Posted on 09/12/2012 9:56:15 AM PDT by allmendream
In civilized nations the lives of ambassadors and diplomats are held sacred.
When Xerxes sent ambassadors throughout Greece in 491 BC asking for the ritual tokens of submission, earth and water, many Greek cities agreed to submit. Not so in Athens and Sparta.
In Sparta the ambassadors were thrown down a well ("Madness? This is Sparta!" as the movie 300 would have it).
The deeply religious Spartans were appalled at what was done in the heat of the moment and sent two Spartan citizen soldiers (Sperthia and Boulis) to Persia to offer up their lives to atone for the sin committed against the Persian ambassadors.
When they arrived in Persia they were horrified to learn that upon meeting with Xerxes they were expected to prostrate themselves! They were sent to die, but NEVER to bow down! Xerxes laughed at their offer, refused their ritual sacrifice and sent them home.
But then, as now, among men of honor - the killing of an ambassador or diplomat was an act of war. Not so among our feckless President and our appeasing Secretary of State.
The attacks upon our embassies and the killing of our diplomats and our ambassador was an orchestrated attack, scheduled to take place on 9-11. The islamists fanatics were whipped into a fury by state run media. The mob has almost no access to outside information.
http://www.hillsdale.edu/news/imprimis/archive/issue.asp?year=2012&month=02
"Such violence in response to purported religious insults is not simply spontaneous. It is also stoked and channeled by governments for political purpose"
Hey! Hey! Hillary! How many dead Americans will there be?
“Hey, hey, Hil-la-rey, how many of’r boys did ja kill today” ~ this one really worked on LBJ ~ he gave up.
Killing an American may or may not be an overt aft of war. Killing an ambassador certainly is.
Maybe if Obama bows down and apologizes again they will see the error of their ways/ s.
On an amusing note, throwing the Persians down a well was perhaps a bit more “earth and water” than was required.
The killing of Jumonville was an international incident, but he was a military officer not an ambassador.
Genghis Khan sent a trade caravan and later ambassadors to the Khwarezmid Empire, modern day Iran, Afghanistan, parts of Central Asia, to propose diplomacy and trade. The governor of a province and the Shah himself humiliated and executed them. Genghis did not take too kindly to this and launched one of the most devastating invasions in human history. The Khwarezmid Empire was wiped off the face of the map and cities and their populations were obliterated.
America needs to ‘Ghengis’ up! The great Khan knew how to make sure his nation was respected.
Has it occurred to anyone that Al Queda plans this sort of thing, so that we have no good options? If we do nothing, we look weak and lose influence. If we react with a heavy blow, as they likely would prefer, we destroy whatever contact and influence the US has with Libya, Egypt, etc.
Jimmy Obama’s “foreign policy expertise” is a bad joke, but is indiscriminate, immediate retribution the smartest move here? Arabs understand delayed revenge. Obama will do nothing ever, but I hope President Romney has a long memory and a strong stomach.
I agee completely. Ill considered action would be almost as bad as the apologies and no action course Obama is on.
Why was this title chosen for an article about Egypt and Libya?
It was intentional not an oversight.
Weren’t ambassadors selected as representatives of the government and thus usually friends or family of the leader because that’s the only person you could trust to speak for you?
The guy was connected. His brother was also in the fight commanding troops.
I think that you are correct, Just another reason why the king would go to war, revenge.
Egypt, Libya and Yemen cannot even pretend to have a free press.
The Egyptian President, who was quick to tell us that WE needed to do something about some nut making a glorified home movie about Muhammad quite infamously cracked down on any semblance of independent media in Egypt.
There is a reason why this obscure movie became MUCH MORE FAMOUS in the Middle East than it would have otherwise EVER have been in America (where we at least value good production professionalism) - and that is because the governments in Egypt, Libya and Yemen WANTED it to be famous.
They acted as the publicity agents for this obscure home movie - then tell US that we have to do something about it.
How about if WE tell THEM to shut the hell up about what some obscure nutbag does in America?
They incite a riot on 9-11 using this obscure home movie as the flimsiest of pretexts - and our media plays along either blithely unaware of or entirely uninterested in the fact that nobody in the Middle East (or anywhere else for that matter) would have ever heard of the ‘film’ if not for the publicity given to it via full and direct approval of the governments of Egypt, Libya and Yemen.
The Egyptian government is currently involved in a campaign to eradicate the Coptic people ~ the original population there, who were cruelly overrun by illegal aliens in the 7th century AD.
They knew exactly who produced the film ~ which has been out for some time. It had nothing to do with the demonstrations, but the film maker had a lot to do with why the Egyptian president went after him ~ sure, he's a troublemaker, but he's not a nut case ~ he knows all too well what it means to be hunted down like an animal by moslem fanatics ~ since that's just one of the reasons he's here in this country ~ he has been hunted down and if they could they'd kill him here.
He's fighting back with words.
Rush Limbaugh has been on this guy's case all day ~ so why?
Time to replace the fact checkers there, and Rush needs to be reminded that the 'NUT' as he referred to him, is exercising the same free speech rights that he is ~ and quite possibly on behalf of a far more elevated ambition ~ the right of his people, the Copts, to live free of moslem oppression and murder.
He would do better to film the real life, or ‘based on a true story’, events of Muslim oppression his people face - on an even greater scale now that the Muslim Brotherhood has taken over Egypt with the full approval of the 0bama White House and the Clinton State Department.
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