{Cross-posted at the Times of Israel.}
In a recent article for the Gatestone Institute entitled, "U.S. Keeps Joining the Forces of Jihad," analyst Clare Lopez writes the following:
With the June 13, 2013 confirmation by senior Obama administration officials that the president has authorized sending weapons directly to Syrian rebels, there is a trend developing that can no longer be ignored. This is the third country and the third instance in which Barack Obama has leapt into the fray of revolution to the defense of al-Qa'eda and Muslim Brotherhood...I have, of course, been discussing this kind of thing in these pages for years now.
Obama supported the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and he supported al-Qaeda in Libya and now he supports the Islamist rebels in Syria and, yet, if I say that Obama supports political Islam my progressive-left friends look at me as if I am speaking in Swahili.
Can we finally, at long last, put aside the fiction that Obama does not support political Islam? Can a little bit of obvious reality begin to seep into the discussion among progressives concerning this? I have been smeared as some sort-of hard-line right-wing monster for daring to acknowledge the obvious. It's as if one's liberal credentials can only be maintained through sticking one's head in the ground and keeping it there.
I am going to keep this very brief because, I tell you, it is just too damn hot in Oakland today.
But the fact of the matter is that Obama supports political Islam and yet 69 percent of American Jews still voted for him in his run for re-election. The only way that result was possible was through silence by the mainstream media concerning Obama's support for political Islam and by the brick wall-like ideological blinkertude of Obama's Jewish supporters.
However inconvenient it may be, the truth is not dependent upon one's political inclinations.
Sometimes the truth is just the truth and it is unquestionably true - and it has been obviously unquestionably true for a long time now - that Barack Obama supports political Islam. Now, he may do so out of the very finest intentions, but whatever his intentions, it remains the case that he does so.
My only real question is whether Obama's Jewish supporters will finally acknowledge the truth?
My suspicion is that, no, they will not. The very same people that supported the misnamed "Arab Spring," even as we all watched it devolve into a series of murders and riots and rapes, will continue to pretend that Barack Obama is not a friend to radical Islam and is, thus, a good friend to the Jewish people and to the Jewish State of Israel.
How anyone can continue to maintain that fantasy after all this time just boggles the imagination.
Yet, they will.
Can we finally, at long last, put aside the fiction that Obama does not support political Islam? Can a little bit of obvious reality begin to seep into the discussion among progressives concerning this?
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't bet on it, Mike.
"I am going to keep this very brief because, I tell you, it is just too damn hot in Oakland today."
That's funny, because today was actually a very nice day for us out here on the other end of the country. The first nice day in weeks, actually. Tomorrow, thunderstorms roll back in and are expected to stick around for at least the next ten days or so.
Maybe July can be even wetter than June! 10 inches of rain in June? Pffftttt! Let's go for 15 next month!
Seems that we'll have a 'good' start on that, at least...
~~~
Here's a serious question, though. What can the liberals amongst us who also care about domestic politics do about this situation? It's not as if there's another party which actually puts people worth voting for on the ballot. It would be nice to have a real choice.
Why don't we have one?
For all the market-based solutions that exist in the US, it sure does seem extremely odd that our state- and national-level politics is the one field where there is absolutely no such thing...
On one hand we have the problems you outline above, and on the other we have folks calling bike lanes on city streets a form of Naziism. I sure do wish there was much less insanity in our politics these days.
Jay,
Delete"What can the liberals amongst us who also care about domestic politics do about this situation?"
I guess the first thing to do is, as much as possible, remove one's ideological blinders, and ignore one's partisan loyalties, in order to see questions in fresh lights.
We start, it seems to me, by acknowledging obvious truths among one another. If we can't do that then we can't do anything because whatever we do will be done blind.
As for the Republicans, I agree with you. I am entirely non-partisan at this point and if I pick on the Democrats, and the progressives, it's because I come out of that party and that movement and because it is within that movement that the foremost enemies of the Jewish people - Islamists aside - reside in the west.
I never expected anything good from the Republicans to begin with. Although I have no intention anytime soon of joining the Republican Party, I certainly see reforming the party as an option. I mean, one can go into the Republican Party as a former Jewish Democrat with the intention of spreading liberality.
I do not see myself playing any such role anytime soon, but who knows what the future holds?
It seems to me that, at least here in the US, we have no natural home willing to take most of our somewhat unique package of positions seriously.
DeleteIt's all either-or these days. That's what we have to change.
Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that in the UK and Australia, and of course Israel, being anti-Islamist does not necessarily also preclude one from being pro-labor and pro-equality and pro-transit and pro-at-least-somewhat-public-healthcare, etc etc etc,.
Here, we seem to face the eternal problem of single-package politics as defined by where things stood somewhere right around the end of the first Reagan administration.
For example, my position on RKBA would seem to place me on the 'right' to most folks these days; while yet at the very same time my positions on urban planning and livable streets would get me labeled as a 'totalitarian begriming our streets,' by certain folks from the Wall Street Journal editorial board these days.
"We start, it seems to me, by acknowledging obvious truths among one another."
Fully agreed. And that's certainly what we do here. I'm just thinking of what we can do, long term, in the way of finding a path forward and all...
"It's all either-or these days. That's what we have to change."
DeleteQuite right. This is the kind of thing that Ziontruth would often reference, what we might call the One Stop Shopping nature of American politics.
But what that means is breaking expectations and being willing to acknowledge positions beyond what is considered acceptable within one's ideological home.
You and I are both domestic policy liberals, yet our domestic policy liberal friends also refuse to acknowledge the rise of political Islam and tend to think that the Jews are the guilty party in the long Arab war against them.
Again, there are two ways of dealing with this situation. We can work within the party and the movement in order to help change perceptions or we can call it out from outside the party and the movement.
That has been my choice and while I recommend that choice, I certainly do not expect all friends of Israel within the left to make that choice.
I'm just happy that there are still people on the progressive-left capable of self-criticism.
It helps restore my faith - in some small measure - in the possibilities within the human animal.
I mean that sincerely.
I do get the sense that we're seeing at least a little bit more reality-based, sensible criticism of the president, somewhere between the "He's a Secret Muslim!" nonsense, and the "Drone Killer!!1!" crap.
DeleteThis strikes me as a positive sign.
Unfortunately, it's far too late to reverse any long-term damage his incredibly naive policies will produce.
Also, if we had a functioning opposition that put up people worth electing, that could have helped avoid this, too.
It's a long term project, turning around our electoral politics ship, but yeah. I surely agree that we'll need folks both inside and outside (both parties) to do it.
As regards Israel, I'm already long on the record as believing that within both of our lifetimes, the energy situation here in the US is going to necessitate a drastic re-focus to a much smaller world.
I don't believe we're going to revert into medievalism, as some would caricature the position people like me put forth, but I do believe that within the next 30 years or so, our future John Kerrys are going to be much more focused on what's going on in Mexico City and Ottawa (or hell, even Santa Fe and Olympia), than what's going on in Jerusalem or Cairo.
So even though I'd like to see this stage of the conflict come to an end sooner rather than later, at the same time I also do not buy the "time is on the Palestinians' side!" argument, either.
We'll see how it plays out, maybe (or at least my grandchild's generation will!), but I think in the not-so-long term, we're gonna drop out of this due to energy concerns, and Western Europe is also gonna drop out of poking their nose into MENA regional politics due to other local concerns of their own, be they of the Eurabia variety or otherwise.
That's just my two cents, I guess...
Obama did not learn the lesson of the Mujaheddin in Afghanistan. That was a terrible move by Reagan. We should have let the Russians stew in their Vietnam. But in the end, look what resulted.
ReplyDeleteObama seems to believe he can best fight against the threats to American interests by supporting political Islam. He seems to be convinced in his own ability to control these forces, but to me they see him as feckless, and this will increase.
Overall we are hurt by Obama actions, but we are also closer to addressing it because the Islamic supremacists will be more aggressive.
As for removing blinders, that is a tall order. No apostacy allowed!
Yup.
Delete"Obama seems to believe he can best fight against the threats to American interests by supporting political Islam."
That's what Rubin says, too, but I cannot begin to imagine what kind of good can possibly come out of supporting a political movement that is anti-American, violently misogynistic, murderous toward Gays, and genocidal toward Jews.
And what I really do not understand is that even as it was happening the media, and our friends on the left, simply ignored it and smeared those of us who pointed it out.
I am telling you, future historians (and some present one's, I think) will wonder how it was that a mere 8 years after 9/11 the US had a president that is friendly toward radical Islam.
It's dumbfounding.
I would not call it being friendly, but pragmatic. In any event, he will be long gone when the damage is fully realized.
DeleteWhat's more telling is that it turns out that Obama has been quietly 'training' (spec ops) and arming the so called 'rebels' since LAST September. We knew there was this purported non lethal aid since but now the issue is cloudier.
ReplyDeletehttp://articles.latimes.com/2013/jun/21/world/la-fg-cia-syria-20130622
So there are a few takeaways
1 - everything the Admin has stated so far on this topic is either a lie or a coverup
2 - they're not very good at translating their support into results
3 - they needed to keep this very quiet from
September through the election to now but they aren't concerned with denying it
4 - the Admin's voter base either doesn't care or tacitly supports this regardless of everything and anything else they have to say on the matter