When all else fails lower your standards - and we did - we elected Obama.
Like with the collapse of the New York Twin Towers, Obama's twin policy towers have collapsed as well.
His economic recovery never rose to any meaningful height and now remains in rubble followed by his wimpy, naive, feckless, apologetic and appeasing foreign policy which has been torpedoed by radical Muslims and Islamic terrorists, all of which he denies exists.
His minions suggest recent events of assassinations and destruction were all due to a movie trailer! Instead of defending our cherished freedom of speech, Obama's confused State Department has decided to take out a limp ad distancing itself from this crude movie.
A nation that no longer reaches for greatness, a nation that embraces mediocrity, a nation whose collective societal standards have deteriorated, a nation whose education system is no longer a matter of pride and a nation whose family unit is fractured cannot long endure.
These negative trends have been building for decades. Obama simply accelerated them with his bankrupt and mistaken policies.
Being the world's leader can be exhausting. It can sap a nation's vitality, its citizen's sense of self worth. Willingness to fail, wrong headed policies can lead to confusion and a desire to accept less than the best. This is where America is at the present time . Obama's hope and change message has been found to be what it always was - empty smoke and mirror snake oil espoused by a man possessing a thin resume. A man not up to the job he aspired to and was elected for and now we are paying the consequences of our self duplicity.
POGO was right - woe is us because we have become our own worst enemy. (See 1 below.)
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I am now about half way through reading Bob Woodward"s : "The Price of Politics."
So far what I have gleaned is that compromise is the art of getting something done in D.C. and, at this time in our nation's history, neither side was/is capable of rising to the level of doing so.
Probably the stakes are so high and the consequences so grave that compromise has become impossible. We are in an all or nothing death spiral due to the accumulated and unsustainable deficits and transfer payments so everyone is paralyzed and the election simply adds another log to the delay fire.
What I found fascinating is that, at the time of the debate over default, Woodward believes editorials based on leaks of the negotiations between Boehner and Obama, by the Wall Street Journal and New York Times and the failed effort by The Six, killed any possible deal because it changed the dynamics of the focus to revenue raising when in fact both sides had also agreed to significant spending cuts.
Secondly, though a degree of respect for each other's position and even a modicum of friendship had developed neither side saw enough movement towards the other to believe the 'big deal' was achievable. After the editorials were published, positions hardened, distrust heightened and everything went downhill.
Obama felt constrained and he knew it and knew the Republicans knew he knew it and that gave them extraordinary power. The question was what kind of a 'bad'deal Obama would be forced to accept to prevent default.
It is sad the two sides cannot place nation first but when the atmosphere is poisoned by the rhetoric of blame shifting compromise becomes crushed. Far too many from both aisles are more focused on winning the political exchange than doing what is best for the nation.
Obama kept making all the right comments about wanting to sincerely cut a deal to avoid default but he also could not refrain from snide comments that undercut his own efforts if they were actually ever sincere.
Boehner was willing to cut a big deal as well but seemed hemmed in by the inability to deliver necessary votes if tax cutting took center stage over spending cuts.
When one considers government spending has escalated to over 24% of GDP from the high teens the need to cut spending and growth in government seems a more legitimate cause than raising taxes to fund amoebic government bloat.
More on Woodward's book at a later date.
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Meanwhile, Romney's admission that his comments about 47% of Americans are beyond his reach was inelegant it does not alter its veracity. The problem is that its inelegance tossed more red meat to Obama's protective press and media curs. While they ignored Obama's foreign policy which was collapsing they were able to spin Romney's comments as insensitive and unworthy of a potential president blah, blah, blah.
I have no doubt were there better paying jobs out there many on the government 'teat' would be more than happy to leave but the numerical trend towards dependency is frightening and it is not of recent duration though it has been elevated by the 'recession.' The various transfer legislation culminating in Fluke's demand that tax money pay for her birth control needs symbolically tells it all.
Womb to tomb government is not what historic rugged American individualism is all about nor is it in keeping with the definition of a reasonable safety net. Like it has often been said such has become akin to a hammock.
Then we have the recent demonstration by the Chicago Teacher Union in utter disregard of their responsibility to children on top of which they made excessive pay and work demands. Where does all this 'public sector' greed stop?
Finally, we have the administration's kowtowing to the Muslim community in the vague and naive hope the radicals among their ranks will yield to civil discourse. To make matters even more unbelievable the administration goes overboard spinning like a top and suggesting killing ambassadors and staff, burning embassies etc, is because of some stupid movie.
Anyone who reacts in such plunder ought to prove the point they are beyond reach when it comes to sane discourse.
America needs a course correction and though Romney may not be the answer he is better than what we have. Obama is finally right - when hope is gone it is time for a change.
The re-election of Obama will simply validate that Americans have thrown in the towel! (See 2, 2a and 2b below
Click on:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKqC-06o6JU&feature=player_embedded---
SIRC TRUE PERSPECTIVES
October 2, 5 PM, Plantation
“An
Insider’s View of the Afghanistan
Presented by: Mr. David Simons
What went on at
Gen. Petraeus’s morning briefings?
David Simons was present
Where did Brett Baier, Ollie North, Diane Sawyer, The
Sec. of Defense, etc.
Tour in Afghanistan
David Simons was their guide
David is President of Simons Political Group, a
government relations and business consulting firm headquartered in Savannah
Don’t miss what will be a most informative
and interesting event
RSVP and Info: Jack Kaster 598-7714 or kasjac@bellsouth.net
$5 SIRC members, $10 Non-members, all welcome
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Iran - The Greatest Threat to Western Civilization
The biggest mistake in all the diplomatic activity regarding Iran's growing nuclear capability has been the focus of the threat to Israel. Iran is a threat to the world, not just to Israel! Iran is on a religious jihad to conquer the world. Watch this must see video and share with all!
YouTube video - 6:14 minutes
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I am not denying Romney has said some things that allow the biased press to turn them into a hammer but I have expected and written the polls will go negative as the campaign nears an end. The polling is biased and if you look behind the curtain you will find it so. It is necessary to make Romney's defeat look assured so Obama's press and media mavens can create a sense of dispiritedness among the opposition's ranks. (See 3 below.)
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After flipping and flopping the Obama administration reluctantly has concluded terrorists killed our Ambassador and three of his staff and not a movie.
That is refreshing in view of the fact that Obama has outlawed the use of the word in his administration and government circles.
There is a report that Obama is now attending intelligence meetings instead of reading the daily reports. Glad he thought them important enough to take time from his golf game. (See 4 below.)
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Dick
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1) From Tom to Barry!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------2 )Karl Rove: Obama 'In Desperate Shape
This is amazing. There are two parts. Be sure to read the 2nd part (in RED).
Thomas Jefferson was a very remarkable man who started learning very early in life and never stopped.
At 5, began studying under his cousin's tutor.
At 9, studied Latin, Greek and French.
At 14, studied classical literature and additional languages.
At 16, entered the College of William and Mary.
At 19, studied Law for 5 years starting under George Wythe.
At 23, started his own law practice.
At 25, was elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses.
At 31, wrote the widely circulated "Summary View of the Rights of British America ” and retired from his law practice.
At 32, was a Delegate to the Second Continental Congress.
At 33, wrote the Declaration of Independence .
At 33, took three years to revise Virginia 's legal code and wrote a Public Education bill and a statute for Religious Freedom.
At 36, was elected the second Governor of Virginia succeeding Patrick Henry.
At 40, served in Congress for two years.
At 41, was the American minister to France and negotiated commercial treaties with European nations along with Ben Franklin and John Adams.
At 46, served as the first Secretary of State under George Washington.
At 53, served as Vice President and was elected president of the American Philosophical Society.
At 55, drafted the Kentucky Resolutions and became the active head of Republican Party.
At 57, was elected the third president of the United States .
At 60, obtained the Louisiana Purchase doubling the nation's size.
At 61, was elected to a second term as President.
At 65, retired to Monticello .
At 80, helped President Monroe shape the Monroe Doctrine.
At 81, almost single-handedly created the University of Virginia and served as its first president.
At 83, died on the 50th anniversary of the Signing of the Declaration of Independence along with John Adams.
Thomas Jefferson knew because he himself studied the previous failed attempts at government. He understood actual history, the nature of God, his laws and the nature of man. That happens to be way more than what most understand today. Jefferson really knew his stuff. A voice from the past to lead us in the future:
John F. Kennedy held a dinner in the white House for a group of the brightest minds in the nation at that time. He made this statement: "This is perhaps the assembly of the most intelligence ever to gather at one time in the White House with the exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone."
"When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe ." -- Thomas Jefferson
"The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not."
-- Thomas Jefferson
"It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world."
-- Thomas Jefferson
"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them." -- Thomas Jefferson
"My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government." -- Thomas Jefferson
"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson
"The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."
-- Thomas Jefferson
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." -- Thomas Jefferson
"To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical."
-- Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson said in 1802:
"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.
If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property - until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered."
By Greg McDonald
!
Political strategist Karl Rove Wednesday said recent polls show President Barack Obama in "desperate shape" in some key states he carried in 2008 and urged Republicans not to be discouraged by polls suggesting Mitt Romney has been wounded too severely by campaign missteps to recover.
"The swing state poll shows the president in desperate shape in territory he carried with ease in 2008," Rove said told Fox News' Neil Cavuto Wednesday evening, referring to a recent USA Today/Gallup poll showing Obama up by 48 percent to 46 percent over Romney.
Rove, a Fox News contributor and the founder of the Republican super PAC Crossroad GPS, said a closer look at the poll, however, indicates trouble ahead for the president in many of the 11 key battleground states when compared to a similar poll from the 2008 presidential race.
Rove noted that Obama was ahead of Sen. John McCain then with 55 percent of likely voters, according to a USA Today/Gallup poll conducted in mid-September of that campaign.
"So Mitt Romney is already running ahead of the pace of John McCain. And President Obama is running . . . over six points behind where he did in these states in 2008," Rove told Cavuto.
"It's amazing to me," Rove said, adding that he would be worried "if I were in the White House and looking at this."
Rove said the media tends to "endow" political polls "with a false scientific precision that they do not have. They do not necessarily predict the outcome of an event that`s going to take place 49 days from now."
As an example, Rove pointed to the 1980 Reagan-Carter campaign, noting that Ronald Reagan was down significantly in the polls through September and October and came back in the final days to beat President Jimmy Carter.
He said that election was similar to the one playing out now between Obama and Romney.
"People were saying, 'You know what, this guy [Carter] is so bad. We have got double-digit inflation, double-digit unemployment, we got double-digit interest rates. . . Why is Ronald Reagan losing to Jimmy Carter?'" Rove said, adding: "Everyone said, 'Oh my God, we are going to lose. And, of course, we didn't."
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2a) The Audacity of These Dopes
By William L. Gensert
The media is on its knees. It's the customary position of worship, and worship they do -- Barack Obama -- their chosen "one."
He is the man they told us would halt the rise of the oceans and heal the planet, the man who had game like Lebron, knew more than his advisers, was more brilliant than all brilliance, the smartest man to ever be president, the winner of a Nobel Prize and 2 Grammy awards, who was like Lincoln, then FDR, then JFK, then Reagan, the man who would make America loved and respected the world over, the man who would balance the budget and usher in a new era of racial tolerance -- no white America or black America, one America -- the man who would get us out of our cars and break our dependency on foreign oil, who would change the economy into a green energy powerhouse, the man who would solve all the ills of all the world, the man who would change everything. He was new, he was different. He was better than the common man; he was more than us; he was like a god.
Three and a half years later, the only thing Barack Obama has improved is his golf game. For the media, when their messiah is 0 for a zillion, what can they do? It's too late to quit. They are all in. They have to double down.
Mitt Romney makes a comment about how 47% of Americans are "dependent" on government handouts, and the media is outraged that he would tell the truth.
The rest of America is outraged that the figure is 47%.
This is why Americans cannot believe the media message that the president is winning. The press has to pretend, and they will, right up until November 6, when he will lose in a landslide.
Strip away the Obama myth, and what are you left with? You are left with a man who is nothing more than an illusion. There never was and never will be a Barack Obama, because he is not real.
The man reading from the teleprompter is nothing more than the sum total of the audacious hopes and dreams of delusional progressives -- touted endlessly by a submissive press.
He is Mike Tyson, just before Buster Douglas knocked him face-forward to the canvas, where he floundered, spitting out his mouthpiece -- powerless, a victim of his own hubris.
Before that, he was invincible; no one would ever beat him; no one could ever beat him; he was the best ever, and the best that would ever be.
Well...sprawled out on the canvas, he wasn't so tough anymore. And he never redeemed himself from that first loss. He became a mere mortal. While undefeated, he was larger than life, a god -- when he became man, he seemed so small.
He burst on the scene as a 5' 7" animal who took apart every opponent. The more fights he won, the bigger he was -- 5' 8", then 5'10". By the time he lost to Douglas, they told us he was 6' tall.
You see, that's the problem with the media; they are supposed to be observers, impartial. But as observers and not participants -- they don't "do" -- it is easy for them to become captive of those who do "do." Impartiality fades, soon becoming something they fake and no longer a job requirement.
Just as Mike Tyson grew in stature with every win, so did Barack Obama with every speech. At least with Tyson, when he was shown to be less than what he actually was, the press turned.
With Barack Obama, who has not done a single thing correctly since winning the election, no failure is acknowledged. In fact, every blatant failure is held up to a non-attentive America as resounding success.
Just look at recent events. The Libyans warned American officials. Yet the Obama administration did not assign any Marines to protect our ambassador and the three members of his staff also killed in Benghazi. No...their security was provided by Libyan locals, untrained and certainly unmotivated.
When it hit the fan, they fled, either because they were in collusion with the attackers, or they were terrified.
There is no finer fighting man on this earth than an American soldier. Twenty Marines -- each and every one a volunteer -- would have been more than a match for a thousand Libyans. And if by chance, they were not, they would have given their lives protecting the ambassador.
In any case, we will never know because they weren't there, apparently because Barack Obama didn't want to insult the Libyans with an American presence.
Imagine: an American president thinking the presence of Americans is insulting.
This should be a huge story -- and would be with any other president. Yet the narrative pushed by the media was that Mitt Romney's denunciation of the Cairo Embassy's statement of apology, issued just before the attack in Egypt, showed him to be unfit to lead. It wasn't about the assassination of an American ambassador at our consulate in Benghazi, the first since 1979.
Four Americans lost their lives in coordinated attacks, on the anniversary of radical Islam's greatest triumph, one of them an American ambassador, who reportedly was sodomized by his attackers before being killed.
...And this unlucky quartet was left virtually unprotected, in a war zone, by this administration.
...And it took Obama most of a day to renounce the apology.
...And after denouncing the video and the violence, he immediately jumped on his plane to Vegas to raise campaign cash (too bad what goes to Vegas doesn't stay in Vegas).
...And since then, despite attacks on our embassies all over the world, spokesmen for the administration want us to believe that it's not about a failure in policy -- or that they don't like us -- no one could dislike Obama, after all. It is about a low-rent YouTube video made months ago that few people 'til recently had even seen.
...And the administration asks Google, owner of YouTube, to take down the video and has the maker of the video brought in for "questioning." First Amendment...what First Amendment? We don't need no stinking First Amendment rights in Barack Obama's America.
Yet...the story is about Mitt -- the audacity of these dopes.
You see they are desperate. The reality of Barack Obama has brought them to their knees. If he loses in November, the mainstream media will be shown for what they are -- shills for what they wanted and pretended to be true, and not tellers of truth.
What is left for them when there is no more Barack?
Will anyone take seriously the relentless attacks on President Romney they will be sure to prosecute? No one but the most committed progressive will ever believe a word they say again, especially after they not only gave Barack Obama a free ride for all of his years in office, but unconvincingly attempted to redefine his every failure as success.
There was a time when the mainstream media dictated the conversation while hiding behind the veneer of impartiality, and Americans deferred to their wisdom. And despite having always been partial, at least in the past they made some pretense of neutrality.
A defeat for Barack is a defeat for them. No longer will they be the exalted press -- the arbiter of truth and justice. After the debacle that is Barack Obama, they will be seen for what they are: publicity agents for progressivism.
Given my book on Barack Obama's communist mentor, Frank Marshall Davis, I'm regularly asked whether the latest Obama statement -- on economics, on wealth, on business, on the middle class, etc. -- rings of Davis. Invariably, yes, it does. Not surprisingly, I'm being asked just that in regard to the new Obama statement on "redistribution," which has just emerged in a tape recording from 1998. Does that statement likewise smack of Frank Marshall Davis? Yes, no question.
For starters, Davis, a literal card-carrying member of Communist Party USA, believed in wealth redistribution. That's a central tenet of the communist faith. Generally, Davis, like Obama, favored wealth redistribution from so-called greedy "corporations" to fund "health insurance" and "public works projects" (Davis's words). Davis advocated government stimulus to rescue America from (allegedly) another Great Depression. Like Obama, he supported large-scale government wealth redistribution to keep America's economy (and unemployment) from getting worse.
Beyond that, Davis blasted big business, Wall Street, banks, big oil, "excess profits," "corporate profits" and "fat contracts," "millionaires," and the "wealthy." He attacked "GOP" tax cuts that "spare the rich" and only "benefit millionaires." He called out the "corporation executive" for not paying his "fair" share. He wanted to rid America of "huge funds" finding their way into the "pockets" of "Wall Street." "Instead," he declared, "money should be spent for the benefit of the people instead of the corporations." He favored nationalization and singled out General Motors for government action. Broadly speaking, Frank Marshall Davis hailed the public sector over the private sector.
But in light of Barack Obama's comment on redistribution, there's one particular Davis column that stands out to me. It was published in the January 26, 1950 edition of the Honolulu Record (the CPUSA publication for Hawaii) and titled "Free Enterprise or Socialism."
In this article, Frank Marshall Davis perceived an America on the economic brink, the victim of a "virtual dictatorship of Big Business." He teed off on one of his most despised domestic enemies: General Motors. He was indignant at GM's profits, which he felt were too high. GM, said Davis, like America as a whole, was good at manufacturing one thing: "we have manufactured a national horror of socialism."
Notably, that line reminds me of one of the core Obama statements in the redistribution tape. "There has been a systematic -- I don't think it's too strong to call it a propaganda campaign -- against the possibility of government action," says Obama.
In essence, Obama, like Davis, bemoaned a national propaganda campaign against what Davis candidly (and correctly) called "socialism" and what Obama more carefully called "government action." Davis was characteristically more blunt and farther to the left; Obama was characteristically more careful and tried to avoid being perceived as too far to the left.
Later in the recording, Obama continued: "I think the trick is figuring out how do we structure government systems that pool resources and hence facilitate some redistribution -- because I actually believe in some redistribution, at least at a certain level to make sure that everybody's got a shot."
Obama thus posed a choice for his audience: how do we structure government to best facilitate this redistribution?
Ironically, Frank Marshall Davis had finished his column on "Free Enterprise or Socialism" by likewise posing a choice for his audience: "And so, with still rising unemployment and a mounting depression," wrote Davis, "the time draws nearer when we will have to decide to oust the monopolies and restore a competing system of free enterprise, or let the government own and operate our major industries."
Davis, who elsewhere openly advocated government nationalization of certain industries -- including the meatpacking industry, a project he worked on in Chicago with Valerie Jarrett's father-in-law, Vernon Jarrett -- did not bother explaining which option he preferred. Given that he was a communist, it seems pretty clear what option Davis favored.
In sum, once again, Barack Obama's thinking sounds hauntingly similar to that of the man who helped mentor him in the 1970s, the formative period of Obama's adolescence.
Now, can I say for certain that Obama learned about wealth redistribution from Frank Marshall Davis, a card-carrying communist? No, I can't. But the similarities strike me as remarkable and notable, with Davis being yet another of many far-left influences on the young Obama. Each day, we learn more about our president's political past -- a past that the Obama media continues to fail to expose.
Dr. Paul Kengor is professor of political science at Grove City College, executive director of The Center for Vision & Values, and author of the new book, The Communist: Frank Marshall Davis, The Untold Story of Barack Obama's Mentor.
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3)The Rape of Christopher Stevens
By Raymond Ibrahim
By obsessing over the 14-minute YouTube Muhammad video and its maker, the mainstream media ultimately exonerates the inexcusable and murderous response of the Islamic world.
There is only one question: did those who make this movie break any law? No, they did not—and so the matter should end there, and the media should move on. Focusing on those who did not break any American laws as a way to take the focus off those who murdered and initiated an act of war against the United States is not only misleading; it validates and gives Islamic blasphemy laws precedence over American freedoms.
Worse, even if making movies deemed offensive to Muslims was illegal in the U.S., the fact is, these embassy attacks, which "coincidentally" began on September 11, have nothing to do with the movie. On September 10, I wrote an article titled "Jihadis Threaten to Burn U.S. Embassy in Cairo." The demand that the U.S. release its imprisoned jihadis, including the Blind Sheikh, was behind these threats. There was no mention of "offensive movies." My source, El Fagr, an Arabic website, reported all this on September 8.
In other words, several days before Muslims were angry about this movie they were threatening to burn down the U.S. embassy in Cairo. I had even seen sporadic Arabic reports, from months back, talking about "extremist elements" threatening the embassy. The movie is just a pretext—aided and abetted by the media, not to mention the Obama administration: Hillary Clinton called the video "disgusting and reprehensible," wording which is more befitting those who murdered (and possibly raped, see below) Americans; the U.S. embassy itself apologized for those who "hurt the religious feelings of Muslims"; and the administration asked YouTube to remove the 14 minute trailer.
Thus the U.S. administration validates Islam's blasphemy laws and, once again, aligns itself with America's jihadi enemies.
Seventy-year-old, retiring Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) put it well, when he suggested that the administration's response to the embassy attacks was akin to a court asking a rape victim for an apology, saying: "It's like the judge telling the woman who got raped, 'You asked for it because of the way you dressed.'"
Nor is the rape entirely allegorical. According to the Arabic website Tayyar, "the American ambassador in Libya [Christopher Stevens] was sexually raped before being killed by the gunmen who stormed the embassy building in Benghazi last night [Tuesday, September 11], in protestation of a film insulting to the Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings upon him."
Sexual abuse and degradation is a common tactic used against non-Muslims, especially women, as therepeatedly raped Lara Logan found. For example, a report in Arabic media that just appeared discusses how Christian women—identified by wearing crosses around their necks or simply not wearing a hijab—are subject to sexual harassment, verbal abuse, and even threats of rape on the streets of Egypt. This has only "become much more blatant and terrifying [after the embassy attacks]—and has even reached the point of threats of genocide and purging the land of Egypt of infidel Christians," writes one female Christian in Egypt.
Nor are men immune from such rapes. In fact, the photos of Ambassador Stevens—stripped of clothes, bloodied and tortured right before he was killed—very much resemble the photos of Gaddafi right before he was killed. One U.S.-supported "freedom-fighter," for example, can be seen sodomizing Gadaffi with a rod as others dragged him along.
The al-Qaeda affiliated men who sexually abused and killed Gaddafi are the same sort of men who sexually abused and killed America's ambassador. We were told that the late Libyan dictator was killed because he was an evil oppressor of his people. Why was the American ambassador killed, who had hailed the revolution and was there helping to "build a better Libya"?
These are the questions the media and the Obama administration need to be answering—not obsessing over a second-rate YouTube video and questioning hard-won American freedoms enshrined in the First Amendment. They should be explaining why it is that, after four years of appeasing the Islamic world in ways unprecedented, including by helping oust America's longstanding allies like Egypt's Mubarak to empower Islamists, all we have to show for it are dead and violated Americans, stormed embassies, burned U.S. flags, and greater anti-American sentiment than ever before.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------4) Collapse of the Cairo DoctrineRaymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and an Associate Fellow at the Middle East Forum.
In the week following 9/11/12 something big happened: the collapse of the Cairo Doctrine, the centerpiece of President Obama’s foreign policy. It was to reset the very course of post-9/11 America, creating, after the (allegedly) brutal depredations of the Bush years, a profound rapprochement with the Islamic world.
Never lacking ambition or self-regard, Obama promised in Cairo, June 4, 2009, “a new beginning” offering Muslims “mutual respect,” unsubtly implying previous disrespect. Curious, as over the previous 20 years, America had six times committed its military forces on behalf of oppressed Muslims, three times for reasons of pure humanitarianism (Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo), where no U.S. interests were at stake.
But no matter. Obama had come to remonstrate and restrain the hyperpower that, by his telling, had lost its way after 9/11, creating Guantanamo, practicing torture, imposing its will with arrogance and presumption.
First, he would cleanse by confession. Then he would heal. Why, given the unique sensitivities of his background — “my sister is half-Indonesian,” he proudly told an interviewer in 2007, amplifying on his exquisite appreciation of Islam — his very election would revolutionize relations.
And his policies of accommodation and concession would consolidate the gains: an outstretched hand to Iran’s mullahs, a first-time presidential admission of the U.S. role in a 1953 coup, a studied and stunning turning away from the Green Revolution; withdrawal from Iraq with no residual presence or influence; a fixed timetable for leaving Afghanistan; returning our ambassador to Damascus (with kind words for Bashar al-Assad — “a reformer,” suggested the secretary of state); deliberately creating distance between the United States and Israel.
These measures would raise our standing in the region, restore affection and respect for the United States and elicit new cooperation from Muslim lands.
It’s now three years since the Cairo speech. Look around. The Islamic world is convulsed with an explosion of anti-Americanism. From Tunisia to Lebanon, American schools, businesses anddiplomatic facilities set ablaze. A U.S. ambassador and three others murdered in Benghazi. The black flag of Salafism, of which al-Qaeda is a prominent element, raised over our embassies in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen and Sudan.
The administration, staggered and confused,blames it all on a 14-minute trailer for a film no one has seen and may not even exist.
What else can it say? Admit that its doctrinal premises were supremely naive and its policies deeply corrosive to American influence?
Religious provocations are endless. (Ask Salman Rushdie.) Resentment about the five-century decline of the Islamic world is a constant. What’s new — the crucial variable — is the unmistakable sound of a superpower in retreat. Ever since Henry Kissinger flipped Egypt from the Soviet to the American camp in the early 1970s, the United States had dominated the region. No longer.
“It’s time,” declared Obama to wild applause of his convention, “to do some nation-building right here at home.” He’d already announced a strategic pivot from the Middle East to the Pacific. Made possible because “the tide of war is receding.”
Nonsense. From the massacres in Nigeria to the charnel house that is Syria, violence has, if anything, increased. What is receding is Obama’s America.
It’s as axiomatic in statecraft as in physics: Nature abhors a vacuum. Islamists rush in to fill the space and declare their ascendancy. America’s friends are bereft, confused, paralyzed.
Islamists rise across North Africa from Mali to Egypt. Iran repeatedly defies U.S. demands on nuclear enrichment, then, as a measure of its contempt for what America thinks, openly admits that its Revolutionary Guards are deployed in Syria. Russia, after arming Assad, warns America to stay out, while the secretary of state delivers vapid lectures about Assad “meeting” his international “obligations.” The Gulf states beg America to act on Iran; Obama strains mightily to restrain . . . Israel.
Sovereign U.S. territory is breached and U.S. interests are burned. And what is the official response? One administration denunciation after another — of a movie trailer! A request to Google to “review” the trailer’s presence on YouTube. And a sheriff’s deputies’ midnight “voluntary interview” with the suspected filmmaker. This in the land of the First Amendment.
What else can Obama do? At their convention, Democrats endlessly congratulatedthemselves on their one foreign policy success: killing Osama bin Laden. A week later, the Salafist flag flies over four American embassies, even as the mob chants, “Obama, Obama, there are still a billion Osamas.”
A foreign policy in epic collapse. And, by the way, Vladimir Putin just expelled the U.S. Agency for International Development from Russia. Another thank you from another recipient of another grand Obama “reset.”
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