Appeasement, Apologies and Advertisements

You have to wonder who is making the decisions in the United States Department of State?

We first had the infamous "apology" by the American Embassy in Egypt for the "continued efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims" that was later disavowed by the Obama administration after critics argued that it appeared that the United States was siding more with the violent protestors in Cairo than showing concern for the First Amendment in this country.

We now find out about the tv ad produced for Pakistani television that the U.S. Government paid for, and which President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton appeared in, apologizing for the 14-minute trailer for the video, The Innocence of Muslims, which mocks Islamic prophet Mohammed.

If the tv commerical was not only a bad idea to begin with, it appears that the idea was not even executed very well.

Consider these facts:

The State Department spent $70,000 on the tv commercial in Pakistan condemning the video and the man who made it in an attempt to diffuse the situation in that country where six days of violent protests killed 21 people last week.

However, the 45-second commercial was deemed ineffective by most Pakistani commentators because it was broadcast in English with Urdu (the official language of Pakistan) subtitles.

Many people in the country speak regional dialects and do not speak Urdu.  Very few speak English.

A bigger  problem is that 56% of the country is illiterate and could not read the subtitles!

The result-Another $70,000 of our tax money thrown down a rat hole for apologizing for the exercise of free speech (even though idiotic) in this country which the Pakistanis clearly do not understand anything about in the first place.  They simply have never experienced it.

President Obama took office confidently claiming that he could build a bridge with radical Muslim elements in the Middle East.

Carolyn Glick puts it this way,

By changing the way America treats the Muslim world, Obama believes he can end their hatred of America. To this end, he has reached out to the most anti-American forces and regimes in the region and spurned pro-American regimes and political forces.

When Obama's policies are recognized as driven by appeasement, the seeming inconsistency of his war against Libya's Muammar Gaddafi on the one hand, and his passivity in the face of the anti-regime uprising in Iran in 2009 and the Syrian uprising against the Assad regime today makes sense. Gaddafi was not a threat to the US, so he was unworthy of protection. The mullahs in Iran and Assad are foes of the US. So they deserve protection. Obama has assiduously courted the Muslim Brotherhood from the outset of his presidency.

The official and unofficial Egyptian exploitation of the Internet film as a means to intimidate and attack the US into disavowing its core principles is proof that Obama's theory of the source of Muslim rage is wrong. They do not hate America because of what the US government does. They hate America because of what America is. And it is because of this that since September 11, the rationale for Obama's foreign policy has disintegrated.

Ask yourself these questions.  Has the Obama policy in the Middle East made it more or less stable?  Do we have more friends and allies?  Is America hated more or less?  Is America respected more or less?  I think the answers are clear.  President Obama has not moved us FORWARD, his policies have moved us BACKWARDS.

I think Glick makes a very insightful comment about dealing with the Muslim world.

To appease a party that hates your way of life, you must change your way of life. The only way America can appease the Muslim world is for America to cease to be America.

Is this Obama's definition of FORWARD for the next four years in his Middle East policy?   Are we ready to give up our way of life to go back in time 1,000 years in time as the Islamists seem to want?