Wired article reveals evangelical Coptic Christians behind "Innocence of Muslims"...

[Barack_America]

Anti-Islam Filmmaker Went by ‘P.J. Tobacco’ and 13 Other Names
By Noah ShachtmanEmail Author September 13, 2012 | 12:09 pm |

...In the summer of 2011, Nakoula started casting actors for “Innocence,” then titled “Desert Warriors,” a film ostensibly about life in ancient Egypt. In reality, it was a bloody anti-Muslim propaganda movie. The pseudonyms from Nakoula also kept coming. L.A.-based actress Cindy Garcia, who played a role as the mother in the video, listed a “Sam Bassiel” as the film’s producer on her resume. Crew member Jimmy Israel was given the name “Abnob Nakoula Basseley” for registration with the Screen Actors Guild. A company behind the casting, called Pharaoh Voice, Inc., listed a “Youssef M. Basseley” as its president. Another name, “Alan Roberts,” was listed as director in the casting call.

Nakoula told the Associated Press he managed a company that produced the video, but has since denied any involvement in the film. “I’m a gas station worker, I didn’t work on it, I know nothing about it. They need to blame someone,” Nakoula later told the Telegraph during an interview outside his Los Angeles home. But on Thursday, federal law enforcement officials said that Nakoula was in fact Bacile. Reporters also noted a resemblance between Nakoula’s front door and a chandelier inside his home to a door and chandelier seen in the film. Filming also reportedly took place at the Blue Cloud Movie Ranch in Santa Clarita, California. Christian non-profit group Media For Christ — based in the L.A. suburb of Duarte — helped produce the film, according to Duarte’s city manager....

...“All these Middle Eastern folks I work with have pseudonyms. I doubt he’s Jewish. I would suspect this is a disinformation campaign,” Steve Klein, a 61-year-old Christian activist who also worked as a consultant for the movie, told The Atlantic‘s Jeffrey Goldberg. Klein said about 15 people were involved in making the film, all American citizens, but coming from countries including Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Syria, Egypt and Turkey, and “the vast majority are Evangelical,” Klein said.

But why Nakoula brought Klein into the production is another mystery. Most likely, it was due to Klein’s background. A 61-year-old former Marine who works in the insurance business, Klein founded the anti-abortion and anti-Islamic group Courageous Christians United, and has helped train paramilitary militias at a church in California, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. Klein also worked at the Duarte studio on a TV show for Arabic Christian station The Way TV. He reportedly said a man named “Bacile” approached him because of his involvement in protests at mosques. The director also told Klein the film could help attact and expose “Muslim Brotherhood” cells operating in California...

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/09/anti-islam-flick/

Gosh, do you think the people that bankrolled this might have known this is an election year? And do you suppose they suspected it might anger Muslims at home and abroad?

Also interesting...

Coptic Christian leader of organization that produced anti-Muslim film spoke at Pamela Geller’s anti-mosque rally

http://mondoweiss.net/2012/09/coptic-christian-leader-of-organization-that-produced-anti-muslim-film-spoke-at-pamela-gellers-anti-mosque-rally.html

A poster at that site hunted down the 2011 tax returns for this "Media for Christ" organization and posted the link. It seems they experienced a dramatic "up-tick" in donations that year, apparently geared towards producing the film. I'd love to know who donated.

[elfin]

1. I never associated Copts with extremism before

However, they have been beleaguered through the years and moreso of late. A possible explanation, but not an excuse for such am action.

[loli phabay]

6. over the years ive met a few coptics outside egypt and found them to not like islam

I think growing up in a minority who have been mistreated coloirs their perception much like catholics ive met from ulster and western scotland.

[Posteritatis]

9. There's no such thing as a religious group that doesn't have at least some extremist twits

Actually, there's no such thing as an anything group that doesn't, really.

[Melinda]

2. Indeed... here's a bit more to add:

I posted this on another thread, but it's a good thing to have this info in a single spot. From the Southern Poverty Law Center:

http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2012/spring/onward-christian-soldiers

Church at Kaweah Spreads Hateful, Militant Christian Views

In a 22-acre compound at the southern edge of Sequoia National Park in California, a secretive cohort of militant Christian fundamentalists is preparing for war. One of the men helping train the flock in the art of combat, a former Marine named Steve Klein, believes that California is riddled with Muslim Brotherhood sleeper cells “who are awaiting the trigger date and will begin randomly killing as many of us as they can.”

“I know I’m getting prepared to shoot back,” Klein says.

At the head of the Church at Kaweah is Pastor Warren Mark Campbell, who sees yet another enemy on the horizon: the “New World Order,” that chimera of the conspiracists who populate the resurgent, antigovernment “Patriot” movement.

The tiny church has been well outside the mainstream since the early 1990s, when founding pastor Warren Lee Campbell (father of the current pastor) bought into the notion that churches should shun all government regulation and answer solely to God. Since then, the church has become increasingly radical, ramping up its paramilitary activities and forging alliances with an array of figures revered on the radical right — among them, militia and Patriot leaders, white supremacists, neo-Confederates, border vigilantes and Christian Reconstructionists, whose goal is to turn America into a theocracy based on the Old Testament. In the meantime, the church’s militia has gone from patrolling the banks of the Kaweah River to conducting joint exercises with Minuteman groups along the Mexican border.
------------------------------------------------------------
Local newspaper... I am less than 50 miles from these.... people.

Kaweah church tied to possible consultant on anti-Muslim film

By Lewis Griswold - The Fresno Bee

Wednesday, Sep. 12, 2012 | 04:24 PM

A militant fundamentalist church near Three Rivers has a connection with the man who says he was a consultant on the movie that sparked deadly attacks on U.S. diplomats in Libya.

The church at Kaweah -- it uses a lower-case "c" in its name -- is a rustic, one-story building off a rural foothill road just west of Sequoia National Park.

It's drawn some attention from local law enforcement, neighbors and the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups nationwide.

The law center linked the church to Steve Klein, who says he has ties to the movie "Innocence of Muslims." The Los Angeles Times reported that a trailer for the movie portrays the Prophet Muhammad as a buffoon, suicidal, gay, lascivious and condoning of pedophilia.

The law center said Wednesday that Klein believes that California is riddled with Muslim Brotherhood sleeper cells and quoted him as saying they are waiting for "the trigger date" to begin killing people randomly.

Read more here: http://www.fresnobee.com/2012/09/12/2989533/three-rivers-church-hosted-speaker.html#storylink=cpy

[Vincardog]

3. Does anyone remember "Helter Skelter"?

[Stuart G]

4. thanks for posting..appreciate the info here...nt

[longship]

5. This is a very important thread.

Please just read the thing. It is well worth it. There should be a thorough investigation starting immediately.

IANAL, but it very much looks like fraud was committed here, to say nothing of whatever charges can be brought by utterly fucking up US foreign policy.

R&K

[riverbendviewgal]

7. notice in the picture of the copti christians t hey are wearing USA flag ties....Yikes!!!!!

This is not good.

see the link

http://mondoweiss.net/2012/09/coptic-christian-leader-of-organization-that-produced-anti-muslim-film-spoke-at-pamela-gellers-anti-mosque-rally.html

[backscatter712]

8. If it isn't one group of fundies, it's another...

Christian? Muslim? Coptic? Wahabbi? Doesn't matter - it's toxic, potentially lethal nonsense that psychopathic demagogues use to sic lynch mobs on each other.

[Schema Thing]

10. Well if so, these coptic christians are going to get the Coptics in Egypt killed.

this could get very ugly for those poor people.