Now They’ve Killed Our Ambassador

By Rod Dreher • September 12, 2012, 6:57 AM

Muslim fanatics in Libya have now murdered the US Ambassador. That is, the ambassador of a nation that helped them overthrow their dictator. This, in response to an offensive and completely obscure film made by some fringe Jewish nut in the US, and promoted by some American Coptic hothead. Excerpt:

The circumstances surrounding the death of Ambassador Stevens weren’t immediately clear. The American official, who is usually based in the capital Tripoli, apparently was visiting Benghazi ahead of the planned opening of an American cultural center there, according to a Libyan official.

Good luck with that American cultural center thing.

Poor man. Ah, Muslims. Ah, democracy. Ah, the freedom agenda. Who could have foreseen this coming? Who?

(Manning’s Corollary in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1…)

UPDATE: I want our Cairo embassy to start handing out visas to Copts en masse. I think we know what’s coming.

Posted in Islam. Tagged Islam, Libya, US Ambassador.

96 Responses to Now They’ve Killed Our Ambassador

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Geoff Guth says:

September 12, 2012 at 10:59 am

People are stupid, violent idiots. (original sin or evolution, take your pick). Extremists especially so. And if we have to pull our embassies out of places like Libya for a bit, well that’s basically where we’ve been for the last few decades anyways.

Democratization doesn’t happen overnight. It didn’t for us and it won’t for Arabs. Heck, I’m personally shocked that Turkey’s only taken a hundred years to reach the point it has (and yes, I know there are still flaws there too).

If there’s one flaw we Americans have, it’s impatience and the inability to think and act long-term. Any thoughtful person (and there are several here at this magazine) would know that some kind of sectarian violence, some kind of anti-American violence was coming once the brakes of authoritarianism came off. That’s why we’re holding back on Syria.

The hope is that, decades down the road, people in Libya and Egypt will learn to recoil from this sort of thing. Sometimes there’s a little cause for optimism (Lebanon has been making tentative steps in this direction; let’s hope Syria doesn’t mess that up).

But it’s a process that takes years and years, even decades and decades. And there will be tons of setbacks along the way.

Regarding the Copts: do you think it’s a fine and valuable thing to have Christianity lived and practiced in places where its roots run back into Biblical times? Do you think having a vibrant Christian community in a place like Alexandria or Cairo, where their culture and tradition will be nurtured (unlike here in the US, where pop culture flattens all before it) is a good thing? I do.

One of the greatest tragedies of Israel, in my opinion, is that its creation and the right of return absolutely destroyed Sephardic communities that had formerly flourished throughout the Middle East and North Africa, including in places incredibly important to Jewish history, like Iraq and Egypt.

Do you want to do the same for Coptic Christianity? Because they will come here. And assimilate. And there culture and distinctiveness that is tied to their place and roots in Egypt will be lost to the world forever.

I prefer to offer both Coptic Christianity and democracy the opportunity to both flourish in Egypt in the fullness of time.
Uncle Vanya says:

September 12, 2012 at 11:02 am

That regime changed in Libya worked out so well, didn’t it?

Expect the same thing to happen in Syria if regime change goes through.
Joe Carter says:

September 12, 2012 at 11:04 am

When in doubt, bluster.

Exactly. Reading some of the comments on this thread reveals the anti-intellectualism of the anti-neocon, anti-interventionists. The fact that some people are still using the term “blowback” is probably the greatest sign that Americans are becoming willfully dumb.

I can appreciate non-interventionist sentiment, but we aren’t living in the 1600s (probably the last era when non-interventionism was workable). Hiding in a bunker with a Ron Paul sticker on the door might appeal to some people, but most Americans would prefer to live in their country safely. Had we not intervened in Iraq there would now by two regimes in the middle east with nuclear weapons and a desire to use them against both the U.S. and our allies. I know some folks wouldn’t blink if Israel was wiped off the map but for the fanatics that would be the beginning, not the end of the “destroy all Jews” jihad.
John E_o says:

September 12, 2012 at 11:06 am

[Note from Rod: Didn't you get that I was being sarcastic in saying, "Who could have foreseen this?"? It was foreseen. But nobody listened to the foreseers. -- RD]

Yeah, like I said, I’m bitter and shouldn’t have snapped at you like that.
M_Young says:

September 12, 2012 at 11:13 am

“An American-Israeli , what the heck is that.”

Not surprisingly, the Supreme Court case which knocked any life out of the US being able to claim, you know, that its citizens not, through their actions, show their allegiance to another country involved … Israel.
Don Quijote says:

September 12, 2012 at 11:21 am

It’s a common misconception that the US gets its oil from the Middle East. We don’t, most of it comes from the US, Canada, and Venezuela.

While that may be true, there are many American Corporations working in the Middle East making money hand over fist exploiting all that black gold…

Total Follows Exxon, Chevron Into Kurdistan Region of Iraq

Revealed: how Shell won the fight for Libyan gas and oil (2009)

There’s oil in them hills and we are going to do what we have do to get it, damn the consequences. Whether the Oil is sold in China, Japan Europe or the US the Oil companies are gong to do what it takes to ensure that they get their cut.
Richard Johnson says:

September 12, 2012 at 11:25 am

OK…I think we can all agree that the radical branch of the Islamic faith seems to have a fairly large contingent in the Middle East. This has been evident for a number of years, and anyone with half a brain should know how they react when provoked. Much like a nest of hornets being kicked.

So…why are we surprised when a provocative movie results in violence and murder? What other result were we expecting?

Moreover, was this the reaction the producer of the movie *wanted* to happen?
Polichinello says:

September 12, 2012 at 11:27 am

So there’s no Global War on Terror, previously authorized by Congress? Or maybe you’re saying Moammar Gaddafi wasn’t a terrorist?

Gadafi surrendered, albeit conditionally. Yes, he got away with a lot of shit, but that’s the situation Bush inherited, and, for once, he made the best deal he could. Gadafi shut down his WMD program and gave inspectors full access, and we resumed relations.

Obama then, on his own with NO Congressional approval, launched a bombing campaign that went beyond the 60- and 90-day limit outlined in the War Powers Act, which had been a key liberal piece of legislation.

Say what want about Dubya, and I had no liking for him, he at least got specific authorization for attacking Iraq. No, he didn’t use some lame-ass GWOT blanket authorization, like you’re using here.
Uncle Vanya says:

September 12, 2012 at 11:42 am

Not wanting to go out into the world, ala neocon, in search of windmills to tilt at is not even near being an isolationist as some would have us believe.

While it is no longer the 1600′s, wasting blood and treasue on foreign interventions out of principle is still a fool’s errand, and to pretend otherwise is outright asinine. The last 10 years taught most of us that.
39Joshua says:

September 12, 2012 at 11:43 am

Mr. Carter, provide one shed of evidence that the Iraqis actually had a nuclear program (facilities, isotopes, etc; not just a few scientists and some research here and there) before American intervention in 2003.
sjay says:

September 12, 2012 at 11:45 am

I suspect that the Obama administration will identify a small group of perps and fairly soon send them to their maker via drone or other form of assassination. One can argue about the legality and morality of this, but from an efficiency standpoint it is probably the best we can do as it will punish the bad actors and minimize the collateral bad effects that they (and their counterparts on the other side) are likely hoping to achieve. God help us, though.
AndrewH says:

September 12, 2012 at 11:52 am

So the murder of nearly 200 American citizens on an airliner is forgivable

Your contempt for diplomatics norms is despicable. That case was resolved a long time ago. (Maybe you just don’t follow world events). Both sides had moved on. The US and UK had re-established relations and their leaders and main diplomats had been working with Gaddafi’s government for a couple of years so the regime change policy had nothing to do with the Pan Am bombing.
Sean Scallon says:

September 12, 2012 at 12:11 pm

“I want our Cairo embassy to start handing out visas to Copts en masse. I think we know what’s coming.”

To be joined by thousands of Christian Syrians and Armenians who have the same thing happen to them because we’re trying to undermine the one regime in the Arab world still left which actually showed them tolerance. For their sake, as brutal as Assad may be, you better hope he wins.

As much as we’ve criticized the behavior of Christians on this blog and I am happy to know that what I believe in says “Blessed are those who hate and persecute you in my name. You shall inherit the Kingdom of Heaven” rather than “Kill the infidel!” or pronounce the fatwa of death for those who insult the prophet. You can see why those who attack religion are really largely attacking Christianity rather than Judaism or Islam. Attack the Jews and you’re an anti-Semite. Attack Islam you might be killed. Attack the Christians, they turn the other cheek. They’re cowards, pure and simple.
MH - Secular Misanthropist says:

September 12, 2012 at 12:26 pm

Don Quijote, well that’s a different problem from oil. That’s the influence corporate money has on US politics. If it wasn’t oil it would probably be something else.
Beyng says:

September 12, 2012 at 12:36 pm

Joe Carter:

Your comment is truly one of the most intellectually robust, charitable expositions I’ve ever read. And you’re totally right: the notion of “blowback” is absurd. How could anyone believe that an action–for example, arming the Afghani Mujahadeen–might impel a distasteful reaction? And there’s simply no conceivable way that expending one billion dollars so far in fomenting the Libyan rebellion was at all an ill-conceived course of action. Nope. Blowback is an antiquated notion with no applicability in geopolitics.
VikingLS says:

September 12, 2012 at 12:39 pm

“I’m personally shocked that Turkey’s only taken a hundred years to reach the point it has (and yes, I know there are still flaws there too).”

Legitimate Democracy in Turkey resulted in an Islamist party being elected in 2007. I was there. Secular anti-AKP Turks I knew were terrified they were going to end up living in another Iran. Instead of an overnight Islamist revolution they’re seeing a gradual loss of liberty.

Democracy in Egypt and Copts living safely in Egypt may be mutually exclusive goals. Generally, even in Turkey, Christians have fare better under autocrats in the Muslim world.
M_Young says:

September 12, 2012 at 12:42 pm

“I think Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama would be greatly improved by having several million Copts settle there.”

So you’re saying that heavily African-American states, with large populations descended from sub-Saharan Africans, will be improved by adding non-sub-Saharan, caucasian Africans.
VikingLS says:

September 12, 2012 at 12:53 pm

Carter the most likely outcome in Iraq is that the chaos we left behind is going to result in a pro-Iranian dictator emerging. I interviewed a half dozen Iraqi scientists a couple of months ago and they assured me one after the other that Iraqis can not function without a powerful leader to tell them what to do. These are educated, English speaking men currently studying in the USA. (One of them called the American system a “Mediocracy” in that Americans elevate mediocre men to govern us.

And why are you talking like blowback is a discredit concept? Based on what?
Charles Cosimano says:

September 12, 2012 at 12:56 pm

I don’t have to say anything. Anyone who has read my posts before knows what I am thinking.
EngineerScotty says:

September 12, 2012 at 1:34 pm

I’ll ignore Libya for a moment, as there it appears the attack was the work of organized terrorists, not a random mob, and the Libyan government has apologized. The situation in Egypt, on the other hand, is in some ways more troubling–as the Egyptian authorities permitted a mob to storm a foreign embassy, and did nothing, and still has yet to express any condolence.

Egypt, of course, is where the US involvement was minimal.

There were some calls, mainly from the neocon right, that the US should have instead continued to prop up Mubarak, and given him the necessary assistance to quell the uprising–with the likelihood that Islamists might otherwise come to power offered as the reason. And indeed, the MB has come into power, the US has done little to oppose this, and now we have a major incident on our hands.

So what say ye? Should the US have gone to the mat for Mubarak–a scumbag and a villain, certainly, but one who (public denunciations of the US for domestic consumption notwithstanding) friendly to US interests? Or was the US correct to leave things alone, even if it results in a potentially-unfriendly government coming to power?
Geoff Guth says:

September 12, 2012 at 2:15 pm

VikingLS, as I said, there are flaws. There’s the handling of the Kurdish minority, and of course there are very real problems with the tiny remaining remnant of Orthodox Christians remaining there (itself the result of the process of Greek liberation and the resulting exodus of Christians there, rather similar to what happened with Jews throughout the Middle East.

Europe itself has difficulty working out how much religious liberty it can extend to minorities.

But one has to remember that secular liberalism and religious tolerance did not spring up in a vacuum in the West. The context there is one of religious wars and persecutions that went on for at least two or three centuries before the Enlightenment and wasn’t really, truly put to rest until after WWII (and again, looking at struggles to assimilate Muslim immigrants and at the secularist vs. Christian disputes in many European countries, it’s still not fully resolved, just much better than it was).

There’s a reason why the parts of the Constitution that discuss religion show a horror of established churches and religious tests: our Founding Fathers saw those with their own eyes and came to believe them to be wrong. We have to allow other cultures the space to reach the same conclusions based on their own experience. Islamist parties are actually a necessary and fundamental step in acquiring that experience. I have confidence that, eventually, people there too will eventually reach the same conclusions Westerners did. But that means letting them make mistakes and giving them time.

Turkey is on that path. As are the Arab Spring countries. And the main point is that these countries will become ready for liberalism and religious tolerance only when the alternatives become untenable, just as they eventually did for us. And that means there will be violence and persecution and suffering along the way.

And I’d also say they have two advantages: first, they have our example. But second, it’s also true that Islam itself has tolerant tendencies baked in that medieval Christianity lacked. Which means that I think the process will be a bit faster than it was for us. But it still may not reach that point in my lifetime.

But I maintain the alternative, relying on dictators to preserve security through military strength and repressive police is even more untenable. Eventually the pot boils over.
Nicholas Needlefoot says:

September 12, 2012 at 2:25 pm

Gaddafi was a clownish thug and I’m pleased he finally got justice. I never “got beyond” what he did to Pan Am 103 (he gave al-Megrahi a hero’s welcome). I remember the 1980s, when he would taunt America, murder people and be protected by the Soviets. Gaddafi supported terrorism far more than Saddam Hussein ever did. After the Cold War he restrained himself more, but he used oil exports to shield his regime.
Joe Carter says:

September 12, 2012 at 2:36 pm

And why are you talking like blowback is a discredit concept? Based on what?

Well, because it was never a concept that should have been taken seriously. According to the blowback theory, Muslims want to attack us because:

1) We supported tyrannical regimes (e.g., the Shah, the Saudis)
2) We supported “freedom fighters” (e.g., the Mujahideen, Libya)
3) We didn’t liberte the Iraqis during the first Gulf War
4) We did liberate the Iraqis during the Iraq War
5) We support Israel
6) We allow every nutty American to say whatever they think (e.g., the Koran-burning pastor in Fl)

In other words, anything we do, don’t do, or allow to happen results in “blowback.” Such an overly broad and meaningless concept should not be confused with an actual foreign policy position. It’s merely a buzzword for “The U.S. shoudn’t take a policy position that me an Ron Paul disagree with.”
Brian says:

September 12, 2012 at 3:21 pm

“There were some calls, mainly from the neocon right, that the US should have instead continued to prop up Mubarak”

Wow. I mean, just wow. Doesn’t anyone know what “neocon” means anymore? Or who exactly is a neocon? Or who exactly wanted to get Mubarak out (folks like, um, Bill Kristol, prince of the neocons, among others, being quite consistent in his neocon-ness), and who wanted him in (folks like, um, Glenn Beck, who isn’t a neocon by any sane usage of the word and who we now see was a heck of a lot more prescient about how Egypt would proceed than the idiots who lambasted him)?

If you want to say, “folks on the right I hate a lot” just say that, don’t say “neocon” and reveal you don’t know the basic fundamentals of political terminology.

Seriously, we should have long since retired the term “neocon” because it’s degenerated to the point of meaningless, and did so by about 2004. A large number of people just use it as a despicable code-word for their own prejudices, and nearly everyone else uses it to just mean “idiot conservatives who are idiotic idiots.”
Richard Johnson says:

September 12, 2012 at 3:42 pm

“Think it’s any coincidence that this came out at a time when Netanyahu is demanding that the US go to war with Iran?”

Or that it came out so close to the US election?
VikingLS says:

September 12, 2012 at 3:45 pm

Geoff I am about one degree of separation away from Turkish journalists and military men who went to jail without charges because of the AKP. Turkey is NOT going in the direction of liberty or tolerance. The Arab spring countries are NOT on that path. The Copts you want to keep in Egypt are going be given a stark choice, fight, flee or die.

Even the US has trouble maintaining space between religion and politics. The Republican party has a bizarre relationship with Evangelical Christians and is trying very hard to pull in Jews and Catholics.
VikingLS says:

September 12, 2012 at 3:53 pm

Carter

All of those things have led to blowback. You YOURSELF pointed out that we have four dead Americans thanks to Obama’s Libyan war.

Either you people are going to wake up or we’re going to have to push you out of the party. We can’t pay for your delusions anymore. We just don’t have the money.
Church Lady says:

September 12, 2012 at 4:01 pm

There’s something about the origin of this film that stinks. The alleged producer and financer seems to be some sort of imaginary character who has simply disappeared, and no one actually seems to know of him. It sounds to me like there’s some kind of deliberate provocation behind this film, by people we can only guess at. It would be interesting to see what the digging on this guy turns up.
VikingLS says:

September 12, 2012 at 4:03 pm

Brian,

Irving Kristol himself embraced the term Neoconservative but I agree that its an obsolete term. Its thought of as a very Republican movement, but there’s not much space between the Clintons, McCain or George W Bush.

Also where do we place globalists like Obama that don’t seem completely preoccupied with Israel?

Unfortunately I can’t think of any word that doesn’t sound Marxists.
Joe Carter says:

September 12, 2012 at 4:03 pm

All of those things have led to blowback.

Let’s add another one to the list. It’s being reported that the attack on the embassy was planned partially in response to imprisonment of Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman for his role in the 1993 WTC bombing. So “blowback” includes arresting terrorist for terror attacks on U.S. soil.

Apparently the only response to “blowback” is to make ever concession possible to the terrorist elements. Nothing short of that will stop them. And nothing short of that wills stop people from trying to blame America for the fact that some Muslim extremists hate America.
Geoff Guth says:

September 12, 2012 at 4:32 pm

VikingLS, I think you still misunderstand my point. Let me put it another way.

If I can make an extremely imperfect analogy, I’d compare the Middle East today (including Turkey) to the 17th century in England. There were lots of important things that had happened:

* Parliamentary supremacy was, if not firmly established, getting very close to being accepted by all sides.

* The rudiments of representative democracy were getting worked in, particularly with the shift in power to the Commons.

* And the rule of law was largely in place, with the last discretionary Court, that of Chancery moving from being a political creature to a legal one.

On the other hand, there was extreme religious intolerance, especially towards Catholics and Jews. And political violence (the Revolution, the Gunpowder Plot, etc.) was still relatively common.

Broadly speaking, that’s mostly where I’d put countries like Turkey. Are they a fully fledged Western liberal democracy? Of course not. But are they on a path that puts them in a better place than they were under the Sultans or even Ataturk? I’d argue yes. With some optimism for future development in the next century.
pilgrim says:

September 12, 2012 at 4:50 pm

My sister and her husband spent seven years in Egypt working with Coptic believers, and still get periodic prayer requests.
Yes, let them come.
VikingLS says:

September 12, 2012 at 4:54 pm

Carter stop being childish. Understanding blowback means that we have to take into account that any action we take, particularly overseas, is going to have consequences. Understanding that, and planning for that is called prudence. Prudence is supposed to be a conservative value.

And yes any time we take out one of theirs there is a likelihood of a reprisal. That’s how their minds work. If you discuss the death penalty with Americans they’ll talk about deterrence. Muslims don’t care about deterrence. They want an eye for an eye.

The flaw in the thinking of mainstream Republicans is that they seem to imagine if we just hit these people hard enough they’ll wise up and stop fighting us. That’s not going to happen, EVER. You can displace them, you can kill them. You can rule them from a thousands of miles away and buy off some local tribesmen to rule the country and gangs to rule the cities (what the Turks and British did, until they couldn’t afford to anymore.) What you can’t do is beat them into submission.

Personally I don’t see the point of endlessly throwing good money after bad in the Muslim world. Not for dreams of Democratic societies that won’t emerge with or without us. Certainly not to protect an ‘ally’ with whom we have no formal treaty with. (And who can threaten Tehran with nukes if they want.)

What other allies in the region? Saudi Arabia has a military budget 7 times that of Iran. They can take care of themselves too.

Turkey? Turkey’s in NATO which makes them a legitimate ally, but who are they likely to go to war with that they can’t handle?

Yes if you buy the mainstream Conservative narrative the world is a terrifying place where mad mullahs work hand in hand with communists bent on world domination.

The reality is our avowed enemies are a starving communist country with far more powerful countries surrounding it and a country that hasn’t started a real war in over 100 years.

Russia? China? Pakistan? All of them are local powers and have more conflicts of interest with eachother than us unless (and this is where we get in trouble) we insert ourselves into the situation. What is Kazakhstan to us?

The global militarists, for lack of a better word, want to keep behaving as though its eternally 1983, hyping greater and greater dangers. This is bankrupting us as a nation, financially and morally. It’s time to move on.
BenSix says:

September 12, 2012 at 5:54 pm

I saw a link to this on Twitter. I’ve no idea how many people it involved so I’m not about to claim it’s representative of much but its nice to see that some Libyans are as angry as we are…

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.361504610597476.85002.119125474835392&type=1
JonF says:

September 12, 2012 at 6:01 pm

Re: It’s also true that Islam itself has tolerant tendencies baked in that medieval Christianity lacked.

Contra to What Everyone Knows medieval Christendom was no nastier to its infidels than medieval Islam was. In both cultures there was usually a grudging tolerance, coupled with discriminatory laws, and punctuated by occasional spasms of persecution, generally when things were going poorly.

Viking: in Turkey it’s generally been the religious regimes that were the more tolerant, while the secular ones could be nasty and (in the past) downright genocidal.

Geoff: England was actually late to the game in proclaiming full legal tolerance for all religions. Catholicism was not legalized until the 1830s– fifty years after Louis XVI restored the rights of Protestants in pre-revolutionary France, and the Emperor Joseph established toleration in the Hapsburg lands.
JonF says:

September 12, 2012 at 6:17 pm

And this just in via Ta-neisi Coates. Apparently not everyone in Libya is on board with the murderous fundalunatics:

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/09/the-other-protest-in-libya/262308/
Sands says:

September 12, 2012 at 6:36 pm

“Had we not intervened in Iraq there would now by two regimes in the middle east with nuclear weapons and a desire to use them against both the U.S. and our allies.”

With everything we know post-invasion, there ain’t no way — AIN’T NO WAY — you typed that
with a straight face.
Joanna says:

September 12, 2012 at 7:04 pm

http://imgur.com/a/tlCyI

Hope this links work. A sweet and welcome response, tho seeking a “True Scotsmen”
VikingLS says:

September 12, 2012 at 7:25 pm

“Viking: in Turkey it’s generally been the religious regimes that were the more tolerant, while the secular ones could be nasty and (in the past) downright genocidal.”

Turkey has not had a democraticlly elected religous regime before now. It would be nice if the AKP are more tolerant of Christianity than the Kemalists, but from what I know of them and their patrons (and I know more than a little bit about the latter) I am not holding my breath.
Hector_St_Clare says:

September 12, 2012 at 9:35 pm

What a bunch of savages.

“Show me just what Muhammed brought that was new, and I will show you only things inhuman and evil, such as the commandment to spread by the sword he preached.”

- Emperor Manuel II Palailogos

“As has been related, this Mohammed wrote many ridiculous books, to each one of which he set a title. For example, there is the book On Woman, [109] in which he plainly makes legal provision for taking four wives and, if it be possible, a thousand concubines—as many as one can maintain, besides the four wives. He also made it legal to put away whichever wife one might wish, and, should one so wish, to take to oneself another in the same way. Mohammed had a friend named Zeid. This man had a beautiful wife with whom Mohammed fell in love. Once, when they were sitting together, Mohammed said: ‘Oh, by the way, God has commanded me to take your wife.’ The other answered: ‘You are an apostle. Do as God has told you and take my wife.’ Rather—to tell the story over from the beginning—he said to him: ‘God has given me the command that you put away your wife.’ And he put her away. Then several days later: ‘Now,’ he said, ‘God has commanded me to take her.’ Then, after he had taken her and committed adultery with her, he made this law: ‘Let him who will put away his wife. And if, after having put her away, he should return to her, let another marry her. For it is not lawful to take her unless she have been married by another. Furthermore, if a brother puts away his wife, let his brother marry her, should he so wish.’ [110] In the same book he gives such precepts as this: ‘Work the land which God hath given thee and beautify it. And do this, and do it in such a manner” [111]—not to repeat all the obscene things that he did.”

-St. John of Damascus
Geoff Guth says:

September 12, 2012 at 10:24 pm

JonF, medieval Christianity was pretty ruthless when it came to rooting out paganism (read Bede for instance), never coexisted with Islam, and stamped out heresy firmly and successfully right up to the Reformation.

The one exception extended was to Judaism, and that was a very difficult relationship, with slaughter, persecution and expulsion routine.

Islam, by contrast, from the beginning allowed second class citizenship for Christians and Jews. In the Middle Ages, persecutions were far less frequent, and large flourishing Jewish and Christian communities existed. Indeed, Jews and Christians might even on some places aspire to high office.

Toleration in the Muslim world was imperfect. But out was far, far better than the most tolerant Christian realms. Heck, Maimonides himself fled from Spain and flourished in Egypt.
AnotherBeliever says:

September 12, 2012 at 10:54 pm

I’m trying to figure out what really happened from various media reports. Absolute chaos, by the end.

I hate Al Qaeda, and all its ilk.

I hate RPGs, rockets, and mortars.

My thoughts and prayers are with the loved ones of the Ambassador and of the other men who died, and with their colleagues who survived the attack, an experience which will stay etched in their muscle memory for life.

That’s all I got.
J says:

September 12, 2012 at 11:53 pm

Journalists are looking into the makers of the anti-Muslim film. It seems the principal, “Sam Bacile” by pseudonym, is a Copt living in Southern California and the others are also Coptic or other Middle Eastern Christians.

It almost seems like a plot to get mass Coptic immigration to the U.S.A.
M_Young says:

September 13, 2012 at 1:24 am

Actually Mr. Guth, there were waves of persecutions of Christians in Medieval Spain, leading the what the Northern Spanish called the ‘Mozarabes’ from Andalucia to flee north with some regularity. And of course many Christian places of worship were destroyed or converted to Mosques. In Bosnia, Christians were regularly lynched. Churches were forbidden to repair any damages brought by Muslim mobs or mere age and weather. Christians were regularly lynched, particularly when the Ottomans suffered defeats in their continual aggression against Christendom. Even today, Bosnian teens call each other ‘gazi’ — the frontier arab raiders who would take booty, slaves, and eventually territory from the ‘Dar ul Harb’. Muslims did tolerate a Christian raya for various reasons, mere facts on the ground being one (they conquered a lot of peoples), and economics being another (Christian ‘raya’ (i.e. flock, sheep) were taxed at a much higher rate, and were forced to pay feudal dues as they could not, unlike many Muslim smallholders, buy land.

The myth of a beneficent and tolerant Islam is just that, a myth.
M_Young says:

September 13, 2012 at 1:33 am

“My sister and her husband spent seven years in Egypt working with Coptic believers, and still get periodic prayer requests.
Yes, let them come.”

There’s logic for you. Can they stay at your house, your sisters? Will you pay the inevitable resettlement costs? For the education of their children?

Of course the most convincing reason to most people here — those who don’t seem to care about Americans or the radical changes in communities mass resettlement brings– is that their mass immigration to the US will mean destruction of the Coptic community as historically understood. Yes they might persist as an identifiable group here in the US for a few generations, but then the would fade away.

The real
Siarlys Jenkins says:

September 13, 2012 at 5:04 am

Does anyone recall that the Salafists lost big time in a recent round of Libyan elections?

It would be only natural for such people to pull off this kind of action, for the very purpose of trying to establish themselves as the true representatives of the Libyan people, who rejected them at the ballot box.

And so many, including apparently our gracious host, are willing to hand the people of Libya, who recently voted otherwise, over to the Salafists, with language about how “THEY’ve killed our ambassador.”

That statement cries out for a precise definition of “They.” Its a bit like saying “Now they’ve killed our president,” as if every living person in the southern states connived in John Wilkes Booth’s action shooting Abraham Lincoln, or every “white” person in the entire south directly participated in any given racially motivated lynching.

While I agree in sentiment with Geoff, there were episodes of Muslim anti-Semitism, and it was from one such episode that Maimonides fled from Spain to Egypt (both culturally dominated by Muslims). The Almohades were mystically anti-Jewish, for reasons nobody has really sorted out. But yes, Christians indulged this sort of irrational mob action throughout the middle ages, and later.

There is a crying need for a statement on behalf of the USA to everyone in the world who still indulges a tribal mob mentality (which is quite a few, in many countries and cultures), beginning with those who profess Islam. Ideally it would begin like this:

In the United States, we have a representative in congress who is Muslim. He was not elected from a Muslim majority district. He was elected from a district with a Christian majority, and more Jews than Muslims. That is how it works in America. Christians and Jews are perfectly happy being represented by Muslims, and Muslims by Christians or Jews.

It is as if a mostly Coptic district elected a Muslim to represent it in Egypt’s parliament, while a mostly Muslim district elected a Copt, not for their faith, but their views on economic development, constitutional law, education, health care, etc. Try it, you might like it.

In our country, blasphemy is not a criminal offense. We have denied our government the authority to define or punish blasphemy. That goes for cartoons impugning the prophet Muhammed, plays depicting Jesus and the Apostles as a a band of homosexuals engaged in group sex, photos of a crucifix sitting in a bucket of piss, etc.

I dare say most of us consider such excuses for “culture” to be juvenile, offensive, stupid, and unworthy of respect. But we don’t want our religious leaders to exercise government powers, and we don’t want our government defining what is blasphemy. So its not a crime. We generally ignore such cretins.

Our first Muslim representative in congress took his oath of office on a Qu’ran from the library of Thomas Jefferson, our third president. He was in many ways the author of religious liberty. In that tradition, we will never allow any religion to have a special place in our laws, not Christianity, not Islam, not Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Santeria, or any other, and we will suppress none of these either.

So know everyone in the world: These are not the actions of the American people, or law, but the actions of individuals. These individuals are in essence cowardly, and they will not come try such things in your country. Those you see in your country will not be the perpetrators of these blasphemies. If you come to our country and try to kill them, you will be arrested and put on trial, as would any of our own citizens who do the same. IF you find any of them in your country, your laws are your own.

…That would be a good way to begin. Translate that into Arabic, Urdu, Pushtun, Tadjik, and distribute it by the millions. And any country where mobs can still be whipped up to kill Americans for some stupid rag or amateur movie, pull our embassies out and leave then to themselves.

It would be appropriate for Rep. Keith Ellison to offer such a statement. Whether he will I don’t know.

But I still want to see a sober, rational, definition of what Rod means by “they.”