"I said nothing anti-Muslim"

"Of course, in Jihad, you use your enemy, you appease him when it is time to rebuild...but your enemy is always your enemy."

Saying that Muslims are inherently warlike and dishonest is not anti-Muslim?

"Christians have, through the centuries, have shed just as much blood over Jesus as Muslims have shed over Muhammad."

And if you want to get historical, obi, for the first 300 years after Christ's death Christianity was spread peacefully and by word of mouth. Only after the First Council of Nicea, when "official" Christian proceedings become formalized did rifts and Christian-on-Christian persecutions begin. Even then, Christianity wasn't spread by the sword until the Medieval Period (if someone stands to correct me, then feel free to do so). From around the Crusades on though, Obi, your comparison is much more valid.

Krellin that is your personal opinion. I can respect that but I have to completely disagree with it :) I can also say that being dishonest is classic republican but that would be MY opinion which differs from others.

^^Which leads me to believe its not so much one faith is more warlike than another, but that differences in relative affluence, time periods, and culture have led to the common belief that Islam is more warlike.

"I will still stand by my belief though, that Christians as a whole will not act as radically or violently as Muslims to insults against their religion."

Perhaps. Now imagine that the United Muslim States have occupied Canada, installed a puppet dictator in Mexico, and uses its bases in Cuba to launch drone strikes on Christianist terrorists in South Carolina. Texas crude is loaded onto UMS oil tankers and shipped overseas while Americans wait in gas lines. UMS officials and pundits regularly mock and ridicule Christianity and obviously have a very cavalier attitude towards the life, safety, and welfare of Christians in the US.

Now, a Muslim filmmaker in Dubai makes a movie portraying Jesus and the Apostles in a very negative light. Would you tell me you couldn't imagine Christian leaders rousing a mob and Christianist terrorists storming a UMS comsulate and killing an ambassador?

I like that comparison Tolstoy. It's very...unique.

"Even then, Christianity wasn't spread by the sword until the Medieval Period (if someone stands to correct me, then feel free to do so)"

Suppression of the temples and traditions of the old Roman pantheon began in the 4th century and I imagine was pretty brutal. The chroniclers of the time more or less glossed over what happened to Romans who didn't accept this strange foreign God, so history is more than a little vague on this.

Tolstoy - I'd agree with you up until the Christianist terrorist part. But if you read my last post, just before yours, I think its an economic difference, rather than a religious one, that leads to different results by the two populations to a similar stimuli. You even went about it yourself in the example you gave me.

They're easily angered because they have more ultra-conservative members of society per capita than Christian nations and they have more ultra-conservative members because they are economically suffering and religion gathers in those who are suffering and instills hope and promise in them. My theory anyways. People who have a lot to lose won't go storming an embassy.

"Suppression of the temples and traditions of the old Roman pantheon began in the 4th century and I imagine was pretty brutal. The chroniclers of the time more or less glossed over what happened to Romans who didn't accept this strange foreign God, so history is more than a little vague on this."

Thanks again Tolstoy. I wasn't sure on that, so that's why I hedged my statement earlier with 300 years, because I knew it wasn't violently spread pre-Constantine.

"Obit compares ancient history to modern day. Classic liberal.retreat. Fucking .moron. See, in this civilization, I am not punished for the sins of my father. Moron....seriously you are as moron."

First--Obit? That's not even a GOOD insulting pun on my name...

If you're going to be a childish hack, krellin, please--get better at it.

Secondly, I'm not "hating on Christians," I'm saying they're no better (OR WORSE) than the Muslims, historically, when it comes to matters like these.

And not name-calling? Please, go ahead, explain that one, an "obit" is generally short for obituary...

I may bring many things, but death isn't one of them...so how is it "an accurate label?"

@Draugnar:

Hm...better insult than krellin's, but still lame.

And if I missed your point I apologize.

"he put those remarks out before anyone knew the ambassador - or for that matter anyone - had been killed. After the first comment was released, he couldn't exactly ignore the issue."

Perhaps he should learn to hold his tongue for a bit while there's a crisis, then...not be too quick to say something he might just regret?

"Also obi, we all know that these actions do not color all Muslims, but I'd be interested to see, per capita, which religion has the most of these fanatics and how many violent events like this happen."

No argument there from me whatsoever.

I was just trying to avoid a "Kill All the Muzzies!" rant from some of our, erm, more "colorful" right-wing warhawks on the thread.

"From around the Crusades on though, Obi, your comparison is much more valid."

I'll take that, then.

I don't need to challenge and argue for all 2000+ years of Christian and nearly 1500 years of Islam existence...

I'll take the 1000 or so each.

@ obiwan

Obama is more or less completely ignoring an overt act of war against the United States of America. It is a dereliction of duty so obvious, profound and severe that Mitt Romney, as a leading political figure and influential citizen, would be wrong to remain silent. Someone has to say SOMETHING, regardless of what the date is.

It's just another item in a long list of failures of constitutionally required duty, and is ample cause for immediate impeachment.

Christians and Muslims; both groups have made many mistakes and committed many atrocities. The difference is that Christianity is for the most part in the 21st or at least the 19th century. Most of the Islamic world is still in the middle ages.

And the President of the United States for some inexplicable reason is completely failing to defend the country he swore to protect.

I'm apoplectic. Forgive me if this turns into an obiwanobiwan post, but I can't help it. I've also not read the thread so there will probably be some repetition. At least I hope there is.


These people are fucking nuts and I'm sick of it. You don't get to kill people because a movie was made somewhere and it pisses you off. Sorry, that's not how civilization works. There should be no excuses made for them. None. This is lawless behavior and a gross violation of diplomatic immunity, one of the greatest ideas in human history. You can't break into embassies ever. You can't burn down consulates ever. And you certainly can never kill a goddamn ambassador! How in the hell are we supposed to not have wars if nations can't even send representatives to each other without fear of them being murdered by a mob?

Pigs are flying in a freezing hell because in this situation America did nothing wrong whatsoever. Those filmmakers had every right to make a movie lampooning Mohammed. Our freedoms should not be curtailed in the least because it offends the dumb, eighth century sensibilities of these barbarians. I hope they get their Martin Luther soon, or at least that Arab public opinion takes the hint from the non-crazy Muslims in South and Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa and stops acting in this unacceptable way. Naturally not all Arabs are beholden to this tyrannical form of the religion. People like the people who did these awful things are surely a minority. But you don't scale the walls of the second biggest American embassy and fly the black flag of jihad above it without significant public support. Something like the level of the Lib Dems in Britain, if I had to guess. Just a guess.

We need to send in some SEALs to fill up the Benghazi morgue with these barbarian pieces of scum. An ambassador is representing the President of the United States in a foreign country, killing him is a huge deal. This affront can't go unanswered.

The Egypt situation doesn't merit that sort of response, but in many ways the broader situation is worse since while Libya has a secular government which these lunatics are mostly kept out of, in Egypt the Brotherhood and Salafis run the show and are ideologically as close as ass-cheeks with the crazy people in the streets. I have high hopes for Egypt and the Arab Spring as a whole in the long run. but for now the Salafi streak has the control of Egypt and the support of a plurality of the country. It needs to be made clear to them that America will not tolerate attacks on its diplomatic missions.


I bet not a lot of that made sense. I'm just really mad and thinking about it makes me madder.

"Which leads me to believe its not so much one faith is more warlike than another, but that differences in relative affluence, time periods, and culture have led to the common belief that Islam is more warlike."

How do you explain Jains, then? The more of a fundamentalist a Jain is the LESS of a threat he is to anyone or anything else. These people won't even eat things like onions and carrots since little bitty bugs might be killed when the vegetables are taken from the ground.

Islam is not just a religion, it's an all encompassing social system. Remember that Mohammed and the caliphs after him ruled an empire. Literally. Islam was a state. Mohammed commanded armies like an Arab Alexander, and his successors did the same. It's like if the papacy had not just ruled central Italy but directly controlled all of Christendom.

Liberal Muslims find a way to reconcile these facts with modernity and liberal democracy, but the radicals and many "moderates" do not. Just like how Christians moved past religious wars by the nineteenth century or so, so must the Muslims now.

@Gunfighter:

"Obama is more or less completely ignoring an overt act of war against the United States of America. It is a dereliction of duty so obvious, profound and severe that Mitt Romney, as a leading political figure and influential citizen, would be wrong to remain silent. Someone has to say SOMETHING, regardless of what the date is."

I think Obama is trying to maybe, just maybe avoid Tonkin Gulf II?

And again, I don't have a problem with Romney speaking out about it...

But wouldn't you at least agree, again, not for Obama's sake but out of respect for the dead, and their families, and just in the name of our government not fighting ITSELF when its people have been attacked, but showing a unified front as it did for 9/11, just a few measly days of political ceasefire...

Don't you agree THAT would have been better, all around?

Better morally (again, sleazy to try and make political hay out of this with the bodies practically warm)...
Better politically (so we can have a united front from our leaders, if just for a bit)...
And Better for ROMNEY (if he'd waited and then brought this up, in an ad or debate, it could have been a significant blow, but jumping up and down right after a tragedy and trying to take advantage of it and gain from it, without even having the decency to wait a day or two? It makes him look calculating and uncaring, like he doesn't care about those that died so much as the fact he now has a potential new talking point...if he'd waited two days, EVERYONE would still have listened. We'd have listened even MORE since the initial shock of the event would have died down, in fact, and we'd be starting to cope. Instead, he comes off as opportunistic, which doesn't play well with voters. Not saying Obama will play will with voters, but you HAVE to admit...Romney could and should have waited a day or two before whacking the President on this, yes?)

I am in Russia right now, and the response from Russians on THIS is very....strange.

Every damn one wants America to just bomb the hell out of all the Muslims, and said they would support Putin helping..lol What an interesting people Russians are.

Their 'take noshit' attitude probably keeps them safe

You gotta love the Russians. We'd be great friends if we weren't on opposite sides of most major world disputes, because our approach to things is very similar. The average American would probably agree to a "take no shit" attitude as well.

^And they'd be wrong.

It's a tragedy, and we shouldn't take it, and we will respond...

But this "bomb them all" mentality in response is ignorant on so many levels its astonishing.

We don't have the money for another war...
If we fight another desert war it will NOT be quick...
It will lead to even MORE Americans being killed...
Bombing them all unilaterally like that would cede the diplomatic high ground...
It'd kill civilians (I know people may find it hard to believe, but not ALL Muslims did this!)...
It'd risk provoking an even bigger conflict throughout the entire region...
It'd hurt our ties to the region--in a flailing economy, who wants oil prices to go up?

And so on.

WE WILL RESPOND...but cooler heads need to prevail here than the, say, krellin mentality of "Shoot them all and let God sort it out."

After all...that's the attitude of the TERRORISTS right now, kill everyone else and let God/Allah deal with it--do we want to be on the same level as terrorists? That's NOT what our men and women overseas died for...

Obi, I did not say that, I am simply conveying the response of about 200 Russians I have met since the attack, who want to discuss this topic more than I do. Ok|?

My wife is Russian, and so we come here a lot, to visit her family usually.

However, they suffer no such attacks EVER on them, and when they do, their response is usually 10x in violence.

I wasn't directing that last post at you so much as the general sentiment of those people you mentioned, Stressedlines.

(And wow, that must be neat, having a Russian wife and getting to go there...would never want to live there, but I imagine it must be nice to visit for a short stay...)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-19584734

Hundreds of protesters storm the embassy in Yemen, now...

This is going to get worse. :/

Once more, I completely agree with Invictus. And yes, Invictus, your post did make sense. And I will point out that you had very good use of the word "apoplectic"

@ obiwanobiwan

"I think Obama is trying to maybe, just maybe avoid Tonkin Gulf II?"

The difference is that Johnson dove headfirst into a shitstorm involving jungle warfare, a strong insurgency, and no political capital to actually win the war.

A war in Libya would be much more straightforward. America's military is built for desert warfare. We should do in Libya what we should have done in Iraq. Go shock-and-awe on their caveman asses, make them scream for mercy then bring our men home within weeks. We have to send a message that we will no longer tolerate anyone storming our embassies. Send the Marines back to Tripoli.

Gunfighter, that is a great summary of why America is hated the world over.

I just read the post of Invictus. This is what I particularly liked:

"You don't get to kill people because a movie was made somewhere and it pisses you off. Sorry, that's not how civilization works. There should be no excuses made for them. None."

But you do get to invade two large countries, Iraq and Afghanistan, and cause millions of casualties in the process, because some Arabs destroyed two buildings. That's how civilization works. There should be all kinds of excuses made for this. And everyone should believe them.

Arabs don't have such a weak memory as you seem to have, Invictus. Things don't happen only because of what happened yesterday, you know.

I'm amazed at how blind you can be. Americans, I've got news for you: you're at war with the Arab world. You've been at war with it for a decade now. You haven't noticed it only because all the dying is taking place overseas, since they're to weak to retaliate inside the US. Getting incensed at the death of an ambassador? Pretending that everything was all right before that? Don't be so hypocritical, it's repulsive.

Actually, the jihadis declared war on us, in 1979. We just didn't recognize it until 2001.

No, we declared war on them and have been at war with them since at least 1953.