All screenplays on the simplyscripts.com and simplyscripts.net domain are copyrighted to their respective authors. All rights reserved. This screenplaymay not be used or reproduced for any purpose including educational purposes without the expressed written permission of the author.
I don't think the film is available, just a trailer on Youtube. And Youtube shut it down in those countries.
Add this to your statement XL: ethanol produced by farmers because of govt incentive programs have also contributed to food inflation.
Once again, the govt intervenes to "help", new special interests are created, and people suffer. And, as Al Gore admitted, it did not lesson carbon emissions at all.
I was skeptical about the premise of the Iraq war. The idea was that if democracy could be established there, a peaceful nation, friendly to the west, and allied with America, would emerge.
Bush, the neo-cons, and people like McCain are naive on one very important thing: they think that "liberating" a people from a dictator will make them grateful to you.
Hillary Clinton and Barrack Obama share this dangerous misconception. And four people died in Libya as a result.
The consulate in Libya, one of the most dangerous places in the world, was protected by how many Americans while the ambassador was present? One: a navy seal, who may or may not have been armed.
What did they rely on for protection? 30 Libyans who manned the walls. And who ran at the first sign of trouble. And who probably cooperated with the attackers.
We trusted our security to that? On 9/11 to boot? Are you serious?
This is what badly flawed and naive thinking does. The ambassador had helped the revolutionaries. So they'll protect him, right? That's what Hillary assumed. And that's why she was so completely baffled in her press conference the other day.
We went to Bosnia to save Muslims from genocide. And we did. Meanwhile Bin Laden was planning his attack because we had bases in Saudi Arabia...there to protect Muslims(and our interests, of course). And on 9/11, the Muslim world cheered.
When you need someone to "liberate" you, it reminds you of your secondary status, of your dependent state. And no one likes to see themselves that way. The Islamic world looks around and sees that while the rest of the world produces technology and literature and medicine and science, it produces nothing. This is difficult for them to swallow. So the mind twists things, looks for devils to blame. Just like the trench coat mafia type kids in high school who blame everyone else because the cheerleaders don't pay attention to them.
I am not saying we should not help people who try to liberate themselves. Stopping the genocide in Bosnia was a good thing. Maybe democracy will take root in Iraq and in Libya. Helping people develop modern institutions is a noble goal.
But don't expect them to like you for it. They won't. They will hate you, so be prepared to live with that.
part II: apology tours don't work
There is no serious question, despite what fact checkers claimed, that Obama's world tour at the start of his administration was an apology tour. You don't have to say "I'm sorry" to apologize. We know that as screenwriters.
The tone of that tour was intended by the Pres and understood by every country as an apology tour. He was saying, "yes, my country has committed great evils in the past, but I'm here now."
Hillary brought a "reset" button to Russia, telling them in effect, 'bad old W is gone; we're much more reasonable."
And they backed it with action to show they were serious. We had long signed an agreement promising to place missile defense in Poland, and they had been our most faithful ally. But we stabbed them in the back, backed out on the defense in order to appease the Russians.
Was the result that the Russians have been more cooperative with Obama?
lol
The Russians have been twice as assertive. They saw Obama's gestures as signs of weakness, and they moved to take advantage. The world is a more dangerous place because of it.
Obama apologized to every Islamic country. He stopped in Turkey, Egypt, etc, and told them there is a new America now, one which will "listen" to their concerns and feel their pain.
The result? They love us now? They support our policies in the world?
lol
They hate us even more! And they oppose us even more. And the world is a more dangerous place.
I'd be all for apology tours if they worked. They don't. The world sees it as weakness. That's human nature. You can't govern when you don't understand human nature. It's time for these people to step aside before more damage is done.
Despite warnings from Libyans about the precarious state of security in Libya, despite warnings from intelligence people about growing anger about an anti-Islam film, and despite the fact that it was 9/11, there was minimal security. A handful of Americans at best.
Why?
The closest official reason I have been able to find is that the State Department was concerned during the last year how a heavy security detail would look to the Libyans, who they did not wish to offend. Hillary did not want a visible military or police presence.
The second reason we can conclude from her press conference, in which she expressed her bafflement: she figured the Libyans would be grateful to Americans who helped them and would protect them.
Furthermore, not only was the security presence at the embassy in Egypt not increased for 9/11, as one would expect. It appears to have been drastically reduced in the hopes of avoiding "an incident". The Egyptians on the scene were quite a bit surprised when the protesters arrived and found the normal security had been stood down.
QUESTION: Do we REALLY want these people running our foreign policy? Would you trust these people to run your business? To provide security for your family?
Hillary seems like an very intelligent and hard working Secretary. So why is she so inept? Dangerously inept?
It's because of her naive Progressive ideology. We need people to see the world how it is, not how their Hollywood fantasy ideals create it for them. They need to go away and let the adults back in before more people get hurt.
So you must agree with me then, Chris, that the mistakes I mentioned led to deaths?
Depends what you mean by conservative and how far back you want to go. As said above, I am skeptical about the Iraq war, always was. But this was an abandonment of Bush's prior conservative principles, which hold that nation building is not our mission in the world.
9/11 changed Bush. He sought a lasting solution, a BIG solution. WWII, his father's war, guided his thinking. If Bush was correct, eventually Iraq will settle down and become a stable democracy, which will spread through the Middle East. And it will have been worth it.
If he was wrong, many thousands died for nothing.
But in general, conservative principles are grounded on practical experience and reality, not a dreamy view of the world and human nature. They are not pessimistic principles. American conservatives are optimistic that when people embrace freedom, democracy, and capitalism, they will thrive. They are only skeptical that all people will automatically embrace such things. They are skeptical of forcing these ideas on everyone, especially cultures with a very different value system.
Conservatives would have had Marines on the walls. Some of those storming the walls and trying to get in might have died. More likely, seeing Marines, they would not have stormed the walls.
edit: man, they still love their commie dictators, lol!
NPR story paints Putin's staged photos in a friendly light.
From this day forward, I will never look at the Muslim faith the same.
For years, I’ve heard “we're peaceful” and I wanted to believe it but the last few days have completely changed my mind.
I see TENS OF THOUSANDS of Muslims acting like riotous, out of control animals unleashing hate and venom on everything in their paths.
As we speak, riots have broken out in over twenty countries and spreading like wildfire.
And for what?
A trailer?
Are you kidding me???
It seems this has been simmering just beneath the surface for some time now, and all it took was the slightest bit of fuel to powder keg it.
That doesn’t sound like too much of a peaceful religion to me. It sounds like a religion that has been planning for an event like this to come all along as though they were waiting for it.
And before you say it, YES, I KNOW, they were insulted. Okay! I get that!!
But isn’t the true measure of a faith, its ability to take insults and show the compassion, love, and resolve embedded in that faith?
Look at the Jewish faith and the years of attacks and yet, continue to hold fast to peaceful principles.
These last few days have really tipped the Muslim hand as to what they are really all about.
I was skeptical about the premise of the Iraq war. The idea was that if democracy could be established there, a peaceful nation, friendly to the west, and allied with America, would emerge.
Bush, the neo-cons, and people like McCain are naive on one very important thing: they think that "liberating" a people from a dictator will make them grateful to you.
But you need a line to feed to the press, don't you?
When you need someone to "liberate" you, it reminds you of your secondary status, of your dependent state. And no one likes to see themselves that way. The Islamic world looks around and sees that while the rest of the world produces technology and literature and medicine and science, it produces nothing. This is difficult for them to swallow. So the mind twists things, looks for devils to blame.
But understanding the mindset of the people you are attempting to liberate is central. 1) The Imam don't encourage independent thought. As much as the US think liberation is needed, so ten to that amount, Islam believes the opposite -- because belief is the stronger of the functions. 2) The Islamic system failed long, long ago, and has been hanging on by the skin of its teeth. Communism gave up the fight, because it didn't carry the religious element along side it. You can't simply say about a system that demands devotion 'oh, okay, not so great, let's ditch it' -- that's called a political system. Islam deliberately entwined its religion with its political as it recognized the power of such a system. You can't stand up and say to 'xxx' millions "sorry, let's have a rethink".
I agree Simon. It's a huge problem. The ideas of democracy and freedom are Western, and are rooted in the separation of church and state. Sharia does not allow such a distinction.
1) Obama's administration (or its nuanced foreign policy) is not responsible for the actions of the extremists that murdered 4 innocents in Libya. Those who argue this steadfastly hold Americans to their own responsibilities and actions, and yet absolve these terrorists of taking responsibility for their actions. Illogical and partisan. Supposedly the "liberals" are the ones in fantasy. By this absurd token, Bush's administration was responsible for 9/11. Quite frankly, it's disgusting to see Americans belittle themselves and their ideals in pursuit of political gain.
2) The Musilms who are currently protesting are as indicative of the faith as fundamentalist Christians who picket abortion clinics and throw hate bombs at women taking a decision that will stay with them for their lives - that these religious zealots exacerbate this pain is disgusting. True neanderthals. So, those extremist Muslims simply inhabit the same warped world as the extremist Christians. I argued and posted a link that Muslims do need to grow a thicker skin, but you can't help but feel sorry for the moderates when they encounter such a lack of nuance from Islamophobes.
No one said Obama is responsible for the actions of the extremists. No one absolves the terrorists of responsibility.
What I blame the current admin for(whether O, or Hillary, or both) is the appalling, non-existent security in one of the most dangerous and unstable areas of the world, an area known to have al quada activity, and on 9/11 of all times.
We left the security of the ambassador to 30 Libyans. That is unfathomable.
Even worse, it was the policy assumptions that led to this disastrous decision:
the assumptions: 1) a heavy American security presence will make us look bad, will offend the Libyans and damage relations. So let's let the Libyans handle security.
2) the Libyans are grateful for our aid in the overthrow of Khaddafi, so we can count on them.
These misguided assumptions resulted in the consulate being easily overthrown...in minutes. Ideas have consequences. We cannot afford these naive ABC after school special notions about the world.
What Andrew got right, or kind of right:
True, have to be careful about judging a large group, culture, or faith based on the actions of a small minority.
But Andrew should also keep in mind that wherever the moderates are, they are very, very quiet. While only a small minority participate in terrorist activity, there seems to be a very wide sympathy for this activity. And this activity is remarkably widespread. Take for example the Philippines.
The Philippines are 99 percent Catholic. But they have a long standing group of revolutionaries which are among the most violent in the world, and which engage in the tactic of killing and abducting innocent civilians and foreigners. And this revolutionary group is Islamic.
We can take take the subcontinent of India and compare Pakistan to India, and which culture is more violent and intolerant.
Islam clearly has stuff that it has to work out. The religion needs to evolve if it's people are gonna progress. I root for that evolution. There are beautiful things about the religion. But we should not be naive. That's how embassies get stormed.
Jake Tapper of ABC asks questions the admin just can't answer. For example: The President promised four years ago to repair relations with the Islamic world(thus his famous apology tour, and his borderline hostility to Israel). Why does it seem the Islamic world hates us even more now than they did 4 years ago? Why does it seem we are powerless in the face of this?
And then we watch the dance. She says we are not powerless, Obama himself called the Egyptian President and asked him to increase security, and the problem was solved.
Tapper wondered why it took 2 days for O to do this. And I wonder why he had to do it all if we had succeeded in repairing our relationship over the last 4 years.
BTW: this same tendency to have well intended by naive assumptions about human nature, which causes so much havoc in foreign policy, also is what undermines the economy, and does tremendous damage to the working classes.
Admi ambassador to the UN was an absolute embarrassment on ABC this morning. Asked repeatedly why there were no Marines in Libya, she kept punting. The closest she came to an answer was, "Our presence in Tripoli, as in Benghazi, is relatively new as you will recall. We've been back post-Revolution only for a matter of months."
She actually said that!
This administration is not unique. The naive assumptions that guide them are those commonly held by Progressive academia. That's why this thinking is prevalent in the State Department, which generally consists of Ivy League liberals.
Look, they're all kinds of cute at the protest rallies with their hacky sacks and Birken Stocks. But when this kind of naive thinking drives government policy, bad things happen, people die, and the world becomes a more dangerous place.
Again, the exact same argument could be put forth regards 9/11 and the Bush administration's foreign policy. Michael Moore is lambasted as a conspiracy theorist for suggesting Bush was negligent. So the same argument coming from the other side regards Obama's administration and supposed "liberal thinking" must be treated in the same way. So to shoehorn a popular phrase of my mother's: "What's good for the goose is good for the gander".
Obama's drone campaign is more than an inconvenience to the neocons caricature of a peacenik, Ivy League Liberal-type. Let us not forget these same irresponsible, misguided chaps led us to war in Iraq and now seek to replicate the disaster in Iran.
If the electorate takes this message on board, "the Romney campaign is toast" - it also suggests that "the dog won't eat the dog food" when it comes to swing states buying Romney's alternative economic plans.
But you are understating Moore's position, and really misstating it.
Moore does not accuse Bush of being "negligent". He implies with his film that Bush was somehow "behind" 9/11. That's why his film alludes to some pipeline the Bush oil people wanted to build through Afghanistan.
Moore essentially accuses Bush of either planning or at the very least deliberately allowing 9/11 as an excuse for him to go to war.
No one is accusing Obama of that. And mistakes happen, so I don't think a President can be held responsible for everything.
But this was a case not of negligence, but of outrageously bad policy that was a direct result of these naive assumptions.
And almost a week later, the administration people are frankly still acting like children, trying to dance and cover. There is ample evidence they were warned, but they continue to lie and deny. There is overwhelming evidence that this attack had a high degree of planning, and they continue to deny this and call it "spontaneous".
The best we can hope for and say about the situation is this: the antidote to liberalism is reality. They are getting a heavy dose of it now. They have shown some ability to adapt in the past. For example, Guantanamo remains open, and the trials never took place in New York(they never took place, actually).
But liberalism often proves quite resistant to reality. That is its defining attribute. Like a religion, it's founded on faith in certain, often inconsistent precepts.
Will Obama outgrow his liberalism in a second term? Maybe. He won't have any reason to remain beholden to party. But odds are against it. He has too much self esteem invested in this ideology.
So you must agree with me then, Chris, that the mistakes I mentioned led to deaths?
Depends what you mean by conservative and how far back you want to go. As said above, I am skeptical about the Iraq war, always was. But this was an abandonment of Bush's prior conservative principles, which hold that nation building is not our mission in the world.
9/11 changed Bush. He sought a lasting solution, a BIG solution. WWII, his father's war, guided his thinking. If Bush was correct, eventually Iraq will settle down and become a stable democracy, which will spread through the Middle East. And it will have been worth it.
If he was wrong, many thousands died for nothing.
I don't know much about the Libya business. The way you tell the story, it certainly sounds as though things could have been handled differently. What I'm unclear on, as always, is how you move from specific example -- Hillary's purported mistake -- to a blanket statement about an ideology. You mention Bush and the Iraq war -- I might as easily say, why is George Bush so inept? It's because of his conservative ideology. He needed to step down and let the adults -- say, Kucinich or Obama, as politicians opposed to the initial invasion -- take charge before more people got hurt.
(But I don't).
My question, above was the following: I'm constantly confused by your claims regarding "all liberals" or "all leftists." Can you explain, simply, the view or views common to "all leftists" that are inherently wrong or harmful?
I'll take a quick shot, Chris, but that's a question that requires a careful answer, and I'm pressed for time.
Liberals like government. They really like it. They have an enormous faith in government solutions to problems big and small. They think human society should be re-engineered and manged by those of superior talent and disposition. Namely, them.
They dislike patriotism, however. They don't trust it. They consider it vulgar. Every liberal I knew in college and later despised the flag and the national anthem. They like other people's flags, though. That's celebrating diversity, and that's people clinging to their heritage.
Consistent with both of these themes, they have a reverence for the United Nations and are strangely blind to its weakness and even the dangers of this type of international body. They don't understand that the UN is not a bunch of countries jointly trying to solve world problems. It consists of member countries each pursing its own ends.
They see the world as divided between the oppressed and the oppressors. Countries or individuals that are successful could only have achieved their success by oppressing others.
Countries or individuals that are unsuccessful, unproductive or poor are only in that state because they have been oppressed.
Therefore the role of government is to intervene, by redistributing, or by creating institutions that protect the oppressed, and ultimately re-engineer, under their benevolent guidance.
Often there are contradictory impulses. For example, women's rights are a high priority, and for that reason they despise what they see as conservative institutions in the west, such as the Catholic Church. But yet their self image of being supremely tolerant of non-western cultures(the oppressed) means they have a complete blind spot when it comes to the severe oppression of women in the Islamic world. This really gives away the game as far as the liberal mindset.
In the case of Libya, there were no Marines protecting the consulate because liberals are extremely worried about offending people of color, who are among the oppressed and have a special class with liberals.
There were also no Marines because Liberals don't tend to understand human motives in terms of their experience, but rather in some idealistic term dictated by how they would like to see the world.
They see themselves nobly riding to the rescue of the oppressed(this is what gives them their self worth) and assume that the "oppressed" will be grateful. They don't understand that if the third world was suddenly in control of the world, they would slaughter the liberals first. They think because they patronize third world minorities, those patronized will love them. But they are hated for the patronage, though they accept it.
And before anyone say it, this has nothing to do with genetics or race. These forces are all cultural and historical.
Chris, can you really explain in any other way how they left the embassy in Libya essentially unguarded on 9/11 of all times? It was not negligence. It was not because Obama does not go to his daily intelligence briefings and spends too much time campaigning( well, maybe that contributed). It's because their understanding of human nature is dictated by idealistic and naive assumptions.
Pages: 
Author
The 2012 US Presidential Election
Logged
Locked Board