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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Brian says:

September 12, 2012 at 7:11 am

While I’d give Obama an F- across the board, I don’t blame him one bit for the fact that most of the Arab world is an absolute hellhole.

But I do blame the idiot sycophantic media that fell all over itself in unison proclaiming the fact that he was The One who would bring peace to planet and heal us all.
JonF says:

September 12, 2012 at 7:17 am

Um, it’s not as if mobs are unique to democracies. Ask the victims of Russian tsarist pogroms about that. And I’m sure if old Ghadhafi (who happily conspired to blow a jet full of innocent people out of the sky) had seen some profit in sending a mob to murder Americans he would have done so.
Hunsdon says:

September 12, 2012 at 7:23 am

Wow, they picked a thoroughly bad day to do that. They should get new advisers.
reflectionephemeral says:

September 12, 2012 at 7:30 am

Oh, white people. Always viewing Muslims as an undifferentiated mass.
Don Quijote says:

September 12, 2012 at 7:49 am

A) No surprise here, it was documented during the overthrow of Gaddafi that many of the rebels were AL-qaida who had fought against the US in Iraq…

B) A good chunk of the people fighting on behalf of the rebels in Syria are Al-qaida and the people likely to replace Assad are likely to make him look like a saint.

Jacques Beres, co-founder of medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres, returned from Syria on Friday evening after spending two weeks working clandestinely in a hospital in the besieged northern Syrian city.

In an interview with Reuters in his central Paris apartment on Saturday, the 71-year-old said that contrary to his previous visits to Homs and Idlib earlier this year about 60 percent of those he had treated this time had been rebel fighters and that at least half of them had been non-Syrian.

C) There are approximately 8 to 10 million Copts in Egypt, so before you invite them to the US, you better talk to your fine conservative christian friends down South and ask them how many uneducated, non-English speaking African Arabs they are willing to let into the country… (My guess is zero)

D) Religious Fanatics are right wing conservatives, no matter what the religion or the country, just get over it and own your lunatics…
John E_o says:

September 12, 2012 at 8:08 am

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

You did originally support the overthrow of the previous Iraqi government, right? For those stated reasons – bringing freedom, etc.?

Because to read you now, one might think you’ve always been non-interventionist.
as ye sow says:

September 12, 2012 at 8:15 am

Looks like we’re not finished reaping what the goddamned neocons have sown.

This is exactly what anyone with half a brain foresaw and warned against.
Polichinello says:

September 12, 2012 at 8:20 am

Looks like we’re not finished reaping what the goddamned neocons have sown.

Hey, I love bashing the Neocons as the much as the next reactionary paleo, but this shit ain’t on them. The is President Precious’ mess.

Dubya and the neocons leveraged the Iraq War to reach a modus vivendi with Khaddafi, where he gave up his WMD program in exchange for us leaving him alone. It was one of the few things they did right, and we can thank them for it, because if they hadn’t we might be dealing with far more dangerous people.

And THAT is one of the few times you’ll see me saying something nice about Bush II.
SteveM says:

September 12, 2012 at 8:21 am

Rod, both the domestic and foreign policy Cancers that have been cultivated by arrogant and incompetent American Power Elites over the past decades have metastasized to extents that are outside the bounds of effective Presidential response.

The world has taken on a life of its own that the American Leviathan and its feckless Presidents can no longer control without employing massive death and destruction.

Romney or Obama – macht nichts. One of those impotent Mediocrities is going to spend 4 years flailing and importuning the Global Horse to get back into the American hegemonic barn. Only it ain’t gonna happen, because it’s been long gone.
Polichinello says:

September 12, 2012 at 8:22 am

There are approximately 8 to 10 million Copts in Egypt, so before you invite them to the US, you better talk to your fine conservative christian friends down South and ask them how many uneducated, non-English speaking African Arabs they are willing to let into the country… (My guess is zero)

Your guess is wrong (Surprise!). Christian Arabs integrate quite well, and they have communities in Houston, Oklahoma and Mississippi. Give that this group is face REAL oppression, the opposition would be quite low.
James C. says:

September 12, 2012 at 8:22 am

Isn’t it about time we pulled out of the Middle East after a mass evacuation of the Christian minority and left these barbaric “societies” to their own devices? Or do we want to continue our adventures there, destroying our own country in the process?
Leo says:

September 12, 2012 at 8:23 am

Another disgraceful neocon failure. We basically empowered these thugs, put’em in power and celebrated the dawn of tolerance in Libya. Possibly, this embarrasses away for good the calls for lifting a finger in Syria for the Islamist opposition. I don’t trust yet Romney will get it right.
Polichinello says:

September 12, 2012 at 8:23 am

Because to read you now, one might think you’ve always been non-interventionist.

He learned his lesson after Iraq. What’s the Precious’ excuse?
Gerard says:

September 12, 2012 at 8:25 am

Brian,
We can thank Samantha Power, Hillary Clinton, and Susan Rice. And of course Western intelligence/covert ops and NATO. Good job guys. I know you all are now hard at work supporting Islamism/Al Qaeda in bringing down Assad and Syria. I recall my thoughts 11 years ago, thanking Reagan and the CIA, for without them there would not have been an Al Qaeda, Bin Laden, 9/11. The Arab Spring ends in nuclear winter.
Steffen Silvis says:

September 12, 2012 at 8:25 am

Muslim fanatics are outraged that a Jewish fanatic is shilling for a film by a Christian fanatic. Do I have that right? Yes, religion is a marvelous thing.
Floridan says:

September 12, 2012 at 8:28 am

When in doubt, bluster.

Unfortunately for those who desire simple answers for every problem, there are a lot of moving parts to these events.

Obviously the attacks on our embassies cannot be ignored, but it seems the wiser course to let cooler heads prevail.

American bloggers and politicians casting about for scapegoats to validate their preconceived notions will hardly contribute to a solution (if, indeed, one exists).
Blairburton says:

September 12, 2012 at 8:31 am

I don’t give a d*mn about the so-called “Manning Corollary”. The fact is, a lot of Muslims hate the United States, whether because of what they perceive as our biased support of Israel and its treatment of the Palestians, or memory of the Crusades, or whatever. Whether you like it or not, Christians, whether American, or European, have not always treated Muslims well. Historical wrongs are still very much with us, and the feelings engendered by these wrongs have not died; so we have seen regarding the Irish and their historic oppression by the English, or southerners in the US still angry about losing the Civil War. When the Bible said the sins of the fathers are paid for by the children and the children’s children(paraphrasing) it wasn’t stating a curse, but a fact.
Joel says:

September 12, 2012 at 8:35 am

Here are images of the attack:

http://www.corriere.it/gallery/esteri/09-2012/libia-attacco-ambasciata/1/libia-attacco-consolato-usa-bengasi_d693edd2-fcbd-11e1-8750-e7d636bddd26.shtml#10
Mr. Patrick says:

September 12, 2012 at 8:40 am

Polichinello writes:
“Dubya and the neocons leveraged the Iraq War to reach a modus vivendi with Khaddafi, where he gave up his WMD program in exchange for us leaving him alone. It was one of the few things they did right, and we can thank them for it, because if they hadn’t we might be dealing with far more dangerous people.”
So the murder of nearly 200 American citizens on an airliner is forgivable, but the storming of two embassies and death of 4 diplomats is a mess for “President Precious”? I don’t understand the moral calculus there without one factor being raised by an exponent of partisanship.
Rod Dreher says:

September 12, 2012 at 8:41 am

Because to read you now, one might think you’ve always been non-interventionist.

I’ve been saying on the various incarnations of this blog since I started it in 2006 that I was wrong about the Iraq War. You have been reading this blog for almost as long as I’ve been writing it. Yet you write this.

I don’t give a d*mn about the so-called “Manning Corollary”. The fact is, a lot of Muslims hate the United States

Yes, blame America first, last, and always. This is about as helpful as people who think America is always innocent.

Another disgraceful neocon failure.

Is the desire to hate and blame the neocons so pervasive that the policies of a liberal Democratic president that brought this regime to power in Libya are their fault too? Good grief.
Don Quijote says:

September 12, 2012 at 8:49 am

Christian Arabs integrate quite well, and they have communities in Houston, Oklahoma and Mississippi. Give that this group is face REAL oppression, the opposition would be quite low.

A few thousand highly educated Lebanese Christians (Ralph Nader, Dick Clark) who could pass for Whites or are Whites is one thing and a few million illiterate African Christians who very likely will not pass for whites is another…
bill holston says:

September 12, 2012 at 8:58 am

We have a large Coptic presence in Dallas, and they are very welcome here. They are very successful members of our community. We are seeing many Copts fleeing chaos in Egypt. The Egyptian regimes have never helped protect them, but this is even worse after Mubarak’s regime ended. This story is sad at every level.
Don Quijote says:

September 12, 2012 at 9:00 am

I don’t give a d*mn about the so-called “Manning Corollary”. The fact is, a lot of Muslims hate the United States

Yes, blame America first, last, and always. This is about as helpful as people who think America is always innocent.

Polls taken in the Middle East after WWII show that the US was well regarded. admired and respected. Fifty years of US supports Dictators, Israel & Religious nuts have paid fruits…

Amusingly, the population of Iran is pro-American, but then the US has not been involved in Iranian internal politics for 30 years. I have a $100.00 that says that 15 years after the Mullahs are thrown out of power, the Iranian public will hate America. There is all that precious black gold and there is no way the US won’t get involved in internal Iranian politics, and we know from our track record who we will support: the Authoritarian asshole who will let the Oil flow for the least amount of money, damn the consequences.
MH - Secular Misanthropist says:

September 12, 2012 at 9:03 am

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.

I don’t think think Al Qaeda members need a reason to kill Americans. But I’m sure they’ll have some rationalization for their current actions, but killing is their raison d’etre. That’s why they kill fellow Muslims as readily as they’ll kill Americans.

If you ever read Bin Laden’s justifications over the years for the jihad, it was always shifting around. The constant was always the need for violence. If the entire world converted en mass to Islam I’d bet these guys would find some other reason for their jihad.
Cbalducc says:

September 12, 2012 at 9:07 am

Florida “Pastor” Terry Jones, whose threats to burn a Koran have led to violence in the Middle East, is also behind the video in question. Should he be charged with a crime now that an American has been killed?
Polichinello says:

September 12, 2012 at 9:09 am

So the murder of nearly 200 American citizens on an airliner is forgivable, but the storming of two embassies and death of 4 diplomats is a mess for “President Precious”?

Since President Precious tore up the War Powers act to go to war for the people who killed our ambassador, yes, it’s his problem.
Fran Macadam says:

September 12, 2012 at 9:10 am

Our government is meddling overtly and covertly in other countries, mostly to secure natural resources for our elites.

It doesn’t take much for the seething resentment of this imperialism to boil over when hateful religionists in our own nation, backed by millions of dollars, seek to openly foment and stir up those hatreds, with the absolutely predictable intent to provoke a backlash of killing.

That’s akin to shouting “Fire!” in a crowded theater, knowing the result will be chaos and death.

Morally, you are culpable when you intentionally inflame hatreds in order to “prove” millions of others are wicked by inciting violence.

I wonder what would have happened if some Islamic person, backed by a few millions in oil money, made a movie denigrating Moses also showing him in drunken cunnilingus, right after Israel’s establishment through violence in 1948? Aren’t there extremists willing to respond to vicious propaganda with murder among any people in an unstable armed country? Don’t we have plenty of evidence that hateful people exist everywhere and engage in murder, by proxy or in person?

It should be obvious that a small minority of extremists did this over there, too, and can’t simply be labelled as “they,” tarring millions with the same brush who didn’t participate.

That cuts both ways.

Our own orchestrated bellicose “USA USA!” chants at our televised political events, with politicians out-competing to promise more killing in the Middle East, don’t help project a benign view of us either.

Now why should we criticize those who foment conflict in our own country? Well, a very good answer is that we can’t do much at all about what happens in a foreign country, but we supposedly do have some political and moral influence here for good.

All this demagoguery is, of course, very useful for inflaming opinion both here and there to start the killing, en masse, in escalating retaliation.

Romney’s response is absolutely infantile and self-seeking in its distortions of our government’s statements. But then, he too has promised increased violence.
Chris Jones says:

September 12, 2012 at 9:11 am

Steffen Silvis,

religion is a marvelous thing

So, members of three different religions are involved in this event. Members of two of those religions are exercising their right to free expression, and members of the third religion are killing people. And your response to this is to condemn “religion” in general.

That makes no sense.
MikeS says:

September 12, 2012 at 9:15 am

The only thing to do with Muslim countries is to keep them quarantined, with cruise missiles always at the ready, but otherwise stay out of there. I agree that evacuating any civilized, Westernized Christians would be a good idea.
Joel says:

September 12, 2012 at 9:17 am

There is also a large Coptic presence in Northern Virginia.
Chris Mallory says:

September 12, 2012 at 9:25 am

“Florida “Pastor” Terry Jones, whose threats to burn a Koran have led to violence in the Middle East, is also behind the video in question.”

False, Jones is used in promotional material, but the movie was made by an “American Israeli” (what ever the hell that is).
Polichinello says:

September 12, 2012 at 9:27 am

Should he [Terry Jones] be charged with a crime now that an American has been killed?

Sure, but first you better get Salman Rushdie .
M_Young says:

September 12, 2012 at 9:30 am

“There are approximately 8 to 10 million Copts in Egypt, so before you invite them to the US, you better talk to your fine conservative christian friends down South and ask them how many uneducated, non-English speaking African Arabs they are willing to let into the country… (My guess is zero)”

Uh, the US has been getting one million or thereabouts *legal* immigrants for more than a decade now. These have been 90+ non-white. There has been little to no organized opposition to this from Southern Christians, Northern Christians, the ‘Tea Party’ or anyone not specifically concerned with the immigration issue.

Your comment is sort of like the attack on our people — white Americans have been voluntarily transforming the country into one where they will be not only a minority, but a small minority, and yet we are told how racist and xenophobic we are. I guess the obsequious never get any love.
Brian says:

September 12, 2012 at 9:31 am

“Florida “Pastor” Terry Jones, whose threats to burn a Koran have led to violence in the Middle East, is also behind the video in question. Should he be charged with a crime now that an American has been killed?”
Only if you want to live in a totalitarian state. Which, given the bleating about Citizens United, seems to be what many liberals want.

“Our government is meddling overtly and covertly in other countries, mostly to secure natural resources for our elites.”
That was exactly what Libya was about, if by “our” you mostly mean “France and Italy”, but I kind of know what you mean. The fact is that Libya was exactly what they said Iraq was–War for Oil. Period. (Poor dumb Syrians were stupid enough to be born in a country with no oil. Idiots.)

“I wonder what would have happened if some Islamic person, backed by a few millions in oil money, made a movie denigrating Moses also showing him in drunken cunnilingus, right after Israel’s establishment through violence in 1948?”
Dude, call up Hollywood or Broadway NOW. I’m pretty sure you could get that story made tomorrow. Also pretty sure exactly ZERO people would get killed because of it.
Sugar free says:

September 12, 2012 at 9:36 am

More blowback. What a surprise.

When will we learn?

We ought to pull every embassy and soldier and “foreign aid” dollar out of the Middle East.
John E_o says:

September 12, 2012 at 9:42 am

You have been reading this blog for almost as long as I’ve been writing it. Yet you write this.

Yeah, well I’m bitter.

I called all my Congresscritters back when we invaded Afghanistan and told them that this was a bad idea.

So when you ask ‘who could have foreseen this’ the answer is that I did, back when everybody else in the US was saying that people who thought like me were a bunch of anti-American nabobs of negativism.

Sucks to be a Copt in Egypt right now. I hope the US does offer them visas.

[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]
Clint says:

September 12, 2012 at 9:49 am

“Although there was initial confusion about who made the film, The Wall Street Journal reported that the drama, titled “Innocence of Muslims,” was produced and directed by an Israeli-American, Sam Bacile, a California real-estate developer who called Islam “a cancer,” in an interview. Mr. Bacile told The Journal that he raised $5 million from about 100 Jewish donors and shot the two-hour movie in California last year.”
Scott in PA says:

September 12, 2012 at 9:52 am

The entire US government is run by useful idiots for Islam.
I. M. Becile says:

September 12, 2012 at 9:59 am

So the film was made and uploaded by an “Israeli Amerioan”? What is that, pray tell? Other than an open and shut case for ending the corrupt practice of dual citizenship?
Anglican says:

September 12, 2012 at 10:00 am

Pretty sick the extremes liberals go to excuse their precious Muslims for any atrocity they commit. There really is no excuse for this, these Muslim fanatics are vile, psychotic losers. Get a grip. Allah is a pretty flimsy God, if he needs such a large mass of half baked kooks ready to draw blood for each and every insult. Islam really needs to grow the hell up. Stop with the sick endless excuse making. Normal people like me have had just about enough of this excuse making crap. There is no excuse for what happened and those who want to make excuses for this rabble should not listened to or in any way be taken seriously. The protesters and their defenders can go to hell. Enough!
Al-Dhariyat says:

September 12, 2012 at 10:14 am

Get us the hillel out of the Middle East. Let them fight and fight and fight and solve their own problems. Both parties are to blame for adventurism in the Middle East, what on earth makes us think we can cure that region of its ills?! The British and French were there for how many years and they couldn’t do a d*mn thing about it.
J says:

September 12, 2012 at 10:18 am

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

I think Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama would be greatly improved by having several million Copts settle there.
Ben, Okla. City says:

September 12, 2012 at 10:22 am

This is one of those situations where you withhold judgement for a few days until all the facts are known.
PDGM says:

September 12, 2012 at 10:23 am

Don Quijote wrote at 7:49 am, “D) Religious Fanatics are right wing conservatives, no matter what the religion or the country, just get over it and own your lunatics…”

To which I reply, religious fanatics in their fundamentalist form are a product of modernity: of the toxic mixture of certain modern ideas cross pollinated with a limited number of religious ideas. This is by and large agreed upon. So your comment does not make a lot of sense, that they “are right wing conservatives” unless you make some crucial distinctions.

Those who try to live up to the integrity of their religious traditions without this strange hybrid between narrow religion and modernity are comparable to, more or less, paleocons. Those who follow fundamentalist forms of religion (which imply a massive narrowing of points of view, and a way of looking at the world that is not at all traditional) are somewhat analogous to neo-cons. So the epithet you throw about, “right wing,” is not at all helpful.

By the way, those who think that we should just evacuate all Christians from the Middle East: two questions: 1) what if they don’t want to come; and 2) do you really want the birthplace of Christianity to have no Christians in it? I sure as hell don’t want a Christian-denuded Middle East, even as I sympathize and fear for Christians (and for some Muslims, such as Sufis, who also become targets of fundamentalist Islamists in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the Middle East. Martin Lings long ago wrote in a book–the biography of Sheikh Al Alawi, IIRC– that, when either fundamentalist Muslims in Saudi Arabia came to power, or modernizers like Attaturk came to power in Turkey, one of their first impulses was to get rid of the Sufis, which suggests that perhaps the Sufis represent a form of Islam that is healthy, normal, and not prone to either the embrace of “progress” or of narrow fundamentalism.

Likewise, the Lion of the Panjshir, Ahmad Shah Massoud, whose assassination 2 days before Sept. 11, 2001 some see connected to 9/11 was a Sufi or was reputed to have strong Sufi tendencies.

The knee-jerk reaction of so many on this blog, and to some extent even with you, Rod, is to see Islam as a single mass of crazies. But this is simply not the case; and you buy into a future of “more of the same” by presenting them in this way, as an irrational “other” who cannot be dealt with at all by civilized folk.
Don Quijote says:

September 12, 2012 at 10:29 am

There is also a large Coptic presence in Northern Virginia.

Define large.

There is approximately 2.5 million people living in Northern Virginia, how many of them are Copts? ten thousand? a hundred thousand?

But if it’s fifty thousand, it’s barely 2% of the population…
Don Quijote says:

September 12, 2012 at 10:31 am

Get us the hillel out of the Middle East. Let them fight and fight and fight and solve their own problems.

And give up all that precious black gold…
MH - Secular Misanthropist says:

September 12, 2012 at 10:36 am

Cbalducc said:

Florida “Pastor” Terry Jones, whose threats to burn a Koran have led to violence in the Middle East, is also behind the video in question. Should he be charged with a crime now that an American has been killed?

No. Burning books is not a crime in America, nor should it be.
Mr. Patrick says:

September 12, 2012 at 10:36 am

Polichinello:
So there’s no Global War on Terror, previously authorized by Congress? Or maybe you’re saying Moammar Gaddafi wasn’t a terrorist?
MH - Secular Misanthropist says:

September 12, 2012 at 10:46 am

And give up all that precious black gold…

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.

So why does the US get involved in ensuring the security of exports of Mid-East oil? The reason that the price we pay for oil is set by world markets. So if Saudi Arabia has a production glitch the supply drops while demand doesn’t, and the world price for oil rises.

This is true even for Great Briton and Norway which are oil exporting country!
Clint says:

September 12, 2012 at 10:54 am

The movie, “Innocence of Muslims,” was directed and produced by an Israeli-American real-estate developer who characterized it as a political effort to call attention to the hypocrisies of Islam. It has been promoted by Terry Jones, the Florida pastor whose burning of Qurans previously sparked deadly riots around the world.

Apparently, that’s called,”pokin’ a stick at a bear.” in Muslim Land.