Innocence of Muslims?

The riots in the Muslim world in the past couple of weeks, besides being tragic for the damage and harm they've caused, have been a very interesting peek into social, psychological, and political study.

I do a LOT of current events reading, and I do a LOT of study usually before I end up writing any of my blog posts, in order to make sure I get the facts right. I have always believed that you cannot have a solid position on something unless you've actually taken the time to study it. If you have not studied something, then making any sort of claim about it is akin to a blind man trying to explain the colours of a rainbow. Political issues are rife with such blind "prophets" telling other people what to believe and why, but the true test of accuracy is not found in belief, but rather, in hard facts and actual truth.

Attack On US Embassy Pre-Planned

Muslims have been rioting across the globe since September 11 when a group of Muslims (evidence strongly suggests that these were mostly militia terrorists affiliated with Al-Qaeda) attacked the US embassy in Libya, killing 4 people and injuring dozens others. One of the people killed was the US ambassador to the region. The attack included the use of mortars and rocket propelled grenades and many witnesses and high ranking officials within and around the area have made it very clear that the bulk of the people involved in the attack were linked to terrorist groups. What's unsettling is that evidence also strongly suggests that the US government had plenty of warning in advance that this attack was coming. This entire incident was a pre-planned terrorist attack purposely intended to coincide with the September 11 date of the World Trade Center terrorist attack in the USA that killed 3000 people in September 11 2001.

I had a person respond to a previous blog post I made about this stuff telling me that the attack in Libya and the riots had nothing at all to do with the September 11 terrorist attacks. Sorry, that's definitely wrong. The attacks were well planned in advance and purposely carried out on September 11.

USA Today: Deadly Embassy Attacks Were Days In The Making

Days of planning and online promotion by hard-line Islamist leaders helped whip up the mobs that stormed the U.S. Embassy in Egypt and launched a deadly attack on the U.S. Embassy in Libya that killed an ambassador and three others.

 Anderson Cooper, CNN: US Warned of Threats

Libyan officials say they warned the U.S. about the growing extremist presence three days before the U.S. Consulate attack that killed four Americans including Ambassador Chris Stevens in Benghazi. CNN's Arwa Damon reports.

 Libyan President: No Doubt Attack Planned

Libya President Mohamed Yousef El-Magariaf said Sunday that 50 arrests have been made in connection with last week's "preplanned" attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi that left U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans dead.

CBN News: Preplanned Attack Or Spontaneous Riot?

The president of Libya said he believes al Qaeda is responsible for the deadly attack at the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi.

The USA has from the beginning officially stated that this was a random riot instigated by a film trailer that insulted Islam, however a huge bulk of evidence that has been piling up since the original attacks on September 11 have made it pretty clear that this was all planned well in advance of September 11 by terrorists. In fact, the personal journal of the US Ambassador to Libya even makes it clear that he was getting very concerned with the recent increases in threats and was asking for more security because he feared something might be coming in connection to September 11. Currently, the US government still says it believes the attacks were spontaneous but at the same time it has said that clearly this was a terrorist attack, and they're still investigating.

Not All Muslims Riot, But All The Riots ARE Muslim

Since September 11 2012 when the attack in Libya took place, Muslims all over the world have been rioting and protesting in connection to a film trailer called "Innocence of Muslims" that insults Islam. Some people out there have been saying that the riots have nothing to do with Islam, or Muslims, and that to label these rioters as such is wrong because it paints a bad (politically incorrect picture) of what's really going on.

But here's the thing. ALL of these attacks, riots, and protests, are being carried out by Muslims and they are doing it because of a video on YouTube that insulted Islam. They're not rioting because of taxes, high gas prices, not having the latest iPhone, or because Britney Spears is a new judge on the talent TV show "X Factor"... They're rioting over a movie that insulted Islam. Islam is the key, the factor, the core of this whole mess.

Is it all Islam? All Muslims? Absolutely not! Islam is the second largest religion in the world (a close second to Christianity). There are literally billions of Muslims across the globe and only a miniscule minority are the ones rioting. But it cannot be forgotten that the ONLY people rioting about all this ARE Muslims. It's all about the insult to Islam. That's the cause, the trigger, the reason. Not the religion itself, but the insult to that religion. That means that the riots are religiously motivated and the religion is Islam.

If this were just a small localized thing you could brush it off and say that it was a bunch of hyper sensitive bad apples in one area. But it's NOT just one little area. It's world wide!

Wikipedia: Protests Against "Innocence of Muslims"

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(UPDATE: I originally wrote the rough draft of this article late September 24. The Wikipedia page listing the summary information that I partly used for the following lists of riot locations and casualties has since been removed by a Muslim Wikipedia group as it obviously looked bad for them. Thankfully, I had a feeling something like this might happen, so I screen grabbed the website yesterday before this change took place.)

The Wikipedia group that has modified the article:

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Islam, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Islam-related articles on Wikipedia.

Here's the original Screen Capture, before the information was removed (September 24). The webpage was saved in an internet archive format. I made a screenshot of that saved page this morning so I could post it here for you all to see. The summary box on the right hand side has since been removed.

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The above link to a Wikipedia page has been tracking the incidents around the world. It does not list all of them, but it's a good place to start so you can see just how widespread and violent this whole explosion has been.

These are the places where violent protests and full fledged riots of Muslims have broken out since September 11.

Libya
Yemen
Tunisia
Sudan
Egypt
India
Afghanistan
Pakistan
Lebanon
Israel

France
Germany
Belgium
United Kingdom
Denmark
Greece
Australia

And the list continues to grow every few days.

79 deaths, 687 injuries, and thousands of arrests.

Folks, this is NO minor incident. This is a global crises. A world wide violent uprising and it's been going strong for two weeks. Greece was just added to the list a couple of days ago. The US has closed its embassies in many Muslim countries to try and protect its citizens that are working there.

In most places these violent attacks have been small, consisting of fifty to a few hundred rioters. People have been injured, killed, and have destroyed buildings and cars. The harm and damage has been substantial, far worse than other riots in recent years that have taken place in western countries over the economy (as in Europe) or the riot in Vancouver Canada because the Vancouver Canucks hockey team lost against the Boston Bruins in the NHL hockey playoffs a couple years ago. This is much bigger and much uglier because people are being killed and it's happening all over the world at the same time.

This does NOT represent all of Islam, not by a long shot. But it DOES represent SOME of the people that follow it as their religion and belief system. The whole upheaval is because of an insult to Islam, and these are Muslim people (Muslim people only) committing the mass violence and crimes on behalf of their religion. There is NO getting around that fact. That this has happened in so many countries and so many cities should be a wake up call to anyone that thinks "Islam is the religion of peace". It's got a nasty violent underbelly that though a minority, still packs a heck of a bloody punch (or sword), and it's global.