How Easy Could It Be: Start World War 3
One of my key concerns regarding Dec 21, 2012 is that some crazy religious leader might believe it is a good time for Armageddon to occur. A Biblical apocalypse involves all sorts of strife, but especially wars – lots of wars. A third World War kicking off in the Middle East could be the beginning of the end if you believe some of the more popular ancient religious texts. And wars don’t just start by themselves.
It’s not looking like a third temple is going to be built on Temple Mount this year, so how else could WW3 be triggered? Could it be as simple as drawing some cartoons and making a low-budget movie?
The 13-minute English-language film, allegedly a trailer for an obscure two-hour movie entitled Innocence of Muslims, was first posted on YouTube in July.
But it was not until clips from it dubbed into Egyptian Arabic were posted on the internet and then broadcast on the Egyptian television channel al-Nas last week that it came to prominence, sparking violence in Cairo and Benghazi.
Clearly extremely low-budget and amateurish, the YouTube trailer depicts a buffoonish Prophet Muhammad and implies he was a fraud.
…He said the film cost $5m to make, and was financed with the help of more than 100 Jewish donors. He said it was made in three months in the summer of 2011, with 59 actors and about 45 people behind the camera. The full film has been shown once, to a mostly empty theatre in Hollywood earlier this year, Bacile was reported as saying. [Source: The Guardian]
BTW, Bacile is currently under arrest and has been in prison previously.
But he’s not the only one at it – Pastor Terry Jones received a lot of media attention when he made plans to burn Qur’ans. And don’t forget the poor Danish cartoonists. And Salman Rushdie. But these examples were never concurrent.
What if, in the space of the next 100 days, there were dozens of similar examples, combined with Western politicians not condemning them, or saying they were legally allowed to have free speech. Could a handful of people upset Islamic countries enough for war to break out? I think if Israelis were amongst the perpetrators, yes it could happen.
UPDATE: Hopefully it hasn’t started, but next cab off the rank is:
A French magazine ridiculed the Prophet Mohammad on Wednesday by portraying him naked in cartoons, threatening to fuel the anger of Muslims around the world who are already incensed by a film depicting him as a womanizing buffoon.
The French government, which had urged the magazine not to print the images, said it was temporarily shutting down premises including embassies and schools in 20 countries on Friday, when protests sometimes break out after Muslim prayers.
[Source: Reuters]
