Obama and his Islamist Friends

Mike L.

{Cross-posted at Geoffff's Joint.}

One of the important elements of the Benghazi scandal and cover-up is the fact that the Obama administration has such faith in the enemies of the American people that it actually put them in security positions at the Benghazi facility.

Barry Rubin writes this:

Consider the Benghazi scandal from the standpoint of Benghazi--where the militia that murdered the Americans is one of the most powerful forces in the city--and Libya itself. Suppose that from the beginning on September 11, 2012, the U.S. government announced that the U.S. facility was under attack by a militia group linked to al-Qaida. It would have had to explain why it had hired members of that militia group to guard the facility, a scandal in itself. We know 100 percent that this is true but it hasn't become an issue.

Why in this world would the Obama administration hire members of an Islamist organization to guard American diplomats in a region as violent and unstable as Benghazi, Libya?  Does it make even a wit of sense?  Why wasn't that compound guarded by American soldiers?

This question gets right to the root of the matter because it raises the question of Obama's relationship with, and friendliness towards, the movement of political Islam.  There are people on the hard right who believe that Barack Obama is a crypto-Muslim and there are those on the hard right that believe that he, himself, is an Islamist.  I do not think so.

What I think is that Barack Obama is not nearly so intelligent as they kept telling us that he is.  He put Islamists in charge of security in Benghazi because he honestly believes that political Islam is a force and movement that should be negotiated with and cultivated in America's favor.  This is why he helped install the Muslim Brotherhood into power in Egypt.  This is why he allowed Islamists to guard the American compound in Benghazi.  This is why he has deleted all references to Islam within internal government documents and discussion around the problem of international terrorism.

It's not so much that Obama favors political Islam as that he sees it as a legitimate expression of the will of Arab and Muslim peoples throughout the Middle East and therefore believes that it must be accepted, honored, and negotiated with.  If we wish to promote democracy in the Middle East - which would be in American interests - the United States does not get to say just what that democracy should look like.  If the Arab and Muslim peoples in the region wish to promote a violent political movement that is misogynistic, viciously homophobic, genocidal towards Jews, and deeply anti-American who are we to say "no"?

The Obama administration has proven itself friendly toward radical Islam.  This is not a matter of conjecture or theory, but a matter of fact.  The only question is just why is the administration friendly toward radical Islam?  The answer that seems the most reasonable is that the administration promotes radical Islam because it hopes to use that movement to advance American interests on the world stage.

And this is why we must conclude that Barack Obama is not really terribly bright.

Supporting radical Islam in the Middle East, or the Brotherhood in Egypt, will not promote American interests, but undermine those interests, particularly in the long term.  It takes a special type of stupidity to think that helping your enemies, while subverting your friends, can possibly be in the interests of the American people; a little fact that Barack Obama unwittingly taught Ambassador Stevens the hard way.

My suspicion is that Obama and his people are beginning to awaken to this reality, but it is far, far too late and there is little that they can do at this point to change course, anyway.  Barack Obama made a crucial and fundamental miscalculation at the beginning of his tenure and he will never admit what a profound mistake it was to support political Islam in that part of the world.  He cannot admit it because it would be tantamount to acknowledging responsibility for failure, which he will never do.  He won't do it and his supporters won't do it, even if they recognize it, which itself is rather doubtful.

One thing is certain.  Obama supporters will have much to answer for in the coming months and years.

The truth of the matter is that Obama's foreign policy borders on the treasonous.

You may not want to hear it, but it happens to be the truth.