Violent protests and attacks on American embassies throughout the Middle East continued on Friday and over the weekend. Demonstrators in Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, Sudan and Yemen had stormed the grounds of US diplomatic missions, set fires and tore down the stars and stripes while hoisting a black islamist flag with arabic script.
The continued unrest comes as the White House and State Department repeatedly denied that the deadly attack on the Benghazi consulate was premeditated in any way. The attacks that killed US Ambassador Chris Stevens, Diplomatic Security officers and former Navy SEALS Tyrone Woods and Glenn Doherty and information officer Sean Smith took place on the 11th anniversary of the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks.
While President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton maintain that the mob that had stormed the grounds of the US Consulate in Benghazi had formed 'spontaneously' in response to a short anti-Islam film that appeared on YouTube, Libyan officials have claimed otherwise. In an interview with NPR, Libyan president President Mohammed el-Megarif said the Benghazi assault was a military-style attack that used heavy weaponry such as RPGs and mortars to assault the consulate and safehouses as well as keep reinforcements at bay. Such an attack, el-Megarif points out, would require comprehensive advanced planning. Egyptian PM Hesham Kandil said that at least some of the rioters in Cairo who were arrested after clashes with police in front of the US Embassy there had confessed to being paid to show up. In the face of all that, White House Press spokesman Jay Carney claimed that the protests, arson, looting and murders directed at American diplomats throughout the Middle East and arab world somehow aren't directed at the USA, but rather a visceral reaction to the anti-Muslim video circulating online.
Curiously, a few days prior to the American consulate in Benghazi being overrun, Canada had announced they were closing down their embassy in Tehran and expelling all Iranian diplomatic personnel from Canada. The Canadian government cited their official designation of Iran as a terrorist-sponsoring state, their continued support of the Syrian regime's military crackdown on its citizens and an attack against the British Embassy in Tehran that the UK insists was orchestrated by Iran's ruling mullahs. I thought Canada's Foreign Affairs ministry was newsworthy in and of itself at the time, but it's taken on greater significance since the murder of American diplomats on September 11.
Meanwhile, the Obama Administration, State Department and US Media's response to the slaughter in Benghazi has been disheartening at best.
While insisting that an attack utilizing heavy weaponry such as RPGs and mortars WASN'T pre-planned, the Obama Administration and American media outlets quickly went on the counterattack- not against the people who murdered our ambassadors and torched our diplomatic posts, but rather Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and the purported filmmaker.
A number of press outlets immediately jumped on Romney shortly after he issued a statement criticizing a message from the State Department that the Administration themselves had backed away from. So as Obama flew out to a Las Vegas campaign fundraiser as American embassies throughout the middle East were burning, there was the matter of a compliant media coordinating questions shortly before a press conference former governor Romney's non-existent gaffe and 'jumping the gun' to the point while President Obama briefly issued a statement and took no questions before leaving to continue his re-election campaign in Nevada.
However, that paled in comparison to what took place in Southern California on Friday night when Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputies showed up at the house of one Nakoula Basseley Nakoula to take him into custody. Nakoula, who made The Innocence of Muslims film under the pseudonym Sam Basile, was identified as a Coptic Christian who emigrated here from Egypt and was sentenced to 20 month in prison after being arrested in a 2009 check-kiting scam. Nakoula had also reportedly agreed to become a government informant after his 2009 arrest in exchange for a sentence reduction. Reportedly the deputies were there to escort him to an interview with federal probation officials. However, the late night visit by deputies only came after calls from Islamist groups like Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood to prosecute the filmmaker for insulting the prophet Muhammed.
Over the weekend, images of Nakoula with his face hidden and flanked by deputies had circulated throughout the web. Curiously, some of Obama's more prominent supporters [in the entertainment industry of all places- NANESB!] had come out in favor of prosecuting Nakoula on ambiguous 'hate crimes' charges.
Meanwhile, the press had thoughtfully taken it upon themselves to reveal Nakoula's face and home address to the world. Unsurprisingly, Nakoula and his family have fled their Cerritos, CA home to an undisclosed location. Google- which is the parent company of YouTube- has since rejected a White House request to take down the offending video.
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