US Embassies, Consulates Attacked.

[amigocabal]

However, if that is true, it strikes me as selective memory and a double standard to single out islam regarding the behavior of riots.

What double standard? Has anyone said that they're perfectly fine with morons setting fires and killing innocent bystanders as long as it's to celebrate that their team won the World Cup or some other nonsense?

No moron. But those sets of riots do not stir up the hateful bile this one has.

When canadians riot over a hockey game no one talks about how savage canadians are, or how their love of hockey is a cancer upon the world. It is as if religious and in particular muslim riots are singled out as a subset of riots that are particularly bad, and people forget about the existence of other riots. Selective memory and a double standard--not toward the deaths, but with regard to the cause of the riot and the people committing them. The attitudes and public response are different. Maybe this is because of the media narrative. I dont know, and frankly I stopped caring.

True, but then again I do not hear people arguing that hockey should be criminalized, unlike people arguing that international standards should place hate speech outside the bounds of the First Amendment.

[mr friendly guy]

Some countries already have hate speech laws, so if we use that hockey analogy, its already been criminalized in some countries.

[Irbis]

You are really stupid, aren't you? The Nazis and fascists were the civilized people (a pan-European movement which included a major Western European power and huge swaths of North and South). The Nazis and their satellites did not kill because someone insulted Jesus (or even Hitler for that matter), they killed as a matter of race and nation, having an elaborate racist ideology the planning of which was executed by a whole ministry, and with extreme "rationality" when we're talking about their own set of objectives.

Well, maybe he meant the Japanese? Would still be stupid, but at least somewhat excusably so. Though, in that case, the date range he picked was very dumb.

[PainRack]

Has anyone seen the sept 17 The Daily Show Episode?

While a comedy outake on the situation, I loved the way it lambasted the outrage of people manipulated and incited to violence as well as the US right wing response.

However, is it fair to say that the comedic value of Hannity contradicting himself takes too much context out of the situation, thus, making the sketch pure comedy? Or is it fair to say that this is an accurate view of the Right Wing hypocrisy, making it an bloody accurate satire sketch?

[Guardsman Bass]

It looks like the Pakistani protests turned into a giant Islamist riot, with theaters being burned down and the like:

Reports say more than 17 people have died as demonstrations against an anti-Islam video erupted across Pakistan, a day after protesters tried to storm the US embassy in the capital, Islamabad.

Tens of thousands of Pakistanis took to the streets across the country after the government called an impromptu public holiday to let people protest under the banner of "Love the Prophet Day".

In Karachi, armed protesters among a group of 15,000 fired on police, killing two officers, as at least 10 protesters died in the violence. The crowd also burned six cinemas, two banks, a KFC and five police vehicles.

Crowds armed with clubs and bamboo poles converged on the Firdaus picture house, "smashing it up and setting furniture ablaze", according to Gohar Ali, a police officer.

Witnesses said a separate rampaging crowd stormed the Shama cinema, notorious locally for showing films considered to be pornographic.

In the Pakistani city of Peshawar, police fired on rioters who were torching a cinema. Mohammad Amir, a driver for a Pakistani television station, was killed when police bullets hit his vehicle at the scene, said Kashif Mahmood, a reporter for ARY TV.

At least four protesters and one police officer were killed in the northwestern city, along with 40 injured and two cinemas and two shops torched.

n the capital Islamabad, some 19 protesters and eight police were injured. And in Lahore, at least five protesters were wounded.

Police on alert

"They do not want this anti-Islam video to be supported by the United States," said Al Jazeera's Kamal Hyder, reporting from Islamabad.

"Despite the fact that the American president has said that they have got nothing to do with it, the people here are very angry."

"The people want the government to be able to launch a protest, and they are saying they will not go home unless they get to the US embassy."

In Karachi, police told AFP news agency they had been on maximum alert and that bomb-disposal squads were sweeping planned locations of protests.

"All the entry and exit points of the city are heavily guarded. Helicopters are on stand-by for aerial surveillance," Fayyaz Laghari, provincial police chief, said.

"We have deployed our maximum police force to the sensitive parts of the city to ensure security during protest rallies today."

All the major political parties and religious groups had announced protests for Friday, as did many trade and transport organisations.

The previous day, the US embassy became the latest target of protesters angry at the YouTube video. The total number of protesters touched 5,000 with the arrival of protesters carrying the flags of anti-American Islamist groups.

At least 50 people were injured as police fired tear gas and live rounds towards the crowds.

US launches PR blitz

Al Jazeera's Rosiland Jordan, reporting from the US state department, said: "So there's a lot of concern that there could be real blowback against the US."

"The US has been very concerned about the prospect for demonstrations across Pakistan because of what has happened between the two countries in the past year."

Our correspondent continued: "Pakistan is one of those countries where anti-American sentiment is already quite high and certainly having this video - said to be the genesis for so many of these demonstrations across the region - doesn't help the US cause."

Against this tense backdrop, the US has bought time on Pakistani television stations to run a series of ads in an effort to assuage Muslim feelings of hurt.

The US hopes the ad would show that the country had no involvement with the controversial internet video.

The US embassy in Islamabad spent about $70,000 to run the announcement, which features clips of US President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and underscores US respect for religion, declaring the US government had nothing to do with the video.

Clinton then says: "Let me state very clearly, the United States has absolutely nothing to do with this video. We absolutely reject its contents. America's commitment to religious tolerance goes back to the very beginning of our nation."

Addressing a media briefing on the ad campaign, Victoria Nuland, state department spokeswoman, said the aim was "to make sure that the Pakistani people hear the president's messages and the secretary's messages".

"In order to ensure we reached the largest number of Pakistanis, some 90 million as I understand it in this case with
these spots, it was the judgment that this was the best way to do it."

The announcement aired as the US asked its citizens to avoid non-essential travel to Pakistan.

I can't say I'm surprised. Even aside from all the bad blood between the US government and Pakistan due to other issues, there's a hair-trigger sensitivity to anything that is perceived to insult Islam in that country. The last time the government tried to overhaul the much-maligned blasphemy law (most recently abused by that one cleric in the case of the handicapped christian girl), it caused rioting, protests, and outright murder of public officials who openly supported changing it (or supported the victims of the law).