Ryan's Mixed Message Comment

Let’s talk about Paul Ryan’s September 14, 2012 comment about sending mixed messages. On March 9, 17 Afghan civilians were murdered and 4 were injured when by either a single American soldier or multiples attacked them in their sleep (2 months after 4 Marines peed on Taliban dead and 3 weeks after Qurans were burned). In 90 minutes years of trust were lost and the Taliban discontinued the peace talks as a result. We rush our guy to safety and start excusing the behavior. The ‘Innocence of Muslims’ filmmaker was interviewed and released; he and his family are in hiding. On September 11 on the View I heard a man wrote into Pat Robertson of the 700 Club asking what to do with a wife who belittles him and has caused him to lose his confidence. Robertson said “You could become a Muslim then you could beat her, this man has got to stand up to her and can’t let her get away with this stuff - I don’t think we condone wife beating these days but you can’t divorce her according to the scripture, so I say move to Saudi Arabia”. The 700 Club is seen in many countries and perhaps this too caused the killing of our people. Other governments can’t do anymore than our own when it comes to stopping people from reacting to an incident. It’s unbelievable to me that Americans think our people are more important to us than the people of other countries are to them.

In the US we have plays on Broadway that mock Mormons, TV shows that mock Christians and laws against hate crimes. When the Colorado theater incident occurred July 19 Republicans blamed the Batman filmmaker for the incident. In the case of the Libyan diplomats deaths they don’t blame the filmmaker or YouTube (doesn’t review things prior to their release) but are blaming the President for a lack of understanding terrorists. When it comes to the world-wide-web or syndicated TV in my opinion we need to do something to prevent our people and companies from putting what appears to be hate crimes or false accusations out there. We will never be better than or earn the trust of others if we don’t respect their customs or people. I believe that without our diplomats we wouldn’t be able to maintain relationships with other countries. The reactions of Republicans has caused some Americans to say we should get out of other countries and others to say we should bomb them. Most people don’t blame a country for the act of a few men but extremists do so now I wonder if the Republicans have become extremists. 

US Support by Others

The Pope went to the Middle East and yet, on September 17, 2012  the militant Hezbollah in Lebanon organized the biggest protest including boy scouts and clerics and warned that if the US doesn’t ban the film there will be serious repercussions. Things were quiet in the areas that started the uprising. All Egyptian newspapers encouraged non violent protests but want the US to enact a law to prohibit defamation of Islam - this is the cry of Muslims around the world.

September 20, 2012 Republican John McCain said “It shows the level, the dismal level, of their knowledge about the fundamental aspects of terrorist attacks and militant operations”. Because we’ve given money to Egypt, Paul Ryan said “The Administration sent mixed signals to those that attacked our Embassy in Egypt and mixed signals to the world.” In an interview with Telemundo the President said “I don’t think we would consider Egypt an ally but we don’t consider them an enemy.” The Pentagon sent about 50 Marines to Libya and 2 warships armed with missiles to its coast as well as sending Marines to the other countries. Look at what other did while the US finger points and argues over freedom of speech. The Egyptian Muslim President immediately condemned the attacks and promised to protect the American Embassy; a concrete wall was erected around the Embassy and police fired tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannons to disperse the crowd; on September 19 Egypt issued arrest warrants for 7 Coptic Christians and Pastor Jones for their part in the movie uprising. Libyan officials were fast to denounce the attack saying it was criminal and cowardly and vowed to punish the attackers; the Libyan people immediately apologized to the US and let us know that’s not how they feel (it was only 20 militants) as a people. Within 24 hours Libya arrested 4 suspects and on September 21 the Libyans attacked and burned the building of a militia group. In Pakistan the government blocked cell phone signals so bombs couldn’t be set off and police killed 19 and injured more than 160 in its attempts to stop protesters. Sudan blocked the Marines from entry into their country saying they’d handle security themselves. Authorities in Kenya arrested 2 in a major Somali Al Qaeda terror plot. The governments of the various countries all supported us because of the relationships the President has built. 

Request to Remove the Movie

According to a CNN summary of a Google report released earlier this year that did not specify the nature of requests to remove content from its servers, the number of censorship requests by the US government increased more than 700% during the latter half of 2011 compared to the beginning of that year. (This makes sense if you know that YouTube didn’t hit the Arabic nations until March 9, 2011.) The US government did request YouTube to remove the movie ‘Innocence of Muslims’ and the request was denied on September 14. The White House drew immediate criticism from several groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF). Eva Galperin of the EFF called YouTube's potential removal of the video "an unusual move" since it would take place "without a valid court order." Once YouTube has made the decision to proactively censor its content, they start down a slippery slope that ends in YouTube Knows Best moral policing of every video on their site. Soon after, a Google representative said - We work hard to create a community everyone can enjoy and which also enables people to express different opinions- This can be a challenge because what's OK in one country can be offensive elsewhere - This video which is widely available on the Web is clearly within our guidelines and so will stay on YouTube. The Afghan government didn’t wait for a response to the US’ request; it blocked access to YouTube altogether on September 12, 2012.

By September 14 the uprising over the movie had spread to at least 31 countries. Muslims demonstrated across Malaysia calling for the US to prevent distribution of the film they said was part of a plot by "Christian extremists." Cabinet ministers demanded the film be taken offline and condemned YouTube for being "insensitive" and "oblivious to the tumult it has caused." On September 16 Google said the film now deviated from the site's community guidelines that encourage free speech but not hate speech. "When videos breach those rules, we remove them…Where we have launched YouTube locally and we are notified that a video is illegal in that country, we will restrict access to it after a thorough review." Google said it was restricting the clip to comply with local law rather than a response to political pressure. A Google spokesman said "We've restricted access to it in countries where it is illegal such as India and Indonesia, as well as in Libya and Egypt, given the very sensitive situations in these 2 countries…This approach is entirely consistent with principles we first laid out in 2007." I found this to be a complete turnaround from its previous denial.   

Reaction to Consulate Attack

On September 13, 2012 when ABC spoke to Romney regarding his comments he said “What I said was exactly the same conclusion the White House reached which was that the statement was inappropriate, that’s why they backed away from it as well”. ABC then said - they didn’t say it sympathized with the attackers and Romney replied – The statement stayed on the website as I indicated for some 14, 15 hours, the statement was reiterated after the attackers breached the sovereignty of the embassy and even after the killing in Libya, and by the way what I said was exactly the same conclusion the White House reached which was the statement was inappropriate and that’s why they backed away from it as well. I think it was not directly applicable and appropriate for the setting, I think it should have been taken down and apparently the White House felt the same way. I am amazed that Romney is so sure of what the White House thinks.

On September 20 at the Univision forum in Florida the first question asked of the President was why there wasn’t more security at the Consulate in Libya, Obama said “When the initial events happened in Cairo and all across the region we worked with Secretary Clinton to redouble our security…our goal now is not only to make sure our embassies and diplomats safe but also to make sure that we bring those that carried out these events to justice” – he didn’t answer the question. On this same date the White House for the first time called the assault a terrorist attack and said there was no advance notice because it was a spontaneous reaction to the movie. The Director of the National Counterintelligence Center told Congress that it’s likely that Al Qaeda played a role whether or not it was preplanned or spontaneous but there’s been no evidence of it yet and Secretary Clinton said there’s been no evidence that the Ambassador was on a terrorist hit list. Republican Marco Rubio said “What happened in Benghazi was not an anti-American protest, it was not as the result of a YouTube video, it was an orchestrated Anti-American terrorist attack”. I unlike Rubio say the uprisings were caused by the movie because that’s exactly what the protesters (Taliban, Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, etc.) have said over and over again in every country. But, I thought I’d check things out further.

Libyan Consulate Deaths

On September 11, 2012 while the President observed a White House moment of silence, attended a memorial service at the Pentagon, visited Arlington National Cemetery and met privately with wounded soldiers and their families at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center Romney was campaigning in Reno, Nevada. Egyptians scaled the walls of our Embassy, tore down and shredded our flag and replaced it with a black flag that read – There’s no God but Allah. Later, in darkness 20 armed militants attacked the Libyan Consulate killing the US Ambassador (first since 1979 and the sixth in US history) and 3 staff; 3 Americans were wounded. There were 2 former Navy Seals, no Marines, at the Consulate and Libyan security couldn’t protect our people from the fire that was set. The cause of the attack is said to be the movie ‘Innocence of Muslims’ made by a California realtor and put on YouTube (shown only once in Hollywood) and promoted by Florida Pastor Terry Jones who burned a Quran in 2010. The movie was shown by an Egyptian cleric on his July 21 talk show and was never shown again; on September 17 he said he told people to defend their faith, was shocked by the fury sparked by the movie; never intended to incite violence-deplores it and said he has no regrets. Upon learning of the movie the US Egyptian Embassy issued an apology but no warning went out to other embassies in the region.

On September 12 Jones said the movie was not designed to attack Muslims but to show the destructive ideology of Islam. Romney said it is “disgraceful the Obama Administration’s first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions but to sympathize with those who conducted the attack…An apology for America’s values is never the right course.” When it’s pointed out that the film apology came out of the Egyptian Embassy before the attacks Romney said “It’s never too early for the US government to condemn attacks on Americans and to defend our values. American leadership is necessary to ensure that events in the region don’t spin out of control.” Even though Romney’s original criticism was assailed by some Republicans for bad tone and timing, Romney stood by them saying – if he sees a point to attack he will (the facts didn’t matter). In an interview with CBS the President said “Governor Romney seems to have a tendency to shoot first and aim later and as President one of the things I’ve learned is you can’t do that”

Immigrants & Civil Rights

On September 23, 2012 George Stephanopoulos asked Republican Ann Coulter about a page in her new book ‘Mugged’ regarding the civil rights movement. She said we got the beneficiary group right – we owe the Blacks – we don’t owe the homeless, we don’t owe feminists, we don’t owe women desirous of having abortions – we don’t owe Gays who want to get married to one another. George then asked if civil rights were for immigrants and she said - no civil rights are pretty much for Blacks. She said the point on immigration is you can have open borders or you can have a welfare state – you can’t have both – when you have a big government giving out benefits for all sorts of things than you have to care very much about who the immigrants are. She went on to say – both legal and illegal immigrants are way more likely to be on welfare than native born Americans. Ann needs to do her homework. The US government is finding corporations dependent on migrant labor, the same situation it was in back in 1929 (Hoover), 1943 (WW II-FDR), 1986 (Reagan granted amnesty to 3 million Mexican-American workers) and 1990 (GHW Bush). Clinton enacted the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 and immigration bills were passed annually. However, during George W. Bush’s tenure there was a lot of talk of a comprehensive immigration bill but in 2006 there were immigration reform protests and he failed to get a bill passed. Obama used an Executive Order in 2011 to get something done. However, Congress has not passed an immigration reform bill since 2001 and it needs to end its 11 year drought. 

Several Republican states enacted tough voter registration laws and the Tea Party has vowed to go after the courts that overturned them and on September 20 it was said that Farmers Branch, Texas banned illegal immigrants from renting homes. On September 23 Robert Reich, Professor at the University of California at Berkeley said – The baby boomers are aging, we have an aging population, the only way we can improve the ratio of people who are working to people who are retired is by taking in young immigrants from the rest of the world. And anybody who doesn’t recognize that and understand this is on the wrong side of the fence. 

Romney's False Cuba

On August 30, 2012 Marco Rubio spoke before Romney and said “There is no freedom or liberty in Cuba”. Romney said: “We’re a nation of immigrants…ones that wanted a better life, the driven ones…not just in pursuit of the riches of this world but for the richness of this life, freedom, freedom of religion, freedom to speak their mind, freedom to build their life, and yes, freedom to build a business with their own hands. This is the essence of the American experience. Americans have always felt a special kinship with the future. When every new wave of immigrants looked up and saw the Statue of Liberty or knelt down and kissed the shores of freedom just 90 miles from Castro’s tyranny…But none doubted that here in America they could build a better life, that in America their children would be blessed more than they. But today, 4 years from the excitement of that last election, for the first time the majority of Americans now doubt that our children will have a better future…”  Romney also said the President “…has relaxed sanctions on Castro’s Cuba…”

The French started work on the Statue of Liberty in the early 1870s and it was officially dedicated on October 28, 1886; we had many immigrants before this time. I found 3 House Amendments from 2000-2005 that Ryan voted for that didn’t do well for Cubans. I also discovered that on February 24, 2008 Fidel’s brother Raul Castro became the leader of Cuba. A May 13, 2012 MailOnline article said: The daughter of Cuban President Raul Castro revealed her father has been working to end sexual discrimination, possibly opening the path to same-sex marriage. Mariela Castro, 50, known for her work as a gay rights advocate and head of Cuba’s National Center for Sex Education, also repeated her praise for President Barack Obama, who had publicly expressed support for same-sex marriage this week. Castro said the American leader’s words ‘have great value because of the influence they might have’ on others, but added that words must be followed by actions. In January, Cuba's Communist Party Congress passed a resolution ‘to fight against all forms of discrimination, including against sexual discrimination, and discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and sexual identity.’ It appears Cubans may end up having a freedom or liberty that Americans are not granted. It would be foolish for the US to hold Raul responsible for his brother if he’s trying to make a better Cuba (Indians and others forgave us for our part in wars). I’m tired of Republicans continually distorting the facts.