April 22, 2011, 11:26 AM
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If only in the interest of intellectual hygiene, it would be refreshing if the Obama administration would stop ascribing moral impetuses to its foreign policy.
Today, US forces are engaged in a slowly escalating war on behalf of al-Qaida penetrated antiregime forces in Libya. It is difficult to know the significance of al-Qaida's role in the opposition forces because to date, the self-proclaimed rebel government has only disclosed 10 of its 31 members.
Indeed, according to The New York Times, the NATO-backed opposition to dictator Muammar Gaddafi is so disorganized that it cannot even agree about who the commander of its forces is.
And yet, despite the fact that the Obama administration has no clear notion of who is leading the fight against Gaddafi or what they stand for, this week the White House informed Congress that it will begin directly funding the al-Qaida-linked rebels, starting with $25 million in non-lethal material.
This aid, like the NATO no-fly zone preventing Gaddafi from using his air force, and the British military trainers now being deployed to Libya to teach the rebels to fight, will probably end up serving no greater end then prolonging the current stalemate. With the Obama administration unwilling to enforce the no-fly zone with US combat aircraft, unwilling to take action to depose Gaddafi and unwilling to cultivate responsible, pro-Western successors to Gaddafi, the angry tyrant will probably remain in power indefinitely.
In and of itself, the fact that the war has already reached a stalemate constitutes a complete failure of the administration's stated aim of protecting innocent Libyan civilians from slaughter.
Not only are both the regime forces and the rebel forces killing civilians daily. Due to both sides' willingness to use civilians as human shields, NATO forces unable to differentiate between fighters and civilians and so they too are killing their share of civilians.
In deciding in favor of military intervention on the basis of a transnational legal doctrine never accepted as law by the US Congress called "responsibility to protect," President Barack Obama was reportedly swayed by the arguments of his senior national security adviser Samantha Power. Over the past 15 years, Power has fashioned herself into a celebrity policy wonk by cultivating a public persona of herself as a woman moved by the desire to prevent genocide. In a profile of Power in the current issue of the National Journal, Jacob Heilbrunn explains, "Power is not just an advocate for human rights. She is an outspoken crusader against genocide..."
Heilbrunn writes that Power's influence over Obama and her celebrity status has made her the leader of a new US foreign policy elite. "This elite," he writes, "is united by a shared belief that American foreign policy must be fundamentally transformed from an obsession with national interests into a broader agenda that seeks justice for women and minorities, and promotes democracy whenever and wherever it can -- at the point of a cruise missile if necessary."
As the prolonged slaughter in Libya and expected continued failure of the NATO mission make clear, Power and her new foreign policy elite have so far distinguished themselves mainly by their gross incompetence.
But then, even if the Libyan mission were crowned in success, it wouldn't make the moral pretentions of the US adventure there any less disingenuous. And this is not simply because the administration-backed rebels include al-Qaida fighters.
The fact is that the moral arguments used for intervening militarily on behalf of Gaddafi's opposition pale in comparison to the moral arguments for intervening in multiple conflicts where the Obama administration refuses to lift a finger. At a minimum, this moral inconsistency renders it impossible for the Obama administration to credibly embrace the mantel of moral actor on the world stage.
Consider the administration's Afghanistan policy.
Over the past week, the White House and the State Department have both acknowledged that administration officials are conducting negotiations with the Taliban.
Last week, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton defended the administration's policy. During a memorial service for the late ambassador Richard Holbrooke, who at the time of his death last December was the most outspoken administration figure advocating engaging Mullah Omar and his followers, Clinton said, "Those who found negotiations with the Taliban distasteful got a very powerful response from Richard - diplomacy would be easy if we only had to talk to our friends."
Of course, the Taliban are not simply not America's friends. They are the enemy of every good and decent human impulse. The US went to war against the Taliban in 2001 because the Bush administration rightly held them accountable for Osama bin Laden and his terror army which the Taliban sponsored, hosted and sheltered on its territory.
But the Taliban are America's enemy not just because they bear responsibility for the September 11 attacks on the US. They are the enemy of the US because they are evil monsters.
Apparently, the supposedly moral, anti-genocidal, pro-women Obama administration needs to be reminded why it is not merely distasteful but immoral to engage the Taliban. So here it goes.
Under the Taliban, the women and girls of Afghanistan were the most oppressed, most terrorized, most endangered group of people in the world. Women and girls were denied every single human right. They were effectively prisoners in their homes, allowed on the streets only when fully covered and escorted by a male relative.
They were denied the right to education, work and medical care. Women who failed to abide in full by these merciless rules were beaten, imprisoned, tortured, and stoned to death.
The Taliban's barbaric treatment of women and girls probably couldn't have justified their overthrow at the hands of the US military. But it certainly justified the US's refusal to even consider treating them like legitimate political actors in the 10 years since NATO forces first arrived in Afghanistan. And yet, the self-proclaimed champions of the downtrodden in the administration are doing the morally unjustifiable. They are negotiating, and so legitimizing the most diabolical sexual tyranny known to man. Obama, Clinton, Power and their colleagues are now shamelessly advancing a policy that increases the likelihood that the Taliban will again rise to power and enslave Afghanistan's women and girls once more.
Then there is Syria. In acts of stunning courage, despite massive regime violence that has killed approximately two hundred people in three weeks, anti-regime protesters in Syria are not standing down. Instead, they are consistently escalating their protests. They have promised that the demonstrations after Friday prayers this week will dwarf the already unprecedented country-wide protests we have seen to date.
In the midst of the Syrian demonstrators' calls for freedom from one of the most repressive regimes in the Middle East, the Obama administration has sided with their murderous dictator Bashar Assad, referring to him as a "reformer."
As Heibrunn notes in his profile of Power, she and her colleagues find concerns about US national interests parochial at best and immoral at worst. Her clear aim -- and that of her boss - has been to separate US foreign policy from US interests by tethering it to transnational organizations like the UN.
Given the administration's contempt for policy based on US national interests, it would be too much to expect the White House to notice that Syria's Assad regime is one of the greatest state supporters of terrorism in the world and that its overthrow would be a body blow to Iran, Venezuela, Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and al-Qaida and therefore a boon for US national security.
In theory, the Syrian opposition presents the likes of Obama and Power with what ought to be a serious moral dilemma. First, they seem to fit the precise definition of the sort of people that the transnationalists have a responsibility to protect.
They are being gunned down by the dozen as they march with olive branches and demand change they can believe in. Moreover, their plan for ousting Assad involves subordinating him to the transnationalists at the UN.
According to a report last week in The Washington Times, Washington-based representatives of several Syrian opposition groups have asked the administration to do three things in support of the opposition, all of which are consonant with the administration's own oft stated foreign policy preferences.
They have requested that Obama condemn the regime's murderous actions in front of television cameras. They have asked the administration to initiate an investigation of Assad's murderous response to the demonstrations at the UN Human Rights Council. And they have asked the administration to enact unilateral sanctions against a few Syrian leaders who have given troops the orders to kill the protesters.
The administration has not responded to the request to act against Assad at the UN Human Rights Council. It has refused the opposition's other two requests.
These responses are no surprise in light of the Obama administration's abject and consistent refusal to take any steps that could help Iran's pro-democracy, pro-women's rights, pro-Western opposition Green Movement in its nearly two-year-old struggle to overthrow the nuclear proliferating, terror-supporting, genocide-inciting, elections-stealing mullocracy.
Power's personal contribution to the shocking moral failings of the administration's foreign policy is of a piece with her known hostility towards Israel. That hostility, which involves a moral inversion of the reality of the Palestinian war against Israel, was most graphically exposed in a 2002 interview. Then, at the height of the Palestinian terror war against Israel, when Palestinian terrorists from Hamas and Fatah alike were carrying out daily attacks whose clear aim was the massacre of as many Israeli civilians as possible simply because they were Israelis, Power said in a filmed interview that she supported deploying a "mammoth" US military force to Israel to protect the Palestinians from the IDF.
In periodic attempts to convince credulous pro-Israel writers that she doesn't actually support invading Israel, Power has claimed that her statements calling for just such an invasion and additional remarks in which she blamed American Jews for US support of Israel were inexplicable lapses of judgment.
But then there have been so many lapses in judgment in her behavior and in the actions of the administration she serves that it is hard to see where the lapses begin and the judgment ends. Libya, Afghanistan, Syria, Iran and Israel are only the tip of the iceberg. Everywhere from Honduras to Venezuela, from Britain to Russia, from Colombia to Cuba, Japan to China, Egypt to Lebanon, to Poland and the Czech Republic and beyond, those lapses in judgment are informing policies that place the US consistently on the side of aggressors against their victims.
Back in the pre-Obama days, when US foreign policy was supposed to serve US interests, it would have mattered that these policies all weaken the US and its allies and empower its foes. But now, in the era of the purely altruistic Obama administration, none of that matters.
What does matter is that the purely altruistic Obama foreign policy is empowering genocidal, misogynist, bigoted tyrants worldwide.
Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.
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After nearly 10 years of war in Afghanistan the bungling Empire can't find Osama or don't want to find him.
And then we have the second abject Empire failure in Iraq after 8 years of preparing the ground for Iran's dominance in that region.
So why would such incompetent fools seek to trouble the Russia,China waters over Libya to bring down Gaddafi already going well beyond their UN Mandate
America allying with and aiding Islamic terrorists and REPUBLICAN Senator John McCain in Benghazi,Libya today calling them his hero's should cause many sleepless nights in Jerusalem.
Hollywood writers couldn't have written this script.
This is all setting the stage for WWII with the alliances already arming the 2 opposing corrupt,dirty,murderous Muslim sides.
What incredible insanity mankind suffers under evil elite leadership.
God willing, the US will abandon its support for the murderous Zionist entity and its contunuous robberies and oppression, and kearn that it has few interests in the squabbles of Third World hellholes, dictatorial or "democratic."
Caroline, once again I commend you for an astute evaluation of US foreign policy as conducted by Barack Obama and associates. That Obama's actions are leading the US and by extension those who defend her into an untenable situation is a given. How did we allow this egocentric individual to become so powerful? Were we lulled by his message of "hope and change." Israel certainly cannot hope for any support from the current administration. Actually no people hoping for freedom can depend on the US. Barack Obama has made abundantly clear whom and what he supports and these decisions also threaten the democracy of the American people.
power and her husband are marxists to the core and see america as the villain in every thing.they fit right in with president bongo,a third generation communist who hates america while kissing the ass of pisslam.the only reason i can see for his hatred for israel is that he is still a muzzie because he no christian. what the traitor bongo and his cabal commie czars for get is that isreal has nuclear weapons and will use them against the ragheads.if iran wants the 12th imam israel will give them that while the muzzie can kiss meca good by and good riddance.this cult of death must be eliminated any way we can because if we do not destroy them they will destroy us.pisslam is just evil and inhumane.
Caroline, Dutch Prof. Maurits Berger (liberal arabist) says the west (McCain, Lieberman, the kenian, Clinton, Rice, Power, Daalder, Cameron, Hague etc.) Syria for them is - different then Libya or even Egypt - to difficult to stabilize geo-politically when Assad has gone because Syria is centered between Turkey, Lebanon, Israel, Irak, connected to Iran,
RIHT ON, LADY.
i would not be surprised if obumma attacked israel or supports muzzie terrorists.this president belongs in an orange jump suit.
"ONE of Europe’s highest-ranking diplomats has credited Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd with helping change the international mood on Libya, leading to implementation of a no-fly zone.
While stopping short of saying Mr Rudd had any direct impact on the UN no-fly resolution, the European Union’s senior foreign policy adviser, Robert Cooper, said Mr Rudd’s activism on the issue had been noticed by the key international players."
On behalf of Australia, I'd like to apologise for our manic foreign minister who sees every crisis as an opportunity to advance one-worldism and world governance.
OBAMA FULFILLING THE BIBLE
Can you guess which Bible verses Barack Hussein Obama likes to avoid?
Proverbs 19:10 (NIV): "It is not fitting for a fool to live in luxury - how much worse for a slave to rule over princes!"
Also Proverbs 30:22 (NIV) which says that the earth cannot bear up under "a servant who becomes king."
And Ecclesiastes 5:2-3 (KJV) advises: "let thy words be few...a fool's voice is known by multitude of words."
Although Obama is not descended from slaves, he may feel that he's destined to become a black-slavery avenger.
Or maybe an enslaver of all free citizens!
For some stunning info on Pres. Obama and his fellow subversives, Google "Michelle Obama's Allah-day," "Obama Supports Public Depravity," "David Letterman's Hate Etc.," "Un-Americans Fight Franklin Graham" and also "Sandra Bernhard, Larry David, Kathy Griffin, Bill Maher, Joan Rivers, Sarah Silverman." Also Google "Prof. F. N. Lee's ISLAM IN THE BIBLE [PDF]."
PS - Since Christians are commanded to ask God to send severe judgment on persons who commit and support the worst forms of evil (see I Cor. 5 and note "taken away"), Christians everywhere should constantly pray that the Lord will soon "take away" or at least overthrow all US leaders who continue to sear their conscience and arrogantly trample the God-given rights of the majority including the rights of the unborn. Do we need a second American Revolution?
PPS - For a rare look at the 181-year-old endtime belief which has long neutralized millions of American patriots by promising them an "imminent rapture" off earth - which has diverted them away from being prepared to stand against all enemies, domestic as well as foreign - Google "Pretrib Rapture Dishonesty," "Pretrib Rapture Diehards," "Edward Irving is Unnerving," "Pretrib Rapture Secrecy," and "Pretrib Rapture - Hidden Facts" - all by the author of the bestselling nonfiction book "The Rapture Plot" (the most accurate documentation on the pretrib rapture's long hidden birth in Britain in 1830 - see Armageddon Books). Also Google "Stamping Out Harold Camping."
I sent the inquiry to Samantha Power reprinted below. The following is her response to my inquiry. Warning, please swallow your food with plenty of water before reading:
nothing could be further from the truth. but sadly what gets written gets believed, irrespective of the motive or the credibility of the source.
To: Samantha_Power@ksg.harvard.edu
Date: 01/02/2009 02:35AM
Subject: Is it true, Professor Power?
I have read that you suggested that The US invade Israel in order to 'protect' the 'Palestinians'? Is that correct? Why do you hate Israel and seek her destruction?
Dear Caroline,
As you are well aware the world is complicated and it is not always easy to define terms that are 100% clean when a nation be it a superpower or not chooses to act on behalf of what has been called R2P, Responsibility to Protect, which could also claim the mantle of
"Never Again," which is a warning from the heavens above not to allow any genocide, let alone the greatest and most terrible genocide in history to occur. After Rwanda many US policy makers knew they made a mistake. After Rwanda the UN rightfully supported the developmernt of the R2P doctrine which you rightfully suggest does not have the force of law. But this particular response is against Muammar Gaddafi and he presents the US, and its allies with a history covered in blood beginning with Lockerbie. Now as important as miss Powers is, other voices in the Obama Administration reached the same conclusion including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and UN Ambassador Susan Rice. Syria is devolving into its own crisis and of course their are pundits in Israel that believe the overthrow of Assad will bring a civil war. It remains to be seen how the United States and its allies including Israel will deal with this crisis.
Larry Snider
This is the rebel side in Libya in action which the U.S Government is supporting and funding and fight for.
Your focus on Obama only is disingenuous,it's America.
The video is for the squeamish,the left,the Larry's,the brainwashed idiots who think Islam is not Satanic,evil and demonic.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrAqcd5WgHY&feature=player_embedded&skipcontrinter=1
It's not complicated, it's evil and the world is feeding Israel to this evil under the lie of peace.
The US government is in the hands of Marxists, who are never identified as such. And yet their every move, their every action, their every statement, confirms it. They wish ti destroy American power and defeat free market interests, in pursuit of their idealogical goals and of course, their own power. This is what is happening. Very few report it or even discuss it and when they do, they are dismissed as crackpot conspiracy theorists. Yet everything is proven, mostly in the recorded audio and video of many of the conspirators themselves. Yet it isn't a big story. Why? Because the news and entertainment media want these things to occur, and protect all of their fellow conspirators from adverse public revelations. None of this is even in question.
What is in question is the ability of the US Law enforcement and intelligence community to combat it. Given the information that is open to anyone worldwide, why have they not acted on behalf of the interests of the US and as it happens, Israel? That answer is now also completely obvious. They don't want to and there is no explanation as to why. But if you examine their inaction and omissions you will find that they are very much in line with those who seek to diminish/destroy America as an international power unless it is controlled by the left.
The destruction of Israel, is but an incidental occurrence to them at best but when examined at length you cannot miss the fact that there is real and abiding hate there.
Perhaps Israel's intelligence community could help since our own won't do the job? I wish that this was a statement in jest.
White House to notice that Syria's Assad regime is one of the greatest state supporters of terrorism in the world and that its overthrow would be a body blow to Iran, Venezuela, Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and al-Qaida and therefore a boon for US national security."
I believe that this statement is not based on facts, and not only because of yesterday elimination of bin Laden that was done quietly and very professionally - as opposed to very loud but inefficient (not to mention costing thousands of American and other Western lives) campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. Obama effectively adopted Israel's practice of "targeted killings" of arch terrorists and executed it perfectly.
Of course there's just one less terrorism mastermind in the world (albeit a major, cult figure for his followers around the world). But it did not take a full blown war (which still goes on Afghanistan) to take him out. Now - Taliban, mullocracy of Iran, Ghaddafi's and Asad's secular but brutal regimes are all very very bad guys. And I am sure that US has some intel form sources on the ground on what;'s going on - but by no means the US should play a world enforcer of "democracy" (in quotes b/c of this word has been used & abused by many US leaders differently). And I'm sure that US is running some covert operations in Iran to provide support to its "green opposition" and openly leads with more strict sanctions against it in the public policy area as we all know. US does not have a world's mandate to overthrow all "rogue" governments - there are rules and regulations even in World policy and these not only come from the much hated by the right United Nations.
I am also completely disgusted by all attacks - past, present and quite likely future - on the personality of Barack HUSSEIN Obama who of course is an ideal target for neo conservatives of all brands. As we saw recently the "birther" theory easily ruined and now another - quite real - disproval of the myth that "toothless liberals" are not ready to protect their population and only can offer more & more concessions to their sworn enemies - see the list above. I believe that a really wise leader (and Obama is getting there - not there yet) see things not in a black and white colors of ideology ("us vs. them", "righteous vs godless" etc) - but in a gamma of various colors of real circumstances.
Of course there are absolute moral principles which may and are translated into politics - and Obama administration is getting the message about holding a high ground in the Israeli Palestinian conflict. But again - invoking ideas of Obama's alleged (and absolutely unconfirmed) for radical Muslim thoughts and policies do nothing that present authors of these ideas like posters above in a less than positive light. People can disagree ion many things - and I do disagree with some policies that Obama administration (for which I have voted as well as miserable 75% of American Jews) used to carry out. I also disagree with quite a few policies that Netanyahu administration carries out - especially those pushed by my former compatriot Avigdor Liberman. But for me that is absolutely not a reason to viciously attack your opponents personally, accuse them of all possible sins and as a result present yourselves as zealous prpagandists of ideas of intolerance and borderline racism.
Let's see if this message will even gets posted here. Shalom...