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Old 2012-09-12, 15:19   Link #337
Irenicus
Le fou, c'est moi
 
 
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Las Vegas, NV, USA
Age: 34
The BBC suggests that this assault and murder is possibly a terrorist act by a young Libyan Islamist group, Ansar al-Sharia. ABC Today, meanwhile, quoted a Washington Institute academic who blamed Salafists (which he might have considered Ansar al-Sharia as one) and suggested that it was planned before the provocative film trailer was even released. That this incident occurred "in time" for the 9/11 date thus may be of no coincidence. The same article noted that the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood -- the ruling party of Egypt's new democracy -- belatedly condemned the violence but refused to back down on the planned protests over the films in Egypt. Egypt's Morsi had earlier called for the US to punish the filmmakers, but this was before the Benghazi incident. He has yet to release any statements regarding the incident itself. He will have to negotiate the narrow line between dangerously insulting the USA so early in his international career and alienating the extremists within his own party.

Time, however, considered the film a key catalyst of the crisis. Naturally, neither "side" have the right impression of each other; apparently quite a few of the protestors believed that the American government had something to do with the film itself.

The President demanded justice. Libya's leaders were quick to apologize, condemn the attack and promised to deliver, though "we expect the rest of the world to help us face this cowardly acts." In other words, with Libya's own government divided and Benghazi formerly a center of the revolution, justice will be difficult.

This will be an important test in regards to American-Middle Eastern relations in the aftermath of the Arab Spring. In truth, many feared and expected this kind of incident to flare up; some dismissed the very legitimacy of the Arab Spring during the heights of the revolutions and urged repression in favor of pro-US military dictators, and they will say we told you so. I, however, think differently. Justice must be done, Islamist extremists must be marginalized, but democracy must move forward in the Middle East and the USA must not become an enemy force, a force of repression, it must not capitulate to its own extremists such as the ones which made this film if future generations are to have hope for a new kind of relationship that is fundamentally different from today's blind hatreds. I trust the President to handle this correctly and lay the seeds of peace.

I care not for the filmmakers or what they have to say, their hate has led to murder but murder they did not commit. And to pay tribute to hate with hate in turn is precisely why such an attack occurred.

In any case, this is the official statement from Secretary of State Clinton: "a small and savage group, not the country and the people of Libya."


...Mr. Romney can shut the fuck up.

Last edited by Irenicus; 2012-09-12 at 15:31.
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