US Embassy says US film "abused free speech." US Embassy condemns US movie makers for alleged "continuing efforts to hurt religious feelings of Muslims," and says they "abuse right of free speech" to "hurt religious beliefs" of Muslims.
9/12/12, "If Obama is So Concerned with Feelings in the Muslim World, Why is He Bragging So Much About Killing Osama?" Rush Limbaugh
"That is a great question out there, Claire. If we're so concerned about hurting the feelings of Muslims, why is Obama bragging that he killed Osama so often....In fact, their campaign slogan is "GM's alive and Osama's dead," or something like that. They're ramming it down the throats of Islamists all over the world. In fact, in Egypt at the embassy yesterday, the protesters were all shouting, "We're all Osama's, Obama. We're all Osama's, Obama." There are millions of Osamas, Obama. So we might even conclude...that if we're gonna accept this notion that hurt feelings inspire terrorism, then maybe Obama is responsible for this, and ultimately maybe the blame falls to him. You think they watched the Democrat convention? You think they saw Plugs Biden up there going on and on about how Osama's dead? This could be the Obama bounce. The media was looking for the Obama bounce, and we found it, the attack on our embassy in Cairo."....
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US Embassy quote follows. Incidentally, the US Embassy is Obama or whoever happens to be president (whether it's convenient or not):
9/11/12, "The Second 9/11: Today will go down in infamy as the day our government became our enemy," Zombie, PJ Media
"I am stunned. Stunned that our government would betray its own constitution to side with our enemies....
As you’ve surely heard by now, Muslim preachers chose today, 9/11, to incite the faithful to storm the US embassy in Cairo; for the first time ever, Islamic protesters breached the fortress-like walls of the embassy, tore down the American flag, and replaced it with an Al Qaeda flag.
And what was the American government’s response to this?
To condemn the Christians who made the film and to reject the principles of the First Amendment....
U.S. Embassy Condemns Religious Incitement
September 11, 2012
The Embassy of the United States in Cairo condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals [movie makers] to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims – as we condemn efforts [of movie makers] to offend believers of all religions. Today, the 11th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, Americans are honoring our patriots and those who serve our nation as the fitting response to the enemies of democracy. Respect for religious beliefs is a cornerstone of American democracy. We firmly reject the actions by those who abuse the universal right of free speech [the movie makers] to hurt the religious beliefs of others.
Twice in the official statement (and once more in the headline) the State Department criticizes the Christians who made the film — not the people who committed an act of war against us by invading U.S. sovereign territory (the embassy). This is simply beyond the pale.
I thought we had resolved this issue years ago: The concept of “freedom of speech” is absolute, and if you start restricting speech based on political considerations, or because someone takes offense, then it is not free at all. The very point behind guaranteeing free speech is to protect controversial speech. One doesn’t need a constitution to protect people’s right to say “Have a nice day.”
And yet here is our own government granting a bullies’ veto to our sworn enemies. And it’s no laughing matter when our government says it “condemns” and “firmly rejects” something; it has the power to enforce those opinions. It’s one thing for an essentially powerless private individual to say he doesn’t like something; it’s quite another for that opinion to be backed by the full force of the government."
======================================Mr. Greenwald is one of few on the left who will speak of how Obama incites violence (I don't know any on the right who do so):
7/18/11, "The War on Terror, now starring Yemen and Somalia," Glenn Greenwald, Salon.com
"There is a concerted campaign underway to ensure that the War on Terror bonanza continues unimpeded in the wake of Osama bin Laden's death...
The Obama administration has escalated the existing drone program and begun a new CIA drone campaign in Yemen (one that just killed numerous people over the weekend); it also, contrary to public denials, provided the arms to Saudi Arabia to attack a rebel group in Northern Yemen. Yemen is also the justification for Obama's attempt to institutionalize a
The administration just commenced a separate drone campaign in Somalia. And, as Jeremy Scahill revealed last week, the U.S. is relying upon interrogations conducted in a secret prison in Mogadishu, filled with people from that country and those rendered at the behest of the U.S. from other African nations....
"That the U.S. is creating the very Terrorism problem it claims to be combating is one of the most crucial points in discussions of American Terrorism policy -- it was one explicitly recognized even by a Rumsfeld-created Terrorism task force back in 2004 -- but it barely is heard in American political discourse....
American media reports such as the one appearing this weekend in the LA Times reflexively depict escalating American military attacks as a response to the growing Terrorist threat rather than as what they are: a leading cause of that threat. One might also take cognizance of the obvious connection between these escalating attacks under Obama and the
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A recent Zogby poll in six Arab countries found Obama has driven anti-American sentiment even higher than it was under George Bush. (parag. 25 in article)
9/19/11, "How Obama's destabilizing the world" Salon.com, Nick Turse
"American troops are on the ground in an increasing number of volatile countries -- and they're making things worse"
"It's a story that should take your breath away: the destabilization of what, in the Bush years, used to be called "the arc of instability." It involves at least 97 countries, across the bulk of the global south, much of it coinciding with the oil heartlands of the planet. A startling number of these nations are now in turmoil, and in every single one of them -- from Afghanistan and Algeria to Yemen and Zambia -- Washington is militarily involved, overtly or covertly,
- in outright war or what passes for peace.
In addition to its own military efforts, the Obama administration has also arranged for the sale of weaponry to regimes in arc states across the Middle East, including Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirate, and Yemen. It has been indoctrinating and schooling indigenous military partners through the State Department's and Pentagon's International Military Education and Training program. Last year, it provided training to more than 7,000 students from 130 countries....
According to Pentagon documents released earlier this year, the U.S. has personnel -- some in token numbers, some in more sizeable contingents -- deployed in 76 other nations sometimes counted in the arc of instability...
A recent Zogby poll of respondents in six Arab countries -- Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates -- found that, taking over from a president who had propelled anti-Americanism in the Muslim world to an all-time high, Obama managed to drive such attitudes even higher. Substantial majorities of Arabs in every country now view the U.S. as not contributing "to peace and stability in the Arab World."....
For all the discussions here about (armed) "nation-building efforts" in the region, what we've clearly witnessed is a decade of nation unbuilding that ended only when the peoples of various Arab lands took their futures into their own hands and their bodies out into the streets. As recent polling in arc nations indicates, people of the global south see the United States as promoting or sustaining, not preventing, instability, and objective measures bear out their claims. The fact that numerous popular uprisings opposing authoritarian rulers allied with the U.S. have proliferated this year provides the strongest evidence yet of that.
With Americans balking at defending arc-of-instability nations, with clear indications that military interventions don't promote stability, and with a budget crisis of epic proportions at home, it remains to be seen what pretexts the Obama administration will rely on to continue a failed policy -- one that seems certain to make the world more volatile
- and put American citizens at greater risk."
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7/11/2011, "Obama's Secret Wars: How Our Shady Counter-Terrorism Policies Are More Dangerous Than Terrorism," AlterNet, Branfman
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