Category Archives: May You Live In Interesting Times

Classified Leaks and Trust

 

In the past, social critics wrote tracts calling for change or published underground newspapers. The more violent assassinated national leaders. Today they leak classified information to the Internet.

Debate rages as to heroes and villains, constitutional rights and the necessity to know all we can about shadowy enemies. Certainly, secrecy is harder to come by.

The line is always fine between the openness needed for democratic governance and the secrecy required for certain operations. Legitimate reasons for secrecy range from stopping terrorist actions to negotiations that are best begun in secret when officials can be open and frank. They can speak uninhibited by the hype and hyperbole of the twenty-four hour news cycle—when every syllable must be carefully nuanced.

When I worked overseas for the U.S. State Department, I wrote classified reports, but they didn’t deal with state secrets or clandestine sources. Most reported on the welfare of Americans in foreign prisons or the children of American parents, children now living with foreign ex-spouses.

These narratives concerned the anguish of individual Americans caught in painful situations. They detailed private moments, not the plots you see in spy films. The subjects deserved their privacy. As all our secrets are indiscriminately vomited into cyberspace, perhaps private moments will no longer be possible.

What happens when individualism destroys all trust in our institutions? All ability to work privately? When we no longer allow institutions to function because we no longer understand their legitimate purposes? David Brooks poses and answers such questions in a recent column. A must read.

Middle East Connectors

 

In a recent speech, William J. Burns, Deputy Secretary for the U.S. State Department, said: “The Middle East is a place where pessimists seldom lack for either company or validation, where skeptics hardly ever seem wrong. It is a place where American policymakers often learn humility the hard way.”

As Burns pointed out, the recent revolutions in that part of the world have unloosed ancient hatreds and ethnic conflicts, most tragically evident in Syria.

Should we wash our hands of the Middle East and turn our backs on it as we become less dependent on it for our energy supplies?

No, Burns said. The region “has a nasty way of reminding us of its relevance.” Much of the global economy still depends on its large reserves of oil. Extremism, once released from there, cannot be forced back into the bottle. Syria has chemical weapons, and Iran threatens to produce nuclear ones. Three major religions of the world worship at its sacred places.

Burns says we are far better off “working persistently to help shape events, rather than wait for them to be shaped for us.”

What can ordinary Americans do? Connect with the reconcilers. Dr. Lloyd Johnson, a Christian, has established dialogs with several individuals and groups in Israel/Palestine. Other groups, religious and secular, seek reconciliation between the different parties.

Develop respect and empathy for the diverse Middle East peoples, even those with whom you don’t agree. They are mothers, fathers, sons, daughters. They have fears and dreams. Some spew hatred, but others, in all the ethnic groups, work courageously for reconciliation. Connect with them.

 

Planning a Trip to the United States? What Governments Advise Their Citizens When Traveling to the U.S.

 

The U.S. government web site travel.state.gov issues warnings and advisories for U.S. citizens for countries all over the world. Information about riots, terrorism, natural disasters, coups, and generally nasty conditions in foreign countries that might impact American citizens are sent out for all to read.

What about travel advisories from other countries for their citizens who plan temporary stays in the United States?

What announcements from foreign governments might the recent Boston Marathon bombings cause, for example? I found this official advice from the United Kingdom for British citizens traveling in the U.S.:

There is a general threat from terrorism. Attacks could be indiscriminate, including in places frequented by foreigners. You should monitor media reports and remain vigilant at all times.

On 15 April 2013 two explosions took place close to the finishing line of the Boston marathon, killing 3 people and injuring over 200.”

I continued to mull over the way other countries might see the U.S. How would Japanese parents, for example, feel about sending their children to study in an American university following mass shootings on a college campus?

How about images of U.S. citizens toting guns at a city council meeting or walking down the street so armed (with proper gun permit, of course)? Might that affect foreign tourists’ desire to visit here?

We sometimes are unaware of how much money foreign tourists and students spend in this country. International visitors to the U.S. spent 14.4 billion dollars in March, 2013, according to numbers issued by the U.S. Department of Commerce. The student tuition from international students alone is a boon to colleges and universities facing domestic cutbacks.

After all, foreigners do have choices. They can vacation and study in, say, Canada, Australia, or the United Kingdom. These countries are democracies with attractions, upscale tourist facilities, and good schools, plus less of a reputation for violence.

Frightened By Knowledge

 

The people who killed the young U.S. diplomat, Anne Smedinghoff, in Afghanistan in April, are afraid of knowledge. Smedinghoff, a public diplomacy officer with the U.S. embassy in Kabul, was killed by a terrorist bomb. She and her colleagues were delivering books to a school in the war torn country.

Let’s be honest. Knowledge can change us. We take a risk when we choose to learn and explore new ideas.

However, such exploration also can give us more appreciation for solid beliefs taught us by our parents and communities. Certainly, my sojourn in a country with beliefs quite different from those I had grown up with gave me a better understanding of its culture.  I can never see its people as mere stereotypes. I am aware, too, of the common humanity that we share. At the same time, my own faith was strengthened. Seeing other belief systems caused me to think more deeply about my own, to test it, and to grow in it.

New knowledge can be challenging, but without it, we stagnate. True faith sends us out in confidence. We may incorporate new beliefs. We may reject them. We may modify our ideas. But only a timid faith refuses the opportunity to grow.

State Department Honors Its Own, Killed While Serving in a Year of Tragic Losses

 

The C Street entrance to the U.S. State Department is the one with the flags—the flags of those nations with whom the United States has diplomatic relations. It’s the place you see on television when news reporters cover stories about U.S. diplomatic response to foreign crises and conflicts, usually with the flags in the background.

What is not usually shown are the rows of names engraved on the walls of the C Street lobby. These are the names of U.S. State Department personnel who have died in the line of duty: 236 since 1780.  Each year on Foreign Service Day, the names of those recently recognized for giving their lives in service to their country are added to the rows. This year has been a year of especially tragic loss. Eight names will be added on May 3.

Four were killed in the terrorist attack on the American mission in Benghazi, Libya. Another was a young woman killed by an explosion in Afghanistan while she was traveling to visit a school and deliver books.

The majority of the State Department’s Foreign Service personnel will not be attending. They will be serving their country as usual in places far removed from the C Street lobby: London, U.K; Moscow, Russia; conflict-ridden Kabul in Afghanistan and Baghdad in Iraq; Sana’a, Yemen; Islamabad, Pakistan; Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia; Dhahran, Saudi Arabia; genocide-haunted Kigali, Rwanda; and 200 plus other U.S. missions around the world.

Syrian Quagmire

 

Has the Syrian government under Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons? We study the evidence while experts tell us, no matter the use or not, that the Syrian problem has no good solutions.

Terrible crimes against even children cry out to us, but we fear a Vietnam/Iraq outcome. On the other hand, if we don’t help at all or only minimally, we fear that Syria will become an al-Qaeda bastion with chemical weapons.

Recent history is not optimistic. Iraq and Afghanistan, despite the blood and treasure we spent in those countries, are not our bosom buddies. Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya overthrew despotic, corrupt regimes but are at risk of replacing them with narrow Islamist ones.

Secular regimes have a bad reputation in the Middle East because most of them were/are despotic and corrupt. Islamist regimes may yield to the same temptations (witness Egypt), but when given a chance to vote in free elections, citizens seem willing to give them a try in a backlash against the secular ones.

We supported some of those secular regimes. Our decisions in helping Syrians begins with the sober assessment that our influence is limited by our past actions. Some reaping of what we have sown is inevitable.

Perhaps the best we can hope for is an Islamist regime that recognizes basic human rights. We can certainly increase our aid to the daily increasing number of refugees in Turkey and Jordan. From now on, better that we base foreign policy decisions on the common good rather than narrow, selfish goals that come back to haunt us.

Terrorism: Violence Used to Control Others

 

“Terrorism is violence used in order to create fear, but it is aimed at creating fear in order that the fear, in turn, will lead somebody else—not the terrorist—to embark on some quite different program of action that will accomplish whatever it is that the terrorist really desires.” So wrote David Fromkin back in 1975 in Foreign Affairs.

The terrorist desires to anger the enemy, so that the enemy acts unwisely in the emotion of the moment. The anger may be justified, but the actions may not be.

Some have suggested that our budget-busting military responses to the 9/ll terrorist attacks played into our enemies’ hands, leading us to near bankruptcy. They suggest that more terrorists were created by our actions than have been killed in military campaigns. The longer-term goal of tracking funding for terrorism may have proved more effective. This longer-term process, however, garners fewer headlines than military responses.

Be angry and sin not, the Christian apostle Paul advised, surely knowing how difficult that advice is to carry out. Injustice or the deliberate taking of innocent lives, as happened at the Boston Marathon, should anger us and encourage us to right such wrongs. The trick is to avoid “eye for an eye” retribution but rather to act “for the good of all.”

Striking for the opponent’s eye often is tempting and may accomplish short term goals. Working for the common good takes longer but wins more long term battles. Retaining the moral high ground requires discipline and patience.

Look For The Helpers

 

In this era, one person with grievances, real or perceived, can wreck the lives of countless others.

But one person can help, comfort, and bring goodness, too, even out of tragedy.

The words of Fred Rogers, of the old TV children’s program, “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood,” are being tweeted and retweeted thousands of times following the tragedy in Boston. You may have read them, but they bear repeating:

“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’”

The words are from a book Fred Rogers wrote that was published a year before he died, intended to help parents guide their children through tragedy.

Indeed, the helpers in this tragedy, from emergency responders to hospital personnel to ordinary people who offered aid, far outnumber the perpetrators of this evil. It will take much good to overcome the evil that afflicted the men, women, and children killed, injured, and grieved by the incident in Boston, but the helpers are there.

Fred Rogers died in 2003. But his words outlive him, as good often does.

“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” (John 1:5, NRSV)

 

We Are In For It

 

“We have got to understand that all our lives the danger, the uncertainty, the need for alertness, for effort, for discipline will be upon us. This is new to us. It will be hard for us. But we are in for it and the only question is whether we shall know it soon enough.”

A former head of the U.S. State Department, Dean Acheson, made this statement on June 4, 1946. Spoken over six decades ago, the words remain relevant.

The United States had just emerged victorious from World War II as the world’s remaining “superpower.”  (Sound familiar?) Understandable that the country wanted to rest and enjoy prosperity. Yet the Cold War confrontations with the Soviet Union were just beginning. For over forty years, we inhabited a MAD world (Mutual Assured Destruction).

We made mistakes, but responsible (if not always perfect) leaders kept us from detonating the nuclear war we feared. When the communist world collapsed, the United States was, once again, the world’s remaining superpower. We were, however, respected more for our inclusive government, for allowing dissent, for our burgeoning middle class, for our ability to engage in civil discussion, for a democracy that worked for its citizens.

We talked of a peace dividend, but within the decade, attacks from radicals left us little time to enjoy “peace.” Challenges come from Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Iran, and North Korea, to name a few.

How well will we carry out this round? Do we even realize what the contest is about? Can we manage without unwise resort to power politics? Or can we discipline ourselves as a people and choose the moral high ground, those characteristics that once made us the envy of the world?

From Vietnam to Anti-War Protester to Syria and Iran

 

In his first trip abroad as U.S. Secretary of State, John Kerry spoke to a Facebook gathering of youth in Berlin. One questioner asked “And since you have served the Army [actually Kerry served in the Navy], what exactly made you an opponent of the Vietnam War and maybe of war in general?”

Kerry answered that he went to Vietnam because he wanted to serve his country, and his country’s leaders said that the conflict there had “strategic implications for the country.” Instead he came to believe that the conflict was NOT strategic to America’s interests but was instead a civil war between Vietnamese. That’s why he led Veterans Against the War on his return.

Some wars must be fought, when America’s interests are directly attacked, Kerry said, but not “wars of choice.” Others have warned against being drawn into war when American interests are not directly affected.

Kerry was careful to emphasize our strong relationship with the European allies he is visiting, because they are based on mutual interests of strong democracies in a dangerous world. For decades we helped protect allies there from the Soviet Union until democracy replaced most of the communist regimes in eastern Europe. Europe was and is a strategic interest for us.

But what about countries like Syria and Iran? The U.S. and Europe have an interest in the war in Syria not turning into a dangerous regional conflict, with terrorists gaining a foothold, and Iran not becoming a nuclear power. We do not, however, want to send troops into what is a civil war.

These will continue to be subjects Kerry and others will discuss with allies. The ghosts of Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan will stand as backdrop to their decisions.

At each step on Kerry’s trip, Syria and Iran have been topics of discussion. How do we encourage the non-terrorist opposition without ourselves become too embroiled in this civil war? How do we find the “right” sides to aid?

Syria: Do We or Don’t We?

 

Bachar-al-AssadThe war in Syria is a conundrum, a problem that appears to have no favorable resolution. The opposition, assaulted by a brutal dictator, plead for weapons to unseat Bashar al-Assad. Clinging to power appears to be Assad’s main goal in life, even if he must slaughter civilians to do it. The poorly-armed opposition asks for weapons to equalize the conflict.

Few Americans seriously entertain sending American troops into the Syrian maelstrom, but many question our lack of support for other nations to arm the opposition with weapons to shoot down Assad’s planes that sow such carnage.

The reason for our reluctance is the presence in the opposition of terrorist elements, perhaps a small minority, but we don’t know the extent. We fear that weapons will end up in the hands of the terrorist element. We fear, if they gain the upper hand, that they will replace Assad, not with a republic offering equal protection for all religious and ethnic groups, but with an Islamist republic akin to the theocracy in Iran. In a shooting war which changes daily, picking the good guys from the bad ones is difficult. The mixed results of other Middle Eastern countries who have thrown off dictators give us pause. Minorities in Egypt, for example, fear that the new constitution there may take away their rights.

Sometimes the happy ending, so beloved by Americans, is not possible in the short run. We make adult decisions, some would say moral ones, knowing the risks we take.

From China: One View of the United States

 

Eric X. Li, writing in Foreign Affairs (“The Life of the Party; The Post-Democratic Future Begins in China,” Foreign Affairs, January/February, 2013) states:

“While China’s might grows, the West’s ills multiply: since winning the Cold War, the United States has, in one generation, allowed its middle class to disintegrate. Its infrastructure languishes in disrepair, and its politics, both electoral and legislative, have fallen captive to money and special interests.”

We may question Eric X. Li’s belief that China’s example of governance is ultimately good for humankind, but we surely understand that events in the United States in recent years have demonstrated a less than sterling example of democracy for the rest of the world.

For several decades, American soldiers and diplomats have risked lives to bring democracy to countries that seem not to know what to do with it. We berate them for disintegrating into warring tribes.

Perhaps we should examine our own warring tribes. Democracy works only when a people evidence humility as regards their own opinions and show respect for those with whom they disagree. Hatred poisons democracy. We may be deeply saddened at certain trends, but we self-destruct if our response is to allow this poison to infect us.

None of us will obtain all we wish. We live in an imperfect world. Respect and compromise grease the wheels of democracy so that it works.

 

 

America’s Virtual Embassy in Iran: An End Run Around Big Brother

 

The United States hasn’t had a functioning embassy in Tehran, the capital of Iran, since it was overrun in 1979 by Iranian student radicals. Afterwards, 52 Americans endured 444 days of captivity before being released.

Through social media, however, the U.S. State Department recently celebrated the one year presence in Iran of its Virtual Embassy Tehran.

According to a State Department spokesperson, the digital embassy allows communication between the United States and the Iranian people. It aims to make an end run around the efforts of the Iranian government to censure information for its citizens.

The agenda ranges widely, from programs about U.S. visas and study opportunities for Iranians in the U.S. to a Virtual Music Ambassador series and a Poet’s Corner celebrating the American poet Walt Whitman. Fans of an affiliated Facebook page number over 81,000. The Embassy also utilizes Twitter, Google, and YouTube. Digital media especially appeals to young people, a growing segment of the Iranian population.

Following in the tradition of the early programs on Radio Free Europe during the Soviet occupation, innovative use of media has again breached the barrier of information control.

Weeping For Our Children

 

“Evil visited this community today.”

–Dan Malloy, Governor of Connecticut, after the murder of twenty-six people, twenty of them children, in a school in Newtown, Connecticut.

 

“When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the wise men. Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah:

‘A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.’”

–Matthew 2:16-18, (NRSV)

 

“Then Simeon blessed them and said to his mother Mary, ‘This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed—and a sword will pierce your own soul too.’”

–Luke 2:34-35. (NRSV)

 

Syria’s Chemical Weapons

 

While Christians in this country celebrate Jesus’ birth, we recoil at the horrors unfolding in the region where he was born. Will Syria’s Bashar al-Assad use chemical weapons on his own people? Perhaps creating a tragedy as happened when Iraq’s Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons on his Kurdish citizens in 1988, killing and maiming thousands? (We ignored this atrocity at the time because Saddam was our ally against Iran.)

Why does Assad not step down? He could find sanctuary. Russia has supported him. Supposedly, he has friends in South America. Why does he insist on this war of brutality against his own people?

Perhaps he fears retribution against his ethnic sect, the Alawites. The Alawites, a minority in Syria that has ruled the Sunni Muslim majority for decades, fear his downfall, sure of a war of revenge against them if he goes.

The use of chemical weapons is “a red line,” so we are told. What then is our response? What are our plans? We are weary of war. Chemical weapons apparently is the one step Assad could take which would bring retribution on him. But will we be able to act effectively?

What will happen to Damascus, one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world? The apostle Paul was headed there when he experienced a spiritual turnaround so dramatic that the phrase “Damascus Road experience” has become the code for a life altering conversion. We are in need of such today.

Peace in Jerusalem

 

One Christmas season years ago, I cut an article from a newspaper. The article bemoaned the lack of peace in Bethlehem, the place where the Prince of Peace was born, whose birthday we Christians celebrate during this season of advent.

Today, peace in Bethlehem and Jerusalem and Gaza and Hebron appears as elusive as ever. Only the very old can remember a time when Israelis and Palestinians were not at odds. A recent truce between Israel and Hamas in Gaza brought yet another lull in a long series of halts that never seem to last. Hopelessness tempts us. Two ancient peoples trace roots to the same bit of land. Each can point to atrocities committed against them.

Diplomacy may bring halts to the violence, not a small thing. Diplomacy seeks a negotiated settlement, not a small thing, either, but in this land, all the wrongs can never be righted.

Christians, of all people, should practice hope, especially at this season, because this season brings the answer. The answer is forgiveness.

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem and pray for forgiveness that can erase the hurts between two peoples and cause them to live together in harmony.

 

Murdered, A Foreigner Working for the United States

 

Qassim Aklan, local employee of the U.S. embassy in Sana’a, Yemen, was recently murdered. Aklan, an employee of the embassy for eleven years, aided his American colleagues in investigations that the embassy carried out.

About 53,000 local employees help staff U.S. embassies and consulates  abroad. The mere fact that they work for the United States sometimes puts them in danger. Over the years, hundreds have been killed because of their employment.

Every American who has worked in a U.S. embassy or consulate and earned any accolades knows how much of the praise is due to the local staff who made their work possible. I especially remember the three Foreign Service Nationals (as we called them then) who shepherded me through my exhausting first tour. No way could I have survived that tour without them.

Perhaps in tribute, two of my novels feature locally hired staff who work in U.S. embassies where the American protagonists are assigned. Lavali, Farid, and Ramelon are the fictitious national employees from A Sense of Mission. They support newbie U.S. Foreign Service Officer Kaitlin Sadler. She depends on the trio as she struggles to master the interviews of a never ending line of applicants for U.S. visas, endures a Middle Eastern war, and falls in love.

Hatem Lakhdar, at another Middle Eastern embassy, provides Patrick Holtzman, ambitious U.S. political officer in Searching for Home, with the names of valuable contacts. One contact becomes a special friend. Later Hatem offers sympathy to Patrick when the contact is murdered.

The American officers come and go when their tours end. When posts become too dangerous, they are evacuated. The Foreign Service Nationals remain, sometimes with tragic consequences.

 

Brouhaha Over Benghazi

 

The investigation over security in Benghazi, Libya, where the U.S. ambassador and three others were tragically killed, continues within election year furor. As James Risen has written in The New York Times, however, the security of U.S. embassies and diplomats today is complex.

During the Arabian/Persian Gulf war in 1991, I began my first tour with the State Department at the U.S. consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Once the war was over, my colleagues and I enjoyed weekend trips to ancient ruins, group runs in the desert outside Jeddah, and evenings out in the city’s restaurants. In 2004, long after my assignment ended, al-Qaeda forces attacked the consulate and killed four employees and four of the consulate’s guard force.

When I served in Algiers in 1993, I probably acted foolishly in walking to a church on the weekend down narrow streets of the city. Hints of the extremist insurgency against the Algerian government surfaced, but we hadn’t yet been forbidden to walk around, and I wanted exercise. Besides, as a diplomat, I was supposed to know the people and country where I served. A few months later, as the insurgency increased, all but essential staff were evacuated back to the U.S.

In Tunisia in the late 1990’s, the U.S. embassy where I was posted occupied an old building near the center of town. The location was ideal for a quick lunch in one of the local restaurants. I often walked to work or rode the bus. Sometimes on weekends I parked my car at the embassy, then finished the journey by foot to a church in the old souk. I passed both a Jewish synagogue and a Muslim mosque on the way. (Jews have been in Tunisia since ancient times.)

Today, the U.S. embassy has been moved to a suburban location. Mobs recently attacked and damaged it, but did not gain entry. They destroyed the American school next door.

In short, security for overseas U.S. missions is more demanding and expensive today. Congress has not always been forthcoming with money for security programs.  Diplomats also chafe, as Risen pointed out in his article, at being stuck in buildings when they want to meet ordinary people outside.

Such complex sea changes had best be dealt with away from election hyperbole. All of us knew, even in the years I served, that security and diplomacy may contradict each other. We never supposed that all danger could be avoided.

 

Diplomacy by Tweets

 

During recent attacks by mobs on the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, Egypt, the American staff passed warnings to American citizens in Egypt through the embassy’s Twitter network. American embassies lead the diplomatic world in their use of Twitter, Facebook and other digital tools.

Contrast this communication system with the one used during the first conflict in the Arabian peninsula against Saddam Hussein of Iraq in the early 1990’s. I served at the U.S. consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, during that time. We set up telephone networks to pass information to American citizens in the region. No one owned a cell phone.

By the time of the second war with Iraq in the early 2000’s, I had returned for another tour in Saudi Arabia. We had graduated to emails for notification of events to our American citizen community. Only a few years later, our communication tools have advanced light years even from those times.

Besides using tweets to notify their citizens, U.S. officials abroad also monitor the tweets of foreign governments and political parties. These includes tweets in the native language as well as any English language tweets. During the Egyptian attacks, the U.S. Embassy noticed differing messages by governing Egyptians, depending on the language. A message in Arabic called on Egyptians to support the demonstrations against the Americans. A message in English offered sympathy and support to the Embassy.

The Embassy responded with its own tweet: “Thanks. By the way, have you checked out your own Arabic feeds? I hope you know we read those, too.”

Anger in a Connected World

 

The U.S. State Department has just confirmed that the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans were killed yesterday in Benghazi, Libya. A mob, angered by a movie supposedly made in the U.S. that they considered offensive to Islam, attacked the U.S. consulate in the Libyan city.

As a retired Foreign Service officer for the U.S. State Department, I can’t help but feel a personal involvement in this tragedy, though I didn’t know the victims. The ambassador apparently was an able diplomat, serving his country previously in Libya and other Middle Eastern posts.

I thought back to a sudden demonstration before another U.S. consulate in an Arab country, one where I served. I remember the chants of demonstrators against some perceived wrong that the U.S. government had done. I remember the prickle of fear as we listened to those chants on the other side of our consulate walls and scurried to secure documents and prepare as we had been taught to do in such a situation, should consulate security be breached.

Fortunately, the government of the country where I served was intact, not like the Libyan one, still struggling to form after the overthrow of a dictator. In our case, government troops appeared, and the demonstrators scattered and left.

Another reason for our more fortunate ending, I believe, was that the demonstrators were not organized.  Though the Internet was rapidly expanding, Facebook and Twitter did not yet exist to fan flames of anger and to pinpoint a place to release that anger. The Internet and social media bring us the usual double-edged sword of blessings and curses.

Any people can be incited to commit acts of violence. African-Americans have been murdered by mobs in the not too distant past in our own country. Recently, worshipers have been killed in religious gatherings.

One news article focused on anger points in political campaigns. The purpose is to arouse citizens to such anger that they will vote certain ways. Yet anger, once incited, sometimes catches fire in the minds of deranged or immature individuals, leading to the taking of lives.

In a previous blog I pointed out that the anger and frustration of the German middle class after World War I led them to choose Hitler and the Nazis. They had reasons for their anger, but they were wrong to accept Nazism as a solution. Angry people have, at best, made stupid decisions and at worst, committed murders and terrorist actions against innocents.

We carry grave responsibilities for the handling of our anger, especially in this age of connectedness. In this case, both the mob that killed in Benghazi and the maker of the movie that incited them need to ask if they handled their anger in a responsible manner.