http://frontpagemag.com/2012/bruce-thornton/the-legacy-of-islamic-totalitarianism/print/ The murder of four Americans in Benghazi on the anniversary of 9/11, and the subsequent attempts by the Obama administration to blame the attacks on a YouTube video critical of Islam, exposed the delusional assumptions of Obama’s foreign policy. This notion that Western bad behavior––whether colonialism, support for Israel, or insults to Islam and […]
http://www.dianawest.net/Home/tabid/36/EntryId/2302/Pickerings-Red-Flags.aspx
As we arrive at Election Day, some of the most crucial questions left unanswered about Benghazi are, in fact, the simplest. They are not “fog of war” questions. They are not questions rendered unanswerable by “conflicting intelligence.” They are questions that probe clear actions taking place not on the roof of a safe house under mortar fire, but inside the fortress-like, orderly and well-lit White House.
Who turned down requests for military relief for Americans under rocket and mortar fire? Who decided to suppress the fact that no protest preceded this attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya that claimed four American lives? Who ordered senior Obama administration officials to lie to the American people for two weeks by blaming a YouTube video for a “spontaneous” outbreak of violence that was, in fact, a coordinated terrorist assault?
President Obama declared he made his priorities about Benghazi clear “the minute I found out what was happening.” He said: “Number one, make sure that we are securing our personnel and doing whatever we need to.” If he issued an unexecuted order to this effect, there was a grievous breakdown in the chain of command that must be exposed. If, on the other hand, Barack Obama is lying, that must be exposed, too. It’s not a hard fact to find out.
But is Thomas Pickering, Obama’s choice to lead the Benghazi investigation, the proper person to search for it? On first glance, Pickering, a retired top diplomat and State Department official, sets off conflict-of-interest alarms for heading an investigation that must focus closely on the State Department. On closer inspection, however, so many red flags pop up around Pickering that his selection becomes another Benghazi-gate scandal in itself.
Pickering is one of those Washington insiders whose public record is less a matter of what he’s done than what he’s been: U.S. ambassador to Russia, Israel, El Salvador, Jordan, India, Nigeria and the United Nations. What such postings may obscure, however, is that the man is a foreign policy establishment leftist. It’s not just that Pickering serves as chairman of the board of trustees of the International Crisis Group, a George Soros group that, for example, advocated engagement with the Shariah-supremacist Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Pickering has personally explored opening relations with Hamas; pushed peace talks with the Taliban; argued for getting rid of, or removing to the U.S., all tactical nuclear weapons in Europe (and moving Russia’s to east of the Urals); and promoted bilateral talks with Iran without preconditions. And speaking of Iran, Pickering sits on the boards of two pro-Tehran groups, the American Iranian Council and the National Iranian American Council. The Iranian connections are additionally disturbing since one Benghazi scenario to be explored is whether Iran was involved, possibly in retribution for U.S. support of anti-Assad forces (including jihadists) in Syria.
Pickering’s politics place him squarely inside the Obama foreign policy mainstream, but that’s not the proper point from which to investigate an Obama foreign policy fiasco. Indeed, Pickering has expressed support for Obama’s Libya policy, “where,” as he put it in March, “we play a major role behind the scenes and … incorporate many other people in the activities we did in Libya.” Explaining the Libyan “experimentation” in “consultative leadership” that minimizes the U.S. military role, Pickering sounds as if he also endorsed the disastrous policy of relying on local jihadist militias for U.S. security.
On a panel titled “The Muslim Experience in America” at Washington’s National Cathedral, Pickering recently advocated “dialogue with the Iranians … informed by an effort to develop religious understanding and perhaps harmony,” while also bridging the “gulf” with Islam in America more generally. He also made an ominous call for “strong efforts … to deal with opinion leaders who harbor (anti-Islam) prejudices, who espouse them and spread them.” Then he took a question on how returning Iraq and Afghanistan veterans might “complicate efforts to promote the acceptance of Muslims in America.” His answer, in a nutshell, was that it wouldn’t. He noted that soldiers “understand that as loyal Americans that kind of prejudice is not to be expressed.”
This drew a fervent rebuttal from co-panelist James J. Zogby of the Arab American Institute, who argued that “the racism [of soldiers] was really intense”; further, that it resulted from manuals and classes now expunged from Pentagon and Justice training. (“The FBI training program is shameful,” he added, referring to Islamic educational materials and trainers “purged” earlier this year.)
“There’s a direct correlation between the president of the United States and Islamophobia,” Zogby said, adding: “This hatred toward Muslims is largely concentrated with middle-class, middle-aged white people. And men. And it overlaps almost identically with the Tea Party.”
Racism, hatred and the Tea Party: Zogby put this whole concoction down not to jihad, not to the Islamic movement to spread Shariah (Islamic law), but solely to economic hard times. “And in the midst of all of that,” he continued, “this group of white, middle-aged, middle-class men looked around and saw a young African-American, educated at Harvard, with the middle name Hussein, get elected president of the United States. It fueled this phenomenon. It opened the door for the wedge issue to operate.”
Noting polls reflecting persistent doubts about the president’s birth certificate and other documents, Zogby concluded: “So there’s an overlay between the racism and the Islamophobia, and I think that we have to understand it and address it. And realize that there is this dangerous cancer that has affected the electorate. And is being used as a wedge issue.”
Pickering’s response? “Let me just go further. Jim, I agree with what you say about both domestic politics and the wedge issue. And the effect on the attitude toward the president. I’m deeply concerned. I don’t agree with you that the veterans are a problem. I agree with you we had a huge problem with the armed forces, and you’re right: It is the enemy.”
Those “racist” armed forces are “the enemy”? That’s a U.S. diplomat talking? Perhaps this most undiplomatic expression of institutional animus toward the military represents the mindset that helped lead us to Benghazi.
http://frontpagemag.com/2012/frontpagemag-com/sacrificing-american-lives-in-benghazi-on-the-glazov-gang-2/
On this week’s Glazov Gang, Nonie Darwish, Jacqueline Brandwynne and Susanne Reyto discussed Why Libyan Guards Were Protecting an American Ambassador. The dialogue occurred in Part II and focused on the uncomfortable truths about the failure to send U.S. Marines to defend American diplomats in a volatile Muslim city. In Part I, the guests shared their immigration experience of coming to the United States and what led them to fall in love with America. Each guest voiced their dread of a potential re-election of Barack Obama, which they see as having catastrophic consequences for the country they have grown to love and cherish. Both parts of the two part series can be seen below:
Israel’s Gaza Dilemmas http://frontpagemag.com/2012/davidhornik/israels-gaza-dilemmas/print/ Tuesday night was a “quiet one” in southern Israel—just two rockets fired from Gaza, no injuries or damage reported. Monday night was “louder,” with 20 rockets and mortars fired. As the Jerusalem Post described it: Air raid sirens sent residents fleeing for cover in the Eshkol, Sha’ar Hanegev and Ashkelon coastal […]
http://frontpagemag.com/2012/richard-l-cravatts/benghazi-and-the-oslo-syndrome/ In their third and final presidential debate in Boca Raton on October 22nd, this one focused on foreign affairs, neither President Obama nor Governor Romney, somewhat inexplicably, addressed a still nagging question on the minds of many, both Republican and Democrat: namely, why, for some two weeks after the lethal attack on the Libyan […]
http://frontpagemag.com/2012/jamie-glazov/grasshoppers-in-zion-israel-and-the-paradox-of-modernity/print/
Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Stephen Schecter, Ph. D, a sociologist, poet, lecturer and performance artist. A retired university professor, he specializes in telling stories from the Hebrew Bible and offering analyses of contemporary issues using perspectives derived from Niklas Luhmann’s systems theory. He has delighted audiences across North America with his readings, lectures, and performances, and is available to speak to an audience in your area. Contact: shabbtai@gmail.com or 604-676-9697. He is the author of the new book, Grasshoppers in Zion: Israel and the Paradox of Modernity.
FP: Stephen Schecter, welcome to Frontpage Interview.
Let’s begin with how and why you wrote your new book. How is it different from everything else that has been written about the situation of Israel and the Middle East?
Schecter: Thanks Jamie.
There are two unique aspects to my book. One is that I explain why so many otherwise intelligent people, Jew and non-Jew alike, continue to misread the situation, continue to advocate for a two-state solution, and continue to avoid holding the Palestinians accountable for the mess that exists. I explain this in terms of the blind spot that comes as a result of living in a modern society, whose political form is a democracy. Modern society engenders expectations that favor tolerance, inclusion, compromise. It teaches people to put themselves in the place of the other. It fosters the idea that society is made up of people and all people are equal and want basically the same things, share the same aspirations. This makes it difficult for modern societies to understand traditional societies which operate on opposing principles and to accept that what they say is what they truly want. Hence the failure of the West to take seriously that the expectations generated by the Arab Muslim world, a society based on kinship and cemented by Islam – that the West is infidel, promiscuous, decadent and deserving of obliteration – are exactly that.
http://frontpagemag.com/2012/davidhornik/why-israel-hasnt-struck-iran-yet/print/ For those, like me, who scour media reports hoping to discern what’s really going on regarding Iran, Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak’s interview this week to Britain’s The Telegraph is like striking gold. Last summer, speculation about a possible Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear program was at fever pitch, and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu […]
http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/
It may one day become a footnote in campaign lore that in the dying days of the campaign, the Obama 2012 team decided that the answer to reinvigorating their candidate’s hopes lay in adding an exclamation point to his already vapid slogan. The blue bumper stickers, signs and banners would no longer read merely, “Forward” instead they would now say, “Forward!” to indicate just how emphatic their candidate was about going forward.
There could hardly be a better sample of the style over substance politics of the style over substance candidate than a press release issued touting the energetic qualities of its exclamation point. Sure the Romney campaign might be gaining in Florida, Ohio and Virginia, but Team Obama is getting vigorous with its punctuation signaling the progressive netroots that no longer will their man be satisfied with saying, “Forward.” From now on when Obama says “Forward”, there will be an imaginary exclamation point after it.
The triumph of punctuation over substance punctuates a campaign that has not really been about anything. For months Obama sleepwalked through campaign appearances, relying on his big money donors to convince swing state voters that Romney murdered steelworkers and keeps all his money in a Swiss bank account labeled Mitt Rommel.
With the first debate, Team Big Bird realized that wouldn’t work, and Valerie Jarrett got out the cattle prod and put an exclamation point at the end of Obama. Since then Obama has been putting exclamation points at the end of everything, but putting exclamation points at the end of every sentence doesn’t make people pay attention to you; it just makes you sound desperate. The problem with Obama’s sentences never lay in their punctuation but in their lack of content. And no matter how Obama punctuates them, they still don’t contain the reassurances that voters want to hear.
http://frontpagemag.com/2012/david-solway/the-educational-covenant/ Real education in the broadest and richest sense has always been an unlikely proposition. Its most floral moment may have been Periclean Athens, and then only for a privileged minority of enfranchised philosophers, statesmen and citizens of the polis. The ideal was articulated in Plato’s Phaedrus, as “an acquired conviction which causes us to […]
http://frontpagemag.com/2012/matthew-vadum/benghazi-investigator-slams-america-islamophobes/
America is a seething hotbed of “Islamophobia,” filled with ignorant racist rubes who irrationally fear the benign Muslim religion, according to the Obama administration’s lead investigator into the Benghazi atrocities.
So said former Ambassador Thomas R. Pickering in more polished, diplomatic language during an Oct. 23 panel discussion at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. The talk was on “what role the faith community can play in fighting Islamophobia,” a make-believe mental illness that Islamists would love to have listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Radical Islam’s stateside defenders frequently accuse anti-terrorism hawks of “McCarthyism,” hurling the epithet “Islamophobe” the same way American leftists use the word “racist” to shut down debate.
Pickering’s pontifications came two and a half weeks after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton named him to head a State Department “Accountability Review Board” tasked with examining the circumstances surrounding the deaths on Sept. 11, 2012, the 11th anniversary of 9/11, of Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, information management officer Sean Smith, and security personnel Glen Doherty, and Tyrone Woods at the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya.
At last week’s panel discussion, Pickering piously but incorrectly invoked the Holocaust to argue that American Muslims were somehow in danger.
“I’m not great at quotations,” he said, foreshadowing a misattribution to come.
“Perhaps it was [German theologian and dissident] Dietrich Bonhoeffer who said of the Nazis, when they came for the Jews, I didn’t speak up. I was not a Jew. When they came for the Catholics, I didn’t speak up, I was not a Catholic. When they came for us, no one spoke up. There was no one left to do so,” Pickering said, paraphrasing famous, poignant verses actually spoken by Third Reich-era German pastor Martin Niemoller.
Pickering said that Americans’ lack of familiarity with Islam –and not Islamic terrorist attacks on Americans— fuels hostility toward Muslims.
“Data shows that those Americans who do not know Muslims, who do not know much about Islam, are the ones who harbor the greatest feelings of prejudice,” he said.
There is a “strong, continuing, and perhaps, in an unfortunate way in some areas, growing, prejudice against Muslims and Islam,” he said.
However, he added that veterans returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have so far avoided embracing this anti-Islamic bigotry. “Many of the soldiers are still serving and I think that also is helpful because they understand that as loyal Americans that kind of prejudice is not to be expressed.”
Pickering urged what might amount to a zero-tolerance policy against so-called Islamophobes in American society. “There are strong efforts as well that we must make to deal with opinion leaders who harbor these prejudices, who espouse them and spread them,” he said.
Although the former envoy did not elaborate on what those “strong efforts” might consist of, his statement is worrisome. The Obama administration is openly hostile to the First Amendment.
After the Benghazi debacle, President Obama went before the United Nations General Assembly and apologized for America’s free speech protections. Pushing the false cover story that the attacks on U.S. missions this past Sept. 11 were prompted by an anti-Islam video virtually no one saw, the president said that “the future does not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.” Weeks before that, Department of Justice official Thomas Perez pointedly refused during a congressional hearing to rule out supporting Saudi-style anti-blasphemy laws.
Pickering wasn’t the only panelist last week to describe ordinary Americans as a threat to Muslim inhabitants of the United States.
In a particularly revealing soliloquy, Arab American Institute president James J. Zogby, whose younger brother is renowned pollster John Zogby, passionately inveighed against his fellow Americans, and particularly Tea Party supporters, labeling them dangerous racist Islamophobes:
“I think that there’s a direct correlation between the president of the United States and Islamophobia. As we do our polling, we find that it is not the universal phenomenon. This hatred toward Muslims is largely concentrated with middle class, middle age, white people, and then it overlaps almost identically with the Tea Party. It is not a Republican thing. It’s a generational thing.
And it is a phenomenon born of a simple set of conditions, collapse of home mortgages, foreclosures increasing, pensions in collapse when the stock market went down, unemployment doubling, the decline of the American dream. In our polling we always used, when we’d say, are your children going to be better off than you, that’s the American dream question, we’d get two thirds saying yes. We now get two thirds saying no.
And in the midst of all of that this group of white middle aged, middle class men looked around and saw a young African-American, educated at Harvard with a middle name Hussein, and didn’t like the president of the United States of America. It fueled this phenomenon and it opened the door for the wedge issue to operate and it’s operating simply among that demographic. It’s not a universal phenomenon. It’s not found among African-Americans or Asians or Latinos. It’s not found among young white kids. It’s not found among college educated professional women. It’s found in that one narrow demographic. That’s where the bad numbers come from.
He continued: “And I think that, if, we had, I have a lot of gripes with George Bush, but if he were president, he would be doing what he did, which is put his foot down and say stop. I think we would not be seeing the phenomenon growing as we see it growing. But the problem is is that if Barack Obama says stop they say, you’re just the damn problem to begin with, you’re not one of us anyway,” Zogby said, affecting an accent that might be characterized as “redneck” or “country.”
There is “an overlay between the racism and the Islamophobia” that is “being used as a wedge issue” against President Obama, he said. Zogby also described controversial Congressman Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), a Muslim and an extreme left-winger, as “a gift to America and Congress, an extraordinary person who could not be better than he is.”
It should be noted that Zogby’s views are unremarkable in leftist circles. They are within the mainstream of the Democratic Party. He is a member of the executive committee of the Democratic National Committee. In 1984 Zogby was a senior advisor to the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s presidential campaign.
Pickering said he agreed with Zogby’s critique. “Let me just go further,” he said. “Jim, I agree with what you say about both domestic politics and the wedge issue and the effect on the attitude towards the president. I’m deeply concerned.”
