Sunday, February 3, 2013

Hillary's Call for Auto-Stupefaction

Mike L.

{Originally published at the Jewish Thinker.}

Dr. Richard Landes, of Augean Stables fame, has a new piece entitled, Hillary Clinton, rekaB Street Statesperson.

In it he discusses Hillary Clinton's recent remarks concerning the Benghazi killings.  In an irritated manner before a Senate sub-committee Clinton said this:
With all due respect, the fact is, we had four dead Americans. Was it because of a protest, or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided they would go kill some Americans? What difference — at this point — does it make? It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again, Senator.
There is something about this comment that has been irritating me ever since I first read of it, but I could not quite put my finger on just what it was.   Landes is on the mark, however, when he writes this:
What an extraordinary statement! (And note the complete reversal disguised as “the point” in the final sentence.)

What an aggressive assertion of a complete lack of interest in understanding what’s going on. At least, she could have given the two plausible scenarios – protest over a movie, or well-planned Jihadi attack on the anniversary of 9-11. Instead, she used a ridiculous alternative – “guys out for a walk.”

It’s as if, faced with objections to the plausibility scenario that she was offering, the Secretary of State lashed out against looking closely. In so doing, of course, she pitched to our sensibilities, invoking the sanctity of life, of American life, over which she had already shed a tear: so greatly do we mourn, that it’s sacrilegious to inquire to closely why they died.

On the contrary, it matters why it was done, precisely in order “to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again.” Indeed, it matters hugely: it is the hallmark of any investigation that aims at inspiring a learning curve to look precisely into the details, unflinchingly.
I've drawn the conclusion that the reason that I find Clinton's remarks as annoying as I do is because they represent not just an isolated failure to come to terms with this particular incident in Libya, but neatly represent the the administration's foreign policy ostrich-routine as a whole.

The Obama administration has its head buried in the sand viz-a-viz Middle East foreign policy, which is why its Middle East foreign policy is as disastrous as it is.  What Barack Obama and his administration absolutely refuse to face, or even acknowledge, is the rise of political Islam under the misnomer "Arab Spring."  Future historians will note that it is under this president, and partly through his assistance, that we see the spread of political Islam (or "radical Islam" or "Islamism") throughout the entire Middle East, if not the Muslim world more generally.  This is the most significant geo-political happening since the demise of the Soviet Union and it will have profoundly negative implications for the Middle East and the world for many decades to come, yet the Obama administration refuses to acknowledge it for what it is.

In a speech before the United Nations Obama explicitly referenced his administration's support for the "Arab Spring" which he mischaracterizes as the great up-welling of Arab democracy. Standing before the world body he said:
It's been less than two years since a vendor in Tunisia set himself on fire to protest the oppressive corruption in his country and sparked what became known as the Arab Spring. And since then, the world has been captivated by the transformation that's taken place, and the United -- the United States has supported the forces of change.
If the "forces of change" mean going back to the Saudi Peninsula as it was in the 7th century then, yes, the United States under Barack Obama has supported the forces of change.  In a recent 60 Minutes interview he even said this:
You know, when it comes to Egypt, I think, had it not been for the leadership we showed, you might have seen a different outcome there.
Indeed, and that's really the point, isn't it?  Barack Obama looked at the riots and the rapes and the murders that collectively made up the "Arab Spring" and declared it a good thing.  He even takes considerable credit for the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, despite the fact that the Brotherhood is the foremost genocidally anti-Semitic organization in the world today.

And this is why Clinton's statement so well represents the administration as a whole.  She says, "Was it because of a protest, or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided they would go kill some Americans? What difference — at this point — does it make?" And then, in the very same breath, reverses herself by saying "It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again, Senator."

She directly contradicted herself within two sentences of a single statement, but it is the first part that is operative.  What difference does it make, she asks?  It makes all the difference in the world if the Obama administration would, at some point, like to develop a coherent foreign policy.  One cannot support the Brotherhood while opposing Qaeda given the fact that Qaeda is, along with Hamas, one of the Brotherhood's gifts to the world.  Qaeda and Hamas were born from the Brotherhood and represent the Brotherhood's ideology of Jihad.   And it is precisely because of the ideology of Jihad, or "radical" Jihad, that those Americans were slaughtered in Libya.

Are we to understand that Hillary Clinton does not know this?  Are we to understand that the administration really has no idea why those Americans were killed, despite the fact that the murders took place on the anniversary of 9/11?  That's the implication of her remarks, after all, and they neatly illustrate the Obama administration's absolute refusal to acknowledge what is directly before its nose.

U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East is an absolute disaster because Barack Obama refuses to acknowledge the problem of political Islam.  He just won't do it and, thus, he can praise the Brotherhood takeover of Egypt as a positive development and hail the so-called "Arab Spring," which is really an Islamist Winter, as "democracy" when it is in fact no such thing.

Until such a time as the administration recognizes its mistake in refusing to face political Islam for what it is, its efforts in that part of the world will remain both dangerous and counterproductive.

Israel would, therefore, be very well advised to avoid Obama's influence on the "peace process," which he helped kill through his essentially racist demand for "total settlement freeze," until the United States puts forth an administration less enamored of, as Landes put it, "auto-stupefaction."

3 comments:

  1. A tiny point but I'll make it. Sometimes the truth lies in tiny things.

    Obama seems to glorify the horrific fiery death of the "vendor in Tunisia" . A martyr's death apparently of incredible sacrifice for his fellow man (more likely the guy was simply deranged but we won't go there).

    No doubt that is how it is perceived throughout the Arab and Muslim world. But those are not Western values despite the impact of Christianity. Imagine if such a thing was to happen in one of our cities. It would be regarded with disgust and revulsion. It certainly wouldn't help any cause.

    At least up until now it wouldn't.

    Can you imagine the leader of the free world speaking of such a thing in a positive way at any time in the past? And not a murmur from anyone. Are we steadily abandoning our values in favour of something too obscene to think about anymore?

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    1. Y'know, that's an excellent point and one that has not previously occurred to me.

      You are correct. I cannot imagine an American leader praising suicide as a political act within any context.

      How odd.

      I'm not exactly sure what to make of it. What's the implication?

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    2. His value system is not ours. Nor is this White House. It is something alien.

      Can you imagine being in his position and carefully preparing a speech to be delivered to the United Nations and including such a sentence especially in a world where "martyrs" are "setting themselves on fire" for a "heroic" cause all over the shop? Acts which receive the whole hearted approval of a number of the countries before him.

      Didn't a number of "martyrs" do exactly that in the same city on the same island not even ten years before Obama was speaking?

      He would not sat that to an American audience. His minders wouldn't let him. But the moment he has a wider audience that includes active jihadists and their financiers and supporters he abandons what I thought was a fundamental value of our societies without the slightest hesitation and it appears not the slightest thought.

      I thought this President is supposed to be a Christian. That first sentence sounds to me what a Muslim would say. Then it gets worse. The second sentence locks your country into support of the value that underpins what he just enunciated.

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