"We Probably Shouldn't Get Too Consumed by the Video Itself"

"The extremist groups who are behind the kind of violence we saw this week will always be able to find some pretext for their actions, and the exact nature of the pretext is no more important than the exact nature of a lightning strike that starts a forest fire. As long as there's enough dry tinder around, you'll get a fire eventually. Likewise, it's the underlying hatred of the United States that provides the real fuel for anti-American violence in the Middle East, and the reason for that hatred is much more about past and present American policies than it is about some shoddily-produced YouTube video. In that sense, getting hung up on the video just distracts us from the real—and much more difficult—issues at hand."

Kevin Drum at Mother Jones comments on this week's violence in the Middle East.

And The Onion adds its perspective.