tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-364457032024-03-13T00:56:52.006-05:00Matters of Manner and TypeA weblog of thoughtful conservative commentary on politics, culture and other signposts along the Road to KishonAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17355368029737310882noreply@blogger.comBlogger41713tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36445703.post-35862091960225928072009-06-05T00:01:00.000-05:002009-06-05T00:01:49.622-05:00The Road to Cairo<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/d3b7a2004e5907058b29cfeef4d0bca4/OBAS2_AP__600.jpg?MOD=AJPERES"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 214px;" src="http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/d3b7a2004e5907058b29cfeef4d0bca4/OBAS2_AP__600.jpg?MOD=AJPERES" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">When a doctor starts to treat a patient with the wrong diagnosis in mind, the patient usually does not get well; more often than not, the condition gets worse. So it will inexorably be concerning Barack Obama's identification of the problem between Islam and the West during his <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/04/us/politics/04obama.text.html?em=&pagewanted=all">speech</a> in Cairo. </span><blockquote><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span><span style="font-family:verdana;">We meet at a time of tension between the United States and Muslims around the world – tension rooted in historical forces that go beyond any current policy debate.</span></blockquote></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">He gets it wrong from the start, perhaps deliberately. Rather than stemming from unnamed "historical forces," the tension to which he refers results necessarily from order - established and maintained primarily by Western countries - straining against the murderous chaos incited by al Qaeda and those similarly disposed. Surely we did not invade Afghanistan and Iraq as some sort of retaliation for such ancient hostilities as the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbary_Wars">Barbary Wars</a>, although it can be said that both belligerencies have their roots in Muslim "misreadings" of the Qu'ran. According to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbary_pirates#cite_note-21"><span style="font-style: italic;">The Papers of Thomas Jefferson</span></a>, it was the contention of more than a few North African Muslims that raiding European ships sailing along the Barbary Coast was sanctioned by holy writ. </span></span><blockquote><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span><span style="font-family:verdana;">In 1786, Thomas Jefferson, then the ambassador to France, and John Adams, ambassador to Britain, met in London with Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja, a visiting ambassador from Tripoli. The Americans asked Adja why his government was hostile to American ships, even though there had been no provocation. They reported to the Continental Congress that the ambassador had told them "it was written in their Koran, that all nations which had not acknowledged the Prophet were sinners, whom it was the right and duty of the faithful to plunder and enslave."</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span></span></blockquote><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">After spewing some unmemorable treacle about "civilization's debt to Islam," Obama turns his attention to America's efforts to confront Islamic extremism. If there is wisdom to be found at all in Obama's remarks, it is in his noting that "military power alone will not solve the problems in Afghanistan and Pakistan." He goes on to cite America's present and future monetary kindnesses to that area. Obama would have done well to point out - as <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/29/AR2009012903444.html">Charles Krauthammer</a> did recently - the span of America's beneficence to the Muslim world.<br /></span></span><p> </p><blockquote><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Every new president flatters himself that he, kinder and gentler, is beginning the world anew. Yet, when Barack Obama in his inaugural address reached out to Muslims by saying "to the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect," his formulation was needlessly defensive and apologetic.<br /><br />Is it "new" to acknowledge Muslim interests and show respect to the Muslim world? Obama doesn't just think so, he said so again to millions in his al-Arabiya interview, insisting on the need to "restore" the "same respect and partnership that America had with the Muslim world as recently as 20 or 30 years ago."<br /><br />Astonishing. In these most recent 20 years - the alleged winter of our disrespect of the Islamic world - America did not just respect Muslims, it bled for them. It engaged in five military campaigns, every one of which involved - and resulted in - the liberation of a Muslim people: Bosnia, Kosovo, Kuwait, Afghanistan and Iraq. </span></span></blockquote><p></p><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Again, Obama's misreading and/or ignorance of history causes him to distort present-day events; he claims to have "unequivocally prohibited the use of torture by the United States," as if he chiseled the U.S.'s longstanding torture statutes (see <a href="http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/usc_sec_18_00002340----000-.html">here</a> and <a href="http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/usc_sec_18_00002340---A000-.html">here</a>) into marble with his fingers on Inauguration Day.<br /><br />But it is during his discussion of the Israel-Palestinian situation where Obama lets his inner camp counselor (or community organizer) shine. He lays on enough grandiose boilerplate to "up armor" all of the HUMVEEs in Iraq. </span><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span></span><blockquote><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Too many tears have flowed. Too much blood has been shed. All of us have a responsibility to work for the day when the mothers of Israelis and Palestinians can see their children grow up without fear; when the Holy Land of three great faiths is the place of peace that God intended it to be; when Jerusalem is a secure and lasting home for Jews and Christians and Muslims, and a place for all of the children of Abraham to mingle peacefully together as in the story of Isra, when Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed (peace be upon them) joined in prayer.</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"> </span></span></blockquote><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"> Unrepentant <a href="http://mattersofmannerandtype.blogspot.com/2006/12/following-is-reprise-of-post-entitled.html">equalist</a> that he is, Obama confuses and conflates the behavior of Arab and Jew as if they were two kids who both need a time out. </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">Had he a capacity for shame, Obama's ethical opacity would be to his everlasting disgrace in as much as he sees the aggressor and the victim as morally equivalent. </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">He evidences no remembrance of Yasser Arafat spurning an American-brokered peace plan at the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_Camp_David_Summit">2000 Camp David Summit</a>, the involvement of Palestinian militants with Fatah and Hamas, and the once-incessant suicide bombings that claimed the lives of untold Israeli civilians.<br /><br />It is when he discusses democracy, religious freedom and women's rights that Obama sounds positively Bushian, with Obama positing his "undying belief that all people yearn for certain things." (This might be the one inheritance that Obama will gladly receive from his predecessor.) Sadly, he follows all that up by opening a grab bag of goodies for the Islamic world not unlike the stimuli that Obama intends for the U.S. </span><blockquote><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span><span style="font-family: verdana;">Many Gulf States have enjoyed great wealth as a consequence of oil, and some are beginning to focus it on broader development. But all of us must recognize that education and innovation will be the currency of the 21st century, and in too many Muslim communities there remains underinvestment in these areas. I am emphasizing such investments within my country. And while America in the past has focused on oil and gas in this part of the world, we now seek a broader engagement.<br /><br />On education, we will expand exchange programs, and increase scholarships, like the one that brought my father to America, while encouraging more Americans to study in Muslim communities. And we will match promising Muslim students with internships in America; invest in on-line learning for teachers and children around the world; and create a new online network, so a teenager in Kansas can communicate instantly with a teenager in Cairo.</span></blockquote><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">And the gimmies kept coming: "support for technological development" in Muslim countries, plans to operate "centers for scientific excellence," along with "Science Envoys." Efforts to eradicate polio and improve maternal and child health.<br /><br />All of this is well and good in and of itself, it ignores a fundamental reality about the Muslim world. Namely, the same radicalism that esteems intifada and suicide bombing over peace and shared prosperity will not respond as Obama would predict to offers of economic cooperation. Cultures that prize submission - to one's state, tribe or husband - cannot manifest the independent, decentralized thinking and behavior that economic development would both engender and require.<br /><br />If economics alone were sufficient to bring the Islamic world into something similar to modernity, the flow of petrodollars over 50 years would have already brought as much about. That Obama believes that he can drag the Middle East into the 21st Century after so many others have tried speaks to a hubris born of ignorance of history and one's own limitations. As many a patient can attest, the worst doctors are those who are convinced of their own infallibility. <br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"> </span></span></span></span><div class="blogger-post-footer">http://mattersofmannerandtype.blogspot.com</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17355368029737310882noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36445703.post-38624298507161333062009-06-02T23:19:00.005-05:002009-06-02T23:31:19.680-05:00They're at it again!<embed src="http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f8/1155201977" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" flashvars="videoId=24552678001&playerId=1155201977&viewerSecureGatewayURL=https://console.brightcove.com/services/amfgateway&servicesURL=http://services.brightcove.com/services&cdnURL=http://admin.brightcove.com&domain=embed&autoStart=false&" base="http://admin.brightcove.com" name="flashObj" seamlesstabbing="false" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" swliveconnect="true" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash" height="412" width="400"></embed><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">I will be the first to admit that as a forty-something, I am too prone to "senior moments" for my liking. But I think I remember hearing something about then-Sen. Barack Obama wanting to "raise America's standing in the world," particularly with her allies. And I am certainly sentient enough to gather that - like <a href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&cd=1&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.politifact.com%2Ftruth-o-meter%2Fpromises%2Frulings%2Fpromise-broken%2F&ei=6eklSvP5KeqClAf2gv3XBw&usg=AFQjCNERbrx2feYkzO11prxzAqFsEPk2aw">other promises</a> - this was one that Obama broke almost as soon as he made it.<br /><br />As discussed <a href="http://mattersofmannerandtype.blogspot.com/2009/03/how-not-to-win-friends-and-influence.html">elsewhere</a>, Obama's foreign policy is remarkable in that it seeks to placate the Chavez-Ahmedinejad-Castro genre of world leaders, while rebuffing longstanding allies like Great Britain. We recall Obama's thoughtless treatment of Prime Minister Gordon Brown during Brown's visit to Washington earlier this year (i.e.: DVD-gate), as well as the return of the Winston Churchill bust that was loaned to the White House by the British after 9/11.<br /><br />The kicker - at least up to that point - was a comment attributed to an unnamed State Department official when asked by a reporter from Britain's <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/4953523/Barack-Obama-too-tired-to-give-proper-welcome-to-Gordon-Brown.html"><span style="font-style: italic;">Sunday Telegraph</span></a> why the White House reception of Brown was so "low-key." </span><span style="font-family:verdana;"><blockquote>The official dismissed any notion of the special relationship, saying: "There's nothing special about Britain. You're just the same as the other 190 countries in the world. You shouldn't expect special treatment."</blockquote></span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"> These and similar <a href="http://ivotedforthewhiteguy.blogspot.com/2009/03/is-obama-snubbing-another-foriegn.html">snubs of other allies</a> now put to lie the notion that the Obama administration would breathe new life into our relations with other countries.<br /><br />They're at it again.<br /><br />As recently as last week, the Obamabots were dissing the British press. According to <a href="http://www.politico.com/blogs/michaelcalderone/0509/Gibbs_slams_British_press.html">Politico</a>, Press Secretary Robert "I'm in over my head" Gibbs responded to a press query about a report in the <a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/5395830/Abu-Ghraib-abuse-photos-show-rape.html">Telegraph</a> suggesting that there exist "photos of U.S. soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners that include images of rape and sexual abuse" thusly: </span><blockquote><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span><span style="font-family:verdana;">"I want to speak generally about some reports I've witnessed over the past few years in the British media," Gibbs said. "In some ways, I'm surprised it filtered down."</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"> "Let's just say if I wanted to look up, if I wanted to read a write-up of how Manchester United fared last night in the Champions League Cup, I might open up a British newspaper," he continued. "If I was looking for something that bordered on truthful news, I'm not entirely sure it'd be the first pack of clips I'd pick up.</span></blockquote><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span></span> <span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">As you might imagine, the British press, particularly the <a href="http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/nile_gardiner/blog/2009/05/29/robert_gibbs_should_apologise_to_the_british_press_for_his_sneering_rant"><span style="font-style: italic;">Telegraph</span></a>, is fit to be tied.<br /></span></span><p></p><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-family:verdana;">Can you imagine Gibbs making these remarks about <span style="font-style: italic;">The New York Times</span> or <span style="font-style: italic;">The Washington Post</span>, or NBC, ABC or CBS? This would never happen. The British press, especially the <span style="font-style: italic;">Telegraph</span>, has been singled out because they frequently publish articles critical of the Obama administration and are not afraid to take on the status quo in Washington. <span style="font-style: italic;">Increasingly, millions of Americans are turning to online UK news websites for cutting edge reports on American politics and U.S. foreign policy that the mainstream media refuses to cover in the States, especially if it is unflattering to the Obama White House. </span><br /><br />Robert Gibbs' completely unwarranted rant against the British press is an absolute disgrace, and the President should disown his views. An unreserved apology by Gibbs is also in order.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">For all its talk of "raising America's standing" in the world after the Bush years, the Obama administration is doing a spectacularly bad job of reaching out to its allies.</span> Unfortunately this is the new face of America's public diplomacy, which will only serve to alienate public opinion across the Atlantic. (Emphasis added.)</span><span style="font-family:verdana;"></span></blockquote><span style="font-family:verdana;"> It makes some sense that Mr. Gibbs would be a bit perturbed with the denizens of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fleet_Street">Fleet Street</a>. The unanswered question is what lies behind Obama's singular obsession with alienating longstanding stawlarts of the United States, be they across the pond or situated elsewhere. His administration's ham-handed </span><a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSTRE53M5CZ20090423?feedType=RSS&feedName=politicsNews&rpc=22&sp=true"><span style="font-family:verdana;">treatment of Benjamin Netanyahu</span></a></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;"> is now a <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jun/02/obama-israel-netanyahu-cairo">threat to the stability of the Israeli government</a> and represents another glaring example of this fixation with stiffing old friends. One would be forgiven for suspecting that Obama's rush to throw out the Bush administration's bathwater will lead to the loss of more than a few friendly babies.<br /></span></span><div class="blogger-post-footer">http://mattersofmannerandtype.blogspot.com</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17355368029737310882noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36445703.post-54483062427927417462009-05-27T19:52:00.001-05:002009-05-27T19:54:24.988-05:00Survivor<object height="344" width="400"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/XwLp2KJCLOQ&hl=en&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/XwLp2KJCLOQ&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="344" width="400"></embed></object><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:verdana;">The video says all that need to be said about the mad rush to socialized medicine.<br /><br />H/T to: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/PatientsUnitedNow">PatientsUnitedNow</a>.<br /></span></span><div class="blogger-post-footer">http://mattersofmannerandtype.blogspot.com</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17355368029737310882noreply@blogger.com0