Remembrance and Rage on 9/11

   Tuesday was the eleventh anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks. It was a solemn day for America and our allies, a day to remember boundless courage and sacrifice as well honor the victims and their families. Elsewhere in the world, however, Tuesday was the day of massive anti-American protests across the Middle East. In the midst of America's most solemn day of remembrance, ruthless animals in Cairo climbed the walls of the American embassy and tore down the American flag, replacing it with the black flag of al-Qaeda. The protesters claimed that it was in response to a film which defamed Mohammed (right, and the al-Qaeda flag on the anniversary of al-Qaeda's greatest triumph was just a coincidence). During the (completely illegal) assault upon sovereign U.S. soil by the same crazed Islamist mobs the Obama administration helped put in charge of the country, the State Department just could not apologize fast enough to the lunatics ripping the Stars and Stripes into thin strips of cloth. The Cairo embassy staff tweeted a condemnation of "the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims" while those same poor, sweet Muslims were committing an act of war against the United States. Granted, once word of that degrading act got out to the concerned (read "voting") public, the administration quickly slapped on the old cowboy boots and... kind of, sort of walked back the apology. But  recent statement from Hillary Clinton walked back that walk-back, condemning the movie and praising Islam as a great religion that is, like, deep and thoughtful and stuff. The State Department has also come under fire for reportedly ordering the Marine guards to carry weapons without ammunition in them, a charge that the Pentagon has denied. However, the State Department has remained silent on the matter.


   But as bad as the events in Cairo were, they were nothing compared to what happened in Benghazi, Libya. The embassy staff in Cairo knew that something was coming and were evacuated shortly before the riots began. The consulate in Benghazi was not so lucky. While the mob in Cairo destroyed government property and trespassed on American soil, the assault in Libya had far more devastating results. During protests that echoed those in Cairo, a heavily armed mob laid siege to and then stormed the United States Consulate. In the course of the evening the mob murdered four American citizens, including the Ambassador to Libya J. Christopher Stevens, Foreign Service information manager Sean Smith, and two Marines (possibly part of the ambassador's security detail) who attempted to break the siege but found themselves vastly outnumbered and outgunned. Intelligence experts are highly suspicious of the timing of the attack as Stevens, who is based out of Libya and not Benghazi, should not have been at the consulate at a time when serious riots were expected. What makes it even worse is that virtually no extra security was in place at the "interim facility" that was housing the consulate for the ambassador's visit, which is particularly unusual considering that the consulate did not actually have any Marine guards on staff and was instead relying upon the kindness of strangers, whoops, I mean Libyan security officers (who, according to reports, promptly told the violent mob exactly where the ambassador was hiding). Originally, it was believed that the ambassador had died as a result of the rocket blast that leveled the main building in the embassy compound. Unfortunately, it now appears that the ambassador did not go out so mercifully and may have even been raped before he suffocated to death. I truly hope that this was not the case.


   In the days since, the threat of violence has spread even further. Protesters in Yemen stormed the U.S. Embassy on Thursday, burning cars and smashing windows while chanting, "We will sacrifice ourselves for you, Messenger of God." The U.S. Embassy in Algiers, Algeria (the least creative name combination since New York, New York, which I actually think is a more recent city) has warned all American citizens to avoid non-essential travel as protests take root across North Africa. A Shia group in Iraq (that is all but certainly backed by the Iranian government) has threatened American interests in the region as retribution for supposedly defaming Mohammed. The protests even reached Indonesia as a group named "Sharia for Indonesia" demonstrated outside the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta with signs that celebrated the 9/11 attacks. How charming.


   Despite the destruction of property and the loss of life, perhaps the most dangerous aim of these attacks was to prohibit the exercise of free speech, especially when it comes to criticizing Islam. A spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt said that it is America needs to do a better job of defending Islam's honor. "It isn't a matter of freedom of speech," Mahmoud Gozlan said. "It's a matter of a holy Islamic symbol." Oh, well, if it's a matter of protecting symbols, how about the Egyptian government apologize to America for defaming the holiest symbol we have: our flag. Of course, this event is not the first time that Islamists have excused horrific actions using the good ol' fashioned rapist's excuse of, "She was asking for it." But this was different, with our attackers operating from a greater position of power than they had ever previously known. Now that they have power, the Islamists are focused on one goal: to make the act of "slandering" Islam illegal on an international level. Tuesday's attacks were particularly severe, especially considering the attacks were carried out by the same people that the U.S. helped in their struggle for "democracy." When al-Qaeda struck the U.S. eleven years ago, the media couldn't shut up about how America had "created" Osama bin Laden by training him, his followers, and the Taliban to fight the Soviet Union. Never mind that it actually wasn't true, and that bin Laden and the Taliban both stemmed from the Pakistani ISI and not the CIA, but where is that sort of outcry and "we caused this" attitude when the perpetrators went from ally to murderer within the space of a year?


   Finally, I have to say that the media's manipulation of the coverage has been nothing less than disgusting. Instead of demanding answers from the Obama administration and Hillary Clinton's State Department (aka, the guys who ignored the threats, failed to put adequate security in place, and then scrambled to lick the boots of the monsters who killed Americans on sovereign U.S. soil), the American media has pounced at the throat of Republican Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney. Romney said, "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." And the media have hammered Romney for those statements. Here is just a brief run-down on the articles a quick Google search for "Romney embassy attacks" brought up (I'd link to the sites, but frankly I don't want to give them traffic. Feel free to search for yourself, though): "FactCheck: Romney gets it backward on embassy attacks," "Foreign Policy Hands Rip Romney's Cairo Statement" (from the always fair Huffington Post), "Romney on Embassy Attack Is No Ronald Reagan in 1980," then we go to, "Embassy politics: the eerie similarities between 1980 and 2012," and finally the piece-of-crap de resistance "The Mohammed movie and the embassy attacks: Romney betrays free speech" which actually says that the rioting, murdering Islamists are protecting free speech by limiting it, or some crap. When you look at the headlines, some truly eerie similarities emerge, with different authors sometimes using the same supposedly "catchy" phrase word-for-word (yes, I know that happens sometimes, but I'm going somewhere with this). All of this anger and animosity toward Romney makes a lot of sense in light of a "hot mic" moment caught on tape at Romney's press conference on Wednesday when reporters were recorded coordinating questions to focus on Romney's "tone" and then the follow-up questions based on that line of reasoning. The thinking by the media was to control the course of the press conference and put Romney on the defensive from the beginning, no matter who he called on to ask a question. To be fair, this happens quite often, according to experts, but it also goes to show that the mainstream media have simply become conformist lapdogs to the administration instead of honest, bold journalists willing to break from the pack to get the scoop.