Any control the Obama White House might have had over Middle East affairs is spiraling downward rapidly, not least because of its wrong-headed insistence that a movie supposedly smearing the memory of Mohammad has “hurt Muslim feelings,” the poor darlings, and caused them to do mean things – even commit murder – against Americans and American embassies. U.S. Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice appeared on all three morning-TV talk-clambakes 16 September, without equivocation making this claim, though at least part of the film has been on the Internet since July.
So…one has to wonder about the precedents, especially against embassies. In 1989, Iranian Ayatollah Khomeini (remember him, the taker of American hostages?) declared a fatwa (put out a contract) on writer Salman Rushdie because he slandered dear Mohammad in a novel titled Satanic Verses. Rushdie was born into Islam himself in India but the Indian Embassy was not attacked in Tehran, if there was one. He went to school in England (was a resident there) but the Indian embassy wasn’t attacked there, either.
Though the fatwa was lifted by the Iranians in 1998, according to CBS News web-site of 16 September Iranian newspapers were reporting that a religious foundation, apparently incensed by the recent movie Innocence of Muslims made in the U.S. but not by the government, had raised the bounty on Rushdie from $2.8 million to $3.3 million. I don’t doubt that Rushdie might have made Mohammad look bad, though I haven’t read Satanic Verses. I tried reading one of his other novels a few years back but gave it up soon after beginning it, growing tired of Rushdie’s multiple paragraphs (if not pages) describing the pubic hair of some guy’s mistress. Garbage!
In November 2004, Theo Van Gogh, who was connected to a film titled Submission that was about the Islam-oriented abuse of women, was murdered in the Netherlands by a Moroccan Muslim – shot multiple times, then stabbed multiple times, and was found with a note stabbed into his body. The Dutch embassy was not burned to the ground in Morocco, if memory serves, though I don’t remember if any Netherlands flags were burned.
Or, take the infamous case of the “flushed Korans at Gitmo,” as reported by Newsweek’s Michael Isikoff and John Barry in May 2005. This infuriated Muslims so intensely that they protested (actually rioted) in Afghanistan and Pakistan, with 17 deaths ensuing, apparently Muslims killing Muslims or maybe just committing religious suicide. The account was untrue but the damage was done. As a result, however, no American ambassador was killed in Kabul for just being in the wrong place at the right time.
Terry Jones, the Florida pastor, burned a Koran last year but there was no embassy-burning in Cairo or Tripoli. The obvious question: Why does the administration insist that this recent movie caused all the current problems, especially with the embassies, when these other examples of “hurting Muslim religious feelings” did not?
The answer: It shouldn’t, notwithstanding Ambassador Rice’s (actually the president’s) claim and the fact that some of the mainstream media folks have constantly referred to the movie as an “American movie,” as if it were sponsored by the Obama government. The president should be outraged, but these newsies are his propagandists.
For her part, State Secretary Clinton has presented a colossal pout, while she and Ambassador Rice seem to have forgotten that they harangued the Security Council into a resolution allowing Obama to rape Libya last year, though totally unprovoked, with the current events in Libya being what the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah (God damn America) Wright would categorize as the “chickens coming home to roost,” sort of like payback for taking seven months to swat a gnat with a Sherman tank.
The Muslims are “mad as hell and obviously won’t take it anymore,” the “anymore” being Obama’s constant meddling in their world without any bona fides to do so. He gave all the insurrectionists false hope, al Qaeda butchers included, by his constant calls for the expulsion of dictators who actually kept a semblance of order in their bailiwicks, with the obvious implication being that he would be in full support, i.e., with at least all the weapons needed, if not boots on the ground. His words were as “sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
The rebels DO have a grievance, enhanced unambiguously by Obama’s absolute refusal to do anything – and with good reason – about Syria, where the indigenous/incestuous bloodshed makes all of the local bloodshed throughout the rest of the region look like a routine Saturday-night hospital ER. Never has an emperor been so completely without clothes.
NO! The Innocence of Muslims has nothing to do with the problem, which has been building exponentially during Obama’s tenure, never mind all the mega-billions of taxpayer dollars spent on trying to “democratize” Iraq and Afghanistan and buy-off Egypt. This has represented a huge bribe but is now inoperative.
As for the film, it couldn’t possibly show the degree of venality regarding Mohammad, the historic cult-leader of Islam. The history books do. Americans should read them and discover the fate Mohammad would have his people deliver to the infidels…Americans.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
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