Britannia Radio

Monday, April 06, 2009

 

On Obama's Outreach to Islamists

By Andre Pachter


In every predominantly Muslim country there are people struggling to create or maintain secular institutions, traditions, and ways of life.

The President of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama, is undermining their efforts. His ballyhooed outreach to organized Islam is a tacit concession to right-wing political Islam, known as Islamism, or radical Islam, a clerical fascist ideology that has effectively taken over and become synonymous with Islam itself. Contrary to what Obama would have you believe, there are no moderate Islamists; the notion that supposedly moderate Muslim clerics can be influenced and used as allies against the global jihad is a dangerous delusion that could have catastrophic consequences for the United States, Europe, and Israel. 

Instead of elevating an inherently backward and violent religion and positioning it as a rival of Western democracies and a candidate for peaceful coexistence and non-violent competition, America's first Muslim-born President (according to Islamic religious law, which traces religious identity through the father) should seek to strengthen, encourage, and engage pro-Western Arabs, Turks, and Persians before they are overwhelmed by the Islamist tide.

Obama should avoid the mistakes of his predecessor, President George W. Bush, who, immediately following the Islamist terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001--the worst-ever attacks on U.S. soil--praised Islam as "peaceful and beautiful." Bush failed to revoke the visas of aliens from predominantly Muslim countries and end immigration from those lands pending victory over the Islamist enemy. Bush made many other mistakes. To name just a few: he misnamed the war on radical Islam the War on Terror; took too long to retaliate against Afghanistan, with too little force, allowing Osama Binladen and the most senior leaders of Al Qaeda and the Taliban to escape into neighboring Pakistan, a nuclear-armed, compromised country; and needlessly invaded Iraq, a contained, secular enemy that had no weapons of mass destruction and no meaningful ties to the Islamists, instead of attacking Iran--a non-Arab, nuclear-arming leader of radical Islam. In addition to the cost in human life and treasure, the Iraq intervention discredited the war against Islamism in the eyes of the electorate, which has embraced Obama.

Obama was right about Iraq--he opposed the U.S. invasion. But he has been wrong about everything else pertaining to national security and defense. His first instinct after the Al Qaeda mega-attacks was to announce that he will stand with American Muslims against the threat of persecution; and his subsequent statements and actions have emboldened Islamists from Detroit to Damascus. His administration seems bent on appeasing Iran--allowing it to make serious advances in the nuclear and missile spheres--and abandoning Israel.

The above initiatives combined with Obama's shocking and shameful bow to the Saudi King--which mainstream media outlets have ignored--seem to confirm suspicions by his critics of a fundamentally frightening ideological bias and political agenda.

The President of the United States is the elected leader of the American people and the acknowledged leader of the free world. As he is neither the leader of Christianity nor any other faith, he has no business engaging and negotiating with "the Muslim World." 

POSTSCRIPT: Obama's disgraceful, deep, submissive bow to the Saudi petro-tyrant is slowly seeping into the media. But the largest outlets are deliberately avoiding any mention of the unprecedented event. So today must be considered Day 5 of the Obama Bow Media Blackout.

UPDATE: AFP reports from Ankara:

Barack Obama on Monday seized upon his first symbolism-laced visit to the Muslim world as US president to declare that the United States is not and never will be at war with Islam.

From the well of the Turkish parliament, Obama warned "you cannot put out fire with flames," arguing that brute force alone could not thwart extremism as he sent a flurry of coded messages throughout the Middle East.

Obama drew on his own biography as the son of a believer as he sought to forge new trust with the Islamic world, and portrayed Turkey as an example of a thriving Muslim nation where faith and democracy could thrive together.

The president said US ties with the Muslim world could not be simply defined by opposition to terrorism, decades into a US struggle with extremism that was sharpened by the September 11 attacks in 2001.

"The United States has been enriched by Muslim Americans. Many other Americans have Muslims in their family, or have lived in a Muslim-majority country -- I know, because I am one of them."

Obama also sent a fresh olive branch to Iran, backed dialogue between Israel and Syria and promised a new initiative within months to improve healthcare, education, and trade with the Islamic world.

China Confidential's correspondent in Turkey says Obama's "coded messages" are undercutting Turkey's military--the only power capable of preventing the Islamist-leaning and -rooted government from overthrowing the secular system. A relatively small but dangerous, ultranationalist, neo-fascist party and terrorist underground is allied with the nation's overt Islamists.

Coming soon: Obama's Big Speech, a major address to the so-called Muslim world from a so-called Muslim capital.