Category: Embassy Attacks

Unfit For Government, Ctd

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Goldblog defends Obama against Romney's now-conscious, repeated lies:

The "sympathy" was expressed not by someone in the administration, but by a tweeter in the besieged embassy in Cairo. The fact that the tweets were written in fear doesn't excuse them (it does make them understandable), but it is ridiculous to blame Obama for them.

Kornacki echoes Jeffrey:

The foolishness of Romney’s reaction is glaring. Pretending that the statement from the U.S. embassy in Cairo was anything other than a completely understandable and reasonable attempt by its occupants to save their own lives borders on disgraceful. Romney’s implication that the statement was issued at the height of the attacks is also false; it was actually released earlier in the day, a preventive measure aimed at keeping the protests from turning violent.

Tomasky's take:

Once again, the Romney pattern holds: pander to the right, issue an irresponsible statement, before Romney and his people even know whether this violence is going to spread, and prove that they will try to use even the violent deaths of four diplomats to political advantage. This isn't an aberration. We've seen enough to know that this is his character.

David Sessions examines the broader Republican response:

On Fox News, Krauthammer called the embassy’s initial response "a hostage statement," and said he would have told the protesters to "go to hell." On the website of Commentary, Jonathan Tobin wrote, "Is it possible to learn from history? Apparently not if you are an American president determined to win the love of the Islamic world." In an equally bellicose follow-up, Tobin called the embassy’s statement "shocking" and "craven" and complained about Obama’s "tone of moral equivalence." In a caustic screed on Facebook, Sarah Palin called the statement "so outrageous some thought it must be satire … How’s the Arab Spring working out for us now?"

Greg Sargent wonders what Romney proposes to do:

According to Josh Rogin, the Romney campaign is going to broaden its case by linking these attacks to Obama’s “failure to assert American leadership throughout the Arab spring.” One wonders whether Romney — who has been widely criticized for failing to spell out his own foreign policies with any meaningful specificity, even as he attacks Obama as a weak appeaser on any number of fronts — will take this occasion to spell out clearly how he would handle the situation.

Adam Serwer doubts a Republican president would have handled things much differently:

Despite the persistent Republican fantasy that the United States conducts diplomacy the way that Sean Hannity used to treat Alan Colmes, it's not clear a Republican President would have reacted differently to initial reports. In 2006, when European newspapers published cartoons denigrating Islam's prophet Mohammed, the Bush administration similarly affirmed free speech rights but said that "We find them offensive, and we certainly understand why Muslims would find these images offensive."

And Jonathan Capehart notices who within the GOP stepped up:

Once again, Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) is the statesman in a party devoid of them. "We mourn for the families of our countrymen in Benghazi, and condemn this horrific attack," he said in a pitch-perfect statement. "Eleven years after September 11, this is a jolting reminder that freedom remains under siege by forces around the globe who relish violence over free expression, and terror over democracy — and that America and free people everywhere must remain vigilant in defense of our liberties." Would that Romney could learn how to do that.

(Photo: A burnt house and a car are seen inside the US Embassy compound on September 12, 2012 in Benghazi, Libya following an overnight attack on the building. By Stringer/AFP/Getty Images)

Is Sam Bacile Even A Real Person?

So far very little is known about Sam Bacile, the “Israeli-American real-estate developer” behind the crude new hate-film, as Laura Rozen reports:

[T]he man who claimed to have written, produced and directed the $5 million film that reportedly sparked the protests said he blamed lax security at the US government facilities and the protesters for the deaths of the US diplomats.“I feel the security system (at the embassies) is no good,” the man who identified himself as “Sam Bacile” told the Associated Press in an interview from an undisclosed location Wednesday. “America should do something to change it.” “Bacile, a California real estate developer who identifies himself as an Israeli Jew, said he believes the movie will help his native land by exposing Islam’s flaws to the world,” the AP report said. But it’s not clear that Bacile is who he claims. Israeli officials said they would not confirm or deny that he is an Israeli citizen, under that or other names. And there were some hints that Bacile may be a pseudonym, possibly for someone affiliated with the Egyptian Coptic diaspora.

Sarah Posner is also going through the sketchy details about “Bacile”, who is apparently now in hiding:

Consider all the contradictions: small ones, true, like in one account he is 52 and in another he is 56. To the AP he is “a California real estate developer who identifies himself as an Israeli Jew” and to the Times of Israel he is “Jewish and familiar with the region.” And what about that bit at the end of the statement to the Times of Israel–that “even Jesus” should be “in front of the judge”? That sounds like someone who is trying to provoke more than just Muslims. A lot of things don’t add up here about the claimed identity of the filmmaker.

Unfit For Government

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The obvious responsible thing to do when American citizens and public officials are under physical threat abroad and when the details are unknown, and events spiraling, is to stay silent. If the event happens on the day of September 11 and you are a candidate for president and have observed a political truce, all the more reason to wait to allow the facts to emerge. After all, country before party, right? American lives are at stake, yes? An easy call, no?

But that's not what the Romney camp did. What they did was seize on a tweet issued by someone in the US Embassy before the attacks in order to indict the president for "sympathizing" with those who murdered a US ambassador after the attacks. Unfuckingbelievable. Here's the embassy statement from earlier in the day that set off the neocons:

The Embassy of the United States in Cairo condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims – as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions. Today, the 11th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, Americans are honoring our patriots and those who serve our nation as the fitting response to the enemies of democracy. Respect for religious beliefs is a cornerstone of American democracy. We firmly reject the actions by those who abuse the universal right of free speech to hurt the religious beliefs of others.

The statement came from someone in the embassy, and was not formally issued by the State Department or the White House, both of which have subsequently disavowed the tweet for not also defending absolute freedom of speech. The facts were still murky last night. But the Romney campaign immediately tried to shoe-horn yesterday's fog of mob violence into the "apology" rubric Romney loves so much. The Priebus tweet is disgusting. The first Romney statement is no better:

“I’m outraged by the attacks on American diplomatic missions in Libya and Egypt and by the death of an American consulate worker in Benghazi. It’s disgraceful that the Obama administration’s first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks.”

That's untrue. The Obama administration did not issue the tweet, which was, in any case, tweeted before the attacks, not after. Today, Romney doubled down on these two obvious misstatements:

“We join together in the condemnation of attacks on the American embassies and the loss of American life and join in sympathy for these people. It’s also important for me — just as it was for the White House, last night by the way — to say that the statements were inappropriate, and in my view a disgraceful statement on the part of our administration to apologize for American values…

A brief moment of digression: the White House disowned a statement it itself did not release – but is then equally responsible for the tweet itself? The mind boggles. Then this, apparently, is an apology for American values:

Respect for religious beliefs is a cornerstone of American democracy. We firmly reject the actions by those who abuse the universal right of free speech to hurt the religious beliefs of others.

I'm a free speech absolutist – but I'm not an anti-religion absolutist. I think a little respect for religions we don't share is something most Americans would think is precisely an American value. I can see why there should have been a defense of the free speech of Terry Jones in that tweet in principle – and there is: "the universal right of free speech." Does Romney think the administration should have defended the film itself? Does Romney?

Of course, sitting in my blogging chair on the Cape, I can demand as radical a defense of blasphemy and hate speech as Romney can. But I was not inside an embassy in a foreign country as mob violence was building outside and as the US government was being conflated entirely with a bigoted anti-Muslim fanatic. And practically speaking, the embassy was trying to calm a situation, not inflame it. And diplomacy in the real world, where American lives are at stake, can necessitate such frustrating but necessary nuances. But such nuances are lost on Romney, as is, it seems, the basic notion of agency and responsibility:

The president takes responsibility not just for the words that come from his mouth but also for the words that come from his ambassadors from his administration, from his embassies, from the State Department. They clearly sent mixed messages to the world, and the statement that came from the administration, and the embassy is the administration. The statement that came from the administration was a statement which is akin to apology and I think was a severe miscalculation.

So the president of the US is directly, personally responsible for a lone tweet designed to calm a dangerous situation – and this other person's tweet is then described as a "severe miscalculation" by the president and "akin to an apology." Well: you try to figure the logic out. Then this outreach from his senior foreign policy spokesman, Rich Williamson:

Tuesday night, while the attacks were still ongoing, Williamson said that the governments in Egypt and Libya as well as the Obama administration bear responsibility for the deteriorating security environment that led to the attacks.

"The events in Egypt and Libya show the failure of the Egyptian and Libyan governments to uphold their obligations to keep our diplomatic missions safe and secure and the regard in which the United States is held under President Obama in these two countries," he said. "It's all part of a broader scheme of the president's failure to be an effective leader for U.S. interests in the Middle East."

My italics. These people are simply unfit for the responsibility of running the United States. The knee-jerk judgments, based on ideology not reality; the inability to back down when you have said something obviously wrong; and the attempt to argue that the president of the US actually sympathized with those who murdered his own ambassador in Benghazi: these are disqualifying instincts for someone hoping to be the president of the US. Disqualifying.

(Photo: David Calvert/Getty.)

Will Morsi Apologize?

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Libyan officials have been quick to condemn the violence in their country, but Egypt's politicians are staying silent. Marc Lynch believes Egyptian leaders are making a huge mistake:

Morsi and the Brotherhood do not seem to understand, or perhaps they simply do not care, how important their public stance is today in defining their image.   The U.S. has taken real risks by engaging with the Brotherhood, pushing for democratic change despite their likely victory in fair elections, and insisting that the Egyptian military allow the completion of the transition after Morsi's victory.   That was necessary to have any hope of genuine democratic change in Egypt, and the right position to take.  But I suspect that many in Washington will feel that they have been repaid with Morsi's silence after the breach of the Embassy wall which could well have resulted in the same kind of tragedy as in Benghazi.  And that will have enduring effects on the nature and extent of American support for Egypt's transition — how much harder is it going to be to get debt relief through Congress now?  It is quite telling that Obama said nothing about Egypt in his remarks about the deaths in Benghazi. 

(Photo: Egyptian protesters tear down the US flag at the US embassy in Cairo on September 11, 2012 during a demonstration against a film deemed offensive to Islam. By /AFP/Getty Images)

When Islamists Attack

First, the public servant whom some Libyans murdered in a city saved from mass slaughter by US-backed intervention: Now the facts we have: in Libya four Americans have been killed by a mob, including Chris Stevens, the US ambassador, after an attack on the embassy in Cairo over an incendiary online movie trailer that is almost a parody of religious bigotry. About the film [WSJ]:

The movie, “Innocence of Muslims,” was directed and produced by an Israeli-American real-estate developer who characterized it as a political effort to call attention to the hypocrisies of Islam. It has been promoted by Terry Jones, the Florida pastor whose burning of Qurans previously sparked deadly riots around the world. …[The] film [is] about the Prophet Muhammad, portions of which in recent days have been circulating on the Internet. Contravening the Islamic prohibition of portraying the prophet, clips from the film show him not only as flesh and blood—but as a homosexual son of undetermined patrimony, who rises to advocate child slavery and extramarital sex, for himself, in the name of religion.

Max Fisher has clips. The filmmaker has called Islam a “cancer.” Here’s the New York Post’s review:

Burn this movie! Based on the 13-minute trailer posted on YouTube, the mysterious anti-Islamic hate “movie” that provoked protests should never have been made — it’s not only the most offensive but the most thoroughly inept piece of “filmmaking”’ I’ve had the misfortune to watch in 30 years of reviewing films … 

On a scale of one to four stars, I’d give it a minus 10. Burn this movie.

The attempt by Christianist and radical Jewish fundamentalists to demonize Islam and Muhammed does not in any way justify the kind of violence we have seen. Peaceful protests? Sure. But murder of innocents? No context makes that in any way anything but categorically intolerable. Blake Hounshell steps back:

For me, the embassy assaults are a sobering reminder not only of the deep anger and dysfunction that plagues the broader Middle East, but of the enormous difficulty the United States has in dealing with this part of the world. The level of distrust and fury toward America is not the sort of thing you heal with a speech or two. And to make matters worse, there will always be groups that exploit things that have no connection whatsoever to U.S. government policy, like this anti-Islamic film.

Ambinder says what needs to be said:

On Twitter, the first instinct of a lot of Americans was retributive justice. But the U.S. government’s sensitivity about the mood of the violent protesters is maddening but necessary. Being aggressive would cause more unnecessary dying. 

Those who use the gift of institutionally and legally-protected free speech to exploit and prey upon the vulnerability of certain people to violence ought to be shamed.  

At the same time, the people who killed people; protesters, thugs, militants, whomever, are ultimately responsible for their actions. If the U.S. government is going to discourage our own idiots from provoking people, then the governments of Egypt and Libya should act to corral those within their own nations who would storm an embassy on the pretext that a film offends. Well, barely, a film. A piece of anti-Muslim bigotry that was made to make the filmmakers feel good and others feel bad. If, as an American, I feel embarrassed that so many of my fellow Americans are bigots, I would, as an Egyptian or a Libyan, be even more horrified that the majority in my country seemed unable to stop (and barely condemn) the even more deplorable violent religious extremism of a minority.  

On that note, Lynch looks at the official reactions in both countries: 

Details and video from the violence in Egypt here. My take on the Romney reaction incoming …