Reuters: US ambassador to Libya dead

[Viking]

Which is why I didn't find Obama's response particularly appealing.

Though mind you, I don't know what an appropriate response should be given the facts we have now.

Mittens' gleefully ignorant knee-jerk comments in the middle of the night aside, what's more disturbing is the silence coming from the Egyptian and Libyan governments.

You really don't get it do you?
You cannot score positive voter points with anything remotely pro-American ANYWHERE east of the Atlantic Ocean. Add that to the fact that the protesters were there to DEFEN TEH PROPHET!!!!!11111oneoneoneone and you know why they are silent.

Mittens? Meh, his ancestors were probably shouting Defend the Prophet!!!! while butchering civilians at Mountain Meadows 160 years ago.

[Syt]

User comments on Austrian news sites seem to be torn between "Islam, religion of peace, my ass!" and "The AmeriKKKans had it coming!" with slightly more posters on the anti-American side it seem.

I doubt German sites look much different.

[Baron von Schtinkenbutt]

One of those "staff members" was Goonswarm's chief diplomat:

RIP: VILE RAT

So: Vile Rat, Sean Smith, my friend for over six years, both in real life and in internet spaceships, was the "State Department Official" killed in Benghazi by a mob of religious lunatics, who had been incited to violence on this September 11th by a movie that was apparently made sometime in July. Obviously, given the combined attacks in Egypt and in Libya, this was a coordinated act designed for maximum media exposure; rile up a mob, point them at an embassy or consulate on 9/11 in particular, aim for the press. Many were injured in these pointless, reprehensible acts, and one of my closest friends was killed as a result.

(12:54:09 PM) vile_rat: assuming we don't die tonight. We saw one of our 'police' that guard the compound taking pictures

We knew that Vile Rat was in Benghazi; he told us. He commented on how they use guns to celebrate weddings and how there was a constant susurrus of weaponry in the background. He was in situ to provide IT services for the consulate, which meant he was on the net all the time, hanging out with us on Jabber as usual and talking about internet spaceship games.

The last time he did something like this, he was in Baghdad in 2007 or 2008. He would be on jabber, then say something like 'incoming' and vanish for a while as the Kayatushas came down from Sadr City - State had been in the former Saddam Hussein palace on the Tigris before they built that $2bn fortress-embassy later. He got out from his Baghdad post physically unscathed and had some more relaxing postings after that. Montreal, then the Hague. He kept asking me to come visit him - we'd hang out in the States a couple of times a year or see each other in Iceland for CSM crap, but I didn't have the time visit for whatever reason so I would always say 'next year'. I missed Montreal, but had made real plans for the Hague... fuck. 

[Viking]

Norwegian boards have avoided the AmreeKKKa had it coming!!1!111oneoneone bit.

[Duque de Bragança]

User comments on Austrian news sites seem to be torn between "Islam, religion of peace, my ass!" and "The AmeriKKKans had it coming!" with slightly more posters on the anti-American side it seem.

I doubt German sites look much different.

Bernard-Henry Lévy got some flak for it as well in lemonde.fr since the was the idealistic champagne lefty intellectural, pro-Arab Spring and pro-Libyan rebellion

[Viking]

Martin Niemöller sort of set the ethical and moral standard here.

First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.

Then they came for the socialists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak for me.

Hitchens also warned us about this many years ago when the pope, Bush and religiophiles attacked the victims rather than the perpatrators in the incitement against danish cartoonists.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2006/02/stand_up_for_denmark.html

Stand up for Denmark!
Why are we not defending our ally?
By Christopher Hitchens|Posted Tuesday, Feb. 21, 2006, at 12:29 PM ET

Put the case that we knew of a highly paranoid religious cult organization with a secretive leader. Now put the case that this cult, if criticized in the press, would take immediate revenge by kidnapping a child. Put the case that, if the secretive leader were also to be lampooned, two further children would be killed at random. Would the press be guilty of "self-censorship" if it declined to publish anything that would inflame the said cult? Well, yes it would be guilty, but very few people would insist on the full exertion of the First Amendment right. However, the consequences for the cult and its leader would be severe as well. All civilized people would regard it as hateful and dangerous, and steps would be taken to circumscribe its influence, and to ensure that no precedent was set.

The incredible thing about the ongoing Kristallnacht against Denmark (and in some places, against the embassies and citizens of any Scandinavian or even European Union nation) is that it has resulted in, not opprobrium for the religion that perpetrates and excuses it, but increased respectability! A small democratic country with an open society, a system of confessional pluralism, and a free press has been subjected to a fantastic, incredible, organized campaign of lies and hatred and violence, extending to one of the gravest imaginable breaches of international law and civility: the violation of diplomatic immunity. And nobody in authority can be found to state the obvious and the necessary—that we stand with the Danes against this defamation and blackmail and sabotage. Instead, all compassion and concern is apparently to be expended upon those who lit the powder trail, and who yell and scream for joy as the embassies of democracies are put to the torch in the capital cities of miserable, fly-blown dictatorships. Let's be sure we haven't hurt the vandals' feelings.

You wish to say that it was instead a small newspaper in Copenhagen that lit the trail? What abject masochism and nonsense. It was the arrogant Danish mullahs who patiently hawked those cartoons around the world (yes, don't worry, they are allowed to exhibit them as much as they like) until they finally provoked a vicious response against the economy and society of their host country. For good measure, they included a cartoon that had never been published in Denmark or anywhere else. It showed the Prophet Mohammed as a pig, and may or may not have been sent to a Danish mullah by an anonymous ill-wisher. The hypocrisy here is shameful, nauseating, unpardonable. The original proscription against any portrayal of the prophet—not that this appears to be absolute—was superficially praiseworthy because it was intended as a safeguard against idolatry and the worship of images. But now see how this principle is negated. A rumor of a cartoon in a faraway country is enough to turn the very name Mohammed into a fetish-object and an excuse for barbaric conduct. As I write this, the death toll is well over 30 and—guess what?—a mullah in Pakistan has offered $1 million and a car as a bribe for the murder of "the cartoonist." This incitement will go unpunished and most probably unrebuked.

Could things become any more sordid and cynical? By all means. In a mindless attempt at a tu quoque, various Islamist groups and regimes have dug deep into their sense of wit and irony and proposed a trade-off. You make fun of "our" prophet and we will deny "your" Holocaust. Even if there were any equivalence, and Jewish mobs were now engaged in trashing Muslim shops and embassies, it would feel degrading even to engage with such a low and cheap stunt. I suppose that one should be grateful that the Shoah is only to be denied rather than, as in some Islamist propaganda, enthusiastically affirmed and set out as a model for emulation. But only a moral cretin thinks that anti-Semitism is a threat only to Jews. The memory of the Third Reich is very vivid in Europe precisely because a racist German regime also succeeded in slaughtering millions of non-Jews, including countless Germans, under the demented pretext of extirpating a nonexistent Jewish conspiracy. As it happens, I am one of the few people to have publicly defended David Irving's right to publish, and I think it outrageous that he is in prison in Austria for expressing his opinions. But my attachment to free speech is at least absolute and consistent. Those who incite murder and arson, or who silkily justify it, are incapable of rising above the childish glee that culminates in the assertion that two wrongs make a right.

The silky ones may be more of a problem in the long term than the flagrantly vicious and crazy ones. Within a short while—this is a warning—the shady term "Islamophobia" is going to be smuggled through our customs. Anyone accused of it will be politely but firmly instructed to shut up, and to forfeit the constitutional right to criticize religion. By definition, anyone accused in this way will also be implicitly guilty. Thus the "soft" censorship will triumph, not from any merit in its argument, but from its association with the "hard" censorship that we have seen being imposed over the past weeks. A report ($$) in the New York Times of Feb. 13 was as carefully neutral as could be but nonetheless conveyed the sense of menace. "American Muslim leaders," we were told, are more canny. They have "managed to build effective organizations and achieve greater integration, acceptance and economic success than their brethren in Europe have. They portray the cartoons as a part of a wave of global Islamophobia and have encouraged Muslim groups in Europe to use the same term." In other words, they are leveraging worldwide Islamic violence to drop a discreet message into the American discourse.

You may have noticed the recurrence of the term "One point two billion Muslims." A few years ago, I became used to the charge that in defending Salman Rushdie, say, I had "offended a billion Muslims." Evidently, the number has gone up since I first heard this ridiculous complaint. But observe the implied threat. There is not just safety in numbers, but danger in numbers. How many Danes or Jews or freethinkers are there? You can see what the "spokesmen" are insinuating by this tactic of mass psychology and mobbishness.

And not without immediate success, either. The preposterous person of Karen Hughes is quoted in the same New York Times article, under her risible title of "Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy." She tittered outside the store she was happily giving away: "The voices of Muslim Americans have more credibility in the Muslim world frankly than my voice as a government official, because they can speak the language of their faith and can share their experience of practicing their faith freely in the West, and they can help explain why the cartoons are so offensive." Well, let's concede that almost any voice in any world has more credibility on any subject than this braying Bush-crony ignoramus, but is the State Department now saying that we shall be represented in the Muslim world only by Muslims? I think we need a debate on that, and also a vote. Meanwhile, not a dollar of Wahhabi money should be allowed to be spent on opening madrasahs in this country, or in distributing fundamentalist revisions of the Quran in our prison system. Not until, at the very least, churches and synagogues and free-thought libraries are permitted in every country whose ambassador has bullied the Danes. If we have to accept this sickly babble about "respect," we must at least demand that it is fully reciprocal.

And there remains the question of Denmark: a small democracy, which resisted Hitler bravely and protected its Jews as well as itself.  Denmark is a fellow member of NATO and a country that sends its soldiers to help in the defense and reconstruction of Iraq and Afghanistan. And what is its reward from Washington? Not a word of solidarity, but instead some creepy words of apology to those who have attacked its freedom, its trade, its citizens, and its embassies. For shame. Surely here is a case that can be taken up by those who worry that America is too casual and arrogant with its allies. I feel terrible that I have taken so long to get around to this, but I wonder if anyone might feel like joining me in gathering outside the Danish Embassy in Washington, in a quiet and composed manner, to affirm some elementary friendship. Those who like the idea might contact me at [email protected], and those who live in other cities with Danish consulates might wish to initiate a stand for decency on their own account.

No TLDR, it's fucking hitchens, it's readable.

First they burned the danish embassy in Damascus, then the burned the UN compound in Kunduz and now the US Consulate in Benghazi .

The thing is that nobody can be offended, people can choose to take offense. These people choose to be offended and they continue to choose to be offended because they get away with it and pay no cost. You can reliably expect the pope and many other religious leaders to side with the murderers against the murdered.

[Sheilbh]

Don't marines guard these places? Can't they just mow down attackers with a 50 cal?

There weren't any marines.

The Libyan response has so far been strong.  The President condemned these 'despicable, criminal acts' and there have been counter-protests in a number of Libyan cities. 

In Egypt on the other hand things are getting worse.  The FJP and Salafi parties distanced themselves from storming the Embassy.  Now they both don't want to be left behind and are calling for protests against the film.  Meanwhile the government's openly at war with itself, with the Foreign Ministry publicly calling out the Interior Ministry for failing to protect the US Embassy.

My instinct is to go for a bit of gunboat diplomacy - not for the free speech issue, which really isn't the outrage here, but to protect our diplomatic network  and a bit of civis Romanus sum - but weirdly I think the Libyans should get more help while Egypt could develop as unhealthy a relationship with the US as Pakistan.

Mitt made a mistake.  He should have taken the opportunity to appear statesmanlike and not political.

[MadImmortalMan]

What is this movie, anyway? Would anyone even know it existed if these fools hadn't freaked out about it?

[Barrister]

What is this movie, anyway? Would anyone even know it existed if these fools hadn't freaked out about it?

No.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2012/09/12/sam_bacile_s_innocence_of_muslims_leads_to_riots_that_killed_the_u_s_ambassador_to_libya_.html

[Viking]

My instinct is to go for a bit of gunboat diplomacy - not for the free speech issue, which really isn't the outrage here, but to protect our diplomatic network  and a bit of civis Romanus sum - but weirdly I think the Libyans should get more help while Egypt could develop as unhealthy a relationship with the US as Pakistan.

I just wish that there was somebody we could send the gunboats against; but there isn't. The problem is that the violent religious nutjobs are in effect shielded by the government of the polity they belong to and the religious society they belong to. In effect the only action that can be taken is to encourage the governments and religious leaders that are relevant to take action. In effect we are allied with the governments of egypt, pakistan and libya against the salafists in their midsts. The thing is that the only way for us to "win" the Islamist War on the Enlightenment is for our enemies to change their minds.

In effect, we can tell which populations are our friends and which are still our enemies by seeing where they protest against embassies and consulates taking security precautions.

[Malthus]

What is this movie, anyway? Would anyone even know it existed if these fools hadn't freaked out about it?

No.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2012/09/12/sam_bacile_s_innocence_of_muslims_leads_to_riots_that_killed_the_u_s_ambassador_to_libya_.html

Damn. Sounds like the world's most successful troll. 

[Zanza]

User comments on Austrian news sites seem to be torn between "Islam, religion of peace, my ass!" and "The AmeriKKKans had it coming!" with slightly more posters on the anti-American side it seem.

I doubt German sites look much different.

I only saw the comments on Süddeutsche and those were mostly "Oh noes, the poor Muslims. We must give them more time to learn civilization."

[garbon]

No TLDR, it's fucking hitchens, it's readable.

First they burned the danish embassy in Damascus, then the burned the UN compound in Kunduz and now the US Consulate in Benghazi .

The thing is that nobody can be offended, people can choose to take offense. These people choose to be offended and they continue to choose to be offended because they get away with it and pay no cost. You can reliably expect the pope and many other religious leaders to side with the murderers against the murdered.

I don't see the relevance of the Hitchen's article. Did Washington suggest that attacks on the Danish embassy were justified?

And you're distinction about being offended vs. choosing to take offense seems rather ridiculous.

[Sheilbh]

In addition to other protest in other cities e  are now counter-protest protests in Benghazi.

In Tunis police are using tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse crowds gathering at Embassy. There are also protests in Casa.

[Valmy]

Most of the comments I see from Americans are of the "Muslims are subhuman animals who should be genocided.  Obama and the Demoncrats are idiots for thinking they can be appeased with their liberal hippiness.'  Which I find puzzling because I was not sure how Obama had appeased them...maybe by not slaughtering them all?