Some stuff to glance at .... September 13

From CommentaryMagazine
....Though Democrats spent the last week      furiously patting themselves on the back for having such a tough and successful leader at the helm, it appears that not only is the country just as unpopular in the Middle East as it was when George W. Bush was president, but that the security situation there may be rapidly unraveling. Though no one in Washington is allowed to say the phrase “war on terror” anymore, it appears that Islamists have no trouble in continuing their war on America.
These events in Libya, Egypt and Yemen may be just the tip of the Islamist iceberg. We now know that the kerfuffle over a trailer for an anti-Muslim movie was merely a cover for attacks on American targets in the Middle East by an al-Qaeda movement that is, despite the death of Osama bin Laden, very much alive and well......

From RT News
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov    has addressed a message to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton condemning the death of the US Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens. He also called for a change of tact in the fight against terrorism.
"I am shocked by the tragic death of Ambassador Chris Stevens and his colleagues,” the message began. “Please convey our words of sincere sympathy to the families and friends of the deceased."
He also took the opportunity to appeal for better coordinated anti-terrorism efforts between the two countries.
"We strongly condemn this crime that once again confirms the need for the joint efforts of our countries, as well as the global community in combating the evil of terrorism in all its manifestations," Lavrov wrote in his message, which appeared on the Foreign Ministry’s website. 
....In a recent interview with RT, President Vladimir Putin touched upon the issue of America’s tendency to interfere militarily in countries that are experiencing internal strife and the consequences such a strategy may have.
Mentioning the upheaval gripping the Arab world and the West’s determination to intervene in the internal strife, Putin asked: “Would you say that order and prosperity has been ensured in these countries?”
Concerning the situation in Libya, Putin was even less sanguine.
“In Libya, there are armed clashes raging between the various tribes, and I won’t even mention how this country experienced regime change,” the Russian leader said.....

Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi writing at the MiddleEastForum has a very informative piece
  ....The Libyan elections    in July that saw a poor performance on the part of Islamist parties were justifiably hailed by many commentators, who saw Libya as a notable exception to the theory of a universal regional ascendancy for the Islamists. I myself had wrongly predicted that the Islamists would gain the lion's share of the votes.
However, the election results should not lead to complacency.
As Reuters reports, armed Islamists have demolished Sufi shrines in Tripoli and Ziltan, with Libya's Interior Minister Fawzi Abdel A'al affirming that he would not want the security forces to engage in an armed confrontation with these religious radicals.
What's more, the destruction of the shrine in Tripoli took place by day in the open, and many of the perpetrators are reportedly members of the very same security forces.....
In this particular case, analogy with Iraq is helpful, for it is clear that the post-Gaddafi Libyan security forces are being built up in much the same way as the new Iraqi security apparatus was created and developed following the fall of Saddam's regime.
That is, facing a situation of chaos caused by competing militias, the post-Gaddafi Libyan government has understandably pursued a policy of trying to build up the new security forces as quickly as possible – an approach that was also adopted by the United States in Iraq.
However, the major problem is that the focus is on quantity, not quality, and so political factions and other ideologues can take advantage of the situation, flooding the ranks of the new security forces with their own partisans.
In Iraq, the result has been the large presence of Kurdish Peshmerga fighters and Shi'a Islamist militiamen.
The former means that Baghdad cannot risk an armed clash with the Kurds, as illustrated by a recent stand-off between the two sides at the disputed Rabia border-crossing town, located near the Syrian border. The incident resulted in no actual armed conflict....

Raymond Ibrahim writing at FrontPageMag:
....Some clarifications    for context: Islam’s black flag with the shehada and sword inscription is not an al-Qaeda banner but rather Islam’s most ancient banner, popularized by the Abbasid caliphs in the 800s.  In other words, these protesters were not imitating al-Qaeda; rather they—and al-Qaeda—are imitating Islam’s heritage, replete with jihad against the infidel.  Same with the phrase “worshippers of the cross”—Islam’s ancient appellation for the hated Christians.....
....Left unsaid and unknown in any Western media is the fact that the U.S. embassy has long been under threat, but for different reasons.  Earlier, the Egyptian paper El Fagr reported that Jihadi groups in Egypt, including Islamic Jihad, the Sunni Group, and Al Gamaa Al Islamiyya had issued a statement threatening to burn the U.S. embassy in Cairo to the ground unless all the Islamic jihadis currently imprisonment and in detention centers in the U.S. including Guantanamo Bay were released:.....
....In fact, none of this is surprising—neither the attack on the U.S. embassy, nor the U.S. government’s head-in-the-sand response, with strong words reserved only for those non-Muslims exercising their free speech rights.  This event also explains the situation in a way that even a child can understand: the more you appease—as the Obama administration has been doing with the Islamic world in ways unprecedented—the more contempt you earn from those you appease, and the more demands will be made of you.   Thus, today, far from being respected as a super-power, the U.S. is increasingly seen as a subdued, contemptuous dhimmi—who must say “how high?” whenever Muslims command “jump!”.....

...In Iran, about 50 protesters shouted, "Death to America," outside the Swiss Embassy, which looks after U.S. diplomatic interests in Iran. Riot police kept the crowd away from the building...