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Akhtar Soomro / Reuters
Protests ignited by a controversial film that ridicules Islam's Prophet Muhammad spread throughout Muslim world.
News analysis
Updated at 7:53 a.m. ET: CAIRO — It's been just over a week since hundreds, perhaps a thousand, angry and offended Egyptians gathered outside the U.S. Embassy's gates in Cairo. They carried Islamist banners and chanted, "The only God is God and Muhammad is his Prophet."
At one point perhaps two dozen of the more brazen protesters scaled the wall and breached the embassy grounds. They lowered and destroyed the U.S. flag and raised a black, Islamic flag in its place. They fled when security guards (not the Egyptian police) fired warning shots over their heads.
This amounted to little violence, but the act itself was the psychological equivalent of taking a beachhead. Within hours reports emerged that a similarly sized group had stormed the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya. Some were calling it a copycat protest, but it was much more perilous: Four Americans were killed in the melee, including the U.S. ambassador.
Within 48 hours the world would witness angry protests unfolding at U.S. embassies, businesses and symbols of power in more than 20 countries.
Protesters scaled the walls of the U.S. Embassy in Cairo and pulled down the American flag during a protest over what they said was a film produced in the United States that insulted the Prophet Muhammad. NBC's Richard Engel reports.
This paroxysm of protest — and violence — had begun in Cairo. But what, really, began there?
Much of the mainstream media has played it as a spontaneous reaction to a disgusting film clip which denigrated Muslims and happened to be made and promoted in the USA.
But New York Times editorialist Ross Douthat argued it had nothing to do with a "genuine popular backlash," but everything to do with old-style power politics. For Jim Clifton, chairman of the pollster Gallup, it wasn't about religion or politics, but rather the desperate expression of young Arab males, deeply humiliated because they couldn't find jobs.
'Political manipulation'
Egyptian analysts seem to be more in agreement: Many protesters outside the U.S. Embassy were genuinely offended by the film. But the real driving force behind the protest — in Cairo and Benghazi — were radical Islamist groups who know how to exploit rage for political gain.
Actors and the assistant director of the film "Innocence of Muslims" told NBC News that the original spoken lines in the screenplay were dubbed over without their knowledge. NBC's Mike Taibbi reports.
"There are still a lot of questions that need to be answered," said Mona Eltahawy, an Egyptian journalist. "For instance, why after two months of being on YouTube did this film suddenly explode on the anniversary of 9/11? That is political manipulation and manufactured outrage that the right wing is all too happy to use.''
Egypt issues arrest warrants for Terry Jones, Coptic Christians over anti-Islam video
By "right-wing" Eltahawy means ultra conservatives – often called Salafists – who practice a strict, puritanical form of Islam and make up the fastest-growing Islamic political and social movement in the world. On the night of the Cairo embassy attacks, the Salafists saw an opportunity to flex their muscles.
"A lot of people went to the U.S. Embassy not just because of the film, and after the film died down, it wasn't about the film anymore," Eltahawy explained. "They went because of anti-U.S. sentiment, because they know in this region how easy it is to fan the flames of anger."
French officials are preparing for a potential violent backlash as a satirical magazine defends its decision to publish cartoons mocking the Prophet Muhammad. NBC's Michelle Kosinski reports.
Dr. Gamal Abdel Gawad, a highly respected Egyptian political analyst, agrees.
"I don't think it was spontaneous," he told NBC News. "People were gathering in one place at a certain time of day, so there was some mobilization behind it.''
Actress sues, says she was fooled into appearing in anti-Muslim movie
And it's clear to Gawad who did the mobilizing. "Radical Salafist groups orchestrated it to express their views and embarrass the [more moderate] Muslim Brotherhood because of competition between Islamic groups."
Post Arab-Spring power play
What's enfolding in Egypt – and to a large extent in Libya — is not just a series of isolated power plays. In both countries the leaders who emerged from the Arab Spring are struggling to eke out a political center in order to govern their new democracies, while under extreme pressure from more radical Islamist — sometimes jihadist — forces. Everything is still at stake.
This has led some Egyptians — like Eltahawy — to worry that their 18-month-old revolution will be hijacked by the extremists.
"I'm hoping that this right-wing drive of the past days is the dying pangs of a group that understands that the revolution was started by us, the majority, and we remain very much the majority."
Crowds of angry protesters showed up in Kabul, Afghanistan and Jakarta, Indonesia. The violent uprising followed a deadly weekend marking the deaths of eight International Security Assistance Force members. NBC's Atia Abawi reports.
Gawad is more sanguine about the future. "The revolution is over. The president is in power, and Egyptian political parties are busy preparing for elections and campaigns. The radical groups can't get significant numbers elected," he said. Still, as dramatic scenes over the past week have shown, those groups — often armed — can wreak havoc.
Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi seemed to give ground to the Salafists, even leaving the country at the height of a standoff between stone-throwing protesters and riot police for diplomatic meetings abroad.
Finally, last Saturday, he gave the order to clear out the protesters and appeared on TV calling on Muslims to protect foreign citizens and property. Some called it a turning point.
Now that a Paris-based satirical magazine has published cartoons of a naked Prophet Muhammad, will Egyptians respond with silent indignation, peaceful marches or be the first to storm their French Embassy?
Jim Maceda is an NBC News foreign correspondent based in London and currently on assignment in Cairo. He has covered the Middle East since the 1970s.
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Leave a Comment:
The administration failed to act, blood is on their hands.
people go get job,straight your life,instead of posting stupid comments,son u wont have noting to eat.
Zidri - I don't have to work. Loaded retired liberal. One of the 1 percent...
You will after obama redistributes your pension and 401k.
Muslims live in a complete fantasy world. They might as well join Scientology.
The picture of the Muslim with the head band; "my life for Mohammed" brings to mind Stephen King's "The Stand" where Trashcan Man is all ate up by radiation...rolling into town with a nuke..."my life for you." We are living our own REAL Stephen King thriller; soon to be named....The Last Stand.
We should give back double in return a two for one. Islam = Religious Rabies
It's not about the damn video. It's about whatever subject the radical Muslims want it to be this week, and anything they can do to humiliate the west, they will try and do. The ONE THING that keeps the Muslims going is the damn MEDIA and their cameras at every protest. Just keep the media and the cameras away and there will be little reason to protest. Of course, the radicals seem to have their own camera crews who always know when and where the riots are going to take place. Our White House needs to send a stern message to these countries by stopping all foreign aid immediately until those countries actually DO SOMETHING to corral the radicals. Beyond that, it is business as usual for the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
Like I said yesterday, this stuff has been happening for bout 60 years and it always ends the same. In a few more years it'll happen again and go away. it always does. I've seen it happen several time in my life time, I guess that I've become immune to it and just shrug it off.
Anyone with the slightest amount of common sense already knew this, is this administration really that short sighted. Buy the way it's been a week now and what has dear leader done, more lip service. I think someone should send him a Websters and highlight leadership because he apparently doesn't know what that is.
Just think if we had muslim law in the USA. Ladies coverup from head to toe. You are not equal to men and must obey them or you will be legally beaten. Equal rights and equal pay are nonexistant issues. Women are to be seen completely covered up and not heard from. Hummm Islam isn't all that bad after all. Let's work on President, congressman and senator al Hussein.
But we do have some areas in the US in which some, mainly civil type, issues are handed over for determination via Sharia. We have had judges in the US reference Sharia and foreign national law in their decision papers.
I have only seen 1 such case just recently and that makes me wonder about the judge and it was a piddly thing and he may have done it that way to keep the peace. Judges do have a lot of latitude in certain cases.
Anywhere Islamic law and American law conflict, it's American law that has to give way. Sharia is completely incompatible with our freedoms and American jurisprudence.
There are many cases of US Judges ruling that Islamic Sharia law is to take precedence over US Law...Judges such as the ignorant Leftist Oklahoma judge, Vicki Miles-LaGrange, who bought Hamas-linked CAIR's deceptive line that Sharia was just private religious law, and ruled against the will of the people,... you see the people of Oklahoma had just voted by 70 percent to not allow Sharia law to judge cases in Oklahoma...
And then there was Pennsylvania judge Mark Martin (who is a Muslim). who threw out an assault case against Muslims who had assaulted a man wearing a Mohammad costume in a parade..(this judge should have been impeached for favoring Islamic law over US law)...judge Martin said:
"Our forefathers intended that we use the first amendment so that we could speak what's on our mind, not piss off other cultures..... Islam is not just a religion, it's their culture, their culture, the very essence, their very being. They pray five times a day, towards Mecca. To be a good Muslim before you die, you have to make a pilgrimage to Mecca unless you are otherwise told you cannot because you are too ill, too elderly, whatever, you must make the attempt. Their greetings salum alaikum waliakum as-salm )as answered by voice), uh may god be with you. It is very common, their language, when they are speaking to each other, it is very common for them to say, uh allah willing, this will happen. It's they are so immersed in it. And what you've done is you've completey trashed their essence, their being. They find it very, very, very offensive. I am a Muslim. I find it very offensive ..... You are way outside your bounds of first amendment rights."(minute 31)
and then there was the case of the Somali woman who was on trial in Minnesota for terrorist charges
The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in a ruling Monday, June 4, threw out 19 of 20 contempt citations that Chief U.S. District Judge Michael Davis had levied against Amina Farah Ali because she wouldn’t rise when court was called to order.
On the first day of her trial on charges of raising money for the terrorist group al-Shabaab, Ali ignored Davis’ order to rise, telling him she interpreted Islamic teachings to mean she didn’t have to stand for anybody.
The judge disagreed, saying that rising was a show of respect to the legal process and that court “decorum” demanded she stand.
But the appeals court said that Ali’s refusal “was rooted in her sincerely held religious beliefs,” and that Davis was wrong not to consider those before he found her in contempt and sentenced her to 100 days in jail.
And then there was the judge in Florida who allow Islamic law to take precedence over US Law...
Circuit Court Judge Richard A. Nielsen ordered earlier this month that a civil dispute between current and former leaders of a local mosque over who controls funds awarded during a 2008 eminent domain proceeding be decided under “Ecclesiastical Islamic Law.”
Islam and Creeping Sharia law should not be allowed to start to over rule US laws...under any circumstances...
And why was it so easy to "fan the flames of anger?" Peaceful religion, my foot.
Right and sports fans don't Clobber one another, enjoying their favorite past time. YEA.
Sport fans don't carry RPGs and Ak7s nor do they rape and murder the ones they don't like...And sport fan don't spout off religious rhetoric or religion inspired slogans...Sport fans tempers and bad behaviour simply do not compare to pious Muslims on a rampage...
NBC decided to delete my post because they are obviously afraid of someone having the nuts to talk bad about Allah. I AM AN AMERICAN. I HAVE FREE SPEECH, but apparently NBC, of all tings the media, decided to mute my words by deleting them. NBC, YOU ARE COWARDS, unlike me who will NEVER back down to a muslim and will speak my mind freely without FEAR. ALLAH, MUSLIMS and NBC are all trash as far as I am concerned.
You don't realize Free Speach does have its limits to. The problem lays in the fact that you don;t know where it ends. I bet you get your butt kicked in bars a lot. One thing about peoplee like you is you never tell why to the point that people understand why from the other side. just your side.
Fallacious and fraudulent arguments presented by a backward people. Confusion of correlation and causation of the Quran. Full of hidden corruption and criminality. Muslim religion and practice are crimes against mankind.
The Islamic extremists, the salafis, run on pride and hatred. Like any bully, the more attention you give them, the more you fuel the fire. The best thing is to ignore them, and to stop running news stories on them and their violence.
But the US media HAS to run it to promote the narrative that America and only America is responsible for all things bad since the appearance of humans on the planet - and perhaps before. This is what Obama wants and his propaganda arm will deliver
Ignore them, NO! Keep your friends close and your Enamies closer, but don't publisize nothing.
Much of the mainstream media has played it as a spontaneous reaction to a disgusting film clip.......AND NBC LEAD THE CHARGE TO COVER OBAMA'S REAR END.
Why is our president trying to release the Blind Sheik to Egypt?!
He supports those who ultimate goal is to destroy America..such as the Muslim Brotherhood
An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Brotherhood in North America
by Mohamed Akram
May 19, 1991
View the full document
Summary:
This May 1991 memo was written by Mohamed Akram, a.k.a. Mohamed Adlouni, for the Shura Council of the Muslim Brotherhood. In the introductory letter, Akram referenced a "long-term plan…approved and adopted" by the Shura Council in 1987 and proposed this memo as a supplement to that plan and requested that the memo be added to the agenda for an upcoming Council meeting. Appended to the document is a list of all Muslim Brotherhood organizations in North America as of 1991.
Notable quotes:
Enablement of Islam in North America, meaning: establishing an effective and stable Islamic Movement led by the Muslim Brotherhood which adopts Muslims' causes domestically and globally, and which works to expand the observant Muslim base, aims at unifying and directing Muslims' efforts, presents Islam as a civilization alternative, and supports the global Islamic state, wherever it is.
In order for Islam and its Movement to become "a part of the homeland" in which it lives, "stable" in its land, "rooted" in the spirits and minds of its people, "enabled" in the live [sic] of its society and has firmly-established "organizations" on which the Islamic structure is built and with which the testimony of civilization is achieved, the Movement must plan and struggle to obtain "the keys" and the tools of this process in carry [sic] out this grand mission as a "Civilization Jihadist" responsibility which lies on the shoulders of Muslims and – on top of them – the Muslim Brotherhood in this country.
The process of settlement is a "Civilization-Jihadist Proecess" with all the word means. The Ikhwan must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and "sabotaging" its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions. Without this level of understanding, we are not up to this challenge and have not prepared ourselves for Jihad yet. It is a Muslim's destiny to perform Jihad and work wherever he is and wherever he lands until the final hour comes, and there is no escape from that destiny except for those who chose to slack. But, would the slackers and the Mujahedeen be equal.
By promoting the Islamic movement on such a wide variety of fronts, the
Brotherhood and its allies could multiply exponentially their influence. Toward
that end, the Akram/Brotherhood "Explanatory
Memorandum" named the following 29 groups as the organizations they believed
could collaborate effectively to destroy America from within – "if they all
march according to one plan":
Islamic Society of North America
(ISNA)
ISNA Fiqh Committee (now known as
the Fiqh Council of North America)
ISNA Political Awareness Committee
Muslim Youth of North America
Muslim Students Association of the
U.S. and Canada
Association of Muslim Scientists and
Engineers
Islamic Medical Association (of
North America)
Islamic Teaching Center
Malaysian Islamic Study Group
Foundation for International
Development
North American Islamic Trust
Islamic Centers Division
American Trust Publications
Audio-Visual Center
Islamic Book Service
Islamic Circle of North America
Muslim Arab Youth Association
Islamic Association for Palestine
United Association for Studies and
Research
International Institute of Islamic
Thought
Muslim Communities Association
Association of Muslim Social
Scientists (of North America)
Islamic Housing Cooperative
Muslim Businessmen Association
Islamic Education Department
Occupied Land Fund (later known as
the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and
Development)
Mercy International Association
Baitul Mal Inc.
Islamic Information Center (of
America)
By setting up these many front groups, the Muslim
Brotherhood was emulating the Communist
Party tactic of creating interlocking front groups during the Cold War in order
to confuse its enemies and make it more difficult to combat.
No, really? Manufactured "rage"? Radical jihadists manipulating and orchestrating the 'stage'? Perish the thought
Guess those ratical islamist groups learned well when they were working with the CIA and MOSSOD.
"This amounted to little violence, but the act itself was the psychological equivalent of taking a beachhead."
" Many protesters outside the U.S. Embassy were genuinely offended by the film. But the real driving force behind the protest – in Cairo and Benghazi – were radical Islamist groups who know how to exploit rage for political gain."
Thank you, EBC - Editorial Broadcast Corp,
The Libyan Government contradicts the Obama administration. Who should we believe?
I just love this! I get to burn a couple of more Korans in with my garbage.
With this latest burn of the American flag, we should see pictures soon of Obama on his knees begging forgiveness for Americans free speech and promising to put a stop to it at all costs, even if it means having the FBI arrest a film maker.
And here Obama's administration stated it was spontaneous and not to believe the information that it was planned. Who would of ever thought he would lie to the people?
lol
I'm against the film because it is a crappy film....
if you are taught what they are taught we would act the same ... the problem is what they are taught ..it is next to impossible to un-teach them .... so drop the A BOMB on em .... no prob...
I really don't think it's that hard to understand. Alqaeda gets ahold of the video... decides they will use this on 09/11 by having it dispursed for many muslims to see right before 09/11 and push to have everyone demonstrate at the embassies around their world as a way of creating a diversion for their assasination plot. We have a commander in chief that thinks he can change their actions and views and it just will not happen. They have been fighting for many generations and it simply will not stop. Our commander in chief has assisted in the change in governments in Egypt and Libya and now we are introduced to more extremist muslims running these countries. We now are finding out the mastermind of this assasination was LET OUT OF GITMO IN 2007... YES THAT WAS IN THE BUSH YEARS.. LIBYA had him in their prisons on a commitment that he would remain in jail for life for BOMBING the twin towers in 1993. Our trust of these countries promises to detain terrorists are not worth anything and we have let him accomplish more killing. Now last week our commander in chief appointed TONY WEST to the position of associate attorney general of the Department of Justice which make him 3rd in command of the DOJ !!! To explain .. this is the attorney that defends terrorists... currently he is defending John Walker Lindh ... the radical muslim PUKE who killed many of our guys in the military here on a U.S. military base .. his own commrades... while our military REFUSED to search into him while they knew he was in conversation with Alqaeda's #2 in command because he was an easterer and we didn't want to offend him. West even had him grow a beard so he could try to delay the court case !!! This is the guy this commander in chief wants defending our country? I am not trying to defend anyone here ... Our current president needs removed NOW... This is not about the economy folks... this is about us remaining a free country. We are on the brink of losing our ability to remain a safe country. There are good / bad in both the main parties ... not alot !!! but some.. We are in desperate need of a commander in chief that will make this country respected again.. we are going the wrong way.
Is this like the feigned outrage from the christian reichwing anytime they think someone is dissing their silly religion or beliefs?