Yesterday angry
protesters scaled the walls of the U.S. Embassy in Cairo on the 11th
anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, tore down the American flag, and held up
shredded bits of it to television camera crews. Welcome to the new democratic
Egypt, a product of the glorious, Obama-inspired Arab Spring which sent so many
thrills up the collective leg of the mainstream media.
The embassy had been cleared of diplomatic personnel earlier
that day, ahead of the imminent threat. Shots were fired (by whom it isn’t
clear) as a large crowd gathered around the compound. Egyptian police and army
personnel attempted to prevent the demonstrators from advancing farther, but
not before the protesters planted the black flag of Islam atop a ladder inside
the embassy. On it was lettering that read, “There is no God but Allah and
Mohammad is his messenger,” the profession of Muslim faith.
The demonstration was apparently in protest
of a film which the crowd deemed insulting to their prophet Mohammed. It was
unclear which film upset them – in fact, it’s probably unclear even to the
protesters, who rarely need a specific reason to become insanely offended and rampage
through the streets. Some took the opportunity to express their perceived grievances
over U.S. policy, with the usual chanting of anti-American slogans. It’s
difficult to imagine what they have to complain about where Obama’s America is
concerned, since our President actively assisted the Muslim Brotherhood’s rise
to power there and just signed off on a $1 billion aid package to the new
regime.
Al-Zawahiri added that “the film portrays the prophet in a
very ugly manner, alluding to topics like sex, which is not acceptable.” Sex,
eh? Perhaps he’s referring to his prophet Mohammed’s marriage consummation with
a nine-year-old, which would indeed be an ugly – yet truthful – portrayal. No
wonder the crowd is upset – unlike a film about Christianity’s Jesus, a film
that depicts Islam’s model for the perfect man in an historically accurate
manner wouldn’t paint their religion in a very flattering light.
“I just want to say,” al-Zawahiri went on, “how would the
Americans feel if films insulting leading Christian figures like the pope or
historical figures like Abraham Lincoln were produced?”
The answer is that films insulting Christians and American
historical figures are produced almost nonstop in the entertainment biz, and
Americans don’t form spit-flecked, bloodthirsty mobs to storm Hollywood studios
and threaten Bill
Maher with death. Christians and patriotic Americans are routinely insulted
in pop culture and most don’t even bother to shoot off an irate email to a TV
network. But of course al-Zawahiri wasn’t expecting empathy; these mobs don’t
want our respect – they want our submission.
And they got it. How did U.S. embassy officials respond to
this unacceptable behavior? First they issued a warning to Americans in Egypt,
telling them to avoid the demonstrations because “clashes may occur.” Note the
neutrality and moral equivalence of the word “clashes,” which suggests equal
aggression from both sides, when in fact one side is peaceful and civilized,
and the other becomes savagely violent at the drop of an imaginary hat.
Next, the U.S. Embassy issued a stern condemnation – of the
filmmakers and their free speech. It stated that it “condemns the continuing
efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims – as
we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions.” So the official
stance of our government is that the filmmakers – and bear in mind that it’s
unclear who the filmmakers are or even that this supposedly offensive film
exists – are misguided and intentionally offending Muslims, and they are the ones responsible for the
barbaric behavior of the rioters, not the rioters themselves.
“Respect for religious beliefs is a cornerstone of American
democracy,” the Embassy statement continued. Sadly, this kind of platitude is
always trotted out in defense of the hair-trigger feelings of murderous Muslims
but never for the members of any other faith group – largely because no other
faith group ever needs placating like Muslims. “We firmly reject the actions by
those who abuse the universal right of free speech to hurt the religious
beliefs of others.” Apparently our own embassy is confused about the definition
of free speech, a freedom which is meaningless unless it is protected from
people who claim that it “offends” them.
This is craven dhimmitude, pure and simple. When our own
embassy in Cairo is under assault; the American flag is torn down and shredded,
and another raised in its place; and our official response is to leap to the
defense of the delicate sensibilities of the fanatics storming our embassy,
then we are no longer a beacon of freedom and human rights in a dark land. We
are appeasers and collaborators in their totalitarianism.
After the Egyptian election victory of Muslim Brotherhood
candidate Mohammed
Morsi (a man who vowed that
under his leadership, Egyptian law would be “the sharia, then the sharia, and
finally, the sharia”) Obama congratulated him by underscoring “that the United
States will continue to… stand by the Egyptian people as they fulfill the
promise of their revolution.” With events like Tuesday’s assault on our Embassy
in Cairo, we are seeing that revolution beginning to be fulfilled in the birth
of a new Iran in the Middle East, as we saw it fulfilled there in 1979.
(This article originally appeared here on FrontPage Mag, 9/13/12)
