Anti-American riots and violence has flared up in the Middle East and Africa, with tragic loss of life and as yet unknown long term consequences for the countries where this has occurred, and for us.
I’m enraged when I hear the Right trying to wipe the blood from their hands by shouting that criticism of the film that triggered these awful events constitutes apologizing for America’s enemies.
Let me point a finger at some of America’s real enemies: religious extremists who incite hate in others to magnify their own hate and to increase their power and influence. They can be found in Benghazi, on U.S. hate radio, in Afghani caves and in the halls of Congress. They can be Coptic, Catholic, Jewish, Sunni, and Shiite. They can be rich, poor, rulers, downtrodden, cynical lobbyists and fat, drug-addicted charlatans. They can be ignorant, deluded, opportunist, and outright insane. And they seem to be everywhere these days.
Many of these people see conspiracies where none exist, but they are in fact part of a worldwide conspiracy that is so big and so formless that most don’t even realize they are part of it, and the various components of this conspiracy are often actively opposing one another.
It is a conspiracy of hate.
The current violence is a perfect example. A religious extremist in America makes a horrifically offensive film calculated to push buttons in the Islamic world. Protests break out in Islamic countries. Jihadists take advantage of the anger to stoke anti-U.S. violence and create chaos. Anti-Islamists in the U.S. cite the violence as evidence of the depravity and dangerousness of Muslims. And the influence of extremists on both sides grows. Are they planning with one another how they will pour gasoline from both sides to create a global conflagration? No. Do they know that this is what will happen and act accordingly? Some of them.
When a Congresswoman with a dim grasp on reality makes a McCarthyite claim that a Muslim in the State Department must be a traitor, or a hate group calls for a boycott of a company sponsoring a television series because the series portrays Muslims as normal human beings, they should be called out not just as purveyors of overheated rhetoric but as global conspirators, persons who, acting together, are causing great harm to American interests and those of the world.
Truly enemies of America.