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[Frumple]

Current responses make me kinda' jittery. Egypt has a population of over 80 million. Libya, over 5 million. The specific riot/protest groups that did this had numbers under 4k (Egypt ~3k, libya apparently unmentioned but likely smaller), according to the info that's been released. I can't, can not, form an opinion of the Egyptian or Libyan populations as a whole from the actions of a vanishing fraction of their population, especially a knee-jerk negative one that's capable of contributing to another fucking useless war shitting all over g'damn everyone's lives.

The actions of the groups that did this were contemptible, to the same extent any extreme actions performed by a mob or people using a mob as a cover are. That says precisely jack-nothing to me about the population of the countries they're in. By that same measure, we would have to paint America with the brush provided by the like of the WBC or white-supremacist groups. I reject that, outright, and the fact that this event is going to be used to fuel yet another wave of anti-Arab, anti-Islamist propaganda is as flat out sickening as it is counter-productive to preventing events like this from happening.

Way to screw the pooch again, flipping everyone*! Damnit all.

*In power, in politics, in those damned mobs, who immediately paint the whole damned countries by the actions of fractions of the populations, etc., so forth, so god damn on.

P.S. There may be some frustration here.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

God knows that democracy is good for a country only if it's pro-American.

Because everyone knows that if you don't like America, it's alright to murder their diplomats in the streets after they helped you win a revolution.

You can't really condemn the democratic government of Libya yet. You have to see how they respond first.

I'm not condemning Libya's government. I'm condemning the Libyan people for having a culture of hate and intolerance, and for being a bunch of ungrateful bastards.

[Nadaka]

Then by all means, put them to the sword man woman and child.

This was one attack by what? a few dozen agitators? An attack that was possibly executed by an organized terrorist group.

And it literally happened yesterday.

Don't condemn the Libyan people until they march in the streets and demand American blood by the tens of thousands or until they refuse to prosecute those responsible.

[scriver]

Similar protests launched yesterday in Cairo, Egypt. Around 3000 protestors marched to the U.S. embassy and scaled its walls, tore down the American flag and replaced it with a black flag.

Not just a black flag, but an al-Quieda-esq flag with the words "There is no God but Allah and Mohammed is his messenger" on it.

EDIT: Oh, this is just lovely. From the Cairo riot:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Translation: Remember your black day on the 11th of September.

Ha. Ha. Fuck these people. I'm rethinking my whole position on this Arab Spring thing. I definitely don't think we should be helping the Syrians anymore.

Hey. Hey. Remember when Japan beat the US in the football finale some years back? Remember how the whole Internet exploded with Americans going "at least we beat those fuckers in WWII", "Remember Hiroshima", "We should have nuked the whole country", and other such things?

Yeah, same thing here.

[Digital Hellhound]

Oh, please. As pointed out above, you're basically saying these people represent every single Libyan (or Egyptian, whatever) - and I think someone said the Libyans were members of an Al Qaida-affliated group earlier on too?

Now, if the government doesn't condemn the attacks at all, I'll agree with you.

FAKE EDIT: Well, what the ninjas said. While you were typing, etc.

[Zrk2]

Then by all means, put them to the sword man woman and child.

This was one attack by what? a few dozen agitators? An attack that was possibly executed by an organized terrorist group.

And it literally happened yesterday.

Don't condemn the Libyan people until they march in the streets and demand American blood by the tens of thousands or until they refuse to prosecute those responsible.

Seeing as that's more or less what they were doing I think this is justified.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Then by all means, put them to the sword man woman and child.

"You criticized a group I'm enamored with, so now I'm going to accuse you of advocating genocide."

This was one attack by what? a few dozen agitators? An attack that was possibly executed by an organized terrorist group.

Thousands of people, and possibly by a terrorist group which denies the allegations and usually takes credit for their actions.

Don't condemn the Libyan people until they march in the streets and demand American blood by the tens of thousands or until they refuse to prosecute those responsible.

This is not the first time we've seen normal people in Arab countries fucksnap and go about rioting and murdering over normal freedoms of expression in the West. I'm tired of it. My tolerance for this has been run down to nothing. Something is very, very wrong with these societies.

Hey. Hey. Remember when Japan beat the US in the football finale some years back? Remember how the whole Internet exploded with Americans going "at least we beat those fuckers in WWII", "Remember Hiroshima", "We should have nuked the whole country", and other such things?

Yeah, same thing here.

Yes, and remember then those couple hundred dicks posting things they probably don't particularly believe on a detached anonymous network murdered the Japanese ambassador in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ? Oh wait, that didn't happen because Americans don't have a cultural mandate for violence.

[RedKing]

Hey. Hey. Remember when Japan beat the US in the football finale some years back? Remember how the whole Internet exploded with Americans going "at least we beat those fuckers in WWII", "Remember Hiroshima", "We should have nuked the whole country", and other such things?

Yeah, same thing here.

Yes, and remember then those couple hundred dicks posting things they probably don't particularly believe on a detached anonymous network murdered the Japanese ambassador in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ? Oh wait, that didn't happen because Americans don't have a cultural mandate for violence.

This. I could care less than a half-shit what people in the Maghreb or in the Middle East say about the United States online, at the corner market, etc.
I care rather a lot when they decide they can fucking shoot at evacuating embassy workers with RPGs because some dipshit Israeli troll halfway around the world made some right-wing political porn.

Neither I or MSH was advocating an ounce of violence against Libya or Egypt. What we're advocating is saying "Screw you guys, we're going home. And we're taking our money with us."

But y'know, way to overreact there, guys.
:slowclap.gif

[Shinotsa]

Americans have a penal system that would punish them severely for violence. We're extrapolating political instability and weakness in the government to show cultural inferiority which is just plain false. There's the same violence by extremist groups in every South/Central America, Eastern Europe, and Africa we're just freaking out now because the target was us instead of people we don't care about.

Yes it's dangerous to help them, but what the hell else are we going to do with our Military? The real question is why we don't have more men protecting our missions in other countries so that the extremist groups (which we know are there) can't destroy our relations with those countries.

[RedKing]

Well for one, when your embassy looks like the Cobra Terrordrome, it kind of undercuts your message that you're really just there for peace love and friendship and that this is no way a military presence.

And this wasn't the embassy in Tripoli, but the smaller consulate in Benghazi (y'know, the epicenter of the rebel army that we fucking HELPED less than a year ago...the place where anti-Qaddafi sentiment was strongest and where they were waving US flags and cheering us not all that long ago). Can't position an entire battalion of Marines at every consulate in the Middle East.

And I don't buy the argument that "oh this happens all the time in the Third World". Outside of anarchists/protesters in Greece and Italy in 2010, the majority of attacks on diplomatic missions have been in the Arab world or Afghanistan. I'm willing to discount the Syrian ones, because I'm willing to bet good money the attacks were instigated by the Assad regime. It's just particularly galling to see this occur in a country where we went to considerable expense to help them liberate themselves rather than just rolling in and forcing a particular government on them.

[palsch]

A Libyan who posts on another site I visit has said there will be protests against the violence in both Tripoli and Benghazi today.

It's worth noting that Chris Stevens was very popular in country by all accounts, so his being killed is likely to trigger a great deal of sympathy.

It's also worth noting again that this article, posted before the attacks, suggested that there were pre-planned violence from militant groups in Egypt with no reference to the films. Them mixing in the populist anger seems opportunistic to me. As I posted elsewhere;

This would not be the first time that Islamist groups have manufactured or amplified populist rage to achieve their own violent ends. Back when the Danish cartoons were first a controversy the original, mostly mild cartoons were reposted on clerical websites in the Arab world alongside new ones that hadn't appeared in any western paper. The new ones that were infinitely more graphic (at least one was supposedly a poorly photoshopped frame from a beastiality video) and seemed to receive more attention than the originals did.

[scriver]

Hey. Hey. Remember when Japan beat the US in the football finale some years back? Remember how the whole Internet exploded with Americans going "at least we beat those fuckers in WWII", "Remember Hiroshima", "We should have nuked the whole country", and other such things?

Yeah, same thing here.

Yes, and remember then those couple hundred dicks posting things they probably don't particularly believe on a detached anonymous network murdered the Japanese ambassador in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ? Oh wait, that didn't happen

And you don't know if the people who painted that killed anyone either. You're putting collective blame on a whole lot of people for the action of a minority.

Americans don't have a cultural mandate for violence.

Excuse me? Are you going to withdraw that utterly ludicrous statement, or am I going to have to bring up every violent thing the USA has ever done in the name of "America", God, and "Freedom"?

[RedKing]

A Libyan who posts on another site I visit has said there will be protests against the violence in both Tripoli and Benghazi today.

It's worth noting that Chris Stevens was very popular in country by all accounts, so his being killed is likely to trigger a great deal of sympathy.

It's also worth noting again that this article, posted before the attacks, suggested that there were pre-planned violence from militant groups in Egypt with no reference to the films. Them mixing in the populist anger seems opportunistic to me. As I posted elsewhere;

This would not be the first time that Islamist groups have manufactured or amplified populist rage to achieve their own violent ends. Back when the Danish cartoons were first a controversy the original, mostly mild cartoons were reposted on clerical websites in the Arab world alongside new ones that hadn't appeared in any western paper. The new ones that were infinitely more graphic (at least one was supposedly a poorly photoshopped frame from a beastiality video) and seemed to receive more attention than the originals did.

Yeah, the co-opting of populist anger would fit AQIM's modus operandi, if it indeed was them or some splinter thereof.

I'm beginning to reassert my rationality now that I've had a few hours to process it, but it's still an incredibly difficult thing not to rage over. It's akin to when I'm breaking up a fight between my two children, and then the child I was defending goes and punches the other one. It's a potent mix of "WTF are you thinking?", malice and ingratitude that just makes you want to bitchslap them them into next Tuesday.

The Libyan provisional government has a chance to make a statement here with their actions. Let's hope tribalism and factional politicking don't fuck it up (I'm not holding my breath).

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Americans don't have a cultural mandate for violence.

Excuse me? Are you going to withdraw that utterly ludicrous statement, or am I going to have to bring up every violent thing the USA has ever done in the name of "America", God, and "Freedom"?

I'm not withdrawing shit. Actions of violence are sometimes committed by the USA, and sometimes they are unjustified. This is not the same thing as having a cultural mandate for violence. Americans do not go out into the streets and kill people because someone half-way around the world criticized something related to our culture. That is the key difference. Indeed, I'd say that Americans are rather thick-skinned as far as that goes. If we weren't it'd be chaos, what with all the undeserved criticism we get from everyone else constantly.

Islam is not receptive to criticism. At all. It mandates death for such things. Western society, and by extension American society, holds inquiry and criticism as important and protected. I think you can see how our peaceful coexistence just isn't going to happen until someone budges, and it sure as hell isn't going to be the free world.

[RedKing]

I'd offer a correction there. Islam is receptive to criticism. Islamists aren't.

In the same way that, in theory, the Catholic Church is open to self-examination and reform. In theory.
It's all those conservative Catholics that are the problem.

There are branches of Islam that are far more willing to engage with other modes of thought. Sadly, they are in the minority in many of these flashpoint areas.