How should the government handle the producers of the video that sparked the ME riots?

i wonder when our government will just admit that islam and the western world aren't capable of peacefully coexisting. stop the foreign aid, the 'regime changes' and close up shop and come back home. it's not worth the trouble anymore. quite frankly i'd be pissed off too if there was another country constantly bombing me, overthrowing my leaders, and arming my enemies.

 

why on earth would anything think something so entirely fucking stupid?

 

roachboy, dear, where's the thanks for all the democracy we've been giving the middle east? all the flag burning, terrorist attacks, and embassy protests do not make our efforts feel very welcomed.

 

"Was the Arab Spring Really Worth It?": The Fascinating Arrogance of Power

the idiocy of this entire line of "thinking" is reflective of purveyors of horseshit on the order of cnn. have a look at the above.

 

Once the west, Russia, and China breaks their addiction to middle eastern oil it will happen. The same stuff happens in Africa and we don't care.

 

An Open Letter to the United States of America - By Mahmoud Salem | Foreign Policy

this is worth a read. first off it breaks up the idiotic idea that there is any "muslims in general" who react in one way to idiocy like "bacile's" pathetic "film." second, it gives a pretty clear idea of how the mb and salafi used this for their own political purposes. it talks about what people have been saying---if you bothered to look---about who participated in the action in cairo and the melting-away of the police just before things started. and it tells you something about the situation the many people who put themselves on the line during the 25 january movement see happening around them. so you get a sense of the despair. and, curiously, the pride.

it's like a giant wave of stupid has been washing across the united states again thanks to the triggering of officially sanctioned racism that seems to be the primary effect of the annual collapse into maudlin commemoration of the 2001 attacks--which is a political function that affects a demographic very different from the population directly affected by the attacks--which gets used, over and over, in order to present the pretense that the commemorations are not political, through and through. the giant wave of stupid involves the resurrection of the unbelievable fatuousness of the "huntington thesis"---which is repeated as if it referred to something apart from the ignorance and racism of those who find it compelling. but it doesn't refer to anything but the ignorance and racism of those who find it compelling. it was a simple-minded piece of shit document suited to simple-minded piece of shit politics. it leans on stuff like this:

A Conservative History of the United States : The New Yorker

which one would wish was more a fiction than a satirical restatement of a wholesale flight from reality.

local conditions and politics matter in every last one of the places that used this film as a pretext to stage political actions. there is no getting around that if you actually want to understand anything. but the giant wave of stupid has a sort of momentum. that momentum affirms the ignorance and lack of curiosity that the giant wave of stupid is made from by putting it into motion again.

even so, after so many annual waves of stupid washing across this place, it's disheartening to see people chumped by it.

 

Here's the thing about democracy... it's not neat and tidy.

Someone asking for no flag burnings and protests in the Middle-East is like asking for there to be no anti-Islam films to be made in the US.

The more freedom available to people, the more likely you are going to hear things you don't agree with.

You can't have it both ways.

 

you missed the point entirely, sorry if i wasn't clear. it's not that i even care about flag burning (im a libertarian after all). it's not a bill of rights or free speech issue in the context i was referring to. it's about liberating countries and them not appreciating it. i mean the only way to get a message of 'fuck you america' is to burn a flag or protest so we can see it on the tv. we should understand this. it's like helping someone out just to have them slap you across the face.

the middle east isn't europe where we get greeted with open arms and thanked like during ww2.

after france helped us during the revolutionary war, did americans give this kind of response to them as a thank you?

we have a enough problems to deal with here domestically. we don't need to spend any more money or effort in the middle east. it's just not working. i'm not getting that warm fuzzy feeling from them like you get when you help someone out.

 

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances"

Is there any conflict between freedom of speech and freedom of religion in the first amendment?

Can/should freedom of religion be exempted from the right of free speech?

Maybe, in this instance, we can have it both ways?
--- merged: Sep 19, 2012 at 8:50 PM ---

OMFG! Name me an instance where colonialism was appreciated by those being colonized? Is that really what you expected? And for the record, we assisted in the liberation of Europe from the Nazis (only to hand portions over to the Soviet Union for colonization) and didn't bomb the crap out of any of them.

How have we helped out Iraq and Afghanistan? Why should they be thankful? Was it our intent to liberate them? Fuck no. It was retaliation, at least. This is recent history, man. Surely you're up this.

Here, have some more Koolaid, samcol.

 

i will admit it was a good read. one of the biggest problems though is that i still can't figure out what is propaganda, what is staged, what is real, or who to believe between our media and government, and the governments, media, and factions over there.

the obama administration is still harping on the stupid video. this type of propaganda was still working to some extent on bush's 2nd term. not so much a decade after 9/11. i can't believe obama on other issues in the middle east because i know he's spewing me bullshit on this one. i mean this article sounds fine and dandy but i can find other ones that are exactly opposite or middle of road.

 

Do you really expect something as simple as Rumsfeld's parades and flowers? The US may have been involved in supporting the so-called Arab Spring, but I know you know that the US was also involved in keeping those that were oppressing the Middle East in power.

This is a much more complicated mess than WW2.

I am certain that there are many who are grateful for any assist provided, but there are also going to be many that are still pissed that these corrupt regimes were able to stay in power in no small part because of American support -- in some cases I can imagine someone who holds both points of view.

 

that's just it. we've played both sides of too many conflicts in these countries to have any moral ground to stand on at all. there might be a good policy to make, but even that policy is opposite of what past administrations have done. there's just no rock solid choice to make that has any firm footing. anything we do will be viewed badly for a significant population of people in the middle east. i feel the best decision might be to make none at all and just leave.

you're right, in ww2 the enemy was clearly defined. in these middle east conflicts it's not so much the nation states themselves but so many different factions of people. it's hard to target or conquer an enemy that you can't identify easily.

 

That's a horribly narrow view, samcol.

There are currently four major players in the world: the USA, the European Union, the Russian Federation, and the People's Republic of China. In the long-term, it's more of a league between the USA and China, since both the EU and Russia will most likely lose much of their current influence and soft power in the coming decades.

Playing the long-term strategy game, America needs to have its fingers in key mineral-/fuel-rich and trade regions in the world. Why do you think that the Obama administration shifted its focus from primarily the Middle East to Asia/Pacific?

Both Russia and China are working hard to expand their economic and political reach, with China especially making great strides in Africa, South America, and key Middle Eastern as well as South East Asian countries. There is a strong case that the current system of giving aid the way North America and Europe does, is a fundamentally wrong approach. A recent statement by a UK politician has reached a similar conclusion.

China gives tons of money to build infrastructure, mining explorations and essential institutions, sometimes even for industrialization, to many countries so that Chinese companies perform the contracts. This enhances Chinese economic activity, gives ample room for businesses to improve their efficiency in completing tasks and heightening their own quality of work; all while China builds stronger diplomatic/political relationships and enables itself better access to natural resources and key trade routes. The US/EU system gives a bunch of money and much of it ends up in corrupt pockets, often worsening the domestic situations of those countries and angering the people that were supposed to be helped.

No matter what one's opinion is on the possibility of America's future political and economic decline, the top brass is playing their cards to bolster US hard and soft power for as long as they can. Doing what they currently do in the Middle East and other regions is, at the very least, a political necessity and survival tactic. You guys can't afford to just stop what you are doing simply because your domestic issues are becoming bigger problems. If America stops its international activities to focus entirely on its domestic economic and social issues, China will undoubtedly jump at the opportunity and Russia will go along for the ride, both of which the EU cannot possibly counter by itself and does much to tip the balance of power in the mid- to long-term to the other side. You do not want that.

It's always a pity when American right-wingers fail to see the big picture.

 

It's easy to say, Let's just take our ball and go home. But the reality is... oil.

The World has developed itself into a corner where it needs oil to run. The more it grows, the more it needs, the more it needs, the more it requires stability in the oil producing nations. As oil producers get increasingly wealthy, they do not want to change to a system that made them so (to hell with the environment, political freedoms, or national security).

Some in the US may want to withdraw but it will not happen until there is a cheap and convenient replacement for oil.

 

the move to taking the ball and going home is simply the huntington thesis stood on its head. "they" will never be sufficiently grateful. "they" should have long ago learned to love neo-colonialism the way americans do. see? "we" forget we're dominated. and "we're" civil about it. "they" are....like....well....a pain in the ass. "we" used to be more apt to complain back in the television adolescence of the 60s. good thing "we" grew out of that. now "we" are adults. when will "they" catch up? the ingrates.

 

well, isn't this special?

Obama officials' spin on Benghazi attack mirrors Bin Laden raid untruths | Glenn Greenwald | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

 

We now know the real cause of the riots, according to World Net Daily -- Obama appointed a gay man as ambassador to Libya -- and we know Stevens was gay because we was unmarried.