Do muslims have any awareness that these actions makes them look like unmitigated morons?
For the leaders it's all about keeping power, and the best way to do that is to keep the outside world at bay.. For those doing the rioting it has a great deal to do with shame. The shame they feel over the fact they are poor and oppressed, and lets face it if they rioted against their own goverment what would happen...nothing good I suspect, (in Afghanistan) the shame that they need America to kick out the Tailiban.
Just one mans thought, freely given..and worth almost that much.
Don't feel bad. Westerners, as a group, and Americans, particularly, have a stubborn and inate mindset that compels us to judge the culture and actions of others by our standards of reality, morality and laws. Only by real things that we can wrap our minds around, and we are totally incapable, literally, of understanding that they are not "faking it", they are unaware that 2+2 is always 4 in human behavior as well as in mathematics.
Imagine trying to negotiate behavior between two beings that do not speak the same language, or treasure the same human virtues. One of whom believes, absolutely and permanently, that what is spoken (or written) is more important than actual behavior? That lies or fantasy are as valuable and important as reality?
How much tolerance is enough?
How much patience is enough?
How many lives are worth the price of political correctness?
In my universe those are simple questions. When dealing with uncompromising, sweet-talking remorseless killers, eliminating them is the only rational solution, whether there are six of them or six million.
Don't know about you, but I have not even the briefest desire to sacrifice my children at the altar of "understanding" or the mantra of "winning hearts and minds". Those are individual choices that the terminally virtuous or the terminally clueless can pursue.