By Charlie Spiering
The White House press office canceled the daily briefing with
reporters Tuesday, dodging tough questions after the press office
mistakenly revealed the identity of the top CIA official in Afghanistan.
The official was named in a list of participants of a meeting with President Obama during his brief trip to Afghanistan.
After journalists at the Washington Post questioned the White House decision, the press office scrambled to update the list of participants sent to the press pool.
On Tuesday afternoon, the White House surprised reporters by canceling
the White House press briefing and instead scheduling a press call on
President Obama’s decision to leave 9,800 U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
That means that White House Press Secretary Jay Carney won’t have to
face reporters shortly after his office made a critical error.
News of Obama’s decision on Afghanistan broke early this afternoon as he was attending the White House science fair.
Later in the afternoon, President Obama declined to take questions from
reporters gathered in the Rose Garden after he made his statement on
Afghanistan.
Reporters at the White House spotted several political columnists exiting the White House prior to Obama’s remarks.
According to the White House, Obama had a private lunch with
foreign policy columnists Thomas Friedman, David Brooks, E.J. Dionne,
Jeffery Goldberg, Gerald Seib, Fareed Zakaria, Peter Bergen, Susan
Glasser, and Peter Beinart.
There are new allegations of veterans being neglected even after they’ve passed away.
A source told CBS Los Angeles that there may have been as many as 60
bodies of veterans at the L.A. County Morgue for the past year and a
half. Friday, 28 bodies were finally moved to the Riverside National
Cemetery for burial.
Read more below from CBS Los Angeles:
The morgue says the bodies were unclaimed and they don’t know how long the veterans were there.
The law states veterans are supposed to receive a proper burial.
The Veterans Administration says they were never notified the bodies were processed and ready to be buried.
More than two dozen bodies were transported to the Riverside National
Cemetery Friday afternoon and more could be moved as they are
identified.On Friday evening, KCAL9′s Stacey Butler reported the LA County Morgue
and the Veteran’s Administration were blaming each other for the
mistake.
Breitbart.com’s Kerry Picket was on “Hannity” tonight to discuss the alarming report.
“The interesting thing here is that we’re seeing a circular firing
squad among these agencies passing blame,” she said, noting that the
morgue blamed the VA while the VA blamed the morgue.
Picket said that officials only did something about the bodies when the
press drew attention to the situation, blasting the scenario as “pretty
pathetic.”
By Todd Cefaratti
Remember when we elected Michelle Obama so that she could tell us what to feed our children?
Yeah, me neither…
On
Tuesday, CNN rose to its typical level of journalistic excellence when
CNN’s Carol Costello played a 2010 clip of Michelle Obama speaking of
the Healthy Hunger Free Kids Act. After the clip, Costello reminded
viewer that the preceding clip was of when Michelle Obama signed into
law the act.
Of course, Michelle did not sign the act since… well, she wasn’t elected president.
The clip shows Michelle Obama saying,
“We
can all agree that in the wealthiest nation on earth all children
should have the basic nutrition they need to learn and grow and to
pursue their dreams because in the end nothing is more important than
the health and well-being of our children. Nothing. And our hopes for
their future should drive every single decision that we make.”
Putting
aside, for a moment, that her husband has been instrumental in creating
disastrous policies that have saddled our children with a humongous
national debt that will leave them with a decidedly worse-off America,
Michelle’s campaign to make our children’s food taste terrible has
mirrored the success of Obamacare.
Costello narrated: (emphasis added)
“That was Mrs. Obama back in 2010 when she signed the Healthy Hunger Free Kids Act into law.
Well now some members of Congress and the food industry want to roll
back that initiative and loosen requirements to cut costs. Today the
First Lady takes the unusual step of delivering White House remarks
speaking out against that House measure and in another twist, a one-time
ally of Mrs. Obama’s initiative is now a critic.”
Michelle
Obama has been critical of a Republican-backed House measure that would
scale-back the food requirements to which schools must adhere and even
gave the White House remarks.
Michelle
Obama, undoubtedly, holds influence in the White House; most First
Ladies do. But let’s not forget one important fact: nobody elected her.
She’s not a president; she’s not a lawmaker. She’s an advocate for a
cause that, quite frankly, has failed and is rife with hypocrisy and
egomaniacal soundbites.
It’s
incredible that we live in a time when the President has dismissed the
Supreme Court’s importance as “an unelected group” of people, but has
offered his wife a chance to combat Congress on a measure in the House
from the bully pulpit of the White House.
Obama’s Labor Secretary Tweets Advice to Grads: Don’t be an Individual, Join the Collective!
Yes, it’s the season for American college students to graduate
from the care-free days of college and head into crushing debt and unemployment,
thanks to Obama’s failed economic policies. But don’t worry, kids; Tom
Perez, Obama’s Secretary to the Labor Department, has some great advice
for you as you hang out in your parents’ basement:
Congrats to @oberlincollege grads today. Remember: Don't let individualism trump community; move from a selfie culture to an #ussie culture.
Fox News commentator Jonathan Hoenig accurately deciphered Perez’s message:
“@LaborSec: Don't let individualism trump community..." // Pure, un-American collectivism.
It’s little surprise that Secretary Perez wants young Americans to
devalue individualism. After all, individualism leads to hard work, hard
work leads to personal responsibility, and personal responsibility
leads to the dark side – voting Republican!
By Thomas Lifson
America is having what President Obama called a “teachable moment” on single-payer health care, the goal toward which Obamacare is but the first step. Doctor Hal Scherz has written an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal
today in which he lays out the real problem with the VA single-payer
health care system, and offers hair raising examples, naming names. This
is a brave thing for a doctor to do. In his words:
The
VA health-care system is run by a centrally controlled federal
bureaucracy. Ultimately, that is the source of the poor care veterans
receive.
Bureaucracies
that don’t face real competitive discipline of the marketplace
inevitably turn their efforts toward protecting their own members,
leaving the ostensible goals of the organization in a subordinate
position. Dr. Scherz provides examples of how this has worked out in the
VA system. He notes that most physicians in the United States have
experience with VA Hospitals because most of the 153 VA Hospitals are
affiliated with the country’s 155 medical schools, so physicians in
training work at them, gaining experience as interns and medical
residents. This makes the “well aware” of the problems of the VA system.
He writes:
In
my experience at VA hospitals in San Antonio and San Diego, patients
were seen in clinics that were understaffed and overscheduled.
Appointments for X-rays and other tests had to be scheduled months
in advance, and longer for surgery. Hospital administrators limited
operating time, making sure that work stopped by 3 p.m. Consequently,
the physician in charge kept a list of patients who needed surgery and
rationed the available slots to those with the most urgent problems.
Scott
Barbour, an orthopedic surgeon and a friend, trained at the Miami VA
hospital. In an attempt to get more patients onto the operating-room
schedule, he enlisted fellow residents to clean the operating rooms
between cases and transport patients from their rooms into the surgical
suites. Instead of offering praise for their industriousness, the chief
of surgery reprimanded the doctors and put a stop to their actions. From
his perspective, they were not solving a problem but were making
federal workers look bad, and creating more work for others, like nurses, who had to take care of more post-op patients.
At
the VA hospital in St. Louis, urologist Michael Packer, a former
partner of mine, had difficulty getting charts from the medical records
department. He and another resident hunted them down themselves. It was
easier for department workers to say that they couldn't find a chart
than to go through the trouble of looking. Without these records,
patients could not receive care, which was an unacceptable situation to
these doctors. Not long after they began doing this, they were warned to
stand down.
There are thousands of other stories just like these.
It
is important that Americans understand the fundamental point about the
incompatibility of monopolistic medical bureaucracies and high quality
medical care. It is not a matter of incompetent management and employees
(though such no doubt exist). The problem will not be solved by adding
dedicated leaders and staff; they also no doubt exist in the VA health
care system.
People
who can’t be fired and who know that no matter what they do their
organization will continue to exist inevitably become self-serving. This
is the moral hazard of government funded bureaucracies.
The solution to the health care problems of veterans and all Americans lies in the competitive discipline of market forces. As Obamacare implodes, we must keep the example of the VA sstem in mind. And as we figure out how to get care to the veterans who have earned it, we must embrace market forces.
By Elizabeth Harrington
The National Science Foundation (NSF) gave nearly $5 million to the
University of Wisconsin-Madison to create scenarios based on America’s
actions on climate change, including a utopian future where everyone
rides a bike and courts forcibly take property from the wealthy.
The government has awarded $4,911,961 for the project, which is slated to run until March 2016 and for which the school has created a website suggesting different possibilities of what Yahara, a Wisconsin watershed, will be like in 2070.
In the scenario where Americans
“shift our values,” people live in hippie-like communes after “youth
culture” convinces the world to give up their cars and eat vegetarian.
“By the 2020s, the world seemed at the edge of environmental and political collapse,” the scenario says.
“Despite this predicament, youth culture becomes empowered to shift the
course of humanity. Disenchanted with the country’s highly consumptive
culture, the younger generations embrace community building and
sustainability and work together through grassroots action to get their
voices heard.”
The youth bring about the “Great Transition” in the 2040s,
establishing a “new normal” where “connectivity, community, and
environmental sustainability pervade policy and cultural decisions.”
The protagonist of the story is
Rosa, a “community organizer” for a United Nations youth group “Badgers
for Our Future,” who presides over the only holiday celebrated in the
community, Earth Day.
“It has become custom for Rosa, the
unofficial community matriarch, to give a blessing before the Earth Day
meal (although not everyone in the community is religious, they say
secular blessings before important community meals to express gratitude
for what the Earth provided them),” the story says.
The community shares economic resources, as well as goods and
services, such as “vehicles, appliances, equipment, meals, and
expertise.” Material wealth is criticized, and the community lives by
the slogan “rich in time; sufficient in things.”
“Material wealth is not the coefficient of life quality,” the story says. “As such, consumers, overall, consume less.”
“What individuals don’t share with their communities is purchased primarily out of need.”
Rosa celebrates a court decision that forcibly took property from
wealthy individuals as a required step to place the community above the
individual.
“Even though most Yaharans had become more willing to undertake
serious conservation measures, the willingness was not universal,
especially when certain sacrifices were required,” she tells her
granddaughter in the story. “To create the preserve, Grandpa had to
convince several wealthy residents to give up either some of their
property or their control of it.”
When some individuals refused, a coalition took them to court, which unanimously ruled in favor of building a community beach.
“It was a glorious victory!” Rosa says. “Oh, how we celebrated! It
symbolized how far we’d come in putting the good of our communities and
our environment before the desires of the individual. The triumph was
proof the Great Transition had arrived.”
“I’d say my community embodies the ideals of the Great Transition,” Rosa says in an animated video.
“Like many communities in Yahara, we’ve joined our backyards together
into one communal space. We have a small urban farm, a restored prairie,
and a community gathering space.”
Citizens of Yahara are “much less reliant on cars,” the only ones
left on the roads being hybrids or electric, and the roads are full of
bike lanes to “accommodate the growing masses of bike commuters.”
“Since more people are living the pedestrian life, with their feet
more frequently on the pavement or the pedal, the obesity rate is
shrinking,” the story says.
People are glad to pay higher taxes in this future because of an
“increased sense of responsibility toward one’s community.” Campaign
finance reform has also brought “increased transparency and public
participation in decision making.”
The American diet is “now primarily plant-based” after “widespread
public concern over the climate footprint of livestock banished meat as a
dietary centerpiece.”
Policy changes such as a mandatory living wage for farm workers have
“caused food prices to rise,” though the public is “largely unfazed,”
the story says.
The UN youth movement helped usher in this “new world order,” where
population growth has declined, use of fossil fuels has largely been
deserted in favor or wind and solar, and a cross-country train system
has replaced air fare that has become too expensive.
“In the United States, as family sizes decreased, the conceptual
boundaries of ‘family’ expanded to include neighbors and friends,” the
story says.
Americans now engage in the “pursuit of sustainable happiness,” by
adopting a global Gross National Happiness (GNH) index as “its official
gauge of prosperity,” replacing GDP.
The index is based on a system from the country of Bhutan, and takes
into account “good governance” and “environmental conservation.”
However, pockets of “traditionalists” still threaten the “winds of
great change.” The so-called traditionalists have “been slower to accept
or adopt the newer norms, feel society has not necessarily gotten
better with the Transition, since certain conveniences and privacies
have disappeared.”
A small group of elderly people also “occasionally complain” that the
community “constrains individual privacy, but with the widespread
embrace of space sharing and walkability, such complaints are considered
deviant.”
Rosa acknowledges that the community is “certainly no utopia.”
“Although economic equality has improved as a result of these changes,
poverty still exists, and many people still rely on entitlement
programs,” the story adds.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison project is similar to the $5.6 million the
NSF awarded to Columbia University to record “voicemails from the
future” that paint a picture of an earth destroyed due to climate
change.
By James Longstreet
...The president seems frustrated that he isn’t getting “his” way. In an article in the Washington Times,
“President Obama is taking a swipe at the Founding Fathers, blaming his
inability to move his agenda on the 'disadvantage' of having each state
represented equally in the Senate.”
Progressives would like nothing more than a giant merger of all (57) states and national popular voting.
Disappointed
and finger-pointing once again, Mr. Obama blames our form of government
for not allowing his plans to be implemented. Curiously, Mr. Obama
does not point to Harry Reid and his antics in the Senate.
Yes,
blocking the flow of ideas and legislation is Mr. Reid’s forte. Like
Johnny Quick of the LA Kings, Reid prevents bills duly and legally
passed by the House of Representatives,
the People’s house, from even getting voting consideration in the
Senate. Now there is an impediment, Mr. Obama. Have you noticed?
Perhaps
the rules preventing legislation passed by one chamber of Congress to
be dismissed by the “other” chamber is what is required. No person such
as Harry Reid, from an under-populated non-essential state like Nevada,
should essentially roadblock the work of the House of Representatives
to protect the president’s agenda and hide the voting records of the
sitting Senators. But I don’t think this is what the president is
speaking to, exactly.
An article in The Hill mentions,
“Out of the 195 House-passed bills that are now stalled in the Senate,
31 were written by Democrats, and many have been awaiting Senate
approval for close to a year. “
The
Founding Fathers crafted the Constitution after years of studying
centuries of world government. In so doing, they prepared for those who
may attempt to force into effect
agenda whims fashioned to temporal ideology, to meet with significant
systemic resistance. Any expert in the Constitution would have known.
Why is the “expert” surprisingly frustrated?
The
Founders and Framers seemed to envision a president with such designs.
Unfortunately, what they didn’t envision or prepare for was a barely
elected two-bit senator from a one-bit state blocking legislation passed
in the House from any due consideration in the Senate. Mr. Madison,
meet Harry Reid, the man who is singlehandedly, in a democratic
representative society, undoing the system. One might ask by whose
direction.
By William A Levinson
...His recent statement about the role of the U.S. Senate proves that he is a self-declared enemy of the United States Constitution and of its checks and balances on federal power.
At
a Democratic fundraiser in Chicago Thursday night, Mr. Obama told a
small group of wealthy supporters that there are several hurdles to
keeping Democrats in control of the Senate and recapturing the House.
One of those problems, he said, is the apportionment of two Senate seats
to each state regardless of population.
“Obviously,
the nature of the Senate means that California has the same number of
Senate seats as Wyoming. That puts us at a disadvantage,” Mr. Obama
said.
Of course, Wyoming has the same Senate representation as California specifically
to prevent individuals like Barack Obama, and his constituency of urban
parasites, from imposing their will on the less populous states. This "Great Compromise" of 1787 was a condition of these states' willingness to join the United States in the first place.
This
is also why each state gets no fewer than three electoral votes,
regardless of population. Hillary Clinton dislikes this arrangement,
because it gives her constituency less leverage in presidential
elections.
Urban Parasites: the Core of the Democratic Party
Barack Obama added explicitly that his kind of Democrats congregate primarily in big cities.
These cities are the sources of most of the country's problems,
including attacks on the Second Amendment, attacks on the First
Amendment via speech codes and zero tolerance policies in public
schools, cap and trade mandates to enrich
Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan Chase, and pressure for ever-increasing
taxation of the nation's productive elements. They are also centers for
violent crime, drug distribution, and gang activity. Most of
Wilkes-Barre's drug and gang trouble, for example, originates in Philadelphia, New York, and Newark.
The modern big city is, regardless of the work ethic of its productive residents,
an economic parasite. Cities evolved for exactly two purposes, neither
of which they serve today. These were defensibility and commerce. A
city's walls could once stop swordsmen and spearmen almost indefinitely.
...Cities
also once served as centers of commerce. If you wanted to buy or sell
something you could not buy or sell in your village, you had to go to
the city – and "a trip to the big city" was once a major and exciting
event in people's lives.
.....The
sons and daughters of coal miners and factory workers know that you
have to work for a living, while Obama's urban parasites think they can
simply vote themselves health care benefits, welfare payments, and
anything else they think they need. Robert A. Heinlein warned of these
others:
But
once a state extends the franchise to every warm body, be he producer
or parasite, that day marks the beginning of the end of the state. For
when the plebs discover that they can vote themselves bread and circuses
without limit and that the productive members of the body politic
cannot stop them, they will do so, until the state bleeds to death, or
in its weakened condition the state succumbs to an invader – the
barbarians enter Rome.
One
of the roles of the Senate's "one state, two votes" arrangement is to
stop the parasites from voting themselves bread and circuses. Barack
Obama's own statements about the nature of the U.S. Senate, along with
his confirmation that his kind of Democrat congregates in the nation's
big cities, tell us everything we need to know about the upcoming House
and Senate elections.
By Jon Gabriel
....Every time a real-world solution is provided to a promised calamity,
leftist leaders move the goalposts. To be sure, many well-meaning
parishioners have bought the con and piously observe the demanding
rituals of earth worship. But the high priests still jet around the
globe, chasing checks from energy tycoons to build monstrous mansions
along doomed coastlines.
That’s because the Left doesn’t really believe in climate change.
Their true religion is raising taxes, increasing government, impeding
capitalism and reducing national sovereignty. Climate change is just a
temporary excuse to achieve those ends.
By Justin Sink
President Obama on Wednesday argued for a new breed of American
foreign policy that prizes diplomacy and multilateralism over the
overreaching use of military force.
The
speech at the West Point military academy, among the most comprehensive
foreign policy addresses of the president's time in office, comes amid
criticism that his reluctance to order military interventions has
weakened the influence of the United States around the globe. [READ OBAMA'S SPEECH.]Republican
lawmakers have charged that Obama's caution has allowed rival leaders
like Russian President Vladimir Putin to gain influence and ruthless
dictators like Syria's Bashar Assad to further entrench.
But the
president argued that amid a changing international landscape and in the
aftermath of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, "U.S. military action
cannot be the only – or even primary – component of our leadership."
"Just because we have the best hammer does not mean that every problem is a nail," Obama told graduating cadets.
Obama
argued that the threshold for military action must be higher when
issues arise that "do not pose a direct threat to the United States.”
"In
such circumstances, we should not go it alone. Instead, we must
mobilize allies and partners to take collective action. We must broaden
our tools to include diplomacy and development; sanctions and isolation;
appeals to international law and – if just, necessary, and effective –
multilateral military action," Obama said.
The president said that
by allying with other countries, U.S interests were more likely to
succeed and less likely "to lead to costly mistakes."
The comment
appeared a direct rebuke to critics who have charged that the
president's foreign policy is faltering because he is unwilling to
intervene. The president and aides have looked to push back
against that narrative, using moments like his announcement Tuesday
that troops will leave Afghanistan by the end of 2016 to note that it is
harder to end a war than begin one.
....Obama said the one enduring direct threat to
the U.S. came from global terrorism, but that, again, engaging partners
around the world remained the best strategy.
"A strategy that
involves invading every country that harbors terrorist networks is naïve
and unsustainable," Obama said. "I believe we must shift our
counter-terrorism strategy – drawing on the successes and shortcomings
of our experience in Iraq and Afghanistan – to more effectively partner
with countries where terrorist networks seek a foothold."
Obama announced a pair of new foreign policy initiatives intended to embody his new approach: increased aid to the moderate opposition in Syria and a $5 billion anti-terrorism fund designed to help other countries fight the rise of radical extremists within their borders.
The
fund, which will require congressional approval, is designed to boost
intelligence, reconnaissance, surveillance and special operations
activities in allied countries. The U.S. military will help train and
prepare other governments to root out terrorists within their borders.
In
Syria, U.S. special forces will reportedly train and increase material
support to moderate rebels that can be vetted as without links to
radical Islamist groups. The U.S. will also step up assistance to
Syria's neighbors, who have borne the brunt of hundreds of thousands of
refugees fleeing the bloody three-year civil war that has left more than
150,000 people dead.
...."I
believe in American exceptionalism with every fiber of my being. But
what makes us exceptional is not our ability to flout international
norms and the rule of law; it’s our willingness to affirm them through
our actions," Obama said.
....The
president's speech is intended to serve as a kick-off to a broad
foreign policy push by the president and his Cabinet, according to the
White House.
After West Point, Obama will travel to Europe next
week to meet with leaders on Ukraine. He’ll also attend ceremonies
commemorating the 70th anniversary of the Normandy invasion, where Putin
will also be present. In the coming days, Cabinet members will also fan
out across Capitol Hill to bolster the White House’s arguments.
By Victor Davis Hanson
If we were living in normal times, the following scandals and failures
— without going into foreign policy — would have ruined a presidency to
the point of reducing it to Nixon, Bush, or Truman poll ratings.
Think of the following: the Fast and Furious scandal, the VA mess,
the tapping of the communications of the Associated Press reporters, the
NSA monitoring, Benghazi in all of its manifestations, the serial lies
about Obamacare, the failed stimuli, the chronic zero interest/print
money policies, the serial high unemployment, the borrowing of $7
trillion to no stimulatory effect, the spiraling national debt, the
customary violations of the Hatch Act by Obama cabinet officials, the
alter ego/fake identity of EPA head Lisa Jackson, the sudden departure
of Hilda Solis after receiving union freebies, the mendacity of Kathleen
Sebelius, the strange atmospherics surrounding the Petraeus
resignation, the customary presidential neglect of enforcing the laws
from immigration statutes to his own health care rules, the presidential
divisiveness (“punish our enemies,” “you didn’t build that,” Trayvon as
the son that Obama never had, etc.), and on and on.
So why is there not much public reaction or media investigatory outrage?
...I leave you with one final paradox. Is one reason that Obama
resonates so well with the very wealthy his assurance to them that the
muscular successful classes will not be following them into the elite?
Whom does the liberal elite detest? Not the very poor. Not the middle
class. Not the conservative wealthy of like class. Mostly it is the
Sarah-Palin-type grasping want-to-be’s (thus the vicious David Letterman
jokes or Katie Couric animus or Bill Maher venom).
Those of the entrepreneurial class
who own small businesses (‘you didn’t build that’), who send their kids
to San Diego State rather than Stanford, who waste their ill-gotten
gains on jet skis rather than skis and on Winnebagos rather than
mountain climbing equipment, who employ 10 rather than 10,000, and who
vacation at Pismo Beach rather than Carmel. The cool of Obama says to
the very wealthy, “I’m one of you. See you again next summer on the
Vineyard.”
Obama signals to the elite that he too is bothered by those
non-arugula-eating greedy losers who are xenophobic and angry that the
world left them behind, who are without tastes and culture, who are
materialistic to the core, and who are greedy in their emphases on the
individual — the tea-baggers, the clingers, the Cliven Bundy
Neanderthals, the Palins in their Alaska haunts, and the Duck Dynasty freaks.
These are not the sort of successful people that we want to the world
to associate with America, not when we have suitably green, suitably
diverse zillionaires who know where to eat in Paris.
Finally, Obama has “cool.” Or what his wife calls “swag.”
The very wealthy are with him also because he instructs them how to
indulge, to ignore the problems of others, to be narcissistic and
self-absorbed with a veneer of hipster cool. Golf, shoot hoops, wear
shades, hang with Jay-Z and Beyonce, talk about your rap menu on your
iPhone, fluctuate your cadences, do you Final Four predictions — all
that means you can be cool and very rich and very self-absorbed while
fooling hoi polloi and feeling great about your privilege at the same
time. If you are a jean- and T-shirt wearing Silicon magnifico, Obama is
your guy. The palatial estate, the imported cars, the indulgent hobbies
— they are not really one-percenter excesses (try water skiing for
that), but the swag that assures others that outsourcing, offshoring,
tax-avoiding, lobbying, and insider cronyism are just part of the hip
deal.
Before we reach November of 2016, we will see unimaginable things
under this administration, but one of them will not be a defection of
his constituencies.
Denial will only worsen the day of reckoning
By John R Bolten
....The key point, generally missed by America’s news media, is that
these three incidents have a common foundation. For years, there has
been a rising tide of Islamic radicalism, starting in the Middle East,
providing a hospitable environment in which terrorism grew naturally.
This radical wave has been spreading throughout northern Africa, into
Asia, and now around the world.
....The
United States and those who share our faith in freedom of conscience
have several possible options. We can pretend the threat posed by the
radical and terrorist Islamic fury doesn’t exist, hoping not to
experience another Sept. 11, 2001. We can express selective indignation
at abuses that offend our sensibilities, treating them as discrete
offenses to which we react in an ad hoc fashion. Or we can recognize
that a distinctive political ideology is at work here, one based on
distorted religious precepts rather than a secular authoritarian
philosophy like Nazism or communism.
Mr. Obama has largely pursued Option One, mixed, as in Nigeria’s
tragedy, with inadequate, ad hoc responses. The fundamental reason for
his unwillingness to address the threat directly and candidly, reflected
in his 2009 Cairo speech and repeated frequently thereafter, is that so
doing would offend the entire “Islamic world,” thereby increasing the
terrorist threat.
The president, however, is badly mistaken, both
analytically and operationally, as the pending controversies highlight.
First, it is patronizing and condescending to refer to a “Muslim world”
as if all Muslims robotically think exactly the same, or to imply that
Muslims themselves are not acutely aware of the dangers of radicalism
and terrorism, which they know first-hand. The idea that individual
Muslims cannot distinguish between the legitimate practice of their
faith and those distorting it for ideological purposes is breathtakingly
wrong. There is no more a monolithic “Muslim world” than there is a
“Christian world.”
Second, if we shrink from identifying and
naming a palpable threat to our values and very existence, we can hardly
protect ourselves effectively. It is manifestly not an assault on Islam
to pinpoint the current ideological threat, and trace it to its source.
The United States must shape its policies in light of reality, or we
remain extraordinarily vulnerable to a manifest assault against both our
physical safety and the cornerstones of an open and free society.
Third,
the threat is imminent and rising. In just the past two years, North
Africa has seen the deadly attack on Algeria’s Tigantourine natural-gas
facility, the near collapse of Mali’s government, the destructive force
of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, and the deadly Sept. 11 attack on our
Benghazi consulate. All the while, Hamas and Hezbollah are continuing
their deadly terrorist pursuits, Syria has collapsed into a brutal civil war, Iraq is on the brink, and Iran’s ayatollahs are rapidly nearing a deliverable nuclear-weapons capability.
These
catastrophes are related, sometimes directly involving close
cooperation among terrorist and extremist forces. Our unwillingness to
grasp the connections and discuss them rationally will not make them
disappear, and certainly will not make them easier to defend against.
Seeing the world clearly is not evidence of religious animus. Instead,
refusing to acknowledge the obvious is a form of blindness that can be
fatal, as we have all too seen often in recent years.
Despite
a meager record to run on, with virtually no executive experience, he
may very well become President. His story is eerily similar in many ways
to the story of Chance the Gardener, the main character in the book and
movie, Being There. In that story by Jerzy Kosinski, a man literally comes from nowhere to become a Presidential candidate.
