Glenn Greenwald in the Guardian on the motivation behind the Libyan embassy attacks:
For one, the claim that this attack was just about anger over an anti-Muhammad video completely absolves the US government of any responsibility or even role in provoking the anti-American rage driving it. After all, if the violence that erupted in that region is driven only by anger over some independent film about Muhammad, then no rational person would blame the US government for it, and there could be no suggestion that its actions in the region – like this, and this, and this, and this – had any role to play.
The White House capitalized on the strong desire to believe this falsehood: it’s deeply satisfying to point over there at those Muslims and scorn their primitive religious violence, while ignoring the massive amounts of violence to which one’s own country continuously subjects them. It’s much more fun and self-affirming to scoff: “can you believe those Muslims are so primitive that they killed our ambassador over a film?” than it is to acknowledge: “our country and its allies have continually bombed, killed, invaded, and occupied their countries and supported their tyrants.”
It is always more enjoyable to scorn the acts of the Other Side than it is to acknowledge the bad acts of one’s own. That’s the self-loving mindset that enables the New York Times to write an entire editorial today purporting to analyze Muslim rage without once mentioning the numerous acts of American violence aimed at them (much of which the Times editorial page supports). Falsely claiming that the Benghazi attacks were about this film perfectly flattered those jingoistic prejudices.
P.S. I’ve left out Greenwald’s critique of the US intervention in Libya as contributing to that rage. Yes because I supported it; and don’t regret that support; and sense that there’s pro-American feeling in Libya on that basis.
Talk about symbols evoking an irrational reaction
I’d like to see someone try and burn an American flag again.
Just so we can have a reality check.
How about uttering the words in a favorable tone, Sharia Law, Obama Care, Socialism, and so many others.
Thorstein says: “…Talk about symbols evoking an irrational reaction
I’d like to see someone try and burn an American flag again.
Just so we can have a reality check…”
The tasteless act competition. Burn an American flag. Burn a Qur’an. Film fifteen minutes of the crudest insults you can think of. Draw insulting pictures.
I feel trapped. I don’t want to burn an American flag.
What is that parable about riding on the back of crocodiles and ending up inside?
The attack on the Embassy in Benghazi was revenge for the killing of a Libyan Al Qaeda fighter in Pakistan. This chap fought *with* the US in Libya to help oust Ghaddafi, and then a US drone killed him off in Pakistan.
Don’t believe the hype about the islamophobic video being the root cause, it’s just a smokescreen so that Americans don’t understand the real issue – that the US will bed down with ANYBODY – even Al Qaeda fighters – if it helps them achieve their goals. Which are only ever short-term.
Blowback.
CS Monitor: Libyan attack on embassy: an al-Qaeda connection?
The most recent massacre in USA was occasioned by the premiere of new Batman movie. If we concentrate on outliers in another culture for the sake of a comparison, we have to pull out outliers in our culture too. As one Israeli complained, we had many reports on the “lynches” in Jerusalem and vicinity, but nobody reported how many times Jews and Arabs in Israel coexist peacefully and even amicably. Best known incidents are outliers.
Only when we acknowledge that, we can think how outlying the outliers are, is there a continuum between respected intellectual or political movements and the outliers.
After all, sociopaths are usually using ideas that are propagated by more mentally stable and respected individuals. Moreover, “the West” is a cultural hegemon, so when bad stuff happens, it is worth asking “did we legitimize this stupid idea”?
One can consider examples like the killing of Count Bernadotte, American troops arresting Iranian diplomats and keeping them in detention for years (are envoys sacrosanct according to what we do?), killing with drones where we have no permission to do so etc.
“but nobody reported how many times Jews and Arabs in Israel coexist peacefully and even amicably”
Nasrrudin was pulled over by a traffic cop for going through a red light.
“its true I did go through it when it was red” he admitted “But I demand credit for the many times I have stopped at a green”.
Didn’t G. W. Bush state that we were attacked on 9/11 because of our freedoms? Seemed to fly then so the movie as the root cause fits the continuing narrative. But really, what does that say about us?
RE: “I’ve left out Greenwald’s critique of the US intervention in Libya as contributing to that rage. Yes because I supported it; and don’t regret that support. . . ” ~ Weiss
MY COMMENT: I initially supported it as well, but very soon afterwards I began to very much regret it after seeing the way the U.S. and its allies flagrantly, grotesquely, and shamelessly abused the UN Security Council resolution on Libya (authorizing member states to establish and enforce a no-fly zone) in order to instead pursue their own “regime change” agenda.
Frankly, it was disturbingly reminiscent (perhaps not entirely coincidentally**) of Israel’s “intervention” in Lebanon in the summer of 1982.*
Consequently, as I see it, the U.S. and its NATO allies absolutely cannot be trusted to intervene in Syria in a responsible manner. Because the U.S and its NATO allies so badly abused R2P in regards to Libya (much like they abused the right to defend themselves by invading Iraq), I simply cannot support any intervention under any circumstances on their part no matter how seemingly deserving the purported beneficiaries of such intervention might be.
* FROM WIKIPEDIA [Lebanese Civil War]:
** SEE: “Good career move by Susan Rice”, by Philip Weiss, Mondoweiss, 1/25/12
SOURCE – link to mondoweiss.net
P.S. ALSO SEE: “America Adopts the Israel Paradigm”, by Philip Ghiraldi, Antiwar.com, 7/05/12
LINK – link to original.antiwar.com
P.P.S. ALSO SEE: “The imperial agenda of the US’s ‘Africa Command’ marches on”, by Dan Glazebrook, Guardian.com, 6/14/12
With mission accomplished in Libya, Africom now has few obstacles to its military ambitions on the continent
ENTIRE COMMENTARY – link to guardian.co.uk
“I’ve left out Greenwald’s critique of the US intervention in Libya as contributing to that rage. Yes because I supported it; and don’t regret that support; and sense that there’s pro-American feeling in Libya on that basis.”
oh yes but non-violence for Palestinians and if it leads to pro-Americanism, whatever the cost, who could demure. They love you so much they killed the Ambassador, like a child squeezing a beloved hamster to death i suppose. But why left out, is this Pravda or is it due to a paucity of counter arguments, other than they love us for destroying them, “they love the feel of the whip on their bleck becks” as the Afrikaners were wont to proclaim, i like the courageous acknowledgement of your own pusillanimity, why not bomb Egypt and watch the love of the USA blossom there, we also have Africans we could slaughter, and as you imply we like a good thrashing its just the way we are, I watched one lover of the USA behead a 20 something boy in Misurata with a penknife, definitely worth it, Ghandi would be so proud of you, well if not Ghandi then at least Goering.
The old political dictum “Never trust a white guy” finds affirmation
glorious affirmation in your courageos iconoclasm, (dare i say it was a price worth paying) in your repellent duplicity, who else do you support bombing, any of them white? and dont regret, why should you, look at their tender eyes contemplating the beauty that is y’all, and it cost not one white life, whats to cavil at, Savage moi? we are the dregs not just of humanity but of everything that breathes.
101 years bombing the Arabs, were there felt pen messages of love on the bombs “wearing his blindness like a treasure” as one them savages wrote in “without an alphabet, without a face”. Their really is no hope in you people.
Um, Phil, you know how much I admire the vast majority of your work. But the last portion of your PS here doesn’t make any sense: “I supported [the US "intervention", = acts of war, in Libya]; and don’t regret that support; and sense that there’s pro-American feeling in Libya on that basis.”
You “sense” that there’s pro-American feeling in Libya? Since when was that a scientific method? Also, you “sense” this on the basis that you supported the US war there last year? One of your weakest sets of arguments ever, I’m afraid…
Thank you HC.
I seem to have found the Muammar Ghaddafi fan club. Does it have any chapters outside of the Western far-left?
there is no country called Muammar
Khaddafi, and we seem to have found the al qua’da fan club just fancy, but hey these ones love the good ol’ US of A. “far left” American politics are just weird, somewhat primitive, and certainly savage.
You supported the invasion of Libya? Colour me unsurprised.
Muammar Al Gaddafi was good enough to rendition detainees for torture in Libya, pay Washington lobbyists, sign contracts with Dick Cheney’s oil firms and pay a massive bribe to get out of Western sanctions for a crime he didn’t commit.
Soon as the Arab spring came, though, it became expedient to support the despots of the Gulf States and rearm the ‘Islamists’. And now they’re being shipped from Libya to Syria. Hokay.
yet again i find myself recommending Michael Rogins, “Ronald Reagan the Movie: And other Episodes in Political Demonology” it has a good section in it on Muammar “Mad Dog” Khadaffi, its an old book.
and Wright you are not really being fair to yourself with that stupid slur of the Western Far Left, if only such existed, as an encouraging aside, after the building of the Great Man Made River project, despite dark musings that it was in fact a WMD project, I reported on it for a number of magazines in the mid-nineties, the government failed to get Libyans to eat fish taken from fresh water, they only like sea-caught fish, so at least your salmon would be safe.