Giving Offense

Richard Fernandez

Details have emerged about the movie which allegedly sparked two attacks on US diplomatic installations in the Middle East.

A movie attacking Islam’s prophet Muhammad sparked assaults on U.S. diplomatic missions in Libya and Egypt on Tuesday. A Libyan security official reported an American was shot to death as protesters burned the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, and in Cairo, protesters scaled the walls of the U.S. embassy walls and replaced an American flag with an Islamic banner. … Sam Bacile, an American citizen who said he produced, directed and wrote the two-hour film, said he had not anticipated such a furious reaction.

... Down with Bacile! It is of course not true that Islam is oppressive. The attacks on the US diplomatic installation show how far this is from the truth. A State Department spokesperson explained that the attacks viewed from a certain perspective are really a good thing.

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland cautioned reporters not to assume that the attack on the U.S. Embassy in Cairo today reflected growing anti-American sentiment among the Egyptian people …

Nuland pointed out that such protests are only possible because dictator Hosni Mubarak was thrown out of power. “So obviously, one of the things about the new Egypt is that protest is possible,” she told reporters. “Obviously we all want to see peaceful protest, which is not what happened outside the U.S. mission, so we’re trying to restore calm now. But I think the bigger picture is one of the United States supporting Egypt’s democratic transition and the Egyptian Government very much welcoming and working with us on the support that we have to offer.”

The health of democracy in the Islamic world is expressed in the new willingness to burn US embassies and consulates. But to produce a YouTube video bemoaning the fate of the Copts not so much. The people who really don’t understand how Democracy works are Americans. ...

The real driver behind these attacks is unlikely to have been some obscure YouTube video which drove thousands of ordinary Muslims in two separate countries somehow to attack two diplomatic establishments. The timing and similarity of the attacks suggest they were planned. The “offense” was whatever came conveniently to hand.

The real incitement is the palpable weakness and the groveling attitude the administration has displayed toward Islamic radicals. There seems to be no apology they will not make, no accomodation they will not attempt, no payoff they will not undertake, no confession they will not blurt out in an effort to appease.

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