NYT blockbuster: Anti-Islam video had role in Benghazi attack, Al Qaeda didn`t

A blockbuster new story in the New York Times by David Kirkpatrick looks at the fatal attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya in 2012 and finds no evidence to back up the GOP talking points.

Specifically, Kirkpatrick found no evidence that Al Qaeda played any role in the attack, but he did find evidence that that anti-Muslim video, “Innocence of Muslims,” played a role.

Republicans have been claiming from day one that it was Al Qaeda Al Qaeda Al Qaeda.

And their more general point was that it was a ABSOTIVELY POSALUTELY A TERRORIST ATTACK.  And in fact, there’s still no evidence that it was.

They’ve also been claiming that the anti-Islam video played no role. It would seem the Republicans, yet again, got it wrong on that account too.

Before we get to the Times, let’s take a quick look at that video that the Republicans have been so intent on defending. Here’s how Vanity Fair described “Innocence of Muslims”:

Actual scene from “Innocence of Muslims.”

Exceptionally amateurish, with disjointed dialogue, jumpy editing, and performances that would have looked melodramatic even in a silent movie, the clip is clearly designed to offend Muslims, portraying Mohammed as a bloodthirsty murderer and Lothario and pedophile with omnidirectional sexual appetites. “Is the messenger of God gay?” one character asks rhetorically. “Is the master dominant or submissive?”

“Amateurish” is too kind. You have to see this thing.  It looks like Team America, but without the cartoons. Here’s a trailer:

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NY Times Op-Ed Looks At Life Under Russia's 'Gay Propaganda' Ban Russ

An op-ed in Friday's New York Times by author and journalist Mark Gevisser examines the impact of Russia's anti-gay propaganda law for its LGBT community. Gevisser takes the Russian port city of Arkhangelsk (population 350,000) as a case study of sorts to consider the effect of the law on everyday Russians and also to attempt to suss out the root cause of homophobia in Russia:

Yet one often ignored cause for this homophobic surge is perhaps the most obvious: backlash. Whatever else it is, Russian homophobia is a direct, even violent, reaction to the space created by a minority that has only come into the open over the last decade.

This is certainly the case in Arkhangelsk, where Rakurs [the city’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender advocacy organization] was denied registration as a nonprofit organization in 2010 on the grounds that it promoted “extremism.” Rakurs managed to get this judgment overturned, but soon after, the “gay propaganda” ban was passed.

“The law was clearly designed to limit our activities,” Tatiana Vinnichenko, the director of Rakurs, told me. “And in many ways it has succeeded. We cannot hold protests of more than one person. And any attempts to help young people are stifled.”

Still, despite the encroachment on their rights, young "LGBTs" ("the acronym has become part of the Russian vernacular") are not giving up the fight. In fact, Gevisser suggests that the focus on the LGBT community, even in a negative light, has galvanized many who might otherwise have been silent or inactive:

Even as the rise of a queer rights movement provokes a backlash, the backlash undermines itself — by strengthening the resolve of the movement and by publicizing (even if through hate) the existence of a group of people who were so long invisible...

There is only one way out of this bind: for Russians themselves to speak out in support of the rights of sexual minorities. What is most inspiring about groups like Rakurs, in far-flung communities like Arkhangelsk, is the counterpoint they give, by their very existence, to the official narrative that homosexuals are dangerous outsiders or, worse, child molesters.

In Arkhangelsk, [a 22-year-old bus conductor named] Varya and her friends have graduated from the alt-music scene. “We’re adults now,” she said. “We have kids, we have jobs.”

She held up the hateful sticker she had found on the bus [that reads, "Stamp out faggots"), and kept: “And we have this to fight.”

NYT Editorial: “Mr. Putin’s War on Gays”

To the long list of Russians whom President Vladimir Putin is persecuting, add gay people and those who support gay rights. Along with political dissidents, journalists and billionaire businessmen, they are increasingly the focus of repellent laws and repressive practices that could send them, and anyone who dares defend them, to jail. 

For some time, antigay sentiment has been spreading in Russia’s conservative society, encouraged by the Kremlin and the Russian Orthodox Church. But Mr. Putin and his government have taken that to a new level by legitimizing the hatemongering in legislation. 

Earlier this month, he signed a law banning the adoption of Russian-born children to gay couples and to any couple or single parent living in any country where marriage equality exists. Last month, Mr. Putin signed a law allowing the police to arrest tourists and foreigners suspected of being gay or pro-gay and detain them for up to 14 days. He also signed a bill classifying “homosexual” propaganda as pornography with vague wording that could subject anyone arguing for tolerance or educating children about homosexuality to arrest and fines. 

There is no defense for such actions, which occur against a backdrop of growing violence against gays and could be seen as a license for even more violence. Russia is in danger of moving from pursuing the rule of law to the rule of hate. The new laws contravene Russian commitments to human rights and fundamental freedoms under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. 

They also contradict the charter of the International Olympic Committee, which calls sport a “human right” and states that “every individual must have the possibility of practicing sport, without discrimination of any kind.” With laws like these on the books, gay athletes, gay fans and others who speak their minds could put themselves in legal jeopardy by attending the 2014 Winter Olympics, which are in Sochi, Russia, in February. 

The United States, which has made great strides in accepting and protecting gay rights, has expressed concern about the new laws but needs to be more forceful. So does the International Olympic Committee, which too often fails to defend the Olympic ideals and should be leading a full-throated international campaign to insist that Russia repeal these laws. 

If nothing else, there is pure self-interest for Mr. Putin in this. Gay athletes and supporters of gay rights could decide not to attend the Games, or nascent calls for a formal Olympic boycott could gather steam. That will not produce the self-congratulatory showcase event over which Mr. Putin is so eager to preside.