by Stephen Lendman

Post-9/11, Washington declared war on Islam. Islamophobia facilitates war on terror policy. Muslims became public enemy number one. Imperial wars followed. Endless direct and proxy ones continue. Others are planned.

Dehumanizing Islam violates core US beliefs about religious freedom and respecting all faiths equally. America only respects money power and imperial dominance.

It targets anyone challenging its quest for global hegemony. Millions of corpses attest to its resolve. They're strewn across North Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, and other parts of the world without end. Their numbers increase daily.

The business of America is war, imperial dominance, and corporate empowerment. Ravaging one country after another follows. Fear is created and manipulated to facilitate what should be condemned. Where it ends who knows. Perhaps a mushroom-shaped cloud future awaits.

Muslims know America's dark side best. It victimizes them daily. Millions died since Gulf War mass killings ignited nearly 22 years of genocidal slaughter.

They've been mercilessly targeted for praying to the wrong God. They're used for political advantage. They're pretexts for permanent wars. They're ongoing with no end in sight.

Media scoundrels misreport or ignore them. Attacks on US Cairo and Benghazi diplomatic missions made headlines and ignited rage. Capitol Hill flags were ordered lowered to half mast. US Libyan ambassador Chris Stevens and three members of his staff were killed. Millions of dead Muslims go unnoticed.

Stevens previously was Obama's representative to America's puppet Libyan National Transition Council. It helped Washington and NATO partners ravage the country mercilessly.

They're responsible for killing tens of thousands of civilians, causing widespread destruction, leaving countless numbers homeless, displaced, and impoverished, as well as ending cherished social programs Gaddafi instituted.

According to a New York Times editorial headlined "Murder in Benghazi," Libya's "pro-democracy revolution had no better friend than" Stevens.

The Times not only spurned truth, it blasphemed it. Stevens like all US ambassadors and officials serve imperial Washington's interests. They're contemptuous of democracy and rule of law principles.

"The worst thing now would be for the United States to turn away from its commitments to work with Libya (and help it) build (a) stable new societ(y)."

America's interest is plunder, exploitation and dominance. It won't tolerate democracy or anything resembling it. It doesn't at home or anywhere abroad.

A blasphemous anti-Muslim film incited violence. It killed Stevens and others. An Israeli/American filmmaker made it. He calls himself Sam Bacile. According to the Los Angeles Times, public record searches, "including court, voting, telephone or property databases - show no one" by that name in California.

AP said Nakoula Basseley Nakoula uses the alias Nicola Bacily. He acknowledged managing the company that produced the film. He claims Bacile is real and directed it. Federal court papers revealed Nakoula aliases include Bacily, Erwin Salameh, and others.

"Bacile," or whatever his name is, stands by his filth. Over 100 Jewish donors funded him.

Perhaps Romney supporter/billionaire Sheldon Adelson was one. Perhaps Netanyahu, other Israeli hardliners, and Mossad either supported it or were involved. It bears classic Israeli fingerprints.

"Bacile" claims he wrote, directed and produced it. He calls Islam "a cancer." Weeks earlier, the film was shown in Los Angeles. It runs two hours. It attracted little attention.

On 9/11 eve, he released an Arabic 13 minute trailer. It's titled "Innocence of Muslims." Facebook was used to promote it. It circulated via You Tube. Violence followed.

He calls Mohammad a baffoon, a donkey, a philanderer, an opportunist, a pedophile, homosexual, and religious fraud. One scene depicts him having sex. Muslims and responsible critics denounced him.

In 2005, the Danish newspaper Jyllands Posten published blasphemous caricatures. They depicted the Prophet Mohammad irreverently. One showed him wearing a turban throwing a bomb. Riots followed in many Muslim countries. Deaths occurred in Afghanistan, India, Libya, and perhaps elsewhere.

In 2011, the Center for American Progress produced a report titled "Fear, Inc.: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America." It revealed that seven US-based pro-Israeli organizations spent over $40 million from 2001 - 2009 spreading anti-Islamic hate.

Racist Pastor Terry Jones heads the Gainesville, FL-based Dove World Outreach Center. In 2010, he cancelled plans to burn the Koran after then Afghan commander David Petraeus said doing so would endanger US forces.

In 2011, he incited rage over threats to "put the Koran on trial" and burn it. Pleas by religious leaders and US officials failed to dissuade him. His assistant, Wayne Sapp, committed the sacrilege and broadcast it online. He also burned an image of the Prophet Mohammad.

In April 2012, he did it again. According to the Gainesville Sun, his church was issued a citation for violating city fire ordinances.

Analyst Gordon Duff calls Jones a CIA asset "run by rogue handlers, and heavily promoted by Mossad elements throughout the Middle East." His blasphemy draws attention. He's used to incite Islamophobia.

He's linked to the anti-Islamic video. He promoted and helped circulate it. He bears responsibility with others for the violence it incited.

US soldiers involved in Koran burnings and other forms of desecration provoked outrage when they happened.

Muslims believe the holy Koran is an exact record of words revealed by God through the Angel Gabriel to Muhammad. He taught them to others. Scribes passed them on. Throughout centuries of Islamic history, its 114 chapters remained unchanged.

The Koran's the primary source of Muslim faith and practice. It covers all human concerns, including wisdom, beliefs, worship and law. It also focuses on God's relationship with humanity, and provides guidelines for a just society, proper relationships, and just divisions of power.

It teaches love, not hate; peace, not violence; charity, not selfishness; and tolerance, not terrorism. Its five pillars include profession of faith, prayer five times daily, fasting during Ramadan, charity, and performing the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in a lifetime for those able to afford it.

In February, clashes followed US Bagram Air Base soldiers dumping Koran copies and other Islamic holy materials in debris piles for burning.

Military officials lied. They claimed they contained "extremist inscriptions" and were used to "facilitate extremist communications." This incident followed earlier ones and release of a January video showing Marines urinating on Afghan corpses.

Protests erupted each time. Hollow apologies heightened anger, especially after 11 years of brutal war, occupation, daily killings, and extreme deprivation in ravaged Afghanistan.

Western media reports claimed rockets fired at Washington's Benghazi consulate killed Stevens and three members of his staff. According to The New York Times, "Islamist militants armed with antiaircraft weapons and rocket-propelled grenades stormed" the mission late Tuesday.

His body wasn't "located until Wednesday morning at dawn, when he was found dead at a Benghazi hospital, American and Libyan officials said." Libyan sources said he died of asphyxiation caused by smoke from ignited fires.

On September 12, the American Iranian Friendship Committee published a different version of events. Images reveal a rocket attack wasn't responsible. Apparently, Stevens "was dragged through the streets and tortured. They don't mind when it's Gaddafi or one of your brown people, but not one of us."

The Mossad-connected DebkaFile said gunmen attacking America's mission split in two groups. One fired rockets at the consulate "on the assumption that (Stevens') bodyguards would" whisk him out of harm's way under secret service protection.

The second group spotted his "getaway vehicle and the ambassador's armed escort and lay in wait to ambush them." They killed him and his bodyguards "at point blank range."

Washington responded its usual way. Obama promised revenge. He ordered stepped up diplomatic mission security. He sent in the marines. He dispatched two guided missile destroyers. Pentagon spokesman called these steps precautionary measures.

Washington spent more than two decades ravaging North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia. Tuesday's attack suggests blowback. The suspiciously timed anti-Islamic hate film suggests Israeli involvement. Expect no official confirmation.

According to Haaretz, "Netanyahu has gone to war. Not against Iran. Not yet, at least. But his bellicose road to Tehran runs through Washington."

He picked "a very public fight with" Obama….(I)t's no great secret. (He) wants him defeated" in November. He wants Romney elected. He thinks he'll be quicker to attack Iran.

Perhaps so. Perhaps not. Rhetoric and policy bear little relationship to each other, especially during electoral campaigns.

If Netanyahu's involved in or responsible for the blasphemous film, violence it incited, and four American deaths, perhaps rock solid US/Israeli relations will suffer along with his own political future. What follows bears watching.

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Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

His new book is titled "How Wall Street Fleeces America: Privatized Banking, Government Collusion and Class War"

http://www.claritypress.com/Lendman.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

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