Something approaching common sense in, of all places, the New York Daily News, which is ordinarily no friend of freedom. “Radical Islamic terror “˜flicks” insult humanity far more deeply than an idiot film about Muslims by a felonious con man,” by Denis Hamill in the New York Daily News, September 18 (thanks to Stewart):
C”mon, who’s obscene?
I”m having a hard time believing that Islamic extremists from more than 20 countries actually hold 300 million Americans responsible for a single amateur film, an incoherent anti-Islamic screed made by a convicted felon on parole for credit-card scams.
Okay, maybe one or two offended people could be that dumb. But no way could tens of thousands of folks in 20 countries believe the same line of nonsense that this film is representative of the entire American people.
And yet in the wake of four Americans murdered in Libya last week, here were fiery images from around the world as outraged Muslims attacked our consulates, embassies and even an American fast-food joint to avenge the twisted vision of one American con man with a camcorder. A film that esteemed Daily News movie critic Joe Neumaier says would have more social significance, as the old Hollywood line goes, if you cut it up and sold it for mandolin picks.
But somehow this obscure film has caused the Arab Spring to bloom into American funeral wreaths.
It got me thinking that we live in New York City, home of the United Nations, host of every one of those Islamic nations now erupting in irrational anti-American violence. Suppose New Yorkers decided to retaliate and storm all their diplomatic outposts, killing ambassadors and other innocents because we were outraged by an Islamist film that we found offensive?
The NYPD riot squad, hate crime unit, FBI and National Guard would be out rounding us up in orange fishing nets.
And, believe me, we have lots more than one dopey fictional film to be offended by.
Go online and you”ll find authentic real-life footage detailing radical Islamist atrocities that any rational person would find far more blasphemous to the human spirit than anything in the YouTube trailer that has set the Muslim world ablaze.
Start with these 10 videos:
1) The beheading of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl on an Al Qaeda website, perhaps one of the most evil videos ever shot.
2) American hostage Eugene Armstrong being beheaded in Iraq.
3) Hooded terrorists killing Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games.
4) The second plane smashing into the South Tower of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.
5) Human beings leaping to their doom from the Trade Center.
6) The collapse of the twin towers as people are obliterated inside.
7) A woman being stoned to death for adultery in Saudi Arabia.
8) The bodies of four U.S. contractors hanging from a bridge above the Euphrates River in Fallujah, Iraq….