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Bill Warner is a nationally recognized expert on Islam. In this article, he gives his views on what is taking place in the Middle East.
http://www.politicalislam.com/blog/you-can-never-awaken-a-man-who-is/
Today we learn that in Tunis, the American Embassy and the American School were both attacked and set on fire.
The American School!!
This is the result of the Tunisian revolution that we so heralded.
And in Sudan, a nation run by genocidal war criminals, both the German and American embassies have been attacked. (I have yet to hear of any protests against Sudan on any university campuses).
-Frankfurter Allgemeine
Warner raises a crucial point that we all must consider: Are these mobs really just extremists-or do they represent the mainstream? Warner maintains they are they mainstream, and they are acting out sharia justice. (Yes, sharia, that quaint old Islamic law that we are being told is not a threat to our liberties and perfectly in conformance with our Constitution).
Today, both President Obama and Hillary Clinton, in giving their eulogies to the fallen Americans, stated that America will not retreat from asserting its values in the world. I respect that viewpoint. Our enemies are indeed trying to drive us from the Muslim world. Our stated mission (previously stated by George W Bush) is to help the region usher in democracy, which would eventually eliminate extremism. A worthy goal and perhaps democracy would do just that over some long haul. What we have accomplished in Iraq may eventually produce results and an example that can influence others.
Or it may also fail. The protests have also spread to Baghdad.
Eventually, our leaders (whoever they may be in the coming months and years) are going to have to decide whether this mission can be accomplished. I for one am skeptical. At any rate, it will probably all be academic because whether we want to admit it or not, we and Israel are on a collision course with Iran.
We better get ready.
Here’s what I guess I don’t get about all this. Bush was President for less than 9 months when 9/11 occurred. He was, and for that matter still is, held responsible by many libs/Dems/MM types (was/is actually deemed complicit by a some, to include at least one former member of Congress) for his failure to act on vague, non-actionable intelligence and prevent the attacks. Conversely, Obama has been President for well over 3-½ years. I can assure you there was some kind of intelligence on these attacks (Libya, Egypt, etc.), although we will probably never hear about it, and while the intelligence was very possibly/quite likely similarly non-actionable, no one that I know of is blaming Obama under nearly identical circumstances. In fact, according to a prior post by Gary, at least one is blaming ROMNEY for these attacks, for God’s sake.
ReplyDeleteOff topic, I would also like to echo Gary’s wish in a previous post that Rep./Col. West WAS the Republican presidential nominee. I would vote for him as early and as often as I could, as if I was a Democrat, and would urge all my friends to do the same.
Elwood,
ReplyDeleteTwo questions need to be answered:
Did the US have intelligence that the consulate in Libya was going to be attacked?
What was the level of security at the consulate?
Libya... a nation where the Salafists just took a beating at the polls, bringing to power a government that
ReplyDeletea) condemned the terrorist attack on our ambassador
b) has arrested at least one perpetrator
c) offered the appropriate apologies
d) seems in no danger of being overthrown.
And the perps are "the mainstream"?
In your dreams Gary. In your warped sadomasochistic dreams. You are all too ready to dump one billion people into the lap of the Salafists by writing them off.
Since I did my previous post, I caught a blurb of Jay Carney stating there was "no actionable intelligence" relative to the attacks. Since his ilk are all word-parsers, and since he did not say there was "no intelligence", I am forced to the conclusion that there was at least some, whether meager or poor remains to be seen (maybe). Shades of my post re blaming Bush but not Obama??
ReplyDeleteI don't have the foggiest notion what the level of security was, but whatever it consisted of, it is easy, but true, to say it was grossly inadequate. Security in that neck of the woods is different from most of the rest of the world.
Elwood,
ReplyDeleteSee today's posts. DOS spokeswoman refusing to answer questions on Benghazi security.
It seems that Ambassador Stevens declined to make friends from behind fortified compounds, knowing he could only do his job sipping tea where people gathered in Libya. Maybe that's why people in Libya are mourning him.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/16/world/middleeast/us-ambassador-to-libya-knew-the-ways-of-the-arab-street.html?_r=1&hp
He put himself at risk, deliberately, because he knew that's the only way to do his job.
It would be better to honor his memory than to pick over his bones for political brownie points. We need more like him.