Top answer: Pros of being a liberal: you are taking care of your fellow citizen. Cons: it may cost you in taxes. Pros of being a conservative: you have an inflated …
Conservatives: Briefly describe your experience as a … – 8 answers – Sep 13, 2012
What is the official definition of “Neo-con“. Can … – 12 answers – Jul 7, 2008
More results from answers.yahoo.com » -
Conservative | Define Conservative at Dictionary.com
dictionary.reference.com/browse/conservativeConservative definition at Dictionary.com, a free online dictionary with pronunciation, synonyms and translation. Look it up … an·ti·con·serv·a·tive, adjective, noun …
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Putting Even More Con in Conservative – NYTimes.com
krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/…/putting-even-more-con-in-con…Apr 30, 2012 – Putting Even More Con in Conservative. Jonathan Chait has an excellent piece on Paul Ryan, which shows not just that he’s a fake deficit hawk …
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Connor Boyack – Neo-Con? No I’m a Conservative – YouTube
www.youtube.com/watch?v…Mar 23, 2012 – 26 min – Uploaded by PARADIMESHIFTORG
PARADIMESHIFT.ORG sits down with Author of ‘Latter Day Liberty’ Connor Boyack to discuss the rise of the … -
Romney Endorses Ultraconservative Congressman
www.buzzfeed.com/…/romney-endorses-ultraconservative-con…Sep 7, 2012 – Judd Hayes thinks Romney Endorses Ultraconservative Con… is WTF, Trashy & Fail about 3 days ago ×; dtomv thinks Romney Endorses …
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Paul Ryan: Putting the Con in Conservative | OurFuture.org
www.ourfuture.org/blog…/paul-ryan-putting-con-conservativeAug 30, 2012 – Rep. Paul Ryan’s bravura performance last night at the Republican convention gave full display of the skills honed by a career pol who has …
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What is a Neo-Conservative?
xenohistorian.faithweb.com/holybook/articles/neocon.htmlI have been asked this question a few times since I mentioned in a forum that I am a Neo-Conservative (Neo-Con for short). When I first heard the label I figured it …
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X-Cons: The Conservative Mind of Generation X | First Things
www.firstthings.com/…/x-cons-the-conservative-mind-of-gene…X-Cons: The Conservative Mind of Generation X. May 18, 2011. Joe Carter. “I just want to show society what people born after 1960 think about things,” said …
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A ‘Conservative‘ con – NYPOST.com
www.nypost.com/…/conservative_con_6UU0J7RzhYC0ZyHg…Mar 31, 2012 – Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg likes the Indian Healthcare Improvement Act and other ingredients of the Patient Protection and …
…and I am Sid Harth@mysistereileen.org
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