Another...US Embassy Under Siege- Pakistan

Yet another American embassy under attack...see the video below

Hundreds of students from various colleges and educational institutions in Islamabad clashed with police on Thursday as they were being blocked from reaching the embassy.

Students pelted the police with stones, and the police retaliated by firing tear gas shells. 

Several students were injured when policemen hurled the stones back at the crowd.

According to local television channels, several policemen were injured.

"Our policemen are not any better than the Americans because they are trying to stop us. They are in the same league as them, they are heretics like them," said student Jawad Ahmed.

"They should allow us to demolish the American embassy because they have blasphemed against our holy Prophet. The police are also becoming an accomplice of blasphemers."

There were also protests in other parts of Pakistan as well.

Pakistan, Bangladesh Block YouTube Amid Islam Film Protests By Arun Devnath and Haris Anwar - 2012-09-18T06:25:02Z Pakistan and Bangladesh blocked Google Inc. (GOOG) 's video-sharing website YouTube to prevent people watching an anti-Islam film that has sparked deadly protests from the Middle East to Southeast Asia.

Who is Sam Bacile?

Susan Brannon
Who is Sam Bacile pseudonym?
14 September 2012

I reported in "The Film that Sparked the Violence, Egypt, Libya" by using what I would call "credited" mainstream news reports, AP said that they interviewed Sam Bacile while the New York Times reported the same.  I used other outlets who all said the same thing, in the end I could not figure out why the Arab world was attacking American interests, when Bacile was quoted as saying that he was an Israeli Jew.  Later, I read a comment from the state of Israel saying that they could not find a Sam Bacile as a citizen, yet they could not explain more because they protect their citizens.  This left me with my syndical concepts, yeah, Israel would not admit such a thing.

Instead, I played the role of a journalist who took the story and added my opinion.  What I should have done was question the AP (?) who is to be credible and able to research who this Sam Bacile is, their contact and source.  It must have been a hot story to want to get it in the press so quickly without research if the person actually exists.  In the end the media and myself took a run on it.

So, what's the real story?  In Italy, the news is saying that Mr. Bacile is not Israeli but Egyptian, CNN quotes an anti-Muslim activist Steve Klein, who was a script consultant for the movie and was called, "Innocence of Bin Laden" to reveal "facts, evidence and proof" about the prophet Mohammed.  Klein stated that the man with the pseudonym, Sam Bacile, was upset about the events of the film and what happened to the ambassador.

We know that the trailers were translated into Egyptian dialects of Arabic and that the Egyptian television aired certain segments.  The fury followed.

CNN was able to interview some of the actors of the film, who reported an outrage for the producer for "misleading" them regarding the films contents and possible dubbing.  One of the staff told CNN that he knew the producer as Sam Bassil and that is how the check was signed.  He was 99% positive that "Bassil" was not Jewish and had several Madonna's in the home.

Rumors have it that this Bassil/Bacile is a Coptic Christian.  Sam Bassil had an indictment for a bank fraud conviction in 2009 for Nakoula Basseley Nokoula.  With aliases such as:  Mark Basseley Youssef, Yousseff M. Basseley, Nicola Bacily and Malid Ahlawi…were aliases in the indictment.  There is a list of other names on other indictments as well. Does any of these names have anything to do with the film and who produced it or is it just another false lead?

The Feds consider Sam Bacile/Sam Bassil to be Nakoula Basseley Nakoula…says Time magazine. He was tracked down Wednesday at his Los Angeles area home by the AP.  Nakoula denied having any connection to Bacile, that he managed "logistics for the film" However, as the investigation continues…the AP discovered that the cell-phone number used by the man who identified himself as Bacile to the press is registered to the same address where the reporter found Nakoula. It has also been reported by ABC that the police were summoned to Nakoula's home to provide extra protection.  However, asking the police for protection does not mean that he is the actual producer.

The mystery remains, who produced the film and who financed it?  We all know that it was a flop during the screening and someone took the July posting (who posted it?) and translated it into Egyptian Arabic to be shown to the Arab world.

In the end, the film has caused protesters aired their anti-American anger in Egypt, Yemen, Tunisia, Morocco, Sudan, Iran, Iraq, Israel and the Palestinian territories. Violent mobs attacked the U.S. Consulate in the Libyan city of Benghazi leaving the ambassador and three other Americans dead.

Information taken from Time http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/09/13/friends-of-sam-bacile-a-whos-who-of-the-innocence-of-muslims-film-project/
CNN http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/13/world/anti-islam-filmmaker/index.html

The Gaza Strip - Documentary Film

Forward by Susan Brannon Film by James Longley James Longley went to the Gaza Strip for three months and made a documentary film in 2001. This was before the settler's were forced to leave and gives a true prospective on life for the Gazans just as things started to get worse. James Longley decided to release his film for free online only a few months ago so more people will have access to view the Gazan realities. He first released his film in 2002 at the Chicago Palestine Film Festival and the place was packed. Longley also produced "Iraq in Fragments" and was awarded three jury awards at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival and was nominated for an Academy Award for Documentary Feature. His short film Sari's Mother premiered at the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival and was nominated for an Academy Award for Documentary Short. In 2009, Longley was awarded a $500,000 MacArthur Fellowship "Genius Grant. This film begins with an introductory to the live in the Gaza Strip and the tension increases in the film while the tension is increasing in the Strip. Parts of this film clearly shows crimes against humanity...when the Israelis dropped chemical canisters onto Khan Younis, Gaza of an unknown substance. At the time, the population was going about their business, along with shooting nearby. The children were coming home from school and the men were working and the then the canisters of some sort of smell-less gas that tasted like sugar or mint was released onto the general population. The film focuses on the lives of the children and you can clearly see the effects of the trauma in their lives. You can follow along through some of the lives of these Gazan children and understand that the children had to grow up quickly with the sounds of bullets, rockets, tanks and loosing their homes. They lost friends, parents, uncles and brothers. One of the children decides that it is better to die than live like the way that his life has led and reflects what life means to him. There are scenes that describe the aftermath at the hospital explaining that some boys picked up some boxing gloves that the Israeli tank dropped off to play with it. Inside was some metal, they thought they could sell it. One boy took the metal ball out of the glove and tried to break it. It exploded and was killed instantly. Two other boys were injured and taken to the hospital.t This film is an eyewitness to The aftermath of the destroyed homes in Khan Younis, the shooting when the families attempt to clean up the mess. You can hear the shooting while the families live in small tents near their destroyed homes. In the end there is utter devastation, inside of the Gaza Strip, in the neighborhoods inside of the Gazan border. It is my hopes that the world does not forget the Gazans and continue to ignore the plight that their lives have taken. After the shooting of this film, life has become much worse for those that live in the Gaza Strip.

Another film by James Miller and his team going into Afghanistan where no film crews have gone for the British series Dispatches. This film represents a truth of Afghanistan in 2001. Afghanistan is quite different now that the American soldiers have come in as you will see in other films that I post on this blog. This film has won many awards: RTS International Current Affairs award, Emmy Award, BAFTA, and the RTS "Programme of the Year" award. James Miller collaborated with reporter Saira Shah who was with him covering the last film that Miller made titled: Death in Gaza released in 2004.