Confusion to Pretty Much Everyone

I'm not going to try to be funny about this.  I don't understand it enough.
Muslims all over the world are attacking US Embassies; killing people and burning flags because of a video that pretty much no one has seen.  This is crazy on so many levels; so what I'm going to try to do here is sanely analyze the reality that I have gleaned from various news outlets.  I have tried to read a bit from both sides of the political spectrum and for once Fox News and the Huffington Post pretty much agree: there's enough crazy to go around.
First, let's start with the video: a low budget, anti-Islam propaganda piece produced by an Egyptian Coptic going by the name of Sam Bacile, or some similar alias.  The Innocence of Muslims, apparently is a piece designed to disillusion Muslims watching the film by depicting the Prophet Mohammed in a negative, insulting and vulgar light.  However, since Muslims consider any depiction of Mohammed to be blasphemy, it probably was not ever going to have the intended effect, which makes it not only an act of poor taste, but an exercise in futility.
The movie was made in America, but its vision, as nearly as we can tell belongs to an Egyptian Coptic Christian, which begins to make a little sense.  The Coptic Christians have been hanging around North Africa for a a very long time, being oppressed and persecuted by one empire after another and generally developing a bunker mentality that makes the modern state of Israel look like Switzerland.  It's no wonder that an Egyptian Coptic would have an ax to grind with Islam, his people have been getting a royal stomp down from the "peaceful" servants of Allah for centuries.
Enter the American dream, with all our inalienable rights, like free speech.  We are allowed to say anything we want (within limits, but I'll get to that presently).  If an American wants to be a Nazi, or join the KKK or the Westboro Baptist Church, or (until 9-11) be in Al-Qaeda, they are perfectly within their rights to do so.  It's one of the things that makes our nation great, we allow everyone to have a voice, even (for the most part)  our enemies.
The vast majority of Muslims do not live in a world where that is true.  In Egypt, Libya, Iran, Yemen, Syria and all over the Islamic world, what you can say and do is strictly limited by the imposition of religious laws like Shariah, it is limited by totalitarian governments and theocracies, it is most limited by the fact that they are poor, uneducated and oppressed by systems of global economics and politics.  It's a powder-keg of angry young men, and a hatefully bad movie or some Danish political cartoons can set it off just like that.
I notice a lot of side stories being played out surrounding this whole drama, and it's the side stories that make it really complicated.  We have Christians in America and Jews in Israel sounding the alarm of Muslim aggression: "See?  We told you this was going to happen again!"  We have Republicans criticizing Democrats  for offering an apology for the movie in an attempt to diffuse the bomb.  We have Democrats (and some other Republicans) criticizing the Republicans who criticized the White House, because they talked before they thought.  But mostly what we have is fear, which is becoming really dangerous.
Americans like free speech, but we really hate being afraid.  If there's one thing that the last eleven years should have shown the world it's that you really don't want to push us too far.  We believe in freedom, but we'll take yours and even give up some of our own if it's necessary to be safe.  We believe in peace, diplomacy and democracy, but if we can't reason with you, we have bombs, lots of bombs.
I'm sure Osama Bin Laden felt triumphant on 9-11, I'll bet he thought that Allah had rewarded a faithful servant.  I doubt he felt that way when Seal Team Six showed up in the middle of the night.  I have no doubt that Ambassador Steven's blood is going to be avenged seven fold in good Biblical fashion, however, this time it's not going to be against a terrorist mastermind, it's going to be against a bunch of poor, angry young Muslims who took to the streets to protest something someone told them was an affront to everything they believe.
Which brings me to the limits that we all need to start taking seriously.  First, this sort of violence is not okay, I don't care what you're mad about, storming the walls of an embassy and killing diplomats is not acceptable for any citizen of a civilized species.  Islam, the peaceful, just, Islam that I keep hearing exists out there somewhere needs to get its house in order.  I don't know how they're going to do it, but I do know that religions are not going to survive for long in the world that is coming, if they don't learn to exhibit simple human decency.
Christians, particularly American Christians, need to understand that we live in a bubble of freedom and security, and that bubble is fragile.  Our freedom is maintained not only by military might but by the hope of many civilized people of all races and creeds that somehow this "liberty and justice for all," thing might actually work.  We are free to say what we want, to believe what we want, but there are always limits.  The famous example of limiting free speech is that you're not allowed to yell, "Fire!" in a crowded theater.  If you do that you are putting others in danger.  In my humble opinion, given the Arab spring, given the ongoing tension within Islam between moderates and radicals, given the general crushing effect of poverty and desperation felt by so many young Muslims, a movie like The Innocence of Muslims, is EXACTLY like shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater, and therefore does not deserve the protection of our First Amendment.
As a Christian, I believe that one day wars shall cease and the nations will cease their raging, but that day is not today.  Until God saves us from ourselves, the best we can do is try to treat each other with Love and Justice.  Surely, all of us, Christian, Jew, Muslim, pagan, atheist, whatever, we can do better than this.