Showing posts with label Arab Spring. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Arab Spring. Show all posts
12/02/2012
11/26/2012
And this is a surprise?...
White House silent as Egypt’s president grabs power, moves toward Shariah Islamic law
Read article here
White House officials remained silent during the extended Thanksgiving weekend, as Egypt’s pro-democracy groups called on President Barack Obama to condemn Thursday’s power grab by their country’s Islamist president, Mohammed Morsi.
Morsi decreed Nov. 22 that his pronouncements and edicts were beyond the reach of judicial review. The announcement was met by resistance from the nation’s top judges, who said they would fight Morsi’s unusual self-elevation to near-dictator status.
“I am waiting to see, I hope soon, a very strong statement of condemnation by the U.S., by Europe and by everybody who really cares about human dignity,” declared Mohamed ElBaradei, who is one of Egypt’s more visible non-Islamist politicians.
So far, the White House has not weighed in, although Morsi’s power grab is a repudiation of th “Arab Spring” democracy movement that Obama has supported for two years.
Read article here
11/24/2012
9/29/2012
In His Own Words
"I have known Islam on three continents before coming to the region where it was first revealed. That experience guides my conviction that partnership between America and Islam must be based on what Islam is, not what it isn't. And I consider it part of my responsibility as president of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear."
President Barack Obama
Cairo Egypt
June 4, 2009
9/28/2012
9/25/2012
"Aligned with our interests."
Via-Jer's Notes
Watching the interviews with Romney and Obama on 60 Minutes Sunday I was struck by something that Obama said. It was in his now much talked about "bumps in the road" comment in discussing recent events in the Middle East and North Africa. Although that rubbed me the wrong way too, that is not what caught my attention. It was at the end of the answer when he said this:
Which bring us to what got my old brain cells firing, what exactly are our (the United States) interest in the Middle East and North Africa? Perhaps that is the first item that ought to be decided before we start talking about "alignment" with anyone.
Watching the interviews with Romney and Obama on 60 Minutes Sunday I was struck by something that Obama said. It was in his now much talked about "bumps in the road" comment in discussing recent events in the Middle East and North Africa. Although that rubbed me the wrong way too, that is not what caught my attention. It was at the end of the answer when he said this:
"There will probably be some times where we bump up against some of these countries and have strong disagreements, but I do think that over the long term we are more likely to get a Middle East and North Africa that is more peaceful, more prosperous and more aligned with our interests."The whole premise of "a Middle East and North Africa that is more peaceful, more prosperous" is a somewhat nebulous goal since many nations are or can be peaceful and prosperous without being "aligned with our interests." China for example from outward appearance is both peaceful and prosperous, yet would we say they are aligned with our interest?
Which bring us to what got my old brain cells firing, what exactly are our (the United States) interest in the Middle East and North Africa? Perhaps that is the first item that ought to be decided before we start talking about "alignment" with anyone.
9/16/2012
9/14/2012
Obama’s Mistake Is Much Bigger Than an ‘Ally’ Gaffe
Via-NRO The Corner
By Jim Geraghty
Allow me to deviate slightly from the emerging consensus that President Obama stepped in it mightily when he said that “I don’t think we would consider them an ally, but we don’t consider them an enemy.”
How would you characterize a regime where the security forces are unable or unwilling to protect U.S. soil, where the locals storm the embassy, trash it, remove and destroy the U.S. flag, and replace it with a black Islamist flag reading, “There is no god but Allah and Mohammed is his prophet”? Does that seem like the actions of an “ally”? How do you characterize a regime that takes a day to issue any statement responding to such an attack, one whose denunciation is tepid, one that urges its embassy to attempt to take legal action in the U.S. to restrict the rights of an American to criticize Islam?
I don’t doubt that the declaration that the U.S. no longer considers the Egyptian government to be an ally will have considerable reverberations in Cairo and U.S. diplomatic circles — but those reverberations ought to pale in comparison to the storming of an embassy on 9/11, and a series of attacks on U.S. soil and personnel in the region.
Obama’s mistake is much bigger than the “ally” comment; it is his vision and approach, which we’ve seen for years. His mistake has been viewing Prime Minister Morsi, the government headed by the Muslim Brotherhood, and the entire Arab Spring with rose-colored glasses.
Is the security around our embassies and consulates lax because we underestimate the anti-American currents in the driving philosophies of the Arab Spring? Can anyone argue that the Obama administration has had a realistic sense of anti-American attitudes in the region, and the dangers they present?
The Washington Post’s foreign-affairs columnist, David Ignatius, had a fascinating throwaway line in his column today:
A key goal of U.S. policy ought to be fighting, refuting, and discrediting this “baseline anti-Americanism.” The people of the United States have been the go-to scapegoat for every two-bit demagogue from Algiers, Algeria, to Lahore, Pakistan. With almost metronomic regularity, somebody with aspirations of political or religious power decides that easiest way to build up a following is to declare that the economic, political, or moral problems of their neighborhood are the fault of Americans. They and all of their buddies choose to lash out with a demonstration at the U.S. diplomatic post. On a quiet day, it’s just banners and chanting; on a bad day, good Americans get killed, just for showing up to work.
We have leverage with these regimes, none more so than Egypt, which receives enormous sums of foreign aid and is seeking billions in debt relief. If these regimes want to be considered allies, and want those wonderful American dollars to keep coming, they have to push back against knee-jerk anti-Americanism. We cannot be the all-purpose bogeyman in the political rhetoric of states that claim to want to be our friends, a convenient caricature for regime spokesmen to trot out when they need to distract from their own failures.
The demonization of America is so pervasive in Egyptian media it even percolated freely in the English-language press under Mubarak. No one’s asking foreign governments to shut down voices critical of America; just to refute the lies and stand up for our reputations, to stop letting us be the perpetual villain in all of their political discussions.
Obama’s problem isn’t one stray comment. Our problem is the policy he has pursued from Day One.
By Jim Geraghty
Allow me to deviate slightly from the emerging consensus that President Obama stepped in it mightily when he said that “I don’t think we would consider them an ally, but we don’t consider them an enemy.”
How would you characterize a regime where the security forces are unable or unwilling to protect U.S. soil, where the locals storm the embassy, trash it, remove and destroy the U.S. flag, and replace it with a black Islamist flag reading, “There is no god but Allah and Mohammed is his prophet”? Does that seem like the actions of an “ally”? How do you characterize a regime that takes a day to issue any statement responding to such an attack, one whose denunciation is tepid, one that urges its embassy to attempt to take legal action in the U.S. to restrict the rights of an American to criticize Islam?
I don’t doubt that the declaration that the U.S. no longer considers the Egyptian government to be an ally will have considerable reverberations in Cairo and U.S. diplomatic circles — but those reverberations ought to pale in comparison to the storming of an embassy on 9/11, and a series of attacks on U.S. soil and personnel in the region.
Obama’s mistake is much bigger than the “ally” comment; it is his vision and approach, which we’ve seen for years. His mistake has been viewing Prime Minister Morsi, the government headed by the Muslim Brotherhood, and the entire Arab Spring with rose-colored glasses.
Is the security around our embassies and consulates lax because we underestimate the anti-American currents in the driving philosophies of the Arab Spring? Can anyone argue that the Obama administration has had a realistic sense of anti-American attitudes in the region, and the dangers they present?
The Washington Post’s foreign-affairs columnist, David Ignatius, had a fascinating throwaway line in his column today:
The Salafists’ assault on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi at first appeared to be a “copycat” attack like the one in Cairo, but U.S. officials said it may have been planned by extremists linked to al-Qaeda. They were augmented by a well-armed Islamic militia. Their anger, again, is mixed between a baseline anti-Americanism (sadly, always a draw in the region) and a challenge to Prime Minister Abdurraheem el-Keib and the secularist parties that are the backbone of the new Libyan government.
A key goal of U.S. policy ought to be fighting, refuting, and discrediting this “baseline anti-Americanism.” The people of the United States have been the go-to scapegoat for every two-bit demagogue from Algiers, Algeria, to Lahore, Pakistan. With almost metronomic regularity, somebody with aspirations of political or religious power decides that easiest way to build up a following is to declare that the economic, political, or moral problems of their neighborhood are the fault of Americans. They and all of their buddies choose to lash out with a demonstration at the U.S. diplomatic post. On a quiet day, it’s just banners and chanting; on a bad day, good Americans get killed, just for showing up to work.
We have leverage with these regimes, none more so than Egypt, which receives enormous sums of foreign aid and is seeking billions in debt relief. If these regimes want to be considered allies, and want those wonderful American dollars to keep coming, they have to push back against knee-jerk anti-Americanism. We cannot be the all-purpose bogeyman in the political rhetoric of states that claim to want to be our friends, a convenient caricature for regime spokesmen to trot out when they need to distract from their own failures.
The demonization of America is so pervasive in Egyptian media it even percolated freely in the English-language press under Mubarak. No one’s asking foreign governments to shut down voices critical of America; just to refute the lies and stand up for our reputations, to stop letting us be the perpetual villain in all of their political discussions.
Obama’s problem isn’t one stray comment. Our problem is the policy he has pursued from Day One.
9/13/2012
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.
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.
9/12/2012
As seen on Twitter
Via-Twitter
So Muslims can make antisemitic films depicting Jews as apes and pigs but if someone insults the prophet people must die?
— Adam Segal (@theadamsegal) September 12, 2012
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