Promoters of 'Innocence of Muslim' Defend Film, Shift Focus to Islam
Promoters of the controversial film "Innocence of Muslims," which has spurred violent demonstrations and deadly protests, have defended their actions, claiming that they are not the ones with blood on their hands.
The alleged creator of the film, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, is reportedly in hiding after several U.S. embassies were attacked throughout the Middle East, resulting in the death of four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens.
But that has not stopped Steve Klein, who founded Courageous Christians United as well as Concerned Citizens for the First Amendment, both of which are concerned with defeating the spread of Islam and the social rise of Muslims is the west.
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"What do I get out of this? I get to die one of these days hoping my granddaughters and my grandsons will be safe from these monsters," Klein told the Associated Press during an interview.
He added that he had visited every mosque in California and recorded a list of those who he feels are "future suicide bombers and murderers."
"Those are the guys I'm looking for. I'm not interested in mom and pop running a pizza store or running a smoky shop, a hookah shop," he said.
The film was created by a person using the pseudonym Sam Bacile and promoted by numerous controversial figures including Terry Jones, the Florida pastor who caused outrage throughout the Muslim world when he declared he would burn the Koran as a protest of Islam in 2010.
The film depicts the prophet Mohammad as a womanizing goon whose followers are mindless thugs. It also shows the prophet in compromising sexual positions and offers insults to Islam as punch lines.
Those depictions, coupled with the fact that Muslims find it extremely offensive to depict the prophet in any form, ignited an already flammable base of Islamic extremists, but Klein feels that his actions did not lead to any of the bloodshed.
"Do I have blood on my hands? No. Did I kill this guy? No … Do I feel guilty that these people were incited? Guess what? I didn't incite them. They're pre-incited, they're pre-programmed to do this," Klein told AP.
