911 AND 1979

Written by Jack Kelly

Thursday, 13 September 2012

Observances here of the 11th anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were muted, but Islamists remembered. *In Libya, Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed when a mob stormed the U.S. consulate in Benghazi.  According to CBS News, Libyan nationals hired to protect the consulate moved Ambassador Stevens to another building within the compound, then told the mob where he was.  After murdering him, the mob dragged the ambassador's body through the streets. *In Cairo, a mob attacked the U.S. embassy.  Dozens scaled the walls of the compound, took down the American flag, and raised the black flag of al Qaida.    The mobs ostensibly were protesting a video posted on YouTube:  "The trailer opens with scenes of Egyptian security forces standing idle as Muslims pillage and burn the homes of Egyptian Christians," the New York Times reported.  "Then it cuts to cartoonish scenes depicting the Prophet Muhammad as a child of uncertain parentage, a buffoon, a womanizer, a homosexual, a child molester and a greedy, bloodthirsty thug." Before the attacks, the embassy in Cairo issued this statement: "The Embassy of the United States in Cairo condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims... We firmly reject the actions by those who abuse the universal right of free speech to hurt the religious beliefs of others." That was like telling a rape victim "you asked for it," said Sen. John Kyl, R-Ariz.   "It's disgraceful that the Obama Administration's first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks," said GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney. The embassy statement wasn't cleared by Washington, administration officials said after Mr. Romney's criticism.  "We reject all efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others," President Barack Obama said in his statement Wednesday on the murder of Ambassador Stevens.  He said not a word in defense of free speech, or about the attack on the embassy in Cairo. I'm sorry Muslim feelings were hurt by a video with which the U.S. government had nothing to do.  But the president has no duty to protect foreigners from hurt feelings, which are never under any circumstances a justification for murder.   He does have a duty to protect free speech, and to safeguard U.S. diplomatic personnel.  But after what in years past has been considered an act of war, the foremost response of this president was to apologize for an offense the United States did not commit. The video was merely a pretext for the assault on the consulate in Libya, according to a British think tank.  The mob in Cairo chanted: "Obama, Obama, we are all Osama."  Mr. Obama's apology tour, and his "leading from behind" in the Middle East were supposed to make the Islamists more mellow, but they've become more militant. "It's starting to feel like 1979," said Reagan biographer Steven Hayward, referring to the seizure of the U.S. embassy in Iran which, along with a weak economy, did in the presidency of Jimmy Carter.  Mr. Carter believed Ayatollah Khomeini was a moderate reformer, and helped him push the flawed, but pro-American Shah of Iran off the Peacock Throne.  President Obama's courtship of the Muslim Brotherhood, and his rapid abandonment of the flawed, but pro-American Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak is eerily similar. The president's craven response to Tuesday's attacks will encourage more violence against Americans, said the military historian Victor Davis Hanson.   "The Libyan murderers are now empowered, and, like the infamous Iranian hostage-takers, feel their government either supports them or can't stop them. The crowd in Egypt knew what it was doing when it chanted Obama's name juxtaposed to Osama's." A mob attacked our embassy in Yemen Thursday. Perceived weakness invites aggression.  In his efforts to be loved by Arabs, Mr. Obama has criticized his country and responded tepidly to assaults against it.  In the conduct of foreign policy, it's more important for a president to be feared.  But the only people in the world today who fear Barack Obama are fellow Americans.