The attacks on the
U.S. embassy yesterday in Cairo and the storming of the American
consulate in Libya, where the U.S. ambassador was murdered along with
three staff members — and the initial official American reaction to the
mayhem — are all reprehensible, each in their own way. Let us sort out
this terrible chain of events.
Timing: The assaults came exactly on the eleventh
anniversary of bin Laden’s and al-Qaeda’s attack on America. If there
was any doubt about the intent of the timing, the appearance of black
al-Qaedist flags among the mobs removed it. The chanting of Osama bin
Laden’s name made it doubly clear who were the heroes of the Egyptian
mob. Why should we be surprised by the lackluster response of the
Egyptian and Libyan “authorities” to protect diplomatic sanctuaries,
given the nature of the “governments” in both countries? One of the
Egyptian demonstration’s organizers was Mohamed al-Zawahiri, the brother
of the top deputy to Osama bin Laden, and a planner of the 9/11
attacks, which were led by Mohamed Atta, an Egyptian citizen. In Libya,
the sick violence is reminding the world that the problem in the Middle
East is not dictators propped up by the U.S. — Qaddafi was an archenemy
of the U.S. — but the proverbial Arab Street that can blame everything
and everyone, from a cartoon to a video, for the wages of its own
self-induced pathologies. So far, all the Arab Spring is accomplishing
is removing the dictatorial props and authoritarian excuses for grass
roots Middle East madness.
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