It all unfolded like a badly-scripted tragedy, similar to the anti-Muslim video itself. Just coincidence?
Where there’s smoke, there’s fire, as they say. So it is with the recent spread of unrest in the middle east, caused by reaction to an anti-Muslim video posted on YouTube.
Along with most news junkies, I’ve been watching how this anti-Muslim video, called “Innocence of Muslims,” has sparked unrest across the Muslim world, and thinking, this is just ridiculous. Talk about over-reacting!
Yeah, it’s a nasty film, however poorly made, and the producers had to know what type of reaction it would engender. The secrecy around the makers of the film is also odd, with sometimes contradictory details emerging slowly.
Actors in the film were apparently duped, misled about the subject matter, and are now suing the filmmaker. Actress Cindy Lee Garcia said she was told the movie would be called Desert Warrior, and was “a historical Arabian Desert film.” Watching clips of the video, it is obvious that the name “Mohammed” is dubbed over the actors’ words in many instances. Apparently, they were using another name.
Mitt Romney wasted no time calling a press conference to denounce President Obama for “apologizing” to the Muslim world for the big bad USA. In fact, a top foreign policy adviser to the Romney campaign called Obama an “amateur” at foreign relations, and even blamed the president for the assassination of the U.S. ambassador to Libya. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and two former Navy SEALS were killed in the terrorist attack on the U.S. embassy there, as well as one other American.
However, as RawStory.com noted:
The half-baked attack wrongly attributed a statement from the U.S. embassy in Cairo to the White House, saying that Obama apologized for American values and sympathized with the terrorists. The president has repeatedly said that America “will never apologize for our way of life.”
The embassy’s statement did not offer an apology. It instead asserted that religious tolerance is an American value, and condemned an anti-Islamic film that’s sparked outrage and riots across the Middle East for purposefully trying to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims.
On Tuesday, the wave of violent protests against the anti-Muslim video erupted in countries such as Sudan, Egypt and Libya, and continued to spread.
In Afghanistan, at least 12 people were killed in a suicide bomb attack near the airport in Kabul. An Afghan insurgent group spokesman said it was carried out by an 18-year-old woman in response to the film.
The spread of violence seems wildly out of proportion. After all, it’s a terribly amateurish video, and obviously the work of bigoted idiots.
In fact, initial reports said that the first attack on the American embassy in Libya had to be pre-planned, and not a reaction to the video at all.
Something smells very fishy here. And that thought really hit home when I saw the orchestrated, full-on assault launched by Republican pundits on the TV news and talk shows following reports of the unrest.
Talking points in hand, they all sounded the same alarm. Where their comments about how the irresponsible video producers needed to be outed and ostracized? No. Were they pronouncing such naked bigotry as wholly inappropriate in a world where tensions are already running sky high? Well, no.
They saved all their criticism for the president, and how “bad” his foreign policy must be. After all, their scripted outrage went, to have such an incendiary result as this must be the result of terrible White House policy, and nothing else.
Karl Rove must have thought the whole incident was heaven sent. Or, could it be…? Not to be paranoid, but the whole thing comes off as a “black op” when you think about it.
It’s just all too convenient. The Republicans needed to turn the tables on Obama in a big way, what with the clueless Romney blowing it in every single news cycle.
And the method is right up Rove’s alley. His strategy in past elections has been to attack the opponent’s strength. They attacked John Kerry’s war record and Al Gore for his push against global warming. Obama was seen by Americans as very good in foreign policy, polls showed, until this incident.
Mission accomplished?
An anti-Muslim video created by shadowy forces; sudden, far-flung unrest across many countries as the video’s poison spreads quickly; pundits with talking points at the ready, springing into action, working to destroy a Democratic president’s strength.
I dunno… What do you think?
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