Tel-Chai Nation

In Egypt and Libya, jihadists rioted and stormed the embassies because they despised a documentary made about Islam (Hat tip: Michelle Malkin):

Demonstrators attacked a U.S. consulate in Libya, killing one American, and breached the walls of the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, amid angry protests over a film by a U.S. producer that mocks and insults the Prophet Muhammad.

The movie, "Innocence of Muslims," was directed and produced by an Israeli-American real-estate developer who characterized it as a political effort to call attention to the hypocrisies of Islam. It has been promoted by Terry Jones, the Florida pastor whose burning of Qurans previously sparked deadly riots around the world.

In Benghazi, Libya, several dozen gunmen from an Islamist group, Ansar al Sharia, attacked the consulate with rocket-propelled grenades to protest the film, a deputy interior minister for the Benghazi region told the Al-Jazeera network. A government brigade evacuated the consulate, after which militants set it on fire, said the minister, Wanees Sharef.

One State Department officer was killed in the attack in Benghazi, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Tuesday night.

Mrs. Clinton said the State Department was working with Libyans to secure the compound and protect Americans in Libya.

To the east, in Cairo, a crowd of some 2,000 people gathered at the Embassy to protest the video. Some of them climbed the embassy walls late Tuesday, pulling down and burning an American flag.

Hours after nightfall, dozens of young men remained standing on top of the embassy walls, shouting into megaphones. One of the youths climbed up the flagpole to hoist a black banner emblazoned with the Muslim profession of faith in white letters—"There is no God but God and Muhammad is His Messenger"—a standard used by hardline Islamist groups throughout the world.

Tragically, the US ambassador to Libya was among those murdered in this latest act of violence:

The U.S. ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, and three other American diplomats were killed when suspected Libyan religious extremists stormed the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi late Tuesday, sparking a security crisis across the North African country and raising tensions across the Middle East.

And the worst part is that the Obama administration's response to this horror has been nothing short of dhimmitude. The Cairo embassy delivered an apology for "abuse of free speech" when it's really the Muslims who committed this repulsive crime who owe one.

The Israeli-American who put together the film is now in hiding. Mitt Romney's already spoken out and criticized the Obama administration's handling of the tragedy:

Mitt Romney is continuing to criticize the Obama administration for its handling of the attacks in Egypt and Libya.

Taking questions from press about the timing of his criticisms last night, Romney says he responded appropriately with what was known at the time. News of the death of Ambassador Christopher Stevens had not yet emerged.

"I believe that when a mistake is made of that significance, you speak out," Romney said.

A stern Romney sought to expand his criticism to the Obama foreign policy in general. His statement was notable for repeated references to constitutional rights, including the right to free speech, and the necessity of defending those rights.

"Americans will not tolerate attacks against our diplomats and our embassies, we will defend our constitutional rights of free speech and free assembly," Romney said. "We have confidence in our cause... We encourage other nations to understand the principles of our constitution."

An administration official's said the embassy's apology doesn't reflect their views, but it's not clear what they mean by that exactly. The most horrifying part here is that the embassy staff was betrayed by the Libyans (also via Hot Air):

Military officials told CBS News an anti-terrorism team of U.S. Marines was being deployed to Libya to help secure U.S. interests in the country following the attack. The State Department said, however, that no Americans were remaining at the facility in Benghazi. State officials would not confirm how many Americans were evacuated, or to where.

Wanis al-Sharef, a Libyan Interior Ministry official in Benghazi, said the four Americans were killed when the angry mob, which gathered to protest a U.S.-made film that ridicules Islam’s Prophet Muhammad, fired guns and burned down the U.S. consulate in Benghazi.

He said Stevens, 52, and other officials were moved to a second building, deemed safer, after the initial wave of protests at the consulate. According to al-Sharef, members of the Libyan security team seem to have indicated to the protesters the building to which the American officials had been relocated, and that building then came under attack.

Stevens, 52, was the first U.S. ambassador to be killed in the line of duty since 1979.

This clearly tells that Libya is not a country to be doing business with, if they intend to betray the foreign diplomats they're hosting. As Michael Patrick Leahy asks, where were the Marines to do the job that the Libyans shouldn't have been allowed to do?

This is now going to be marked in history as a tragedy similar in some ways to 9-11, that took place 11 years after the destruction of the WTC and deaths of thousands of people there. And Obama's embarrassed himself with his administration's dreadful response and handling of the crisis.

Update: here's another article about the filmmaker who's had to go into hiding (via Jihad Watch):

A California-based property developer who claims to be responsible for “Innocence of Muslims,” a provocative film about the Prophet Muhammad, which sparked Tuesday’s deadly attack on the U.S. mission in Libya and further protests in Egypt, has gone into hiding, The Associated Press reported.

Speaking by phone from an undisclosed location, Israeli-American writer and director Sam Bacile, 56, remained defiant, saying that he intended his film to be a political statement condemning the religion, the AP said.

"Islam is a cancer, period," the AP quoted him as repeatedly saying.

Correct.

Update 2: The Blaze has a video of the film that the Islamofascists exploited for their latest abominations.

Update 3: now this is peculiar: Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic has said that from what he can determine, the maker of the film may not be Israeli at all, and "Sam Bacile" isn't a real name. There's something very fishy going on here.

Update 4: Israel grieves along with the US over this tragedy.

Labels: anti-americanism, anti-semitism, dhimmitude, Egypt, islam, jihad, libya, terrorism, United States