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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsBig Picture: Someone is Trying to Precipitate "The Clash of Civilizations"
My take on yesterday is that a group of Islamophobics in this country brazenly provided Islamofascists in Egypt, Libya, and now Yemen the material needed to cause small riots outside of embassies.
I don't think they will succeed. The vast majority of the people of the US don't want a war, the Obama administration doesn't want a war, and, more importantly the vast majority of the people of the Middle East do not want said war.
What should happen now is that we should expose and neutralize, as much as our laws allow, the Islamophobics in this country as we request the countries of the Middle East to do the same with their Islamofascist problem.
Here's a good article on "The Great Islamophobic Crusade"
By Max Blumenthal
Nine years after 9/11, hysteria about Muslims in American life has gripped the country. With it has gone an outburst of arson attacks on mosques, campaigns to stop their construction, and the branding of the Muslim-American community, overwhelmingly moderate, as a hotbed of potential terrorist recruits. The frenzy has raged from rural Tennessee to New York City, while in Oklahoma, voters even overwhelmingly approved a ballot measure banning the implementation of Sharia law in American courts (not that such a prospect existed). This campaign of Islamophobia wounded President Obama politically, as one out of five Americans have bought into a sustained chorus of false rumors about his secret Muslim faith. And it may have tainted views of Muslims in general; an August 2010 Pew Research Center poll revealed that, among Americans, the favorability rating of Muslims had dropped by 11 points since 2005.
Erupting so many years after the September 11th trauma, this spasm of anti-Muslim bigotry might seem oddly timed and unexpectedly spontaneous. But think again: its the fruit of an organized, long-term campaign by a tight confederation of right-wing activists and operatives who first focused on Islamophobia soon after the September 11th attacks, but only attained critical mass during the Obama era. It was then that embittered conservative forces, voted out of power in 2008, sought with remarkable success to leverage cultural resentment into political and partisan gain.
This network is obsessively fixated on the supposed spread of Muslim influence in America. Its apparatus spans continents, extending from Tea Party activists here to the European far right. It brings together in common cause right-wing ultra-Zionists, Christian evangelicals, and racist British soccer hooligans. It reflects an aggressively pro-Israel sensibility, with its key figures venerating the Jewish state as a Middle Eastern Fort Apache on the front lines of the Global War on Terror and urging the U.S. and various European powers to emulate its heavy-handed methods.
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http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175334/tomgram:_max_blumenthal,_the_great_fear_
Junkdrawer
(27,993 posts)IF there were, say, a big Terror Attack in this country, the people who want The Clash of Civilizations will be my first suspect.
Junkdrawer
(27,993 posts)Back to the Code Orange days...
Lydia Leftcoast
(48,217 posts)and they know exactly what they're doing, too.
Junkdrawer
(27,993 posts)this morning.
Junkdrawer
(27,993 posts)....
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Hi, Amy.
I just came back from the protests there. Theres continuing clashes with police that have spilled over into Tahrir Square. The U.S. embassy lies just a couple of hundred yards from Tahrir, which was the epicenter of the revolution here in Egypt. And there are continuing tear gas being fired, rocks thrown by the protesters against police. Theres police trucks. The clashes arent exceptionally fierce, but there seems to be no sign of letting up, either. So, the police seem to have moved the protesters last night and theor the early hours of this morning away from the U.S. embassy, maybe a hundred yards away, and are now kind of on the outskirts of Tahrir. Many of these protesters today and last night are really a different crowd than were there on Tuesday night when this first began, when protesters were in front of the embassy and took down the American flag. Many of these are kind of young protesters who you typically see kind of in a lot of these clashes with police. Likeas Iona mentioned in Yemen, I could not find one protester who had actually seen thisyou know, the trailer for this movie, which has incited such anger. Theybut everyone cited the movie as saying their reasons for being there, for being against any kind of insults for the prophet. But really theseI think it was used as a trigger by conservative Muslim groups here in Egypt. For example, Nader Bakkar, whos a spokesperson for the Nour Party, which is the largest Salafi party here in Egypt, and its allied with the Muslim Brotherhood, he said on Al Jazeera Mubasher, a channel here, that the film had been broadcast on U.S. channels, which is a blatant lie. So, thats whats happening right now on the ground.
On the political scene, we had President Mohamed Morsihe waited 24 hours after the initial protest on Tuesday night before releasing any kind of statement. Hes in Brussels today on his first visit as Egyptian president to Europe, and he spoke at a press conference about whats happening. He said he condemned any attacks or any non-peaceful protest and any attacks on embassies, but he also condemned any insults to the prophet. He had a phone call with President Obama this morning, and he said he offered his condolences for the deaths of the four Americans who died in Benghazi, including Ambassador Stevens, and also said heand said he hoped that President Obama would affirm the need for any determined legal measures against those who want to damage relations between Egypt and the United States, I think hinting atyou know, for the United States to take some kind of legal action against the producers of this movie. Theres also been at the same time Morsis movement. He, of course, came from the Muslim Brotherhood and is still a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Muslim Brotherhood has called for protests tomorrow, peaceful protests in front of mosques. But nevertheless, it has called for protests against this movie, against insults to Islam and to the prophet. And this is the same group that last week spent last week wooing American investors to try and invest in Egypt. So, thats really whats happening on the ground here right now.
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http://www.democracynow.org/2012/9/13/middle_east_protests_at_us_embassies
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)and his possible connections to this. KKKarl Rove should also be investigated by some enterprising young journalist. I don't think one would have to dig very deep to find the tentacles and connections.
ProdigalJunkMail
(12,017 posts)<snip>
I don't think they will succeed. The vast majority of the people of the US don't want a war, the Obama administration doesn't want a war, and, more importantly the vast majority of the people of the Middle East do not want said war.
</snip>
The VAST majority in the middle east may NOT want a war, they do not get to make the decision. The decision to war or not to war is made by a very small group of men... usually religionists... sometimes only ONE gets to make that decision.
sP
Junkdrawer
(27,993 posts)Iran was loosening up and becoming more democratic. Then the Mullahs sent terror attacks into Israel. At first Israel kept its cool, but eventually the Likudniks won out and Likud and the Mullahs regained power.
Likud and the Mullahs need each other. If one dinosaur dies, the other goes with it.
ronnie624
(5,764 posts)has been a bi-product of Western intervention, and mostly us killing them, or instigating violence among them.
It's funny how people leave out the most important element of influence when analyzing events in the Middle East.
ProdigalJunkMail
(12,017 posts)ronnie624
(5,764 posts)Octafish
(55,745 posts)The "real men go to Tehran" crowd. Of course, none of them are doing the actual warfighting, that's left to the professional volunteers.
renie408
(9,854 posts)them.
I remember Bill Maher saying that something like 25% of Christians think that the rapture will occur during their lifetime.
Hey, the Middle East doesn't have the market cornered on religious nuts.
justiceischeap
(14,040 posts)It isn't because Israel stabilizes the ME--for a lot of right-wing Christians it's all about the end times.
bemildred
(90,061 posts)And if they succeed, we deserve what we are going to get.