September 11, 2012—and Obama Apologizes

Via-IBD

The Obama Record

Obama Record: Four Americans are killed in Libya, our consulate burned and our Egyptian embassy stormed on the anniversary of 9/11 after we apologize for a film allegedly "insulting to Islam." Arab Spring, Mr. President?

Maybe President Obama shouldn't have skipped all those national intelligence briefings. The burning of our Libyan consulate in Benghazi, the murder of Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three others, including two U.S. Marines, and the storming of our embassy in Egypt after our diplomats apologized for a film made in the U.S. should show just who is the foreign policy novice in the 2012 presidential campaign.

The Obama administration is attempting to walk back the damage done by an apology issued by the U.S. Embassy in Cairo for a 14-minute trailer for a film called "The Innocence of Muslims" posted on YouTube, part of a two-hour, little-seen film produced by Sam Bacile, a 52-year-old California real estate developer who identifies himself as an Israeli Jew.

As the late, great Andrew Breitbart famously said in a tweet to someone who demanded he apologize for this or that, "Apologize for what? Should we apologize for the exercise of free speech in a democracy?"

Yet that is what the U.S. Embassy in Cairo did.

"The Embassy of the United States in Cairo condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims — as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions," the statement read in part. It went on to say that the U.S. "firmly reject the actions by those who abuse the universal right of free speech to hurt the religious beliefs of others."

This craven statement that the Obama administration has disavowed was issued before the embassy attack in Cairo where a mob stormed the compound, tore down and burned the U.S. flag and replaced it with an al-Qaida banner. Our weakness once again invited terror.

This apology is in line with the tone of moral equivalence in the speech President Obama gave to the Arab world in Cairo in June 2009. As part of his famous apology tour, he rued American greatness built by sacrifice of blood and treasure over generations for the freedom of others. If we felt this gave us special privileges, we were sorry, so feel free to kick us.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who once noted that Syria's murderous Bashar Assad was, in the opinion of some, a "reformer," issued her own statement filled with moral equivalence. "The United States deplores any intentional effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others," she said. "But let me be clear: There is never any justification for violent acts of this kind."

Really? So why the apology?

While coddling our enemies, we have spat on loyal friends and enemies such as Israel. Obama recently let it be known through surrogates that if Israel decides to deal with the existential threat that is a nuclear-armed Iran, it's on its own.

Obama, who prefers posturing and meaningless sanctions, has repeatedly snubbed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who knows Obama has Israel's back the way Brutus had Caesar's.

On the 11th anniversary of 9/11, the Obama White House snubbed a requested meeting by Netanyahu, accepted an invitation from the more important David Letterman and apologized to Islamists upset over a film that mocks Islam and Mohammed — something "artists" in America do to Christianity with our tax dollars on a fairly regular basis.

Typically, the administration's first response was not directed at the apology-spawned attacks that left one U.S. ambassador and two U.S. Marines dead. Rather, it took umbrage with the GOP presidential candidate's justified condemnation of the embassy apology.

"I'm outraged by the attacks on American diplomatic missions in Libya and Egypt and by the death of an American consulate worker in Benghazi," Romney said in a spot-on response. "It's disgraceful that the Obama administration's first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks."

"We are shocked that, at a time when the United States of America is confronting the tragic death of one of our diplomatic officers in Libya, Gov. Romney would choose to launch a political attack," Obama campaign press secretary Ben LaBolt said in a response as disgraceful as the initial apology.

Save your shock and disapproval for the murderers of American ambassadors and Marines.

The attacks in Libya and Egypt are more evidence that Obama's foreign policy of appeasement and apology leaves us with friends that don't trust or respect us and enemies that do not fear us. Obama has led from behind on Libya, Syria and Iran. Rather than an "Arab Spring," we face a region dominated by Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Muslim Brotherhood, and governed by Shariah law — while Iran patiently builds its Islamic nuclear bomb.

"My opponent and his running mate are new to foreign policy," Obama said at the Democratic convention last week. "But from all that we've seen and heard, they want to take us back to an era of blustering and blundering that cost America so dearly."

Better an era in which we won the Cold War than one full of whining and whimpering, where our embassies are stormed and diplomats murdered with impunity.

A little more than four years ago, Hillary Clinton suggested then-Democratic primary opponent Barack Obama was so naive on the world stage he'd need a "foreign policy instruction manual" should he win.

She produced the now-famous "3 a.m. phone call ad" that questioned his expertise and readiness for the top job. History has proved her right.

At the convention, Obama and his supporters reminded us that "Osama is dead, and GM is alive." Well, now Amb. J. Christopher Adams and two U.S. Marines are dead too, and that phone is still ringing.