June 07, 2009
Steyn on Obama's Cairo speech: American weakness on display
Mark Steyn takes a close look at Pres. Obama's Cairo speech and notices it ought to give you the willies -- provided you think we ought not be rolling over like a submissive dog and present our throats to our enemies, while simultaneously undermining one of our most reliable allies.
Overseas, the coolest president in history was giving a speech. Or, as the official press release headlined it on the State Department Web site, "President Obama Speaks To The Muslim World From Cairo."
Let's pause right there: It's interesting how easily the words "the Muslim world" roll off the tongues of liberal secular progressives who'd choke on any equivalent reference to "the Christian world." When such hyperalert policemen of the perimeter between church and state endorse the former but not the latter, they're implicitly acknowledging that Islam is not merely a faith but a political project, too.
[...]
But, of course, there is no "Christian world": Europe is largely post-Christian and, as President Barack Obama bizarrely asserted to a European interviewer last week, America is "one of the largest Muslim countries in the world." Perhaps we're eligible for membership in the OIC.
[...]
The speech nevertheless impressed many conservatives, including Rich Lowry, my esteemed editor at National Review, "esteemed editor" being the sort of thing one says before booting the boss in the crotch. Rich thought that the president succeeded in his principal task: "Fundamentally, Obama's goal was to tell the Muslim world, 'We respect and value you, your religion and your civilization, and only ask that you don't hate us and murder us in return.'" But those terms are too narrow. You don't have to murder a guy if he preemptively surrenders. And you don't even have to hate him if you're too busy despising him.
The savvier Muslim potentates have no desire to be sitting in a smelly cave in the Hindu Kush, sharing a latrine with a dozen half-witted goatherds while plotting how to blow up the Empire State Building. Nevertheless, they share key goals with the cave dwellers – including the wish to expand the boundaries of "the Muslim world" and (as in the anti-blasphemy push at the U.N.) to place Islam, globally, beyond criticism. The nonterrorist advance of Islam is a significant challenge to Western notions of liberty and pluralism.
Steyn then moves on to what was -- for me -- the most galling portion of the speech, wherein Obama abases himself and the United States before the world, confessing that "No single nation should pick and choose which nations hold nuclear weapons," telling the Iranians, the North Koreans, and any other tyrannical regime that's jonesing for some nuclear weapons, that the green light is lit. Go for it, my America-hating Third-World Brothers. The U.S., with its (supposed) long history of oppressing minorities and exploiting smaller, weaker nations, will no longer muscle them around, imposing Uncle Sam's will on its ankle-biting enemies.
Except for one nation. Can you guess which one?
On the other hand, a "single nation" certainly has the right to tell another nation anything it wants if that nation happens to be the Zionist Entity: As Hillary Clinton just instructed Israel regarding its West Bank communities, there has to be "a stop to settlements – not some settlements, not outposts, not natural-growth exceptions."
No "natural growth"? You mean, if you and the missus have a kid, you've got to talk gran'ma into moving out? To Tel Aviv, or Brooklyn or wherever?
At a stroke, the administration has endorsed "the Muslim world's" view of those non-Muslims who happen to find themselves within what it regards as lands belonging to Islam: the Jewish and Christian communities are free to stand still or shrink, but not to grow.
Would Obama be comfortable mandating "no natural growth" to Israel's million-and-a-half Muslims? No. But the administration has embraced "the Muslim world's" commitment to one-way multiculturalism, whereby Islam expands in the West but Christianity and Judaism shrivel remorselessly in the Middle East.
Nuclear proliferation amongst madmen and putting the screws to the only Western democracy in the Middle East. Man, this guy's good.
Read the rest of Steyn's piece; he even manages to tie in the GM debacle, too..
Posted by Mike Lief at June 7, 2009 11:10 PM
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