President Obama today condemned as “senseless violence” the attacks on the nation’s Libyan embassy that killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans, but he said the U.S. “rejects efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others.”
The statement appears to blame free speech instead of the perpetrators of the violence, charged several experts on Islam and jihad.
“In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Obama’s foreign policy supports the savage,” wrote Pamela Geller on her Atlas Shrugs website.
She noted that Obama’s criticism of free speech echoed a statement issued earlier by the U.S. Embassy in Egypt, which said, “We condemn the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims.”
Geller said Obama effectively is “sanctioning Islam’s blasphemy laws, which forbid criticism of Islam.”
“The sanctioning of the blasphemy laws and the threat – and now reality of Islamic violence against those who transgress against those laws – has led to this act of war, and will lead to further acts of war,” she said.
The Muslim attackers reportedly were angered by “Innocence of Muslims,” a “low-quality film” that criticizes Islam’s chief prophet, Muhammad.
Geller, who also is executive director of the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) and Stop Islamization of America (SIOA), didn’t waste any time blaming Obama’s foreign policy for the deaths of the Americans.
“I warned countless times of the catastrophic consequences of Obama’s foreign policy,” Geller told WND. “I warned that Obama was helping to install a Shariah government with jihadist ties in Libya.
“I have for years now warned Americans about Obama’s pro-jihadist, anti-freedom foreign policy. By murdering the ambassador, Libya has declared war on the United States,” she said.
“And his apology was worst of all,” she continued. “Condemning filmmakers and cartoonists for this is just as much of an act of war on America as the attacks themselves – it is an act of war on our very ideals, an act of war on the First Amendment.”
The director of Jihad Watch, Robert Spencer, told WND that the ones responsible for rage and murder are the jihadists.
“Instead of condemning the murder and mayhem designed to intimidate Americans into not speaking freely about jihad and Islam, Obama has freely abdicated his responsibility to stand for the freedom of speech,” Spencer told WND.
“In reality, the only ones responsible for jihad rage and murder are the jihadists,” he said. “If you hit me or call me a name, my reaction is up to me. There is no automatic, default-mode reaction to which I am bound.
“If Muslims in Egypt and Libya were insulted by this film, (although it appears that they found it while looking for something to get insulted about), their reaction was up to them. It was not incited by the film,” he said.
“They could have laughed it off, or wept, or dismissed it with contempt, or prepared a rebuttal, or any number of other things. Instead, they rioted and killed. Those who did so are the only ones responsible for that. No one else,” he said.
“But this will be used to further calls for censorship and to abet the Islamic war against the freedom of speech,” he said.
Spencer also wrote about the killings, under a picture of a bloodied Ambassador Stevens, on his website, Jihadwatch.org.
“The torture and murder of Chris Stevens shows what jihadist savagery looks like,” he wrote. “Remember this picture the next time someone tells you that concern about jihad and Islamic supremacism is all about ‘Islamophobia.'”
William J. Murray, chairman of the Religious Freedom Coalition, told WND, he finds it “disturbing that once again the Obama administration apologizes for America, this time for one of our most cherished values, freedom of speech.”
Murray, author of “My Life Without God” and son of the late Madalyn Murray O’Hair, said that while Obama now claims to “disavow” his earlier statement, his own administration, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, “continue to cast blame for the violence in Egypt and Libya on an American filmmaker’s movie telling the truth about Muhammad.”
“CNN and MSNBC along with the New York Times and Washington Post have joined the chorus of those claiming all Islamic violence would stop if only we said only nice things about Muslims as they rampage and murder,” Murray said.
Murray said the blame should be placed squarely on Islam itself.
“Hundreds of Christians in Nigeria have been slaughtered by Muslims so far this year. Was free speech to blame?” he asked. “Hindus and Buddhists have been murdered by the scores by Muslims this year. Is free speech to blame? Thailand is under siege and dozens have been murdered by Muslims this year. Is free speech to blame? Are the Muslim honor killings in Europe caused by free speech? The problem is not free speech in America, the violence is simply rooted in the teachings of Islam.”
