Obama’s Speech in Egypt: A Seminal moment?

YukonJack

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Dec 26, 2008
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SirJosephPorter brought up the tired and well-worn nonsense:

"There is a difference of opinion as to what caused the USSR to disappear. The Republicans (of course) give the credit to Reagan. Some others give the credit to Gorbachev."

If Gorbachev had ruined the Soviet Union he would have been tried there, as a traitor. And hung or shot. But even in the midst of their 75 year old cruelty and oppression, the worst Communists gave credit to Reagan. Even Gorbachev gave credit to Reagan. Only the Western pseudo intellectuals still debate this.

Too bad Reagan isn't here now. If he were, Iran would be on its way to be a free country. Free of mullahs and ayatollahs, which the liberal, obviously prefer.
 

petros

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There is a difference of opinion as to what caused the USSR to disappear.
Who says it disappeared? Like all other darkness it merely went into hiding and is waiting to ambush.

Do you really think we'd have a hope in hell against today's Russia and China combined?

The wealth and industrial capacity of China coupled with Siberia's very well secured resources leaves the west in the dust never to be the leaders we once were.

They won and didn't need to fire a shot.
 

Socrates the Greek

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Apr 15, 2006
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Millions of People want to emigrate out of both countries China and Russia because both countries have become corrupt political sh!t holes. Nothing great about both of them..
 

SirJosephPorter

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Nov 7, 2008
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Too bad Reagan isn't here now. If he were, Iran would be on its way to be a free country. Free of mullahs and ayatollahs, which the liberal, obviously prefer.

Yukon, if Reagan had been in power today, USA would have got involved into a long, protracted and very destructive was in Iran. What happened in Iraq would seem child’s play by comparison.

And communists give credit to Reagan for dismantling USSR? Where did you read that? On some far right wing blog? In my opinion Gorbachev deserved the lion's share of the credit.
 

Cannuck

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Feb 2, 2006
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The Collapse of the Soviet Union and Ronald Reagan

"By the early 1980s the Soviet Union was becoming a hollow shell, with an unreformed and increasingly backward industrial base producing outmoded pre-computer armaments. Thus it was highly vulnerable to the pressures that the Reagan administration was planning. From the outset, Reagan moved against détente and beyond containment, substituting the objective of encouraging “long-term political and military changes within the Soviet empire that will facilitate a more secure and peaceful world order”, according to an early 1981 Pentagon defense guide. Harvard’s Richard Pipes, who joined the National Security Council, advocated a new aggressive policy by which “the United States takes the long-term strategic offensive. This approach therefore contrasts with the essentially reactive and defensive strategy of containment”. Pipes’s report was endorsed in a 1982 National Security Decision Directive that formulated the policy objective of promoting “the process of change in the Soviet Union towards a more pluralistic political and economic system”. [The quotes from Peter Schweizer, Reagan's War.]
A central instrument for putting pressure on the Soviet Union was Reagan’s massive defense build-up, which raised defense spending from $134 billion in 1980 to $253 billion in 1989. This raised American defense spending to 7 percent of GDP, dramatically increasing the federal deficit. Yet in its efforts to keep up with the American defense build-up, the Soviet Union was compelled in the first half of the 1980s to raise the share of its defense spending from 22 percent to 27 percent of GDP, while it froze the production of civilian goods at 1980 levels."


You know, I never get tired of pointing out how wrong the blowhard is.
 

johnnyhangover

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Too bad Reagan isn't here now. If he were, Iran would be on its way to be a free country. Free of mullahs and ayatollahs, which the liberal, obviously prefer.

Yukon, if Reagan had been in power today, USA would have got involved into a long, protracted and very destructive was in Iran. What happened in Iraq would seem child’s play by comparison.

And communists give credit to Reagan for dismantling USSR? Where did you read that? On some far right wing blog? In my opinion Gorbachev deserved the lion's share of the credit.

of course you think that, it's the most obvious answer that requires the least amount of thought. and once again, absolutely no reference to back it up. don't you get tired of looking foolish?
 

ironsides

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Feb 13, 2009
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If Obama really wanted to indicate that its not business as usual in Washington regarding the middle east, he would not use the term "settlement" to describe ethnic cleansing or ignore war crimes:

Because they didn't, now you are saying the Messiah lies also? Wonder, did those Muslim thieves have one arm and leg cut off as the court ordered? These are the roaches you support.
 

ironsides

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The world as well as the U.S.gave Reagan credit for helping to dismantle the Soviet Union. We broke them financially. If Reagan was around today those people in Iran would have the support needed. That flexibility Reagan had, when paired with new U.S. military strength and strong presidential support for anti Communist freedom fighters, resulted in the beginning of the end for Communism as first the Berlin Wall and then the Soviet Union itself came apart. As former President Bill Clinton once told Reagan, “Too many people in my party are too willing to make a deal with the Soviets. Too many people in your party are never willing to deal with the Soviets. I think you have it just about right.”(Reagan stories about old Soviet Union)
 

EagleSmack

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Asolutely...Reagan's military build up crushed the Soviet Union and led to it's collapse. He was the first President to REALLY put fear into the Soviet Union, an already paranoid nation.

His change in policy from containment of Communism to rolling it back scared the Soviets.
 
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Extrafire

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Getting back on topic, some comments on the speach.

WASHINGTON -- Obama the Humble declares there will be no more "dictating" to other countries. We should "forge partnerships as opposed to simply dictating solutions," he told the G-20 summit. In Middle East negotiations, he told al-Arabiya, America will henceforth "start by listening, because all too often the United States starts by dictating."
An admirable sentiment. It applies to everyone -- Iran, Russia, Cuba, Syria, even Venezuela. Except Israel. Israel is ordered to freeze all settlement activity. As Secretary of State Clinton imperiously explained the diktat: "a stop to settlements -- not some settlements, not outposts, not natural-growth exceptions."

What's the issue? No "natural growth" means strangling to death the thriving towns close to the 1949 armistice line, many of them suburbs of Jerusalem, that every negotiation over the past decade has envisioned Israel retaining. It means no increase in population. Which means no babies. Or if you have babies, no housing for them -- not even (BEG ITAL)within(END ITAL) the existing town boundaries. Which means for every child born, someone has to move out. No community can survive like that. The obvious objective is to undermine and destroy these towns -- even before negotiations.
To what end? Over the last decade, the U.S. government has understood that any final peace treaty would involve Israel retaining some of the close-in settlements -- and compensating the Palestinians accordingly with land from within Israel itself.

That was envisioned in the Clinton plan in the Camp David negotiations in 2000, and again at Taba in 2001. After all, why turn towns to rubble when, instead, Arabs and Jews can stay in their homes if the 1949 armistice line is shifted slightly into the Palestinian side to capture the major close-in Jewish settlements, and then shifted into Israeli territory to capture Israeli land to give to the Palestinians?
This idea is not only logical, not only accepted by both Democratic and Republican administrations for the last decade, but was agreed to in writing in the letters of understanding exchanged between Israel and the United States in 2004 -- and subsequently overwhelmingly endorsed by a concurrent resolution of Congress.

Yet the Obama State Department has repeatedly refused to endorse these agreements or even say it will honor them. This from a president who piously insists that all parties to the conflict honor previous obligations.
The entire "natural growth" issue is a concoction. It's farcical to suggest that the peace process is moribund because a teacher in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem is making an addition to her house to accommodate new grandchildren -- when Gaza is run by Hamas terrorists dedicated to permanent war with Israel and when Mahmoud Abbas, having turned down every one of Ehud Olmert's peace offers, brazenly declares that he is in a waiting mode -- waiting for Hamas to become moderate and for Israel to cave -- before he'll do anything to advance peace.

In his much-heralded "Muslim world" address in Cairo Thursday, Obama declared that the Palestinian people's "situation" is "intolerable." Indeed it is, the result of 60 years of Palestinian leadership that gave its people corruption, tyranny, religious intolerance and forced militarization; leadership that for three generations -- Haj Amin al-Husseini in 1947, Yasser Arafat in 2000, Abbas in December 2008 -- rejected every offer of independence and dignity, choosing destitution and despair rather than accept any settlement not accompanied by the extinction of Israel.
In the 16 years since the Oslo accords turned the West Bank and Gaza over to the Palestinians, their leaders -- Fatah and Hamas alike -- built no schools, no roads, no courthouses, no hospitals, no institutions that would relieve their people's suffering. Instead they poured everything into an infrastructure of war and terror, all the while depositing billions (from gullible Western donors) into their Swiss bank accounts.

Obama says he came to Cairo to tell the truth. But he uttered not a word of that. Instead, among all the bromides and lofty sentiments, he issued but one concrete declaration of new American policy: "The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements," thus reinforcing the myth that Palestinian misery and statelessness are the fault of Israel and the settlements.
Blaming Israel and picking a fight over "natural growth" may curry favor with the Muslim "street." But it will only induce the Arab states to do like Abbas: sit and wait for America to deliver Israel on a platter. Which makes the Obama strategy not just dishonorable but self-defeating.
Charles Krauthammer : The Settlements Canard - Townhall.com
 

Extrafire

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Truth
Let us be honest with ourselves. America has been defeated by the Muslims. When two adversaries wage war, the loser always submits by calling for peace. Victors never willingly surrender, only the vanquished.

Today's jihadists learned well from the Viet Cong, who fully understood America over 40 years ago. Ho Chi Minh was interviewed in the very early days of that war and was asked how he could possibly withstand the mighty American military machine. He said to his interviewer, "The Americans will kill 10 or 100 of us for every America we kill, but in the end we will defeat them."

Ho Chi Minh knew then that the way to defeat America was not on the battlefield, but in the streets of the U.S., the soft underbelly of a weak and fragile nation. The American military is tough, but its civilian leadership is cowardly, corrupt, duplicitous and stupid. Collectively, Americans are easily demoralized and misled.

That was long ago. Americans have had decades of moral rot and dumbing down. The nation's education system has worked tirelessly to erode our sense of national spirit and identity. Over half of the country hates it and openly supports the enemy. We've imported third worlders who are genetically predisposed to serfdom and despotism.

We see the results. Our "Commander in Chief" jets around the globe trashing his nation, apologizing to the enemy, and betraying allies. Our end is not far off.
Pat Buchanan : Breaking Bibi - Townhall.com
 

Extrafire

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Frank Gaffney heard what I heard in Cairo -- particularly worth mentioning is Barack Hussein Obama's quote that he had "known Islam on three continents before coming to the region where it was first revealed." An interesting choice of words that, "first revealed." Not "established," "founded" or "invented." The President is, after all, a careful writer, so he must have deliberately eschewed verbs that reflect man's role, in favor of the theological version of events promoted by Islam.

Here an excerpt of his observations here: Deciphering Obama in Cairo

At least as troubling are what amount to instances of presidential dawa, the Arabic term for Islamic proselytization. For example, Mr. Obama referred four times in his speech to "the Holy Koran." It seems unimaginable that he ever would ever use the adjective to describe the Bible or the Book of Mormon.
Then, the man now happy to call himself Barack Hussein Obama (in contrast to his attitude during the campaign) boasts of having "known Islam on three continents before coming to the region where it was first revealed." An interesting choice of words that, "first revealed." Not "established," "founded" or "invented." The President is, after all, a careful writer, so he must have deliberately eschewed verbs that reflect man's role, in favor of the theological version of events promoted by Islam. Thus, Mr. Obama has gone beyond the kind of "respectful language" he has pledged to use towards Islam. He is employing what amounts to code - bespeaking the kind of submissive attitude Islam demands of all, believers and non-believers alike.

Elsewhere in the speech, Mr. Obama actually declared that "I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear." Note that, although he referred in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian-Arab conflict to "vile stereotypes" of Jews, he did not describe it as "part of his responsibility as President" to counter anti-Semitic representations.
Unremarked was the fact that such incitement is daily fare served up by the state media controlled by his host in Egypt, President Hosni Mubarak, by the Palestinian Authority's Mahmoud Abbas and by every other despot in the region with whom Mr. Obama seeks to "engage." Worse yet, no mention was made of the fact that some of those "vile stereotypes" - notably, that Jews are "descendants of apes and pigs" - are to be found in "the Holy Koran," itself.

Perhaps the most stunning bit of dawa of all was a phrase the President employed that, on its face, denies the divinity of Jesus - something surprising from a self-described committed Christian. In connection with his discussion of the "situation between Israelis, Palestinians and Arabs," Mr. Obama said, "...When Jerusalem is a secure and lasting home for Jews and Christians and Muslims, and a place for all of the children of Abraham to mingle peacefully together as in the story of Isra, when Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed (peace be upon them) joined in prayer."

Muslims use the term "peace be upon them" to ask for blessings on deceased holy men. In other words, its use construes all three in the way Islam does - as dead prophets - a treatment wholly at odds with the teachings of Christianity which, of course, holds Jesus as the immortal Son of God.

If Mr. Obama were genuinely ignorant about Islam, such a statement might be ascribed to nothing more than a sop to "interfaith dialogue." For a man who now pridefully boasts of his intimate familiarity with Muslims and their faith, it raises troubling questions about his own religious beliefs. At the very least, it conveys a strongly discordant message to "the Muslim world" about a fundamental tenet of the faith he professes.

Finally, what are we to make of Mr. Obama statements about America and Islam? Since he took office, the President has engaged repeatedly in the sort of hyping of Muslims and their role in the United States that is standard Muslim Brotherhood fare. In his inaugural address, he described our nation as one of "Christians, Muslims and Jews." Shortly thereafter, he further reversed the demographic ordering of these populations by size in his first broadcast interview (with the Saudi-owned al-Arabiya network), calling America a country of "Muslims, Christians and Jews."

Yesterday in Cairo, the President declared that "Islam has always been a part of America's story." Now, to be sure, Muslims, like peoples of other faiths, have made contributions to U.S. history. But they have generally done so in the same way others have, namely as Americans - not as some separate community, but as part of the "E pluribus unum" (out of many, one) that Mr. Obama properly extolled in The Speech.

Unfortunately, a pattern is being established whereby President Obama routinely exaggerates the Muslim character of America. For example, at Cairo University, he claimed there are nearly seven million Muslims in this country - a falsehood promoted by the Muslim Brotherhood and its friends - when the actual number is well-less than half that. Shortly before The Speech, in an interview with a French network, Mr. Obama said, "If you actually took the number of Muslims Americans, we'd be one of the largest Muslim countries in the world."

Incredible as these statements may seem, even more astounding is their implication for those who adhere to Shariah. The President's remarks about America as a Muslim nation would give rise to its treatment by them as part of dar al-Islam, the world of Islam, as opposed to dar al-harb (i.e., the non-Muslim world).

Were the former to be the case, Shariah requires faithful Muslims to rid the United States of infidel control or occupation. And we know from last year's successful prosecution of the Holy Land Foundation - a so-called "charity" engaged in money-laundering for one of the Muslim Brotherhood's terrorist operations, Hamas - that such an agenda tracks precisely with the Brothers' mission here: "To destroy Western civilization from within America, by its own miserable hand."

This reality makes one of Mr. Obama's promises in Cairo especially chilling. Near the end of his address, the President expressed concern that religious freedom in the United States was being impinged by "rules on charitable giving [that] have made it harder for Muslims to fulfill their religious obligation." He went on to pledge: "That is why I am committed to working with American Muslims to ensure that they can fulfill zakat."

Let us be clear: Muslim charities have run into difficulty with "the rules" because they have been convicted in federal court of using the Muslim obligation to perform zakat (tithing to charity) to funnel money to terrorists. At this writing, it is unclear precisely what Mr. Obama has in mind with respect to this commitment to "ensure [Muslims] can fulfill zakat." But you can bet that the Brotherhood will try to translate it into the release of their imprisoned operatives and new latitude to raise money for their Shariah-promoting, and therefore seditious, activities in America.

I could go on, but you get the point. The Speech contained a number of statements about the laudable qualities of America, the need for freedom in the Muslim world, about women's rights and the desirability of peace. But its preponderant and much more important message was one that could have been crafted by the Muslim Brotherhood: America has a president who is, wittingly or not, advancing the Brotherhood's agenda of masking the true nature of Shariah and encouraging the West's submission to it.
Atlas Shrugs: Obama's Muslim Speech "Revealed"
 

Extrafire

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Well, I'm glad that's over! Now that our silver-tongued president has gone to Cairo to soothe Muslims' hurt feelings, they love us again! Muslims in Pakistan expressed their appreciation for President Barack Obama's speech by bombing a fancy hotel in Peshawar this week.
Operating on the liberal premise that what Arabs really respect is weakness, Obama listed, incorrectly, Muslims' historical contributions to mankind, such as algebra (actually that was the ancient Babylonians), the compass (that was the Chinese), pens (the Chinese again) and medical discoveries (huh?).

But why be picky? All these inventions came in mighty handy on Sept. 11, 2001! Thanks, Muslims!!
Obama bravely told the Cairo audience that 9/11 was a very nasty thing for Muslims to do to us, but on the other hand, they are victims of colonization.

Except we didn't colonize them. The French and the British did. So why are Arabs flying planes into our buildings and not the Arc de Triomphe? (And gosh, haven't the Arabs done a lot with the Middle East since the French and the British left!)
In another sharks-to-kittens comparison, Obama said, "Now let me be clear, issues of women's equality are by no means simply an issue for Islam." No, he said, "the struggle for women's equality continues in many aspects of American life."

So on one hand, 12-year-old girls are stoned to death for the crime of being raped in Muslim countries. But on the other hand, we still don't have enough female firefighters here in America.
Delusionally, Obama bragged about his multiculti worldview, saying, "I reject the view of some in the West that a woman who chooses to cover her hair is somehow less equal." In Saudi Arabia, Iran, Afghanistan and other Muslim countries, women "choose" to cover their heads on pain of losing them.

Obama rolled out the crucial liberal talking point against America's invasion of Iraq, saying Iraq was a "war of convenience," while Afghanistan was a "war of necessity." Liberals cling to this nonsense doggerel as a shield against their hypocrisy on Iraq. Either both wars were wars of necessity or both wars were wars of choice.
Neither Iraq nor Afghanistan -- nor any country -- attacked us on 9/11. Both Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as many other Muslim countries, were sheltering those associated with the terrorists who did attack us on 9/11 -- and who hoped to attack us again.

The truth is, all wars are wars of choice, including the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, both World Wars, the Korean and Vietnam Wars, the Gulf War, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. OK, maybe the war on teen obesity is a war of convenience, but that's the only one I can think of.
The modern Democrat Party chooses -- really chooses, not like Saudi women "choosing" to wear hijabs -- to fight no wars. But the Democrats couldn't say that immediately after 9/11, so they pretended to support the war in Afghanistan and then had to spend the next 7 1/2 years trying to come up with a distinction between Afghanistan and Iraq.

Maybe next they can tell us why fighting Hitler -- who never invaded the U.S. and had no plans to do so -- was a "necessity" in a way that fighting Saddam wasn't. (Obama on Hitler: "Nazi ideology sought to subjugate, humiliate and exterminate. It perpetrated murder on a massive scale." Whereas Saddam Hussein was just messing with the Kuwaitis, Kurds and Shiites.)
Meanwhile, Muslims throughout the Middle East are yearning for their own Saddam Husseins to be taken out by U.S. invaders so they can be liberated, too. (Then we'll see how many women -- outside of an American college campus -- "choose" to wear hijabs.) The war-of-choice/war-of-necessity point must be as mystifying to a Muslim audience as a discussion of gay marriage.

Arabs aren't afraid of us; they're afraid of Iran. But our aspiring Jimmy Carter had no tough words for Iran. To the contrary, in Cairo, Obama endorsed Iran's quest for nuclear "power," while attacking -- brace yourself -- America for helping remove Iranian loon Mohammad Mossadegh.
The CIA's taking out Mossadegh was probably the greatest thing that agency ever did. This was back in 1953, before it became a collection of lawyers and paper-pushers.

Mossadegh was as crazy as a March hare (which is really saying something when your competition is Moammar Gadhafi, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and Saddam Hussein). He gave interviews lying in bed in pink pajamas. He wept, he fainted, and he set his nation on a path of permanent impoverishment by "nationalizing" the oil wells, where they sat idle after the British companies that knew how to operate them pulled out.

But he was earthy and hated the British, so left-wing academics adored Mossadegh. The New York Times compared him to Thomas Jefferson.
True, Mossadegh had been "elected" by the Iranian parliament -- but only in the chaos following the assassination of the sitting prime minister.

In short order, the shah dismissed this clown, but Mossadegh refused to step down, so the CIA forcibly removed him and allowed the shah's choice to assume the office. This "coup," as liberal academics term it, was approved by liberals' favorite Republican president, Dwight Eisenhower, and supported by such ponderous liberal blowhards as John Foster Dulles.
For Obama to be apologizing for one of the CIA's greatest accomplishments isn't just crazy, it's Ramsey Clark crazy.

Obama also said that it was unfair that "some countries have weapons that others do not" and proclaimed that "any nation -- including Iran -- should have the right to access peaceful nuclear power if it complies with its responsibilities under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty."
Wait -- how about us? If a fanatical holocaust denier with messianic delusions can have nuclear power, can't the U.S. at least build one nuclear power plant every 30 years?

I'm sure Iran's compliance will be policed as well as North Korea's was. Clinton struck a much-heralded "peace deal" with North Korea in 1994, giving them $4 billion to construct nuclear facilities and 500,000 tons of fuel oil in return for a promise that they wouldn't build nuclear weapons. The ink wasn't dry before the North Koreans began feverishly building nukes.

But back to Iran, what precisely do Iranians need nuclear power for, again? They're not exactly a manufacturing powerhouse. Iran is a primitive nation in the middle of a desert that happens to sit on top of a large percentage of the world's oil and gas reserves. That's not enough oil and gas to run household fans?
Obama's "I'm OK, You're OK" speech would be hilarious, if it weren't so terrifying.
Welcome Back, Carter - HUMAN EVENTS
 

Extrafire

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Hovering on High: Obama Surveys the World
Charles Krauthammer
Friday, June 12, 2009

WASHINGTON -- When President Obama returned from his first European trip, I observed that while over there he had been "acting the philosopher-king who hovers above the fray mediating" between America and the world. Now that Obama has returned from his "Muslim world" pilgrimage, even the left agrees. "Obama's standing above the country, above -- above the world. He's sort of God," Newsweek's Evan Thomas said to a concurring Chris Matthews, reflecting on Obama's lofty perception of himself as the great transcender.

Not that Obama considers himself divine. (He sees himself as merely messianic, or, at worst, apostolic.) But he does position himself as hovering above mere mortals, mere country, to gaze benignly upon the darkling plain beneath him where ignorant armies clash by night, blind to the common humanity that only he can see. Traveling the world, he brings the gospel of understanding and godly forbearance. We have all sinned against each other. We must now look beyond that and walk together to the sunny uplands of comity and understanding. He shall guide you. Thus:

(A) He told Iran that, on the one hand, America once helped overthrow an Iranian government, while on the other hand "Iran has played a role in acts of hostage-taking and violence against U.S. troops and civilians." (Played a role?!) We have both sinned; let us bury the past and begin anew.

(B) On religious tolerance, he gently referenced the Christians of Lebanon and Egypt, then lamented that the "divisions between Sunni and Shia have led to tragic violence" (note the use of the passive voice). He then criticized (in the active voice) Western religious intolerance for regulating the wearing of the hijab -- after citing America for making it difficult for Muslims to give to charity.

(C) Obama offered Muslims a careful admonition about women's rights, noting how denying women education impoverishes a country -- balanced, of course, with "meanwhile, the struggle for women's equality continues in many aspects of American life."

Well, yes. On the one hand, there certainly is some American university where the women's softball team has received insufficient Title IX funds -- while, on the other hand, Saudi women showing ankle are beaten in the street, Afghan school girls have acid thrown in their faces, and Iranian women are publicly stoned to death for adultery. (Gays, as well -- but then again we have Prop 8.) We all have our shortcomings, our national foibles. Who's to judge?

That's the problem with Obama's transcultural evenhandedness. It gives the veneer of professorial sophistication to the most simple-minded observation: Of course there are rights and wrongs in all human affairs. Our species is a fallen one. But that doesn't mean that these rights and wrongs are of equal weight.

A CIA rent-a-mob in a coup 56 years ago does not balance the hostage-takings, throat-slittings, terror bombings and wanton slaughters perpetrated for 30 years by a thug regime in Teheran (and its surrogates) that our own State Department calls the world's "most active state sponsor of terrorism."

True, France prohibits the wearing of the hijab in certain public places, in part to allow the force of law to protect Muslim women who might be coerced into wearing it by neighborhood fundamentalist gangs. But it borders on the obscene to compare this mild preference for secularization (seen in Muslim Turkey as well) to the violence that has been visited upon Copts, Maronites, Baha'i, Druze and other minorities in Muslim lands, and to the unspeakable cruelties perpetrated by Shiites and Sunnis upon each other.

Even on freedom of religion, Obama could not resist the compulsion to find fault with his own country: "For instance, in the United States, rules on charitable giving have made it harder for Muslims to fulfill their religious obligation" -- disgracefully giving the impression to a foreign audience not versed in our laws that there is active discrimination against Muslims, when the only restriction, applied to all donors regardless of religion, is on funding charities that serve as fronts for terror.

Obama undoubtedly thinks he is demonstrating historical magnanimity with all these moral equivalencies and self-flagellating apologetics. On the contrary. He's showing cheap condescension, an unseemly hunger for applause and a willingness to distort history for political effect.

Distorting history is not truth-telling, but the telling of soft lies. Creating false equivalencies is not moral leadership, but moral abdication. And hovering above it all, above country and history, is a sign not of transcendence but of a disturbing ambivalence toward one's own country.
Charles Krauthammer : Hovering on High: Obama Surveys the World - Townhall.com
 

Extrafire

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When a politician announces, at the beginning of a major speech, that he is going to be entirely honest with you, you should stop trying to protect your wallet. For it is time to defend your soul.

This aphorism occurred as I listened to the opening of Barack Obama's major speech in Cairo. As I have argued previously, he is not an honest man but, instead, a demagogue. He plays games with reality in the course of weaving his rhetorical spells. To be clear: he is no Hitler, no Mussolini, with some vision of national or racial glory, cynically manipulating the crowds to purposes that are ultimately violent. Far from that.

Nor is he a Trudeau, precisely, with an inner contempt for the people he is pledged to serve, and his own agenda to put past them. I do not even think Obama suffers from the vanity of Trudeau, who may actually have imagined himself to be some sort of "philosopher king."

Obama's is a different, more insidious vanity. He acknowledges his rhetorical gift as a gift, but imagines the solutions to problems coalesce of their own accord in his presence. He is President Orpheus, the "poet king," transforming nature with his music. The German weekly, Die Zeit, expressed this perfectly in a headline: "I am a dream!"

It is the failure to acknowledge hard realities that makes Obama dangerous. As a wise Texan of my acquaintance put it, "he is attempting to model himself on Abraham Lincoln, the Great Emancipator. But, it's with a twist. He sees himself as the Great Mediator -- the One who will step into every conflict around the globe, bring to bear his superior intelligence and teleprompted eloquence, and leave the parties in a warm embrace."

Another old friend, the errant "neocon" David Frum, explained what is shocking in that Cairo speech: to find an American president no longer mediating domestic American conflicts, but rather, those between his own country and some of her deadliest enemies. This may be presented as "reaching out" but, in practice, it leaves his own side unchampioned, unrepresented, and in the end, undefended.

Moreover, he is playing this game with a child's understanding of the history and the stakes.

The Cairo speech is loaded with historical howlers. Other writers have explicated his misconceptions about Israel, and Hamas; about the American history in Iran; even his ridiculous notions about America's earliest engagements with Islam. With short space, I leave that to them, but will draw attention to two grand statements, so fatuous as to beggar belief:

"As a student of history, I also know civilization's debt to Islam. It was Islam -- at places like Al-Azhar University -- that carried the light of learning through so many centuries, paving the way for Europe's Renaissance and Enlightenment."

And: "Islam has a proud tradition of tolerance. We see it in the history of Andalusia and Cordoba during the Inquisition."

No serious "student of history" could possibly have made either remark. The former is just bosh; the latter is incredibly offensive to western Christendom, quite apart from the laughable anachronism.

It would be wrong to demean the real achievements of Islamic civilization to advance western vanities. But also the reverse: it is wrong to demean the real achievements of Christendom, in the service of Islamic vanities even more absurd. And to do the latter, after presenting oneself as a Christian, is to sell out one's whole society and being.

We may accommodate the playful, but the U.S. president was not being playful here. Or rather, he was playing with fire, as I know from some familiarity with the audience he was addressing. He was playing to the crowd, and in this case, playing to the tragic and self-destructive modern Arab propensity to blame every Arab problem on the machinations of outsiders.

By playing to that, Obama is selling out not only the democrats in the Arab and Islamic world, but every force and influence for self-betterment.

His English-speaking audience might note all the counter-balancing rhetoric about microloans and development and a woman's choices. But for each of those, he announced some U.S. aid program that put the onus upon outsiders, again.

The speech did not merely miss an opportunity to speak the truth plainly. It sabotaged every effort to speak the truth plainly, to the darkest tyrannical forces in the Islamic world. It sold out America, it sold out the West, and it sold out the Muslims, too.
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Cliffy

Standing Member
Nov 19, 2008
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Nakusp, BC
Yup, the right is still running around saying the sky is falling. So what is new? If you take this crap seriously, the sky will fall on your head. The President of the US has no more power than Harper. He is just another puppet in a long line of puppets. All this head bashing is just a diversion to keep you from looking at what is really going on. As long as the right bashes the left and the left bashes the right, there is nothing being done to get this space ship back on course. There is a crash landing in the near future and everybody is arguing about who's fault it is that the toilets are backed up.