The Istanbul Process, The Missing Piece of the Filmmaker Puzzle

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It was heartening to see Rich Lowry in Politico making note of the one largely unspoken element of the Benghazi Cover-up which is going largely unreported. Namely that a man sits in prison because those in the State Department apparently chose to eliminate terrorism from the talking point associated with the Benghazi aftermath. Lowry notes:

Instead, Nakoula ended up the patsy in a tawdry coverup. The State Department Operations Center reported to Washington immediately that the the Benghazi attack was an assault carried out by Islamic militants. The falsehoods about Benghazi weren’t a product of the fog of war; they were the product of the fog of politics. Desperate to minimize the attack and deflect responsibility, Team Obama evaded and obfuscated.

Over at the blog Popehat, Ken White takes exception to those who have defended the “Innocence of Muslims” trailer maker, writing:

Is Nakoula in federal prison because he made the “Innocence of Muslims” video? Superficially, perhaps, in the sense that his behavior may have escaped detection if he hadn’t become famous. It’s even possible that someone in the Obama Administration tipped off — or pressured — the Probation Office about his conduct. (If that’s what happened, there ought to be a Congressional investigation.) But Nakoula’s conduct is the sort that would absolutely be pursued if detected by his Probation Office and would routinely result in a revocation of supervised release and a return to federal prison. People saying otherwise don’t know what they are talking about or don’t care, or both.
Ken notes that most of us who have been vocal about Nakoula’s imprisonment aren’t legal experts and haven’t spent time working in the parole system.

Fair enough.

But both Rich and Ken actually manage to miss the key factor, without which Nakoula’s arrest is indeed perhaps unremarkable. And that factor revolves around  UN resolution 16/18,  The Istanbul Process, and the Organization of the Islamic Cooperation (formerly Conference). For those who think this is an irrelevant distraction to the Benghazi discussion:

It goes to motive, your honor.  (I’m not a lawyer, but I heard that in a TV courtroom once.)

UN Resolution 16/18 was jointly introduced by the United States and Egypt*. At the time some argued that it was a walk back from previous OIC “Defamation of Islam” resolutions. However, the OIC made clear afterwards it considered the resolution a resounding success, and indeed, that it represented a step forward in their effort to effectively criminalize “Islamophobia.” The Resolution specifically calls for “Adopting measures to criminalize incitement to imminent violence based on religion or belief;”.

Worse still, by participating with the OIC in the Istanbul Process to implement the resolution, the United States has effectively done the same. Speaking about the Istanbul Process, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said:

“we are focused on promoting interfaith education and collaboration, enforcing anti-discrimination laws, protecting the rights of all people to worship as they choose and to use some old-fashioned techniques of peer pressure and shaming, so that people don’t feel that they have the support to do what we abhor,” she said. (emphasis added)

This adds new relevance to Clinton’s statement to Charles Woods about seeing the filmmaker punished. The filmmaker was not just a useful patsy. Secretary Clinton was essentially already on record calling for men like Nakoula to face legal consequences,  even before she, or anyone else, knew who he was.

The arrest of “Innocence” Filmmaker has to be viewed within the context of other such events where this Administration has intervened against those who have criticized Islam. Intimidating phone calls from top military officials to troublesome pastors. The punishment of soldiers who dispose of the Quran, despite that no violation of the USMJ has occurred. Previously, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer raised the possibility that when it comes to actions that may offend Muslims, it’s like crying ‘fire’ in a theater.  The argument that one should not be free to criticize Islam because the result may be violence was already being built before Benghazi, exactly as the OIC intended.

And before Clinton’s words calling for Nakoula’s arrest were revealed by Charles Woods, MSNBC commentators called for Nakoula to be tried for murder.  The ground work for such a demand had already been laid.

Far from being irrelevant, the free speech issue is central to the question of what happened in Benghazi and why it was covered up.

Even if its correct to say that Nakoula ought to have been brought in for parole violations even if Benghazi had never occurred, the fact remains that punishing people like him, whether its through existing legal tools, where ever available, or extralegal tools, such as “peer-pressure and shaming”  is now effectively U.S. policy, because of this administration’s decision to pursue Resolution 16/18 and the Istanbul Process.

And that makes the filmmaker’s arrest extremely political.
*Correction: Resolution 16/18 was submitted by Pakistan on behalf of the OIC in 2011. The U.S-Egypt resolution, submitted in 2009 played a role in reviving the OIC’s efforts which had faced previous setback from Western nations at the U.N and paved the way for 16/18.
Kyle Shideler

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