"We came, we saw, he died," giggles Hillary Clinton after US-Nato intervention toppled the Gadaffi regime. She's not laughing now.

YEARS AGO, in the midst of World War I, the great Austrian satirist Karl Kraus wrote – or rather compiled – a massive play entitled The Last Days of Humanity, which remains one of the most ferocious anti-war polemics ever written.

In it the pacifist Kraus brought all his formidable satirical skills to bear as he excoriated the militarism, jingoism, war profiteering, propaganda and stupidity that had brought Europe to disaster.

Much of the material for the play was culled almost verbatim from newspaper articles, editorials and actual events and speeches of the period.  Consisting of 203 scenes, with a cast of hundreds, and stretching to 800 pages when it was first published in 1922, ‘Last Days’ has been rarely been performed.

In the prologue, Kraus’ alter ego ‘the Grumbler’ memorably declared that his play was never meant to be performed on earth at all, but on a theatre on Mars’.  This was not because of its unwieldly size, but because

There have been many moments during this last decade when I have found myself thinking of Kraus, when the morbid events of our times seem to elude not just the capacity of the satirist but call into question the value of making any kind of commentary at all, when it seems incumbent on writers not to try and understand events or come up with analyses and rational explanations, but simply to record things as they happen, like a secretary taking a dictation from history.

Or perhaps, as Kraus argued in another essay, writers should simply shut up altogether and accept the fact that whatever they say or think really makes no difference or serves any practical purpose.

The latest global ‘Islam moment’ has provided one of those episodes. On the surface it seems incredible, yet depressingly predictable, that a reprehensible piece of anti-Islamic hatespeak that was performed  in a half-empty theatre in Los Angeles should have ignited a chain of protests and violent events across North Africa and the Middle East.

Once again, tv screens are filled with angry crowds of Muslims burning US flags and promising vengeance, while the bigots and fundamentalist whackjobs who made the object of their anger can sit back and enjoy the consequences of their handiwork.

Of course they should never have been given this opportunity.  There are many more important reasons for Muslims to take to the streets than to vent their anger on this latest low-level provocation, that ought to be treated with contempt by Muslims and non-Muslims.

Nor is it fair – or logical – to blame the United States government for something that it had nothing to do with.  Of course these events cannot be written off as  a mysterious eruption of religious fanaticism and irrationality. It is really difficult to believe that a bunch of fired-up Salafists in Libya suddenly took it on themselves to launch an RPG attack on the US Embassy on September 11 because they were annoyed about an obscure film that hardly anyone has seen.

Whether this attack was the work of ‘al-Qaeda’ or the Islamist militias who became the de facto allies of the US and the West in their opportunist toppling of Gaddafi remains to be seen.  Hilary Clinton, who once collapsed into schoolgirlish giggles at her little ‘we came, we saw, he died’ joke about the death of of Gaddafi, has declared that ‘violence is no way to honor religion.’

Well maybe not.  But when Clinton asks ‘ How can this happen in a country we helped to liberate?’ one is tempted to answer with the Spanish proverb cria cuervos y te sacaran los ojos – breed crows and they will pull out your eyes.  Because this is what the US has done again and again, through its choice of allies and proxies, in Afghanistan, in Libya and now in Syria

It is clear that the attempts by the US to ‘manage’ the Arab Spring and turn it to its political advantage have not been successful.  After decades of supporting dictators and autocrats across the MENA region, it will take more than strategic political u-turns  at the last minute to make America popular with the Arab masses, particularly when some countries, such as Yemen, have become battlegrounds in the Obama administration’s drone wars.

Of course there is no shortage of demagogues throughout the MENA and beyond,  both in and out of government,  who will seek to use this latest episode to mobilize popular support around an Islamist agenda, or simply to distract attention from their own failings.

It is really a grotesque and shameful act of political cynicism for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt to call for another ‘million-man’ march to protest the film, when there are so many more pressing issues both inside and outside the country that are far more worthy of popular mobilisation.

But it is clearly in the interest of the Brothers – and not only them – to present themselves as ‘defenders of the Prophet’ against squalid attacks that originated in the gutter and belong there,  and provide convenient tributaries to siphon off frustration and discontent that might otherwise turn on them.

On one level these events belong to what Kraus once called ‘these loud times which boom with the horrible symphony of actions which produce reports and of reports which cause actions.’

Where all this process will lead I have absolutely no idea.  But it is unlikely to produce any kind of positive outcome, and will most likely generate more bitterness, anger, resentment, and violence, at a time when the prospect of another war with a Muslim country is looming on the horizon.

And watching it all unfold, I can’t help feeling weariness and disgust at the malice and stupidity that is evident on all sides, and wonder when – if – the many men and women of goodwill who are also part of these sour times can find the ability to transcend them and take this tormented world to a better place.