It’s been interesting to watch an obviously worn-out State Secretary Clinton and others in the administration caterwauling and otherwise expending great efforts at verbosity in attempting to work-up some sort of worldwide animus toward Syria, particularly its president, Bashar Assad, whose army and air force are decimating parts of the Syrian populace, mostly in Homs (Hama), the city virtually demolished in February 1982 by his father, Hafez al Assad, when he was president.
Bashar Assad is acting in retaliation to insurrectionists as was the case with his father in 1982, when armed Islamic militants tried to take over the country. The death toll in Hama was somewhere around 20,000 by the time the dust cleared. Hafez Assad himself came to power in 1970 by undermining the then government, just as Saddam Hussein did in Iraq in 1979, as well as the ayatollah Khomeini in Iran the same year. Conclusion: This is the way things are routinely done in Muslim-dominated governments, the rest of the world’s condemnation notwithstanding.
So far, the report is that some 7,000 have died in Syria, not that this figure can be trusted. Secretary Clinton classified Bashar Assad as a reformer as recently as last year, so her bona fides for expressing any opinion are questionable. Actually, his father brought about significant reforms, too, and even supported the UN-sanctioned Gulf War in 1991. In the process, he also avoided assassination attempts, interfered in Lebanon, and, of course, maintained a hatred for Israel, all the while hoping to get back the Golan Heights, lost to Israel in 1967 when he was Syria’s defense minister.
The long-and-short of the matter is that this administration hasn’t any more clue about the Muslim countries than Jimmy Carter had in 1978-80, when he allowed American hostages to rot in Tehran for 14 months. Barack Obama showed his extreme ignorance this week in apologizing to Afghanistan because a bunch of Korans got burned by mistake, the upshot being an Afghan soldier murdering two American GIs in cold blood.
Instead of apologizing, Obama should have enough sense by now to understand that the Muslims consider an apology a sign of weakness. He should have warned Karzai and Mullah Omar that drastic measures would be taken if such a thing should happen again. But, apologizing to especially Muslim countries is a fine art with the president, raised a Muslim and showing it. Can anyone imagine action like that taken in this country if a gaggle of atheists burned some Bibles?
Contrarily, they would probably have been applauded by the mainstream press for having such mental acuity and courage, with the president chiming in on freedom of speech. One remembers the outright lie reported by Newsweek’s Michael Isikoff in 2005 regarding the flushing down the toilet of Korans at Gitmo, the upshot being that 15 Afghanis were killed, apparently Afghans killing Afghans in a blind rage at the U.S. Of course, Isikoff, instead of being hounded out of his profession for such a colossal and sanguinary blunder (as Dan Rather eventually was), now works at NBC, Obama’s prime propaganda-arm.
Never realizing that the end would be worse than the beginning, as anyone with a smattering of understanding knew at the time, Obama publicly encouraged the so-called “Arab Spring” last year and even called for the replacement or murder of some Middle East despots. The results in Egypt, for example, have been disastrous, with the loss of a valuable ally and the Muslim Brotherhood taking over the country, i.e., if the army ever lets go. The people riot in the streets and continue in whatever suffering (or worse) than they had before the great awakening.
Assad has watched this and understands that the militant (Sharia-Law-driven) Islamic boneheads (yep…in Hama again) mean to take over his country, not that his chief ally, Iran, is any improvement. He’s wily enough to get China and Russia on his side, thereby being able to thumb his nose at Obama, who has become the laughing-stock of the world for his unpredictable antics and mindless apologies all around.
Who would have thought that an American president, for instance, would be dumb enough to bypass Congress entirely and take up war against Libya, population 2 million less than that of New York City, for absolutely no identifiable reason at all, except that Qaddafi was mean to his people, just the same as Assad? Flash forward to now and find the whole world looking to Obama to set Syria straight just like he did Libya, in which there is now no identifiable government.
This is from the Associated Press of 18 August 2011: “In a stinging written statement, Obama says Assad has overseen a vicious onslaught of his people as they protest for freedoms. He says the Syrian people should decide their country’s future and Assad is standing in their way and must go.” This is what he said about Qaddafi before personally attacking Libya and killing no telling how many Libyans. So…what’s stopping him from carrying through in Syria, since he obviously has decided to run that part of the world while he’s apologizing to it and running his inconvenient mouth at the same time?
Two American soldiers are murdered in Afghanistan and the U.S president is apologizing? Obama is a disgrace and has absolutely no understanding of the Middle East, Muslims, or even his Constitutional responsibilities, such as those regarding how war can be made. To its eternal shame, the Congress is even more pitiful than Obama.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
No comments:
Post a Comment