General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Ugh, DU. The anti-Muslim sentiment here is getting to me. [View all]ljm2002
(10,751 posts)...there were a small number of people involved in the violence. There were people genuinely enraged by the movie, that they had not seen -- ergo, it stands to reason they were whipped into rage by their countries' versions of rabid fundamentalists.
Also according to many reports, the unruly demonstrations were used by more well-prepared teams, possibly Al-Qaeda, as a cover to engage in their deadly operations.
Now of course we can't know, certainly not this early in the situation; and given how much disinformation is spread around on all sides, perhaps never. But what we can know, is it is wrong to paint an entire population with the broad brush of being backwards and violent based on the actions of a few.
In fact, by that standard, one would have to say Americans are a violent lot, given how much carnage we have caused around the world with our trumped-up war in Vietnam, our "Shock and Awe" in Iraq, and the like.