Can 'Innocence of Muslims' Trailer Really be that Potent?

The Obama administration's omnibus answer to why the Middle East (and now much of the Muslim world) is in near open rebellion against the United States: The video did it.

The follow-up question no one seems to be asking is: "What if the administration's explanation is true?"

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney insists the attacks in Egypt, Libya and elsewhere were a "response not to United States policy, and not to, obviously, the administration, not to the American people," but were rather a spontaneous "response to a video, a film we have judged to be reprehensible and disgusting."

On the Sunday shows, Susan Rice, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, reaffirmed the claim that this was all about a YouTube trailer.

What about the fact that many experts say the Benghazi, Libya, attacks looked like a sophisticated, coordinated assault with rocket-propelled grenades? Meaningless. It was the video. Even the president of Libya said, "The idea that this criminal and cowardly act was a spontaneous protest that just spun out of control is completely unfounded and preposterous." Who cares? It was the video.

Al-Qaeda is taking credit for the Benghazi assault as revenge for the June killing of al-Qaeda's No. 2 man, Abu Yahya al-Libi. What's your point? It was the video.

Reports that the U.S was given a three-day advance warning by the Libyans of a possible attack? Video, video, video.

Now, I think this is absurd, like a Monty Python sketch gone awry -- the parrot's not dead, he's just resting! But let's assume it's true and it really is all about the video.

According to the Obama administration, its policies in the Middle East are working. The Cairo speech, the tougher line with Israel, the withdrawals from Iraq and pending drawdown in Afghanistan, Obama's coolness to Iran's failed Green Revolution: These have all been part of the successful effort to repair the damage done by the previous administration. Yet all of that hard work can go up in smoke if some crackpot says something mean about the prophet Muhammad on YouTube?

It is simply a fact that Islamist radicals, the Arab street and the Muslim world have been angry at America for decades, under Republican and Democratic administrations alike. It's also true that demagogues and other opportunists have used things like this video as an excuse to attack America and the West for generations. Obama isn't solely to blame for the current conflagrations, though his naivete about the transformational power of his presidency deserves ample scorn.

And let's not pretend that President George W. Bush wasn't naive as well. His hope that love of democracy lurked just beneath the surface in the Middle East has proved at minimum more complicated, bloody and expensive in practice than in theory. But at least you could tell what Bush was for in the Middle East: freedom.

With Obama it's not so easy. Apparently you can't say Obama apologized for America in his Cairo speech, but he certainly did make it clear we wouldn't rub our values in anyone's face anymore. During the Iranian Green Revolution, he acted as if the people's yearning for freedom was really inconvenient. And, over the last week, this administration has talked about the First Amendment as if it's something it's stuck with.

"We do not stop individual citizens from expressing their views, no matter how distasteful they may be," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in the diplomatic equivalent of a regretful sigh. Maybe that's true (though the White House did ask YouTube to consider pulling the video), and federal authorities did drag the alleged filmmaker in for questioning.

But our public officials now treat attacks on Islam as especially offensive -- more offensive than unremarked-upon near-daily attacks on Christianity, Judaism, Mormonism, atheism and just about every other faith and creed.

Why is Islam so special? The answer is, it's not. But Muslim rioters get special treatment. And that's nuts. If these people are going to hate us, even after President Obama has done such a fantastic job reaching out to the Muslim world, maybe we should just accept that fact and stand up for what we believe, without apology.

The thing that’s making this silly film more powerful is actually the White House with its insistence that the film is important and gives all Muslims a justified cause to destroy American facilities and kill Americans…..

I agree completely. By stating a position that the riots and killings were a “spontaneous response to a video, a film we have judged to be reprehensible and disgusting", the White House has (in a perverted sense) validated whatever has gone as being reasonable because ‘there is an explanation for it’. It’s the same explanation that has gone on for other movies, cartoons and even teddy bears. What’s next on ‘thou shalt not offend’ list? We can quickly get to the point where every single thing that somebody says and does could be interpreted as being offensive… in fact, we just may not realize it but we’re almost there now…..if not with mooslims, the homosexual lobby and a zillion other groups. For this foreign debacle, what an incredibly insane way to respond to it…..even though the film has likely nothing to do with the nature of the coordinated attack, by taking a position that ‘it’s wrong to be offensive to mooslim sensibilities’ is to invite even more insanity.

Pray God will send us another adult like Ronald Reagan who actually knows what to do when faced with similar circumstances and never lets these children near the White House again (El Dorado Canyon when he bombed their leader’s houses and shut them up for 25 years….then the Libyans apologized).

Back in the 1970’s Hollywood bowed to pressure from Middle Eastern countries (oil producers), and stopped making a movie about Mohammad's life. They said that no picture and film could be made about their prophet, without blaspheming him and Islam.

The problem is that if that film told the truth about Mohammad (contained in their own historical records), it would cause most in the West to realize how alien to Christian-Judaic beliefs, Islam truly is.

One of the big news wire services was also bought out by a Muslim nation during the 1970’s. How better to mold your image than to control the means of communication.

It could be nothing but a photograph of a actor made up as Mohammad that would set off Muslims to riot and destroy.

The Middle Eastern Media will hype anything that can be considered as an insult to Islam.

A single man standing on a street corner, somewhere in the US, who threatens to draw a picture, or burn a Koran, will draw so much attention that that man will become demonized as the cause of Islamic riots, killing and destruction.

Since when do we demonize the preacher of a small Christian congregation, who stands up and states, “Islam is of the Devil”, when at the same time Christian churches are being burned, believers being beheaded, and the Coptic Christians in “secular Egypt” are being terrorized and murdered. Islam's own history says that Mohammad was influenced by Jinn, the Arabic word for demon.

Young Christian girls are being kidnapped, married of to Muslims, and then the parents are told they have no voice, because the child is now Muslim. Anyone who converts away from Islam is under sentence of death, to be carried out by any Muslim, who can get to the offender.

Our own POS condemns the maker of the amateurish video, that has been on You Tube for over six months, and says that he is the cause of riots in the Middle East.

When did we, a nation who has in the past stood up for freedom of speech and truth, start bowing to lies and demagoguery from the Middle East. Muslims hate us, simply because we are not Muslim.

They feel because we have a president who was fathered by a Muslim, raised by a Muslim stepfather, and then indoctrinated with the belief that the US is evil, that they can rely on those who follow his beliefs, to weaken our resolve, and bring about the destruction of our nation, our republic, and replace it with Shariah law.

When we deny any man the freedom of speech established under our Constitution, we have already lost the war. We do not shine the light of truth on their intolerance, but continually demonize the child who states, “The Emperor has no clothes”.

The Muslims through the use of oil monies have turned world opinion against the Jews. They have created the myth of the “Palestinian people”, who called themselves “Arabs” until 1967, when magically a they appeared as a small persecuted minority within greater Islam.

They twist history and truth at every turn. They deny historical facts and claim that Israel never existed, and Jerusalem was never the capital of a Jewish nation.

They keep saying that Israel is the aggressor, but it is they who attack continually. They have attacked and subjugated Jews and Christian, since their beginning in the 7th century. In the 19th century, before there was even the idea of a nation called Israel, they were attacking and demonizing Jews. They continue to this day, always giving lame excuses to the West as a cover for their hatred.

After all, they like socialist will use anything, any lie, any twist of the truth, to promote their cause. Muslims have been killing and enslaving non-muslims since the 7th century. I believe the worst example of this was in India, where no one could claim to be “People of the Book”, and so had only one choice, convert or die.

Just as within Nazi ism, there is no freedom of speech in Islam. There is no religion in Islam. It is a political movement dedicated to the subjugation of the world. The word Islam means submission.

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