There are even rumours going around that the film was all funded by US Republicans to get this reaction & to damage Obama's re-election chances.

Whatever the truth of this affair it does seem to be very easy to perform certain acts in the USA that have predictable consequences in these other countries.
Pity people do not recognise when they are being manipulated by these puppet masters.

I don't think I've ever watched so much rubbish in all my life.. it is indeed a shame that people are protesting and dying as a result of this.

1. as I understand it, the dude resides in California and was simply exercising his right to free speech (no matter how stupid what is said might be). not to mention, the role of 99% of most great art - and believe you me, I am hardly suggesting that this dude's film is "art" - is to "create some serious shit".

2. to say that anything a human being says can be directly causative of public violence like what is happening in Libya, Egypt and now Yemen is more an indictment of the viewers and/or listeners than it is the speaker.

look, I haven't bothered to watch this dude's stupid little film, nor do I intend to, but using the film as an excuse for the events of the last couple of days is, at best, morally and ethically reprehensible. it is also, based upon most of the news reports and speculation, factually wrong.

One perrson who should be sanctioned is the AP reporter who interviewed a man who doesn't exist, believed whatever lies told to him (5 million $ donated by 100 jewishs etc) and published them without even a basic fact check, knowing this will trigger riots.

If anyone watches just parts of the movie they will realize what kind of amateur the producer must be to create such a boring, tasteless and damaging movie, though I find immature or rather scary the reaction coming from the middle east on such a low budget, unknown movie, its not like it was produced by one of Hollywood's known and supported producers.

So now every time some 'shmok' says something against a religion your gonna start burning places down and killing people.

And to lie about being an American Israeli... someone here def has some kind of agenda..

CG I've had a think about this, and I've changed my mind. I don't think number 2 (my number 2) follows as a direct result of the film: the US govt. obviously can't be held responsible for everything that it's citizens do, though generally I do believe that people should be held responsible for the expected consequences of their actions.

btw. I did some very brief reading into the Freedom of Speech thing (i.e. i checked it on Wikipedia) and I was surprised to read that Freedom of Speech as defined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights has built-in caveats:

It's only stating common sense, though I've found that the way some people bang on about freedom of speech you'd think it was absolute and completely unrestricted.

One thing that's really disturbing to me is that clearly NO ONE has seen this film in full. Just a 13 minute clip. It's amateurish, and dubbed over. So based on what may just be some edit, people stoked themselves up. And then turned violent, which is totally unacceptable.

Good news is, Benghazi people has spontaneously held demonstrations of support for America and to apologize for the death of the diplomats. They don't want their freshly freed country to commit suicide, at least.

Bad news, Yemeni fanatics decided to use this as an excuse to attack the US embassy. Other countries have had demonstrations too, but so far they've been peaceful (but still butthurt over a trivial video), or kept peaceful by large deployments of security forces. Tomorrow's the equivalent of a Sunday for the Muslim world, it might not be so calm.

If you take the long view, this is the equivalent of a missile hit, but as an internet video. Imagine what could be done with something less amateurish... It's about time the Muslim world accepted criticism of religion, any religion, including theirs, if only to stop virtual firebombing in one place been used as the pretext for real firebombing elsewhere. It's doing them a complete disservice.

This is an interesting article about the situation from Russia's point of view. It's kind of a "I told you so," to America. As you all may know that Russia tried socialism in the Middle East and it did not work either...Sad indeed.

To be honest, after watching the movie on YouTube, I'd like to go and protest too. About the most appalling, cringeworthy acting and message invoking load of crap ever to waste my bandwidth.

Do these actors not have any pride or self esteem? Hey guys, we're meant to be at the top of the intelligence pyramid, not some lowly supporting rôle. Embarrassing and really not worth commenting on, let alone killing people for. This flick is to movie making what Sesame Street is to wildlife documentaries.

The actors have come out to claim they had no idea that the theme of the film was what it is. They say it's heavily edited and that they're overdubbed. Please don't blame them. I agree the general level of acting etc is completely rubbish in the 13 minutes clip.

The film was made by a Coptic, whom is now receiving police protection, oh the irony! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coptic

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-19591039

.

Fixed that.

I fully agree that 99.9% of the public reporting on these latest incidents has been less than stellar, especially in the first 24 hours after the attacks, but blaming this stupid little youtube movie or AP reporters for the immoral and criminal behavior of those involved in the attacks has simply got to stop.

Seems the Sudanese film critics have attacked the German embassy; not that the Germans have done anything filmwise but because it was less well protected than the US embassy.

Bloody ell! That is embarrassingly stupid. If it wasn't bad enough that the US embassy was attacked even though they had nothing to do with the film, what the hell do the Germans have to do with this??

I realize some people are sensitive about particular subjects and on the flip-side there are some people who engage in despicable and senseless provocation, but any mistakes of the latter are hard to demonize if the reaction of the former is to go crazy and kill people. There's no possibility for a rational debate between our societies if we're always living in the fear of one of our millions citizens releasing a YouTube video that will go viral and cause outrage that may lead to bloodshed on such a huge scale. The fact that they continually fall for it is frustrating. Sure, it's unrealistic to expect people to change their cultures overnight, but we're not asking for the moon here. Realize that in our culture people have the right to say and express themselves more or less how they see fit, that even if you find it offensive it won't affect your life, and that you shouldn't kill people over it. If that's a road block you can't get past... I don't know what to tell you.

I maintain hope that an overwhelming majority of people in the Middle East are rational and smart enough to realize that a few words, cartoons, or amateurish movies made by some ignorant douchebag on the other side of the world who they'll never meet would be a very stupid hill to die on. They have to make more of an effort to prevent the bloodthirsty fundamentalists in their midst from monopolizing discourse to such a degree.

To bad the can't kick the guy out of the u.s. he was a Egyptain ex convict and did this to cause riots and knew it would. The laws need changed to kick him out or punish him for their death, and sure he knewwhat the reaction would be. He goes into hiding, having used fake names and so on. It was not the U.S that did this but someone from another country, maybe he got supported from some radicals the middle east. He does need to be brought to trial for this.

there is no question that he did it to anger Muslims, just like the lunatic funamentalist Christians who probably helped support the making of the film. but to say that he did it to cause riots is just plain silly, and for sure the film would be protected as free speech in the US unless he broadcast it on a big screen in front of 10,000 Muslims in public and directly incited them to riot. again, the actions of the loonies in Libya, Egypt and Yemen should never be rationalized by the viewing of a film.

that said, he probably will go to jail for violating the terms of his probation, since according to many of the news articles he was still serving probation for fraud and part of his probationary sentencing prohibited him from using the internet.

Better than nothing. They got Al Capone for tax fraud, after all.

About " but to say that he did it to cause riots is just plain silly"

Why?

Most people make films to make money by selling the completed films to cinemas but I do not see any cinema chain in the world buying & showing this one.
So why do you think he made it?
He clearly has financial issues & so is not some rich guy who can afford to make a film that will never earn anything?