Monday, November 16, 2015
Obama is a fool
Francois Hollande is making Obama look like a fool
By Andrea Peyser
November 16, 2015 | 2:17am
Francois Hollande and Barack ObamaPhoto: AFP/Getty Images; AP
It’s beyond surreal that the president of France is making the American president look like a cheese-eating amateur.
The terror attacks in Paris Friday took scores of lives and thrust the entire civilized world into paroxysms of grief and despair. Then something unexpected happened.
French President François Hollande stepped up to the soccer goal. And he displayed the kind of leadership one normally does not associate with the randy politician presiding over the land of vintage Champagne and Brie.
No sooner had ISIS claimed responsibility for the butchery than Hollande got in front of TV cameras and told the traumatized public that the savagery was an “act of war.’’ He vowed topound ISIS into submission.
Compare that to the American president’s initial reaction. President Obama, who once ridiculed ISIS (or “ISIL,” as he calls it) by comparing it to a junior varsity squad, was loath to point fingers. “I don’t want to speculate at this point in terms of who was responsible for this,” he said.
On Friday morning, just hours before Paris turned into ground zero, Obama declared on ABC’s “Good Morning America” that ISIS (ISIL, whatever) was not gaining ground and that the US military “has contained” it. The statement should become his epitaph.
Speaking in Turkey Sunday, he said the United States stood “in solidarity” with France — against “Daesh,” a derogatory Arabic term for ISIS-ISIL.
Where was his anger?
Obama flat out refuses to call the murderers what they are: Islamic militants. And he’s not alone.
I watched, incredulously, as all three contenders in Saturday night’s Democratic presidential debate — Hillary Rodham Clinton, Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley — refused to say the slaughter was the work of “Muslim” extremists.
Clinton blamed “jihadis.” But despite prodding, she would not speak of the Islamic elephant in the room.
Sanders stood by his earlier claim that climate change, not creatures in suicide vests, presents the biggest threat to this planet because it makes poor people into terrorists by interfering with their crops or something.
At that point, I switched to the Syfy channel to get a bigger dose of reality.
In New York City, Arab activist and Mayor Bill de Blasio crony Linda Sarsour waged a Twitter war as the carnage unfolded. The head of the Arab American Association of New York, which exists partly due to taxpayer largesse, spat out a tweet that one Post reader told me made him “physically ill.’’
“Just because people focus on the horror of the moment, doesn’t mean we forget the oppression, terrorism, murder happening elsewhere,’’ she wrote — an apparent slap at Israel.
Now is a time for mourning and payback, not denial or hatred of the blameless. It’s time to call the enemy by name.
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Here is Obama's statement:
ReplyDelete“Al Qaeda and ISIL and groups like it are desperate for legitimacy. They try to portray themselves as religious leaders, holy warriors in defense of Islam,” Obama said at the White House. “We must never accept the premise that they put forth because it is a lie. Nor should we grant these terrorists the religious legitimacy that they seek. They are not religious leaders. They are terrorists.”
As soon as I saw the title on the right hand side of the screen, I knew this was a William post. For whatever reason William, you adore tough talk. From Reagan, to Maggie to the President of France promising to pound ISIS into submission. At this time, a statement like this is what his people need to hear, just as American's did when Bush stood on the rubble of the WTC with a bullhorn. It's what comes after that matters.
ReplyDeletePost 9/11, we did plenty of ass kicking and delivered plenty of slaughter. But it was't until Obama became POTUS that we actually killed the fucker that took credit for 9/11. Iraq is a mistake to someone like you only because Obama followed Bush's time table to get out. George Bush Sr, or his wise men around him, made it clear why the coalition should not push into Bagdad. And I believe it's their discussions had a lot to do with sectarian bullshit. Obama has not remotely been a pussy in killing leaders of these factions, and that hasn't ultimately done any better than invading, killing more people, and then turning it over to whatever warlord convinces us they are our friends.
I've never understood why name calling is so important. It's great for this person to chide uncle Bernie's crazy climate talk, but of course all discussions of where the money for these assholes ultimately comes from is not talked about; oil. Admittedly, I am a little tired of hearing the tip toeing being done to say that these people are not at a minimum tolerated within the Muslim world if not grudgingly supported in one way or another. This is a different yet similar example, the Catholic Church. For decades and decades, molestation of children by priests was ignored for a host of reasons. Priests were seen as infallible messengers of God. The power of the Church was vast as was their global reach. When priests did something, they were moved or otherwise protected. FINALLY, other Christians said enough is enough and today we have a pope who openly admits the harm caused and continues to work at cleansing the church. I really don't see anything like that yet coming from the Muslim world.
This is not to say Muslims are not fighting ISIS, but I see them doing so out of strategic defense rather than denouncement of what ISIS stands for. I sort of appreciate Obama's attempt to thread the needle, but I sort of see this the way I see the Catholic Priest abuse scandal, no matter how small their number is in relation to the rest of Muslim's, they are nonetheless Muslims calling on extreme interpretations of Islam to give cover to their pathological actions, just as priests use the power of their position backed by the power and financial resources of the church to abuse and then silence the victims of their power. They are terrorists, but it is not fair to say they do not draw power from their association to Islam.
In reality, however, we have relationships with Muslims's who control the oil in the middle east and this has much to do, IMO, with why we tread very lightly in how we label these terrorists. No matter how much we disagree with the stated reason for terrorist acts, the bottom line is that they are still done for political reasons, be they geopolitical or the politics of religion.