Al Qaeda Urges Muslims to Kill U.S. Diplomats Over Film

     Unfortunately, what's happening is that extremists are using this film as a pretext for more violence. Note, however, that the film's creators wanted this. This is the result they say they wanted. They think it makes Islam look bad but they don't think that by this logic we could say their conduct makes Christians look bad.

     "The Yemen-based branch of al Qaeda urged Muslims to step up protests and kill more U.S. diplomats in Muslim countries after a U.S.-made film mocking the Prophet Mohammad which it said was another chapter in the "crusader wars" against Islam."

      "Whoever comes across America's ambassadors or emissaries should follow the example of Omar al-Mukhtar's descendants (Libyans), who killed the American ambassador," the group said, referring to Tuesday's attack on the U.S. consulate in the Libyan city of Benghazi.

       "Let the step of kicking out the embassies be a step towards liberating Muslim countries from the American hegemony," a statement posted on an Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) website on Saturday said.

        http://news.yahoo.com/al-qaeda-yemen-urges-muslims-kill-u-diplomats-070834271.html

        "The film published in America which insults our Prophet Mohammad, peace be upon him, comes as part of the continuing crusader wars against Islam," AQAP's statement said, referring to European wars in the region some 1,000 years ago."

"The incident is so huge that the resources of the nation should be pooled together to kick out the embassies of America from Muslim lands," it said.

AQAP, mostly militants mainly from Yemen and Saudi Arabia, is regarded by the United States as the most dangerous branch of the network founded by Osama bin Laden.

     One big problem is that a lot of people in Middle Eastern countries can't imagine that the U.S. government had no hand in this film. They imagine that the creators would at the minimum had to have gotten "clearance" for such an undertaking. 

      It's important though to understand that this attitude is not the belief of most of the Muslim people or even most of the protesters who are being co-opted by Al Qaeda. 

      When you think about it, the Right wing is the problem-in all countries. In our country we have Mitt Romney trying to take our country back to the failed gunboat diplomacy of George W. Bush-Romney also seems to miss the Cold War. They try to tell us that the President's policies have failed and that we should have stood by Mubarak and tried to prop him up against the will of the Egyptian people.

       In the Muslim countries, extremist clerics want people to turn on the Arab Spring and turn to terrorism and reaction. What we need is for the people in all countries each to defeat their own Right wing.  The progressive elements on countries like Libya, Egypt, and Yemen are as opposed to Al Qaeda as folks like us were opposed to George W. Bush and oppose Mitt Romney.

      Let us hope that the cooler heads will prevail in Libya, Egypt, Yemen, and elsewhere soon.