If there were an award for stating the obvious when it comes to the Middle East it would go to the New York Times. On its front page last Friday the newspaper ran a story headlined Muslim Group is Rising Force in New Egypt.
What group would that be? Why the Muslim Brotherhood of course. We have been repeatedly assured by certain pundits and members of the Obama administration that the Brotherhood are a small minority with no major influence in Egypt.
They further assure us that those Cairo protesters clamoring for democracy that led to the downfall of President Hosni Mubarak would be the ones to chart the countrys future. Each time another myth is busted the deniers of what is happening throughout the region simply create a new myth one they desperately cling to against all evidence to the contrary.
It would be well for the willfully blind to memorize the motto of the Muslim Brotherhood: Allah is our objective the Prophet is our leader; the Quran is our law; dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope. Got that?
The London Daily Telegraph interviewed Abdel-Hakim al-Hasidi leader of the rebellion in Libya. He admitted some of the rebels have ties to al Qaeda but not to worry. Hasidi claimed that even members of al Qaeda are patriots and good Muslims not terrorists.
Sure they are. We should take them at their word even though they have been known to lie. At what point do we begin to wake up to this nonsense? Is anyone at the State Department paying attention? How about the White House?
President Obama has been forced by growing criticism to better explain his non-policy in Libya and his reasoning behind bombing the country without deposing Moammar Gadhafi.
The president went to the United Nations Security Council for a resolution not Congress for constitutional approval to launch air strikes on Libya. Perhaps this is an extension of his stated belief that America is no more exceptional than any other country.
While regime change in Libya is the U.S. policy reports ABC News Gadhafis removal is not the goal of the operation. No President Obama tells us the U.S. is in Libya to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe. Huh?
What about Syria where security forces are shooting civilians in the streets on the apparent orders of President Bashar al-Assad? Under the new humanitarian rules of engagement shouldnt Obama send bombers to Syria? Will the U.S. seek authorization from the U.N. for military air strikes there?
And then there is Bahrain where thousands of protesters spilled into the streets last week after Friday prayers and were confronted by security forces firing tear gas and pellets. Can live ammunition be far behind?
If humanitarianism is the new standard for U.S. military intervention what about bombing North Korea liberating Tibet strafing the Congo Darfur and scores of other countries where authoritarian regimes deny basic human rights to their people?
In last Saturdays Wall Street Journal Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry D-Mass. wrote that what is taking place in the Middle East could be the most important geostrategic shift since the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Thats the wrong analogy. When the Berlin Wall fell people were liberated. What is happening in the Middle East could be the most important geostrategic shift since communists came to power in Russia and China oppressing and killing millions.
This is just the beginning. Saudi Arabia is next and already the fault lines in that creaking monarchy are visible. The hand of Iran is behind much of this turmoil and behind Iran is al Qaeda and Osama bin Ladens vision for the toppling of every regime in the region each to be replaced by the most religiously fundamentalist and politically repressive of leaders.
While Obama fiddles the Middle East burns.
At a private dinner last week in Washington attended by a group of conservative journalists someone said if a Democrat must be president he would rather it be Hillary Clinton than Obama. There was general head nodding. Mine was among them.
Cal Thomas is nationally syndicated by Tribune Media.
If there were an award for stating the obvious when it comes to the Middle East it would go to the New York Times. On its front page last Friday the newspaper ran a story headlined Muslim Group is Rising Force in New Egypt.
What group would that be? Why the Muslim Brotherhood of course. We have been repeatedly assured by certain pundits and members of the Obama administration that the Brotherhood are a small minority with no major influence in Egypt.
They further assure us that those Cairo protesters clamoring for democracy that led to the downfall of President Hosni Mubarak would be the ones to chart the countrys future. Each time another myth is busted the deniers of what is happening throughout the region simply create a new myth one they desperately cling to against all evidence to the contrary.
It would be well for the willfully blind to memorize the motto of the Muslim Brotherhood: Allah is our objective the Prophet is our leader; the Quran is our law; dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope. Got that?
The London Daily Telegraph interviewed Abdel-Hakim al-Hasidi leader of the rebellion in Libya. He admitted some of the rebels have ties to al Qaeda but not to worry. Hasidi claimed that even members of al Qaeda are patriots and good Muslims not terrorists.
Sure they are. We should take them at their word even though they have been known to lie. At what point do we begin to wake up to this nonsense? Is anyone at the State Department paying attention? How about the White House?
President Obama has been forced by growing criticism to better explain his non-policy in Libya and his reasoning behind bombing the country without deposing Moammar Gadhafi.
The president went to the United Nations Security Council for a resolution not Congress for constitutional approval to launch air strikes on Libya. Perhaps this is an extension of his stated belief that America is no more exceptional than any other country.
While regime change in Libya is the U.S. policy reports ABC News Gadhafis removal is not the goal of the operation. No President Obama tells us the U.S. is in Libya to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe. Huh?
What about Syria where security forces are shooting civilians in the streets on the apparent orders of President Bashar al-Assad? Under the new humanitarian rules of engagement shouldnt Obama send bombers to Syria? Will the U.S. seek authorization from the U.N. for military air strikes there?
And then there is Bahrain where thousands of protesters spilled into the streets last week after Friday prayers and were confronted by security forces firing tear gas and pellets. Can live ammunition be far behind?
If humanitarianism is the new standard for U.S. military intervention what about bombing North Korea liberating Tibet strafing the Congo Darfur and scores of other countries where authoritarian regimes deny basic human rights to their people?
In last Saturdays Wall Street Journal Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry D-Mass. wrote that what is taking place in the Middle East could be the most important geostrategic shift since the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Thats the wrong analogy. When the Berlin Wall fell people were liberated. What is happening in the Middle East could be the most important geostrategic shift since communists came to power in Russia and China oppressing and killing millions.
This is just the beginning. Saudi Arabia is next and already the fault lines in that creaking monarchy are visible. The hand of Iran is behind much of this turmoil and behind Iran is al Qaeda and Osama bin Ladens vision for the toppling of every regime in the region each to be replaced by the most religiously fundamentalist and politically repressive of leaders.
While Obama fiddles the Middle East burns.
At a private dinner last week in Washington attended by a group of conservative journalists someone said if a Democrat must be president he would rather it be Hillary Clinton than Obama. There was general head nodding. Mine was among them.
Cal Thomas is nationally syndicated by Tribune Media.
