The sudden murder of J. Christopher Stevens, US ambassador to Libya, and three of his staff members after an enraged mob attacked the American consulate in Benghazi on the night of Tuesday 11 Sept. raises several questions that merit serious deliberation. Amidst reports of violence in some Muslim capitals, one is struck by the silence of devotedly pro-West regimes in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Jordan, even Turkey. Have they collectively out-sourced the show of anger against the film viciously lampooning the Prophet to friendly Yemen, or is Yemeni anger linked to Osama bin Laden’s clan ties?

News reports suggest that mobs gathered outside the US consulate in Benghazi after reports spread that the movie, dubbed in Arabic, was being shown on YouTube on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Libyan authorities were taken unawares when news broke that the US envoy was not in the capital, Tripoli, but moving around Benghazi where crowds had collected outside the consulate building. The authorities seem to have tried to play safe in the face of the agitated mob, and there is yet no clarity on how the ambassador and three colleagues actually died.

Reports say the compound was attacked with rocket-fired grenades, and the ambassador somehow got separated from his staff. He was found on the road by locals (who were not bloodthirsty) and taken to hospital, where he was declared dead. The accounts suggest he died of smoke inhalation.

President Obama, bidding for re-election in November, has rushed forces to shore up American security all around the world. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton played down the gravity of the provocation and condemned the envoy’s murder. Yet the degradation of sacred personalities of other faiths is a running theme of the contemporary neo-imperial western Christian repertoire, as Hindus constantly experience in the regular appearance of Devas like Shiva, Lakshmi, Parvati, Ganesha on shoes, napkins, toilet seats… Muslims, of course, will remember the Danish cartoons against the Prophet, the Koran-burning and urinating on the Koran in Afghanistan, and much more…

Ironically, Christopher Stevens had previously helped the Libyan rebels to overthrow Col. Muammar Gaddafi in the so-called ‘transition to democracy’ last year. He has now become the first victim of the ‘liberated’ people, chilling evidence of the failure of regime change. American-installed Libyan interim president, Mohammed Magarief, apologized for the “cowardly” attack, but is in a difficult situation.

Currently, the black Libyan Toubu people resisting the puppet regime are being bombed, and the West may be covertly involved in action against the Green Resistance. Fresh US special ops forces are landing in Libya, perhaps to fight the Green Resistance, or move into Egypt, or act against Iran. It is said that foreign troops in Libya are securing the oil platforms, allegedly to ensure oil to Europe in case of a shutoff from Iran. 

Anti-American demonstrations also surfaced in Cairo, where President Mohamed Morsi has already signalled his country’s bid to reclaim leadership of the Arab world. First, the Islamist regime lifted the Gaza blockade imposed by Hosni Mubarak. Next, even before the NAM summit in Tehran, Mr. Morsi resisted NATO-style regime change and insisted Iran must have a say in the future of the Damascus regime. Now, a spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood has demanded that President Obama formally apologize for the video and prosecute the “madmen” behind it, according to the state newspaper, Al Ahram. Mr. Morsi showed his contempt for the film by taking over 24 hours to react to the mob attack on the American embassy in Cairo, and that too via Facebook.

Riyadh is already feeling the heat of Cairo’s assertiveness. With Turkey in sweat over Kurdish assertion, there is no doubt that one immediate political fallout of the Innocence of Muslims episode is a reprieve for the Assad regime.

According to The New York Times, the trailer of the video was uploaded on YouTube by Sam Bacile, a 52-year old Israeli-American real estate developer in California. He told The Wall Street Journal website that he had raised $5 million from 100 Jewish donors to make the film. It gathered notoriety after the Egyptian media publicized it and Florida pastor Terry Jones (of Koran-burning fame) promoted it as part of his declaration of Sept. 11 as “International Judge Muhammad Day.” Jones said the film was “not designed to attack Muslims but to show the destructive ideology of Islam”. It was once screened at a movie theater in Hollywood.

According to Wikipedia, Innocence of Muslims was previously titled Desert Warriors and Innocence of Bin Laden, and produced and directed by a person known as ‘Alan Roberts’ but later called ‘Sam Bacile’. However, Steve Klein, a self-identified consultant for the film, told a journalist that Bacile is actually a pseudonym for some 15 Copts and Evangelical Christians from Syria, Turkey, Pakistan, and Egypt.

As the controversy drove the producer into hiding, Associated Press, which had interviewed a man claiming to be Sam Bacile on telephone, traced a Californian called Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, 55, who said he was a Coptic Christian and admitted involvement in the logistics and management of the film’s production. American authorities later confirmed that Nakoula was connected to the persona of Sam Bacile.

In Moscow, President Putin took the opportunity to stress that Russia will not support regime change by force and external intervention in Syria, indicating that the emotional maelstrom in Libya and the Muslim world had earned Basher al-Assad a major reprieve. Mr. Putin said that if armed groups are labeled as “freedom fighters” and supported from outside, “an absolute deadlock” may result and the “region could descend into chaos, which indeed, is what is already happening”.

Beijing politely condemned the “violent deeds” but a signed article in Global Times said the assassination of the ambassador and his colleagues “underscores the bankruptcy of US foreign policy in the region. Washington’s policy of regime change in the region may well lead to an ‘Arab Winter’ ...” It opposed the policy of regime change in Syria. Another article warned that American warships can only generate more hatred from the Islamic world.

China is making rapid inroads in the Middle East, and is comfortable with the region’s growing Islamism. The slothfulness of the Indian foreign ministry gave Beijing a coup in the form of being the first capital visited by Mr. Morsi, who was actually waiting for an invitation from New Delhi as a prelude to reigniting the Nasser-Nehru chemistry.

Their goal, says Piatt, is to rupture the peace between Egypt and Israel, have war break out in the region, after which (so they hope) God will rain fire down on the unrighteous, send His four horsemen down from heaven and establish a new order on earth, in which the Judeo-Christian people (some hope only Christians) will lord over all others.

This Armageddon scenario is real and is being played out in many theatres of the world concurrently. Ironically, Innocence of Muslims, one of the crudest gambit employed so far, may actually scuttle the onward march of the imperialists.

1] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/13/world/middleeast/us-envoy-to-libya-is-reported-killed.html?_r=1&hp 
2] http://forward.com/articles/162695/jewish-funders-behind-explosive-anti-islam-film/

3] http://forward.com/articles/162695/jewish-funders-behind-explosive-anti-islam-film/#ixzz26Pk0iMJY

4] http://m.youtube.com/watch?gl=IN&hl=en&client=mv-google&v=d8mPnf6hyT8

5] http://m.youtube.com/watch?gl=IN&hl=en&client=mv-google&v=RfQiHVaqNAQ

6] http://m.youtube.com/watch?gl=IN&hl=en&client=mv-google&v=SCNSu8jmrgk

7] http://m.youtube.com/watch?gl=IN&hl=en&client=mv-google&v=P_oSL8lkvl0

8] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innocence_of_Muslims

9] http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2012/09/13/innocence-muslims-producer-identity-questioned-actors-say-were-duped/

10] http://www.patheos.com/blogs/christianpiatt/2012/09/innocence-of-muslims-video-suggests-a-fetish-for-armageddon/

The author is Editor, www.vijayvaani.com