State Dep’t Spends $70,000 Placating Pakistani Muslims Ahead of Friday Protests
State Dep’t Spends $70,000 Placating Pakistani Muslims Ahead of Friday Protests By Patrick Goodenough September 20, 2012
(CNSNews.com) – Seven Pakistani television stations broadcast U.S. government public service messages Thursday featuring President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton denouncing a film clip insulting Mohammed.
State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland confirmed the ads were produced and paid for by the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, at a cost of $70,000.
They aired on the same day as the army had to be called in to prevent violent protestors from breaching a diplomatic enclave where the embassy in located.
As Muslim Friday prayers approach – a potentially volatile time – Pakistan is bracing for the biggest anti-U.S. protests yet since the furor over the film clip available on YouTube erupted last week.
The government has declared a holiday Friday – a “Day of Love for the Prophet.” All U.S. diplomatic missions in Pakistan will be closed, the embassy said on its Twitter feed, “due to the national holiday.”
The State Department in a new warning advised U.S. citizens to defer all non-essential travel to the country.
In the television ad Obama is seen speaking at the White House on Sept. 12, the day after the violence erupted: “Since our founding, the United States has been a nation that respects all faiths. We reject all efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others.”
Then a clip of Clinton, speaking alongside her Moroccan counterpart in Washington on Sept. 13, appears. She says: “Let me state very clearly, and I hope it is obvious, that the United States government has absolutely nothing to do with this video. We absolutely reject its content and message. America’s commitment to religious tolerance goes back to the very beginning of our nation.”