Comments about ‘Christine M. Flowers: Seeds of the Arab Spring might be blooming into flowers of evil’

Unbelievable!! The deliberate continued spread of misinformation for political gain is pathetic.

Let me reiterate AGAIN what happened.

The embassy in Cairo released a statement concerning a video made in the US which they knew would offend Muslims.
They tried to head off possible violence.
The statement was made BEFORE the attack.
Before the Embassy was stormed.
And Before anyone was killed.

Anyone who reads the statement withing the context and timeline would be hard pressed to disagree with it in the context and timeline.

This article however claims "Here is what appeared on the State Department website hours after hostile and deliberate....."

Ms Flowers is either intentionally or ignorantly perpetuating a false notion. After a couple of days, one must believe that it is intentional.

It is sad enough to use this incident for political gain.
It is even worse to distort the truth and intentionally mislead the American public for political gain.

from the article "When I read this, I couldn't believe my eyes."

I can finally agree with your Ms Flowers. And you should be ashamed of yourself.

Same goes to the Deseret news for carrying a blatantly misleading article.

Who knows how the Middle East countries will go, but in my mind, they should be given the right of self-determination and the U.S. should stop imposing our will on other nations. We need to wake up to the principle of nationalism as we deal with other nations. In the end, the home team will always win, just as we did against a powerful Britain in the American Revolution. It is one thing to contain, but quite another to overly intervene in the internal affairs of others. Acting on behalf of big oil, like we did in Iran in the early 1950s may provide short term gain, but long term pain. And a little more tolerance from the religious right would go a long way in helping. Some suggest that a lot of this is really based in the Israel question. Our position is clear on the existence of Israel. But the Israelis could do more to ameliorate the situation. Until the Palestinian people have hope and respect, the conflict will never go away. We need to take more responsibility for our actions rather than acting indignant because others don't bow to our whims.

The article was right on. It's not about oil, movies, forcing our will, it's about religion.
it has been for centuries over there.
And if you don't wake up, you'll be next.

There are 10's of thousands of people here that joined the military here after 9/11 based on thier religious beliefs. They then went and killed thousands of people and blew up entire cities.

I still have to find anyone that claims they would sit idle while a muslim army invaded the US, surrounded our natural resources, installed a puppet government and then refused to leave. I am sacastically sure the t-party would stand dowm.

Go ahead, who would actually do what you expect the people of the middle east to do after we occupied thier countries, blocked thier trade with the world and called them extremeists for wanted us to leave?

"The article was right on. It's not about oil, movies, forcing our will, it's about religion.
it has been for centuries over there. "

I completely agree that this is about religion. However the premise of this article was WRONG.
Fine, So lets talk about the real issue - Religion.

Instead we spend so much time talking about things that did not occur.

And, let me be the first to say that IF, the embassy statement was the first thing released AFTER the attack, I would wholeheartedly agree with the premise.

But it wasn't. It was an attempt to diffuse a volatile situation before it escalated to violence.

When did that become a bad thing? Otherwise, we end up "shooting first and aiming later"

The risks and rewards of free agency...

The folks in the ME have choice now. They can choose who will lead their country. The USA has no right to interfere or choose their leaders for them.

You are either for free market, the Arab Spring, and free agency, or not.

If America is truly for free market and free agency values, then we must let these ME countries decide. Of course, we cannot control the consequences. If the ME decides on radicalism or punk leaders, then that's their decisions.

When will we learn that we cannot force our ideals and our form of government onto other countries?

let them, the ME, decide their own fate...

DAVE IN NC
HOPE MILLS, NC
The article was right on. It's not about oil, movies, forcing our will, it's about religion.
it has been for centuries over there.

==========

Christians, Jews and Muslims lived together in Jerusalem in Peace and Harmony for nearly 2,000 years.

It wasn't until the Europeans and their crusades in the 11th century,
and again the invasions of the English and Frence Empires of the 1800's [see Napoleon and the Arab battle with the Turks concluding with the fall of the Ottoman Empire] that trouble started anew.

The arab alliiance with Nazi Germnay pre-WWII, and their close knitt ties to the Prescott Bush and his Standard Oil and the Rockefeller empires during that time didn't help in the poll of public opinion to this very day.

Yemen shot some of the protesters while defending the US embassy. Libya has already arrested 4 and has had citizens take the streets to voice their support for the US and give their condolences for the fallen. Egyptian security forces helped prevent that embassy from suffering any casualties. These attacks are by radicals, but those radicals do not represent the entirety or even the majority of the people in these nations.

The older I get, the more true John Lennon becomes --

Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today...

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one

Religion? Since when was meddling in the operation of other sovereign nations "religion"?

Obama meddled in the Mid-East. He encouraged the overthrown of sovereign governments. He sent Hillary to encourage the people of those countries to rise up against their leaders. He succeeded in getting Americans killed. Now he and Eric Holder want to pass the buck to the movie maker who used his freedom of speech to produce a movie.

He and he alone is responsible for the results of his meddling.

He must be the only person in this entire world who thinks that "Chicago Politics" allows him to dictate to sovereign heads of state how they should operate their governments.

He has brought this attack on sovereign American soil. He is responsible for the death those Americans.

His duties do NOT include being king of the world.

LDS Liberal:

I'm curious when you think that this alleged 2000 years of peace and harmony happened between the Jews and Muslims. Before Christ there was pretty much always some sort of conflict. After Christ, the Muslims expelled the Jews from living in muslim "Holy Lands" in 641AD due to the (sometimes disputed) uttering of the prophet: "Let there not be two religions in Arabia" (see "History of the Jews under Muslim rule" in Wikipedia), and this is just one instance that I could quickly find.

There is a vast difference between condemning an irresponsible video and violating the First Amendment. The Embassy's statement that they condemn this video is something that I hope all reasonable people will agree with. The video is contemptible! It would be just as easy to make a video portraying Joseph Smith as a philanderer and child molester, and we all would be rightfully offended. A statement that a video is contemptible, even if made by a government official, is not a call to prohibit the video. It is not a First Amendment violation.

When the American Nazi party marches in the Jewish community of Skokie, Illinois, and the mayor of Skokie denounces them, it is not a violation of their First Amendment rights. It only becomes a violation when he asks the police to stop the march.

Likewise, when the U.S. Embassy correctly describes the video as an abuse of the right of free speech, this only becomes a violation of the First Amendment if steps are taken to prohibit the video.

A disagreement with a particular point of view is not a violation of free speech. Quite the opposite, it is an example of free speech.

Anyone how believes this whole thing is over the video is a fool. The video has been available since June, but the jihadists waited until the anniversary of 9/11. The nature and coordination of the attacks in Libya are proof it was a planned terrorist attack and BO is playing politics and trying to cover himself saying it was just an angry mob. Al Jazeera is complicit in the attacks and they are a tool of al queada. Why do the devout muslims not attack al Jazeera for airing the offensive video?

Esquire,
We should also stop sending our money to them. Can you get your boy BO to go along with that? I don’t think so, how can he continue his course of muslim appeasement if he does so?

Screwdriver,
You are REALLY comparing a democratically elected republic (US) with a totalitarian state run by thugs and murderers (Iraq)? REALLY???

Henderson,
the folks in the ME have as much “choice” in choosing their leaders as I do of choosing the Canadian Prime Minister.

@lost in DC
So do you think maybe there is some reason the US sends the governments of these middle east countries money besides appeasement? the overly simplistic rhetoric coming from the right shows why they have no business trying to handle international affairs.

Phranc,

Nice spin! Congratulations on your amazing ability to contort what I said. Did you take creative writing courses in school? if not, you truly wasted your talents! Either that or your reading comprehension needs considerable work - but I'll be charitable and assume the former.

sending money is only ONE of BO's appeasement tools - and foreign aid IS used for purposes other than appeasement. But yes, it use very useful in appeasement.

Mohammad born around 570 and 600 years later the 11 century crusades took place. Muslims were at war in the Arab–Byzantine Wars from 600 ad to around 1200 ad. The Crusades were a result of East European Christians requesting assistance in stopping the advance of Arab armies. Jerusalem surrendered and was an occupied state beginning in 638 ad. Arab armies had also conquered Persia, Syria and Egypt in the same time frame. Occupation does not equate to peaceful coexistence.