Protests over an offensive movie?
Of course, you should have heard by now about the two sieges and murders of U.S. embassies in Egypt and Libya at the hand of Islamic extremists. Supposedly this is in response to an "insult" to Mohammed in a movie that was made and released in the U.S. on YouTube. I think this is a lame excuse, but if it has any real connection, it is hardly commensurate with the murder of three people who had nothing to do with it.
What are they thinking?
What is the mentality of such an attack against a U.S. embassy in response to a movie release that people may find offensive (and, true, Hollywood gives people plenty to be offended about)? I am hearing many reports that at least the Libya attack was not motivated by the YouTube movie. But if either of these, or the growing number of embassy "demonstrations" erupting today (and beyond?), is a result of offense at this movie, does that give you any sense of objective reasonableness within the Islamic mindset?
Let's take this idea further.
Let's say you and a bunch of friends and neighbors and family members become greatly offended at some insult to Jesus, or some famous historical figure of U.S. history, such as George Washington, presented in some Bollywood movie. What are you going to do about it? Perhaps you would write letters to the producer. Maybe you would organize a boycott of the movie. Probably you would set up a protest at one of the theaters that showed it (hard to do that to YouTube, though), which did happen a couple of decades ago over a very blasphemous Jesus movie.
Would you stage a siege of the India embassy in Washington D.C? Of course not! Why not? Because everybody knows that the government of India was not responsible for the production of that movie at all.
Islam radicals only know of totalitarianism
How does this relate to what the radical islamists are doing then? If a movie upsets them then they go and besiege the U.S. embassy. Why? Obviously, they think that the U.S. government is responsible for whether the movie was made, for what it said, and that it was released and allowed to be played.
You must remember, that most of the islamic countries are unlearned, and mostly have the perspective of thousands of years of tribal existence, which was monarchical in nature. That is, the only freedom you have is what the ruler of your tribe, or nation, allows you to have. That's it. And if what you do is only what your ruler allows, then what you are allowed to do is the responsibility of your ruler.
So when the radical islamists look at something coming from America, or the West, then they look at it from the governmental ideals they live in. They have no conception of liberty, of free market economy, of personal responsibility within the context of a nation or as a citizen. There is no philosophical foundation in their outlook for any of the freedoms that we as U.S. citizens conceive of or enjoy.
Blame the U.S. government for it all
So no matter what comes from our society to offend the radical islamists, they will continue to throw their anger against the U.S. government. The sooner we pull everything out of the Middle East, the sooner they will forget about the U.S. and they will have to put up with each other. And if their history is any indication, that will mean they will be infighting and at each other's throats within a few years. Or we can allow China to go in and try to put them in peaceful order. Let them wear out their military and use up all their financial resources to futilely keep the area stable.
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