U.S. Ambassador and three others killed in Libya.

[quadalpha]

Actually, it is a very valid point because certain political factions tend to blame all craziness ever in the middle east as being the result of failed US policies. Then suddenly when it happens on their presidents watch, it is not the result of failed US policies. I mean, come on man. The WH Press Secretary sounds like a parrot right now, and the left leaning news agencies have literally removed most of the unrest stories from their front pages. It's an election year, how obviouys can this be?

(I'll assume you were responding to my post.)

I did say it was a good point, just that we don't have enough information to judge right now.

I don't think you'll find any political faction that won't blame things on their opponents, nor will you find any kind of press secretary that doesn't sound like a parrot. And I'm looking at the New York Times here, and the home page carries 5 stories related to the unrest.

My point is that it's not obvious at all. The identity, organisation, and motivation of the attackers are still very much murky, and even what happened at the consulate hasn't been publicly established. Given this lack of information, it is irresponsible to jump to conclusions, no matter how politically obvious it might be.

This is a general problem with politics. The average voter knows next to nothing about the issues he is voting on. Does anyone know if the craziness in the Middle East is due to failed US policies, or could things have been better with different policies? No, and historians will be arguing about it for decades to come. Similarly with economics, which is all the more exacerbated by current anti-intellectual tendencies on both sides in the US (though perhaps there is an argument to be made for the average Republican voter more anti-intellectual).

[Fragony]

Update: you were wrong Lemur, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula also is a fake name. It was made by Alan Roberts, who also made Happy Hookers go to Hollywood, as everybody knows.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080839/

edit: to everbody's surprise there are also people with culture in Belgium.

[Major Robert Dump]

Update: you were wrong Lemur, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula also is a fake name. It was made by Alan Roberts, who also made Happy Hookers go to Hollywood, as everybody knows.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080839/

edit: to everbody's surprise there are also people with culture in Belgium.

The guy is going to jail. He very clearly violated his parole. Right wing Obama haters will call it a conspiracy, but the terms of his financial wire fraud conviction was that he not use computers (check), he not use the internet (check) and he not use aliases or alternate names (check)

The moral of the story is to clean your own house before trying to rile the world. This guy appears to be a bonafide idiot

[Moros]

While there is debate between economic academics on the all known issues, there isn't much debate on the fact that the West didn't handle things too cleverly out there. Did it create the situation? Perhaps one could call it an overstatement. We might not have created a monster, perhaps we were more like Igor then Dr. Frankenstein, but our involvement can't be denied. And who in his right mind thinks GWB was diffusing a situation? A War on Terror is more on getting revenge and the brainless happy than anything else. Well okay perhaps it's more about wasting money.

[Fragony]

While there is debate between economic academics on the all known issues, there isn't much debate on the fact that the West didn't handle things too cleverly out there. Did it create the situation? Perhaps one could call it an overstatement. We might not have created a monster, perhaps we were more like Igor then Dr. Frankenstein, but our involvement can't be denied. And who in his right mind thinks GWB was diffusing a situation? A War on Terror is more on getting revenge and the brainless happy than anything else. Well okay perhaps it's more about wasting money.

I think it is much simplier, it isn't just the US they hate the hate the whole west. If you are absolutely sure your religion is the greatest it must be a kick in the nuts to see everybody doing better, heck, I'd beat my wife

[Moros]

I think it is much simplier, it isn't just the US they hate the hate the whole west.

Oh indeed.

If you are absolutely sure your religion is the greatest it must be a kick in the nuts to see everybody doing better, heck, I'd beat my wife

Yeah those filthy rich Christians in Africa!

No seriously while the failed attempts of pan-Islamists might have disillusioned some and all. I think we must differentiate between intellectual and social groups. The real masses might be somewhat jealous of our richness, but really that doesn't make you hate someone. I don't see the Chinese bombing us, and lets be fair if one group of people has a we're better than the rest kind of mentality it's them. No seriously, if anything it's not because they are in an economical and social disadvantage. It's because we misused the powers we had and instead of trying to diffuse the situation, every time it heats up we just throw in an extra crate of dynamite on an already gigantic pile, that makes them focus their anger on us. Now I'm portraying it almost as cartoonish and black and white as you. But certainly there's a lot of frustration out there, which is actually, but caused by their local governments as well, but we're a great scapegoat and a great reason to stay true to faith and whatever political agenda. Some nutters actually believe we are the evil of all things, most nutters just use us for their own goals others are just naïve masses who will join any cause, mainly because this way they can channel their frustrations and anger only making their own situations worse. I'm really not apologetic when it comes to this, if that's what you think.

It is not about Islam being bad in se. It as bad and as good as Christianity, only it didn't evolve with our history as Christianity did. Still while there might be massive protests and when it comes to religious wacko's it doesn't seem to be getting better, we must not act like every moslim out there hates us. Do you hate us Hax?

Our foreign policies is the electricity that helps Frankenstein (the nutters) create this monster (the naïve masses). That's why we need to cut off the power. Not just trash his place.

[Hax]

I'm not a Muslim, so I can't really say.

Of course, I hate all of you equally.

[rvg]

I'm not a Muslim, so I can't really say.

Are you sure? You certainly spend a lot of time defending them. I've been around many-many non-Muslim (primarily Christian) Arabs, and one thing that pretty much defines them across the board is that they almost universally hate Muslims.

[Beskar]

Are you sure? You certainly spend a lot of time defending them. I've been around many-many non-Muslim (primarily Christian) Arabs, and one thing that pretty much defines them across the board is that they almost universally hate Muslims.

Perhaps you should send him to an remote island and interrogate him for years in not-torture camps to make sure.

Though, I think Hax kind of has the authority to say whether or not he is a Muslim and I don't think he randomly wakes up in the middle of the night going "Am I really sure I am not a Muslim?". I don't think he is secretly praying to Mecca in the corner whilst being a practising and self-confessing Buddhist either.

[Major Robert Dump]

(I'll assume you were responding to my post.)

I did say it was a good point, just that we don't have enough information to judge right now.

I don't think you'll find any political faction that won't blame things on their opponents, nor will you find any kind of press secretary that doesn't sound like a parrot. And I'm looking at the New York Times here, and the home page carries 5 stories related to the unrest.

My point is that it's not obvious at all. The identity, organisation, and motivation of the attackers are still very much murky, and even what happened at the consulate hasn't been publicly established. Given this lack of information, it is irresponsible to jump to conclusions, no matter how politically obvious it might be.

This is a general problem with politics. The average voter knows next to nothing about the issues he is voting on. Does anyone know if the craziness in the Middle East is due to failed US policies, or could things have been better with different policies? No, and historians will be arguing about it for decades to come. Similarly with economics, which is all the more exacerbated by current anti-intellectual tendencies on both sides in the US (though perhaps there is an argument to be made for the average Republican voter more anti-intellectual).

But the White House is emphasizing that it was only the film..... only the film....only the film. CNN. MSNBC and HuffPost have gone from pure saturation coverage on their websites to a few stories in the sidebar columns. I am simply comparing this to what they were doing 2 days ago, where every story on the home page was about this issue. I do realize that this is how news works, but the downtick coincided perfectly with the WH statement.

The WH is trying to backtrack after a callous remark by Hilary about killing Khadafi. We came off as pompous liberators and bringers of democracy, and now that its not all its cracked up to be, we are blaming a video that has been out for months and most of the protestors have not seen. It's silliness.