Libyan Embassy Attack

Look, Ma - no riots!!!!



http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives/2012/09/27/piss-christ-returns-to-new-york-along-with-piss-moses/


‘Piss Christ’ returns to New York along with ‘Piss Moses’


posted at 11:01 am on September 27, 2012 by Howard Portnoy


Midtown Manhattan has been the scene of much religious reflection and blasphemy of late. One act of solemn reflection took place at the 140-year-old Central Synagogue on 55th Street, where Jews assembled on Wednesday to observe Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar. While they prayed, a few blocks away a man who has called the state of Israel a “malignant cancer” prayed as well—for their and its destruction. In his speech before the United Nations General Assembly (video here), outgoing Iranian “President” Mahmoud Ahmadinejad asked God to bring “a new order” that “will do away with … everything that distances us.” If the intent wasn’t clear enough, he later explained in an interview with the Associated Press that he expects that Israel will soon become an “historical footnote.”
Today the blaspheming continues at the Edward Tyler Nahem Gallery on 57th Street, where the state-sponsored “artwork” Piss Christ goes on display for a month. The work, in case you missed the controversy that swirled around its debut in 1987, consists of a photograph of a crucifix floating in the artist’s urine.
The week has been noteworthy not only for its anti-religious acts but for the conspicuous inaction on the part of those whose faiths were defiled. Jews chose not react to Ahmadinejad’s incendiary remarks by storming the Permanent Mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the United Nations in New York or by burning the Islamic flag in the streets of Manhattan. Christians did not fire bomb the D.C. headquarters of the National Endowment for the Arts, the government agency that funded the creation of Piss Christ, or demand that its artist, Andres Serrano, be “cut up into little pieces” (the fate suggested by one Muslim protester for the maker of the anti-Islamic film).

………

Find an enterprising young artist willing to create a ‘Piss Mohammed’ version of Serrano’s work, and ask the museum to hang it right next to the Piss Christ. It could be part of a ‘Piss Religion’ exhibit. If the gallery declines (as it surely would), then perhaps one could gather together a small group of Manhattan atheists to march ‘piss portraits’ of Mohammed and his fellow deities/prophets right up 1st Avenue past the United Nations, in homage to the First Amendment.
Every last person who complains will have to explain why they said nothing during the 20-plus years that the revolting Piss Christ has been touring art galleries around the world. They will be forced either to treat Islam and Christianity the same (i.e., stop trashing the latter) or finally admit the cowardly truth, which is that their degree of respect for any given religion is proportional to its proponents’ propensity for violence.

happy jack wrote:

Look, Ma - no riots!!!!

Look, Ma - nobody gives a crap!!!!

happy jack wrote:

Scorpion wrote:

happy jack wrote:

Scorpion wrote:

Quote :

.... officials later said the question would be officially settled only after the F.B.I. completed a criminal inquiry, which could take months.

I look forward to hearing the results of the FBI's inquiry.
Hopefully, they'll announce their findings soon - perhaps on November 7th?

I just don't get why anyone thinks that if this was a terrorist attack, then somehow that would be a "game changer" in the race for the Presidency. The whole idea is just frickin' absurd.

I don’t pretend to know whether it would be a game changer, but the administration certainly seemed to think so. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have needed to be dragged kicking and screaming two weeks later to finally take their collective feet out of their mouths and acknowledge that, yes, Virginia, maybe this involves a little bit more than a 14-minute movie trailer, as they had long been insisting.

Here's an excerpt of what the President actually said on 9/12...

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/09/12/transcript-president-obama-remarks-following-deadly-attacks-at-us-consulate-in/#ixzz27jopS7SS

Quote :

As Americans let us never, ever forget that our freedom is only sustained because there are people who are willing to fight for it, to stand up for it, and in some cases lay down their lives for it. Our country is only as strong as the character of our people and the service of those, both civilian and military, who represent us around the globe.

No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation, alter that character or eclipse the light of the values that we stand for.

Today we mourn for more Americans who represent the very best of the United States of America. We will not waver in our commitment to see that justice is done for this terrible act. And make no mistake, justice will be done.

The truth is, that the President made a clear reference to terrorism in his first response to the attacks. Perhaps you should read the transcript of his remarks, because I'm pretty sure that you didn't watch them.

It's clear that there was an anti-American riot in Egypt because of the trailer, and widespread unrest in multiple countries continues... What "bullshit" are you talking about?

Here's a pretty good example of a smokescreen and bullshit all rolled into one.

happy jack wrote:

Why are they rioting?
Because it's Wednesday, of course.
And tomorrow, they will be rioting because it's Thursday.
And the next day, because it's Friday, etc., etc., etc., etc..
Are you beginning to detect a pattern?

happy jack wrote:

edge540 wrote:

Here's a pretty good example of a smokescreen and bullshit all rolled into one.

happy jack wrote:

Why are they rioting?
Because it's Wednesday, of course.
And tomorrow, they will be rioting because it's Thursday.
And the next day, because it's Friday, etc., etc., etc., etc..
Are you beginning to detect a pattern?

You seem to not concur with my assessment as to why they are rioting.
Can you tell me why they are rioting?

Yeah. Well I can. They feel that their "prophet" was insulted. Since these countries don't have Freedom of Speech, and insulting their "prophet" is a crime in their country, this is how they react. It's as simple as that.

happy jack wrote:

Scorpion wrote:

It's clear that there was an anti-American riot in Egypt because of the trailer, and widespread unrest in multiple countries continues... What "bullshit" are you talking about?

This bullshit:



http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/09/ambassador-susan-rice-libya-attack-not-premeditated/

Ambassador Susan Rice: Libya Attack Not Premeditated

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice said the attack on the American consulate in Benghazi last week was not premeditated, directly contradicting top Libyan officials who say the attack was planned in advance.
“Our current best assessment, based on the information that we have at present, is that, in fact, what this began as, it was a spontaneous – not a premeditated – response to what had transpired in Cairo,” Rice told me this morning on “This Week.”
“In Cairo, as you know, a few hours earlier, there was a violent protest that was undertaken in reaction to this very offensive video that was disseminated,” Rice said, referring to protests in Egypt Tuesday over a film that depicts the Prophet Muhammad as a fraud. Protesters in Cairo breached the walls of the U.S. Embassy, tearing apart an American flag.
“We believe that folks in Benghazi, a small number of people came to the embassy to – or to the consulate, rather, to replicate the sort of challenge that was posed in Cairo,” Rice said. “And then as that unfolded, it seems to have been hijacked, let us say, by some individual clusters of extremists who came with heavier weapons… And it then evolved from there.”


And this bullshit:



http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/09/white-house-defends-changing-rhetoric-on-libya-attack/

The White House initially linked the attack to broader protests in the region sparked by an amateur anti-Islamic movie. “We have no information to suggest that it was a preplanned attack,” Carney told reporters on September 14. “The unrest we’ve seen around the region has been in reaction to a video that Muslims, many Muslims find offensive. And while the violence is reprehensible and unjustified, it is not a reaction to the 9/11 anniversary that we know of, or to U.S. policy.”

What bullshit did you think I was talking about?

I think that's just confusion caused by the rapid pace of events, especially during the first couple of days. It takes a while to sort things out.

And granted, I'm speculating here, but the fact is that the Intelligence Community controls the flow of information in situations like these, and there may have been strategic reasons to portray the situation in that manner. I think that's a genuine possibility as well.

happy jack wrote:

edge540 wrote:

Here's a pretty good example of a smokescreen and bullshit all rolled into one.

happy jack wrote:

Why are they rioting?
Because it's Wednesday, of course.
And tomorrow, they will be rioting because it's Thursday.
And the next day, because it's Friday, etc., etc., etc., etc..
Are you beginning to detect a pattern?

You seem to not concur with my assessment as to why they are rioting.
Can you tell me why they are rioting?

According to the sources (about 7) that YOU gave us it's because of the video.

Here's one of them:
Embassies under attack over anti-Islam video

Here's another:
Embassies stormed, KFC torched as anger over anti-Islam film rages

happy jack wrote:

Scorpion wrote:

I think that's just confusion caused by the rapid pace of events, especially during the first couple of days. It takes a while to sort things out.

I agree that that is a possibility, but if that were the case, I see no reason why they should have taken such a definitive stand, i.e., that the attack was caused by the video. When you really don't know what happened, don't make things up.

Make things up? They knew that the video was causing riots across the region, didn't they?

This should put an end to all the nonsense...

In statement, spy chief defends evolving accounts of Benghazi attack, cites shifting intelligence

Quote :

The office of the nation’s spy chief issued a statement Friday defending the Obama administration’s accounts of the siege of U.S. missions in Libya, saying it only became clear in the aftermath that it was “a deliberate and organized terrorist attack.”

Quote :

The statement appeared aimed at quieting criticism, mostly from Republicans, of the administration’s shifting characterizations of a Sept. 11 assault that killed the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans. Officials initially described the attack as spontaneous but in recent days have said it was an act of terrorism with links to al-Qaeda.

“In the immediate aftermath, there was information that led us to assess that the attack began spontaneously following protests earlier that day at our embassy in Cairo,” Turner said. That information was conveyed to administration officials as well as members of Congress.

End of Line...

happy jack wrote:

edge540 wrote:

happy jack wrote:

edge540 wrote:

Here's a pretty good example of a smokescreen and bullshit all rolled into one.

happy jack wrote:

Why are they rioting?
Because it's Wednesday, of course.
And tomorrow, they will be rioting because it's Thursday.
And the next day, because it's Friday, etc., etc., etc., etc..
Are you beginning to detect a pattern?

You seem to not concur with my assessment as to why they are rioting.
Can you tell me why they are rioting?

According to the sources (about 7) that YOU gave us it's because of the video.

Here's one of them:
Embassies under attack over anti-Islam video

Here's another:
Embassies stormed, KFC torched as anger over anti-Islam film rages

Great, edge.
Now that brings us back full-circle to the question:
Why are Christians in these Middle East countries not rioting and storming embassies in reaction to the insult to their prophet, i.e., the Piss Christ exhibit, for one example?
Do you have any thoughts on that?

I don't know, perhaps they have better things to do or maybe they don't give a crap.
Do you have any thoughts on that?

edge540 wrote:

happy jack wrote:

edge540 wrote:

happy jack wrote:

edge540 wrote:

Here's a pretty good example of a smokescreen and bullshit all rolled into one.

happy jack wrote:

Why are they rioting?
Because it's Wednesday, of course.
And tomorrow, they will be rioting because it's Thursday.
And the next day, because it's Friday, etc., etc., etc., etc..
Are you beginning to detect a pattern?

You seem to not concur with my assessment as to why they are rioting.
Can you tell me why they are rioting?

According to the sources (about 7) that YOU gave us it's because of the video.

Here's one of them:
Embassies under attack over anti-Islam video

Here's another:
Embassies stormed, KFC torched as anger over anti-Islam film rages

Great, edge.
Now that brings us back full-circle to the question:
Why are Christians in these Middle East countries not rioting and storming embassies in reaction to the insult to their prophet, i.e., the Piss Christ exhibit, for one example?
Do you have any thoughts on that?

I don't know, perhaps they have better things to do or maybe they don't give a crap.
Do you have any thoughts on that?

Perhaps they are not bat-shit crazy savages.
Or perhaps they are too busy running away from bat-shit crazy savages to give much thought to something so trivial as an insult to their prophet.



http://www.france24.com/en/20120928-christians-flee-egypt-town-after-death-threats

28 SEPTEMBER 2012 - 15H25


Christians 'flee Egypt town after death threats'


AFP - Several Christian families have fled their homes in Egypt's Sinai peninsula after receiving death threats from suspected Islamist militants, officials and residents told AFP on Friday.
Last week, flyers began circulating in the town of Rafah on the Gaza Strip border demanding that its tiny Coptic population move out, residents said.
Officials at the local church informed the authorities of the threats, but no action was taken, they added.
Days later, a shop belonging to one of the families was fired on with automatic rifles, witnesses said.

Top Romney Surrogate Says Romney ‘Should Be Exploiting’ Libya Incident For Political Gain
UPDATE:

Quote :

On Fox News, Giuliani encouraged Romney to exploit the incident:

Quote :

BILL HEMMER (HOST): David Axelrod made the claim Mitt Romney is doing his best to exploit this. Is there argument to be made there? How was this handled on?

GIULIANI: He should be exploiting it. I mean, there is real chance, there is a cover-up here. They’re trying to run out the clock. Hillary Clinton appoints a commission that will investigate. They will not report until next January or February.

Watch it:

Top Romney Surrogate Says Romney ‘Should Be Exploiting’ Libya Incident For Political Gain

Quote :

Top Mitt Romney surrogate Rudy Giuliani admitted that the GOP is accusing President Obama of covering up the violence that led to the death of an American ambassador in Libya for political gain.

During an appearance on CNN’s Starting Point on Monday, the former New York City mayor argued that the administration is purposely delaying investigations into the incident until after the election to “cover up” its own failures. But asked to substantiate the claim, Giuliani became agitated. He announced that he did not have to give Obama the benefit of the doubt or withhold judgment about the incident until a full investigation is complete because the president is a Democrat:

Quote :

SOLEDAD O’BRIEN (HOST): The one thing I’m debating with you is just specifics. When you quote someone or you paraphrase them the only thing I ask is that you get that accurate. That’s all I ask.
ky on Oct 15, 2012 at 9:06 am

Top Mitt Romney surrogate Rudy Giuliani admitted that the GOP is accusing President Obama of covering up the violence that led to the death of an American ambassador in Libya for political gain.

During an appearance on CNN’s Starting Point on Monday, the former New York City mayor argued that the administration is purposely delaying investigations into the incident until after the election to “cover up” its own failures. But asked to substantiate the claim, Giuliani became agitated. He announced that he did not have to give Obama the benefit of the doubt or withhold judgment about the incident until a full investigation is complete because the president is a Democrat:

SOLEDAD O’BRIEN (HOST): The one thing I’m debating with you is just specifics. When you quote someone or you paraphrase them the only thing I ask is that you get that accurate. That’s all I ask.

GIULIANI: We’re also entitled to interpret what the president is saying without this, like, massive defense of everything he says.

Q: Do you think, foreign policy, including Benghazi is going to play a significant role in the election? Because my bias would be to think — it’s really interesting for us to talk about – but I think people are essentially going to vote on the economy.

GIULIANI: I think if, in fact, this becomes a question of the president’s lack of leadership, then it cuts into the economy as well. It’s beginning to become like that. The White house — the White House has been remarkably — The White House has fumbled this — whether it’s a deliberate cover-up or they’re making it look like a cover-up they have fumbled the ball four or five times here. Several contradictions. Excuse me if being the fact that I’m a Republican, I don’t give them as you do, all the benefit of the doubt.

Watch it:

Quote :

Republicans have a long history of politicizing acts of terrorism for political advantage: from using the 9/11 terrorist attacks to push the country into a war in Iraq, to portraying Democrats as terrorist sympathizers to score political victories in 2002 and 2004. Giuliani himself ran his presidential campaign on a “noun, verb and 9/11” and Romney’s first political instinct upon learning of violence in Libya was to accuse President Obama of apologizing for terrorism and sympathizing with the people who killed Amb. Christopher Stevens.

Concrete proof that the Administration was telling the truth all along...

CIA documents supported Susan Rice’s description of Benghazi attacks

Quote :

The Romney campaign may have misfired with its suggestion that statements by President Obama and U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice about the Benghazi attack last month weren’t supported by intelligence, according to documents provided by a senior U.S. intelligence official.

“Talking points” prepared by the CIA on Sept. 15, the same day that Rice taped three television appearances, support her description of the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. Consulate as a reaction to Arab anger about an anti-Muslim video prepared in the United States. According to the CIA account, “The currently available information suggests that the demonstrations in Benghazi were spontaneously inspired by the protests at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo and evolved into a direct assault against the U.S. Consulate and subsequently its annex. There are indications that extremists participated in the violent demonstrations.”

Quote :

Here’s how the senior official described the jumble of events in Benghazi that day: “The attackers were disorganized; some seemed more interested in looting. Some who claimed to have participated joined the attack as it began or after it was under way. There is no evidence of rehearsals, they never got into the safe room . . . never took any hostages, didn’t bring explosives to blow the safe room door, and didn’t use a car bomb to blow the gates.”

The Benghazi flap is the sort of situation that intelligence officers dread: when politicians are demanding hard “yes” or “no” answers but evidence is fragmentary and conflicting. The political debate has focused on whether the attack was spontaneous or planned, but the official said there’s evidence of both, and that different attackers may have had different motives. There’s no dispute, however, that it was “an act of terror,” as Obama described it the next day.

INMO, it would be a really good idea for the Romney campaign to STFU about Benghazi at this point, but since Romney has displayed the inability to ever admit he is wrong about anything, I seriously doubt that's going to happen.

"Please proceed, Governor..."

Well, I kind of figured that the CIA was involved in the intelligence after that asshat Issa exposed the safehouse live on TV.

But that wasn't all Issa fucked up:

Issa’s Benghazi document dump exposes several Libyans working with the U.S.

Quote :

House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) compromised the identities of several Libyans working with the U.S. government and placed their lives in danger when he released reams of State Department communications Friday, according to Obama administration officials.

Issa posted 166 pages of sensitive but unclassified State Department communications related to Libya on the committee's website afternoon as part of his effort to investigate security failures and expose contradictions in the administration's statements regarding the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi that resulted in the death of Amb. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.

. . .

But Issa didn't bother to redact the names of Libyan civilians and local leaders mentioned in the cables, and just as with the WikiLeaks dump of State Department cables last year, the administration says that Issa has done damage to U.S. efforts to work with those Libyans and exposed them to physical danger from the very groups that had an interest in attacking the U.S. consulate.

"Much like WikiLeaks, when you dump a bunch of documents into the ether, there are a lot of unintended consequences," an administration official told The Cable Friday afternoon. "This does damage to the individuals because they are named, danger to security cooperation because these are militias and groups that we work with and that is now well known, and danger to the investigation, because these people could help us down the road."

One of the cables released by Issa names a woman human rights activist who was leading a campaign against violence and was detained in Benghazi. She expressed fear for her safety to U.S. officials and criticized the Libyan government.

"This woman is trying to raise an anti-violence campaign on her own and came to the United States for help. She isn't publicly associated with the U.S. in any other way but she's now named in this cable. It's a danger to her life," the administration official said.

Another cable names a Benghazi port manager who is working with the United States on an infrastructure project.

"When you're in a situation where Ansar al-Sharia is a risk to Americans, an individual like this guy, who is an innocent civilian who's trying to reopen the port and is doing so in conjunction with Americans, could be at risk now because he's publicly affiliated with America," the official said, referring to the group thought to have led the Benghazi attack.

GOP 2012! 'Cause they totally won't sacrifice national security for political gains!

What a useless fucking witchhunt. I really hope Obama buries Romney with this (and the rest of that tape) at the next debate. He is absolutely fucking clueless when it comes to national security and foreign policy. And he should mention Issa's epic blunders, too, since it proves how disconnected the GOP really is from all of this.

Scorpion wrote:

Concrete proof that the Administration was telling the truth all along...
CIA documents supported Susan Rice’s description of Benghazi attacks

Heretic wrote:

Well, I kind of figured that the CIA was involved in the intelligence after that asshat Issa exposed the safehouse live on TV.

But that wasn't all Issa fucked up:

Issa’s Benghazi document dump exposes several Libyans working with the U.S.

Sets up what should be a very interesting foreign policy debate on Monday. Rombot's accusations turned out to be completely wrong wrong.

That being said,the cries of "Cover-Up Worse Than Watergate" will start on Planet Wingnuttia in 3..2...1

The Benghazi Embarrassment

Quote :

The embarrassment of the attack on the American consulate in Benghazi is not that it happened. America has its victories against terrorism, and its defeats, and the murder of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three American security personnel represents one defeat in a long war. The embarrassment is that political culture in America is such that we can't have an adult conversation about the lessons of Benghazi, a conversation that would focus more on understanding al Qaeda affiliates in North Africa, on the limitations and imperfections of security, and on shortfalls in our intelligence gathering, than on who said what when in the Rose Garden.

What we've got now is a discussion about who needs to be fired, and which candidate is in a better position to score cheap points. Does Mitt Romney actually think that Barack Obama doesn't believe that what happened in Benghazi was an act of terror? A larger question: Does anyone seriously believe that Barack Obama, a president who is at war in more Muslim countries than any president in American history, is soft on al Qaeda? And one other question: Does Barack Obama believe that Republicans somehow aren't allowed to raise serious questions about the Administration's response to the attack? Again, I wish the Republicans would frame these questions not to raise doubts about the commander-in-chief's innermost feelings about terrorism, but to ask what specific actions do we need to take, quickly, to try to prevent follow-on attacks? Whatever happened to that whole notion of politics stopping at the water's edge?

. . .

As Blake Hounshell put it, "Amb. Chris Stevens was a big boy and he made his own decision to go to Benghazi despite the risks. If he thought it was too dangerous, he should not have gone." We've lost thousands of American government employees over the past 10 years in the Middle East and in Afghanistan. Nearly all of them were in uniform, but Foreign Service officers know the risks as well. We need to treat the loss of these four men in Libya as a battlefield loss. That would require people such as Darrell Issa, who chaired a House Oversight committee hearing on the Benghazi attacks, from saying foolish things, like he did the other day. I wrote about this in my Bloomberg View column:

Quote :

What Republicans shouldn't do is make statements like the one Issa made on CBS's "Face the Nation" on Oct. 14. Issa argued that if security officials had repeatedly requested reinforcements for U.S. diplomatic outposts in Libya "and that's not being heard, then it isn't just Ambassador Stevens who is now dead -- it's everybody who works throughout the Middle East is at risk."

Eleven years after the Sept. 11 attacks, and 12 years after the fatal raid on the USS Cole in Yemen, and Issa has just realized that assignment to the Middle East might pose risks for American government personnel!

Here's the problem with Issa's stunning insight: In his desire to cast the administration as incompetent, he does an enormous disservice to the cause of forward-leaning diplomacy and engagement. American embassies are already fortresses. Issa would dig a moat around them. After a point, there's simply no reason to dispatch diplomats to hostile capitals if they can't engage with actual citizens. Risk is inherent for U.S. diplomats posted to the Middle East.

Bulletproof glass distorts the diplomatic view

Quote :

Here I should say that I don’t have strong views on the origins of that attack nor on what was said by whom afterward, though I am surprised by the prominence the subject has acquired in the election campaign. Neither the president nor the secretary of state personally makes decisions about diplomatic security, after all, and we wouldn’t want them to. If one or the other wants to take responsibility anyway, that’s fine with me. As far as the aftermath goes, it does seem that events in Benghazi were very confusing that day. As a result of that confusion, some people think the attackers were motivated by news of an anti-Islamic video, some think they were members of an al-Qaeda affiliate, and maybe U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice should have waited before speaking with such certainty about what happened.

To my mind, there is only one truly disturbing element of this discussion: the underlying assumptions — made by almost everyone participating in the argument — that no American diplomats should ever be exposed to any risk whatsoever and that it is always better to have too much security than too little.

Since Ambassador Chris Stevens’s death, it’s become widely known that he did not subscribe to those assumptions. He was a popular, admired and successful ambassador precisely because he traveled around the country where he was posted, got out of his residence, spoke Arabic and understood the value of public diplomacy. He was in Benghazi on Sept. 11 to open a new cultural center where Libyans could get access to books and movies about America, something he clearly thought was important.

All of this made him extremely unusual in a region where many American diplomats spend most of their time behind the guarded doors of bunker-like embassies, often far from the center of town. The U.S. Embassy in Tunis looks like a high-security prison. The U.S. Embassy in Amman is encircled by barriers of concrete and steel. Even in London, the U.S. Embassy is surrounded by so many impractical roadblocks that neighbors have protested and the Americans have decided to move. When the construction is completed, the ambassador will commute from his residence in central London to the embassy in a distant suburb, far away from the events and people he is supposed to monitor.

This is not merely an aesthetic problem (though it is that as well) or a question of convenience. Diplomats who have no contact with ordinary people get things very wrong and are liable to be badly misunderstood themselves.