This is what tyranny looks like

Photo Credit: LA Times Blog 15 SEP 2012

 

Picture of Nakoula Basseley Nakoula taken in for questioning by police.  In the middle of the night.

His crime?

Creating bad art that was used as an excuse by some rioters in Egypt.

Via AFP (h/t Weaselzippers):

AL-Qaeda said the deadly attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya was in revenge for the killing of the network’s number two Sheikh Abu Yahya al-Libi, SITE Intelligence Group reported.

“The killing of Sheikh Abu Yahya only increased the enthusiasm and determination of the sons of (Libyan independence hero) Omar al-Mokhtar to take revenge upon those who attack our Prophet,” said al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula said in a statement, quoted by the US-based monitoring group.

Thus those who murdered the US Ambassador to Libya did so with intent to kill from the outset.  It was meant as a punishment to the US and is thus not an act of murder but an act of war.  As the Libyan government has decried (Source: Independent, UK) such action and no government wishes to take credit, it is an act of war by a Private group against the US.  This is not murder because the US Ambassador was gay, because he was 'asking for it' or due to any other reason than being the US Ambassador to Libya.  The State Dept. had warning 48 hours in advance of the assassination that there would be mobs outside the Embassies and Consulate in Cairo and Benghazi (Source: Independent, UK) and according to sources in Libya (Source: Israelnationalnews.com), although the spokesman for the DNI denies this (Source: Politico).

Responsibility for protection of the Ambassador and all other State Dept. personnel overseas falls to the State Dept. (Source: Breitbart).  Do note that the State Dept. has security of all of its Embassies, other Consulates and missions under its authority for security.

A report from UPI on 11 SEP 2012 indicates otherwise:

CAIRO, Sept. 11 (UPI) -- A radical group plans to launch terrorist attacks against the Israeli and U.S. embassies in Cairo, the Egyptian Intelligence Service is warning.

A top secret letter obtained by the news organization al-Masry al-Youm states that elements from the group Global Jihad have been planning attacks on the two embassies.

The letter addressed to a top Egyptian security official was forwarded to all security sectors across Egypt, al-Masry al-Youm reported Tuesday.

There was no word on when the attacks were supposed to take place.

Global Jihad has been accused by Israel of perpetrating the August 5th attack against Egyptian border guards in Sinai that left 16 dead.

Thus there was warning and as the reports were just getting to the press on 11 SEP 2012, they had to work through official releases and checking in the bureaucracy for days ahead of time.  Indeed  Sharon Rondeau at The Post & Email credits the original date of the warning letter to 04 SEP 2012.

From the Glenn Reynolds posting on this we learn:

• That is a scarf wrapped around his head, not a towel.
  
• Probations are handled by officers of the court and law enforcement is not called in unless a suspected crime has been committed.  Probation violation can be due to multiple things that have no criminality attached to them, and if Mr. Nakoula was suspected of that while using his computer, then his computer can be seized and he can talk with his Probation Officer.

Mr. Nakoula has every right to make a blasphemous film as a citizen of the United States.

Mr. Nakoula has every right to make bad art as a citizen of the United States.

Mr. Nakoula has every right to express himself and not have literal knock on his door at midnight from the police asking him in for questioning and then taking him out through a gaggle of reporters.  There are a number of people who have called for the death of Mr. Nakoula in the Middle East and some of those are attached to the organizers of riots in the region.  These people are working with the most radical and barbaric terrorists in the world who think nothing of suicide bombing using children and the disabled, who feel no regret at chopping off heads of their opponents, and who incite to murder and chaos on a global scale.

The film of Mr. Nakoula had been on youtube for quite some time before these events, and the citation of it by those who have done the rioting and assassination is nothing more than pretext, excuse and yet another finger to point at the West not because we are inciting them but because they hate our liberties and freedom.  Like the freedom to speak one's mind about religion and to even criticize other religions and not be taken in and tried on blasphemy charges for such criticism.  The 'questioning' of Mr. Nakoula is done as a cover for the real reason: that he is inconvenient to the regime of current Administration and a handy scapegoat, a mere Goldstein to excuse tyrannical action.

First they came for the bad film makers and I said nothing as I did not make bad films...

Screw THAT.

I do protest.

Because I know that at the end of the long list, I will be included in that ever expanding enemy's list, just as normal people have been every time that the list of handy scapegoats had to be increased to excuse incompetence, lack of oversight or just plain old horror by those seeking tyranny.  This is about the freedom of each of us to say as we feel we must say to inform our fellow citizens, and if it is done with bad art then SO BE IT.  Censorship in the face of terrorism is appeasement and walking away from support of human rights AT HOME.  This must stop NOW or the result is a horror beyond imagining and rivers of blood under your feet and mine for not speaking out TODAY.

I do speak out as that is my job as a Citizen of the Republic of the United States of America.