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Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Anti-Islam Film Sparked Riots--Or Did It?

 It's been widely-reported, and assumed, that the match that lit yesterday's bloody riots in Libya and Egypt was that trailer for an anti-Islam film made by an Israeli in California, Sam Bacile (if that's really his name).  However, CNN just reported that U.S. sources now say the Libya attack was planned in advance and the thugs merely used the protest for cover or took advantage of it.  Not sure what this means, but this earlier post provocatively claims that the film really had nothing to do it with it--it was a revenge assault from the first. 

As for Sam Bacile, we don't know much about him.  Claims to be real estate tycoon but can't be located in Google searches.  Israeli-American who claims to have relatives in Egypt.  Even his last name, Bacile, questioned.  Sarah Posner raises other questions here.  Here's a key graf from Atlantic piece:
He knew the film would lead to violence. To state the obvious, a film did not kill four U.S. officials in Libya today, that blame can only be placed on the religious extremists (allegedly Islamic) who fired gunshots and rocket-propelled grenades into the U.S. Embassy. But according to one of Bacile's consultants on the film, Steve Klein, the two knew full well that their incendiary movie would provoke violent reprisals. Klein told the Associated Press this morning that he warned Bacile “you’re going to be the next Theo van Gogh,” referring to the Dutch filmmaker murdered by a Muslim extremist in 2004. Klein said Bacile acknowledged that. “We went into this knowing this was probably going to happen,” he told the AP. Well gentlemen, congratulations, you got your violent reprisal.
 UPDATE 2:20 p.m.   Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic has new post in which he says Klein just told him Bacile is NOT Jewish and Bacile is not his real name.  Klein himself has led anti-Islam protests among other such activities.  Klein is a self-described militant Christian and consultant on the film.  There may be hints that Klein is actually Bacile?  Who knows.  

UPDATE 4:20 p.m.  Buzzfeed writer suggests even the film isn't real--just a compilation of clips from existing videos.  

1 comment:

Laurence Glavin said...

There are points in the trailer when a separate voice is heard while the on-screen, um, "actor" is moving his or her lips, a la Dennis Haysbert in the Allstate Insurance commercials (no, it's NOT Morgan Freeman as some have supposed). It's been a daily double today for viewing trailers: I also saw the trailer for "Atlas Shrugged Part Two" today, only marginally better than the anti-Islam film (actually video, not film). At least the trailer didn't include Sean Hannity, who's actually making a cameo appearance in "AS2". If he HAD appeared in the trailer, it might have rendered it as bad as the perhaps phony anti-Islamic trailer.