US envoy’s assassination in Libya and demonstrations across the Arab world

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/revealed-inside-story-of-us-envoys-assassination-8135797.html

The point of embassies and diplomacy is to maintain relations between states and governments, even in a time of ubiquitous, instant telecommunications. The whole point of attacking embassies is to make civilised relations impossible, to take control of a country and introduce a theocratic regime. Nazi Germany and Stalin’s Soviet Union, in all their manifestations of unspeakable barbarity, somehow respected embassies and humanitarian, neutral institutions like the Red Cross, which worked across borders among the warring states. The new barbarians specifically target diplomats and embassies, humanitarian organizations and workers, attempting to bring about the end of all human relations, to be replaced by total submission to their religion. A religion subject only to their interpretation, to the exclusion of all other interpretations or shades of meaning, without even talking of other religions or political systems. We are facing barbarians who will stop at nothing to promote their brand of phanaticism, and we are armed only with reason – it’s a long, tough war.

It’s idiots being manipulated by criminals. How many of the violent protesters have seen the video? Actually, how many people have seen the video in question? And who cares about the stupid video in the first place? Since when are Danish newspapers read so widely in the Muslim world that the populace goes on the rampage because of a drawing in one of them? Let’s stop pretending that theres is any logic in these protests – it’s all about hurling masses of screaming idiots against the west, whatever the reason or lack of reason. Shouldn’t there be a groundswell in the Muslim world, with the intelligent people speaking up to say that the crazies are not speaking in their name? Of course, nobody wants to be murdered, so they prefer to keep quiet, signalling to the world at large that they agree, whether they want it or not.

Why can’t people just live their lives, without looking to the sky for problems they don’t have? Life is complicated enough without throwing in true and false prophets and prophecies. How about getting on with one’s life, working and not causing damage to others? Do we need to die in a messy way to be heroes? Isn’t it heroic enough to get on with life day by day? If you can’t wait to die and profit from the benefits your style of paradise offers, why don’t you do it with like-minded fellows and let the rest of us get on with our lives? Now, bugger off and let us enjoy life, thanks.

Obviously hatred and invective are the only argument for some. Which feeds yet more hatred and invective. Refuse any rational argument, refuse humanity and you have the solution to all problems. Trouble is, it only generates more problems, instead of solving olde ones, which go on festering.

When people react predictably and irrationally to even the slightest hint of disrespect for their beliefs, it’s so easy to manipulate them. Grow up, get a life, stop jumping at every idiotic provocation – you are being manipulated by criminals and you are walking right into it.

Governments, in democratic societies, have nothing to do with this. That’s a basic misunderstanding. Religion and state are nicely separated and you can practice any religion you want or none at all, respect them all or not and it’s your private business. We like it this way and we are ready to go a long way to defend our way of life, in which religion is the private business of an individual. And we don’t have newspaper censorship, so that people can publish material, even offensive and nobody will stop them. And if a journalist breaks the law, there is a judicial process for that, not a lynch mob. I know it may be hard to believe, but people in the US are more religious than in other western countries. And freedom of thought and religion is at the very base of western society, not just in the US. Those who don’t like it, shouldn’t even think of living in the western world. And, believe it or not, nobody gets condemned to death for apostasy or being an atheist. We used to do that hundreds of years ago, but we’ve evolved and we don’t want to go back, thank you.

If a group of people is ready to go on the rampage at the slightest hint of provocation – be it an obscure Danish newspaper, an even more obscure video or whatever else, you should wonder at their intelligence and motivation. Don’t tell me that Christians or Jews would go crazy about this kind of thing, because it happens every day: people may be offended or upset, but you don’t see mobs going on the rampage, burning and killing with abandon. Christianity has always been a religion of peace, which did not stop the Inquisition or countless religious wars between different sects and interpretations of each aspect of its creed – but that was a while ago and we’ve grown up. It’s no use repeating the tired mantra that Islam is a religion of peace – that’s not what we see every single day: go out and prove it by stopping the crazy and murderous among you, by telling them and us that they don’t speak in your name and that you will not tolerate it. When, occasionally, nutcase ministers preach hate and perform stunts like Koran burning, they don’t do it in the name of Christianity or even Protestantism and you don’t see throngs filling every square and killing and burning every infidel they can find. Their calls fall on death ears, which is the best way of dealing with idiots.

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