I forgot to set my DVR to record Obama’s speech to the Muslim world this morning. I wish I had remembered to do so, because I prefer to see such speeches live to observe not only the actual delivery, but also to observe the audience’s reaction.
Thankfully, CNN.com posted a transcript of the speech shortly thereafter, which I promptly downloaded and read. My first observation is this: if this were a college speech course and Obama were a student in class, he would probably flunk the speech course for plagiarism. It’s truly uncanny how much material his speech writers lifted from George Bush’s speech writers. If I bothered to track down all the detailed records of such things, I could probably match a number of phrases verbatim with phrases snagged from speeches that Bush has given over the years.
What really sickens me is that Obama is going to be glorified for making the same comments that Bush was vilified for making. I don’t understand it, but that’s how it will undoubtedly play out. Maybe if George Bush had a Chia Pet designed after him, or a collectible plate made to honor him, his speeches would have somehow carried as much weight as Obama’s “groundbreaking” speech this morning. I guess if you’ve got slick images and slick catch-phrases on your campaign posters, your words somehow carry more weight than the other guy’s, even if your words ARE the other guy’s.
That aside, as a whole, the speech itself was well done. The messages contained within are mostly on the money. Of course, there are a few statements about which I would like to make some comments. I’ve selected the excerpts that stood out as “gotchas” in my mind, and will follow each with my comments:
“And I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.”
I guess this means that Obama’s gonna scold me for my scathing viewpoints on Islam contained within these blogs. If Mr. Liberal sends his goons out to censor this blog, folks, then rest assured that Obama is a far greater threat to our civil liberties than George Bush ever was.
“Moreover, freedom in America is indivisible from the freedom to practice one’s religion.”
The problem I see with that statement is that it ignores the fact that Islam by its very nature does not really allow for freedom of religion. With Islam, it IS the religion, and will tolerate no other. Well, let me amend that. If Muslims follow the Koran’s rules for “tolerating” peoples of other faiths, then you’ll find that people of other faiths must pay a fee called the jizya, which then entitles them “protection” by the Islamic state. In our culture, we call that extortion. Organized crime has used that tactic quite regularly here, offering “protection” to its subjects. In Islam, this is expected. This is the “holy” way to accept people of different religious beliefs. When an outsider pays the jizya, he/she is known as a dhimmi. A dhimmi would typically have fewer legal and social rights than a Muslim. So much for convincing Muslims that freedom of religion is a must. That notion is contrary to Islam. And if you’re an agnostic, well, then you’re just considered an infidel or worse. That likely will lead to more severe forms of punishment, up to and possibly including death. Oh, who I am I kidding? It would definitely mean death. They’re good at the killing part. OFF with your heads, non-believers!
“So let there be no doubt: Islam is a part of America.”
In my mind, Islam represents everything that America is NOT. Islam is not part of America unless Islam learns to lighten the fuck up.
“Although I believe that the Iraqi people are ultimately better off without the tyranny of Saddam Hussein, I also believe that events in Iraq have reminded America of the need to use diplomacy and build international consensus to resolve our problems whenever possible.”
Well this is conveniently and blatantly ignorant of the facts. I seem to recall that the United Nations tried for nearly 12 years to get Saddam to cooperate with his post Gulf War agreements and obligations, using diplomacy to do so all that time. Saddam thumbed his nose at the world every step of the way. It’s amazing how many Americans, including our own president, have forgotten that fact. Obama implies here (and did so all through his election campaign) that no diplomacy was ever attempted prior to our 2003 invasion of Iraq. That’s complete bullshit. Saddam Hussein had plenty of chances to respond to diplomatic overtures up until March of 2003. He essentially flipped us off repeatedly. This is why we WENT to war against Iraq: because Saddam refused or rejected all attempts at diplomacy. Obama is one ignorant ass if he doesn’t know this. What the fuck is wrong with him? I thought Obama was the intelligent one with the Harvard degree. How is it that he doesn’t know this simple obvious fact? Was he asleep all through the 90’s when Saddam was shooting surface-to-air missiles at our patrol aircraft in the no-fly zones?
“Islam has a proud tradition of tolerance.”
Not toward Jews, they don’t. Islam is as bad as, if not worse than, the Nazis when it comes to anti-Semitism. No tolerance there, my friends. The news archives, hell the historical archives, are full of evidence to the contrary.
“Among some Muslims, there is a disturbing tendency to measure one’s own faith by the rejection of another’s.”
SOME Muslims? I think that’s grossly understated. While the extremist crowd may be this supposed “small minority” amongst the greater Muslim world, I think it’s safe to say that the rest who do not participate in jihadist warfare still sympathize with the cause, and often financially support such extremist movements. More on that next…
“For instance, in the United States, rules on charitable giving have made it harder for Muslims to fulfill their religious obligation. That is why I am committed to working with American Muslims to ensure that they can fulfill zakat.”
Zakat, as I learned today, is one of the pillars of Islam. It is expected of Muslims to offer up a percentage of their wealth as a form of charity, or welfare, for the poor and deprived in Muslim nations. On the surface, this sounds all fine and good. Obama wants to help American Muslims more easily fulfill this obligation.
What Obama omitted is that the reason it’s been “difficult” for American Muslims to fulfill zakat is because we’ve learned the hard way over the years where that money is truly going: to Hamas and Hezbollah, both terrorist organizations responsible for countless acts of bloodshed in Israel and beyond. Hamas and Hezbollah both do perform charitable functions for the poor in Lebanon and in the Palestinian territories – I’m not disputing that. The problem is that both organizations also have military wings that commit all the atrocities that you and I see on the nightly news every day. Since we cannot control how those umbrella organizations distribute their funds, it’s anybody’s guess how those “charitable” contributions are being utilized. It’s just smarter on our part to freeze that money. Sure, it causes the poor to suffer even more than they already do, but does it make sense to allow that money through so that it ends up in the hands of suicide bombers? Those lines of cash flow were frozen for a reason. Well, according to Obama’s statement above, he intends to resume the flow of money to those types of organizations. Let’s hope he’s got a plan to follow that money. I’m not betting on it…
“I know there are many – Muslim and non-Muslim – who question whether we can forge this new beginning. Some are eager to stoke the flames of division, and to stand in the way of progress. Some suggest that it isn’t worth the effort – that we are fated to disagree, and civilizations are doomed to clash. Many more are simply skeptical that real change can occur. There is so much fear, so much mistrust. But if we choose to be bound by the past, we will never move forward. And I want to particularly say this to young people of every faith, in every country – you, more than anyone, have the ability to remake this world.”
Well there’s a statement I can almost get behind. I used to be all in favor of moving forward and trying to live in peace with Islam. Sadly, Islam is not in favor of moving forward and trying to live in peace with me. Muslims are too anchored by centuries of old animosities and grudges, and after 9/11, they’ve given me a grudge to bear against them, a grudge that’s too big to simply dismiss. Sure, I know that Al Qaeda supposedly doesn’t speak for all of Islam, but like I said earlier, walk into any number of Muslim homes throughout the Middle East, and you’re bound to see shrines and posters on the walls of their martyrdom heroes, the boys involved in jihad against the West. The moderate majority may not all be strapping on suicide vests or hijacking aircraft, but most despise Israel and the United States just the same, and all the flowery talk in the world from Obama’s mouth isn’t going to change those opinions. I hope I’m wrong, but Muslims around the world are very steeped in their traditions and beliefs, and many of them believe we are the devil. All the kindness and tolerance we can muster is still likely to be insufficient to change the narrow minds of the Muslim world.
I hate to point fingers, but the Muslim world needs to step up and stamp out extremism on its part. The more that we infidels have to do it, the more resentment we build on their side. Since deep down I know that the “moderate” Muslim world will never muster the courage to stamp out their own extremism (because they quietly encourage it), it’s apparent to me that we need to stay the course and continue striking terrorist targets militarily. If the Muslim world won’t address the problem within their own culture, then we will have to. The risk of NOT doing so is that we will again face another catastrophe like 9/11 someday. You can call that fearmongering if you want to -- it’s a nifty liberal panty waste catch phrase to throw at me. Like I recently told a friend: I call it awareness. If you’ve become complacent just because we haven’t had a large scale terrorist attack since 9/11, then shame on you. When the next one happens, it’s the complacent people that will be the first ones up in arms crying, “How could we have let this happen? How did we not see this coming?” Those are two sentences I heard repeated a LOT in the days following 9/11. Those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it.
In our post-9/11 world, there should be no excuse for not doing all we can to eradicate terrorists wherever they are. If that can be done through Obama’s precious diplomacy, then more power to him. The realist inside of me knows better, and knows that militarily stamping out terrorists is the better option. 12 years of diplomacy with Iraq did nothing to sort out their insolent behavior. There comes a point where endless efforts at diplomacy, with no progress made, have to be deemed futile. It has been said that war is nothing more than a failure of diplomacy. But folks, sometimes diplomacy simply fails. Military intervention finally removed Saddam from power, and slowly…EVER so slowly, Iraq is working its way back from the brink. Unless things take a drastic turn for the worse, I foresee that in the future we will not have to continually butt heads with Iraq at the United Nations like we did all through the 90’s. And it was military intervention that got us there.
As far as Obama’s speech today, I commend him for trying, but he didn’t say anything today that wasn’t already said by previous administrations, INCLUDING the Bush Administration. And all of those ideas and suggestions fell on deaf ears in the Muslim world. I don’t expect it to be any different this time around.
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