Posted on 09/15/2012 5:03:16 PM PDT by mandaladon
According to Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer, the short anti-Muhammad video supposedly made by filmmaker Sam Bacile isn’t the primary cause of the ongoing violence and anti-American unrest in the Middle East.
In an appearance on Friday’s “Hannity” on the Fox News Channel, Krauthammer downplayed White House spokesman Jay Carney’s insistence that the video is at fault for the turmoil. Instead, he blamed America’s weak policy posture.
“[Saying that] this has nothing to do with us or our policies, [that] it’s about a video, is either willfully obtuse or simply clueless,” Krauthammer said. “What has happened is, as you pointed out, beginning with the Cairo speech, Obama changed American policy on the theory that the reason that people hated us was because we were tough. They hated us because of Iraq. They hated us because of Guantanamo. They hated us because of the torture — he used the word, he accuses his own country abroad of torturing.”
“And he was now apologizing and promising to change course,” he continued. “We would no longer be tough. We would be loved. We would show compassion. And we would get out of Iraq. He set a deadline for Afghanistan. He doesn’t support the Green Revolution in Iran. He shows the Ayatollahs tremendous respect. He essentially protects them when they are under attack. He gets nowhere on the Iran nuclear issue. He is equivocal uncertain during the Arab Spring. He leads from behind in Libya. The theory was if we go soft, if we are very nice, if we say ‘Assalamu alaikum,’ enough times, everything will be all right. And what he decided is, the way to do that, the theory and therefore the practice is going to be, retreat and withdraw. Remember the line he uses? The tide of war is receding.”
(Excerpt) Read more at dailycaller.com ...
But they can’t even decide which sect is going to run the show over there. My thinking is that the fewer Americans in that part of the world to distract, the more attention they can spend in resuming their centuries old sectarian disputes. And all the while our people and economy will be recovering from the unnatural seventy year burden of running the world.
Received an email today with President Reagan’s photo that reads: “In 1986 when he was president Libyans killed Americans. He bombed their leader’s house. Libya was quiet for 25 years. Then someone apologized.”
And, when, exactly, have we acted as an "empire"?
When have we ever occupied or attempted to exploit another country?
When have we undertaken to subjugate another people?
Your perception of the United States of America's foreign policy history is, shall we say, puzzling...
I think our intentions have generally been very bad, but our current policies are still far from what people like George Washington envisioned as the republican ideal. And we’ve been in Germany 67 years, Korea over six decades and many other nations have come to see an expensive American military presence as their birthright. History has shown that nations invariably dissipate their national strength fatally by endless war. I think we’d rather return to Washington’s ideal than end up like the Spanish Empire.
The debates are a great opportunity for Romney to pose the right questions to the One the the press will not pose.
I said the exact opposite of what I meant in my last post. I meant our intentons have been very GOOD since WWII. But we can’t do the world any good if we destroy our republican nature.
Really?
Do you really believe that George Washington objected to our intervention against the Barbary Pirates in Tripoli in 1801?
Do you really believe that our military presence in Germany or South Korea -- or, for that matter, Diego Garcia or Guam -- constitutes an exercise of "empire"?
All are, in fact, legitimate exercises in "power projection" to insure the free passage of commerce -- both ours and others.
You must have a very low opinion of your country...
Of course, in George's time the muslims were right, we were still pretty weak. We had lost the protection of the British nsvy because of our revolution, and the muslims could grab any sailors off our ships that they wanted, for the slave trade, and take any ships if we had not paid them their tribute.
George's term in office emboldened the Muslims to the point that the only way to fix the problem was to beat them by building a better navy and sending in marines.
Great point.
Global leadership won’t stay vacant for long and there will probably wars over it.
Jihad Barry gave us the ghetto knockout king slam.
That little problem is being solved as we speak. The Muslim Brotherhood is being established as the controlling elite in every Muslim country (courtesy of 0bama's assistance) and then they can work in concert towards their common goals. A global Caliphate.
“America is a republic, not an empire. “
The USA now has more military bases overseas than the Roman Empire.
Unfortunately, along the way toward good things, we’ve militarized the world - largely on borrowed money. It can’t go on forever.
I see the issue from a different perspective.
Why doesn’t someone just say he plays for the other side?
Or better yet, he already knows exactly what is in the tube?
This arab spring thing is just one of Obama’s orchestrated, choreographed and conducted projects in building and consolidating his North African caliphate. Being muslim, he knows exactly what he is doing, and at America’s expense. As a result , we have a Ghazi operating in our White House.
Too many people are blind to this.
Strategically, his goal was to encapsulate Israel. Soon they will take a run at it and if they find it easy going, then they will take another run at America.
Worst part? Obama has a penchant for dictators and “rulers” and the alien/muslim feels the same should be for America. It will be a bitch prying his ass from the White House. I believe he will attempt to hang on to power at any cost.
Obama’s strategy is not pro American, rather the exact opposite/
What, pray tell, does "our Republican nature" have to do with it? We are, indeed, a representative government-- we have never been anything else. But what does that have to do with being a putative "empire"?
“The USA now has more military bases overseas than the Roman Empire.”
Proving just the opposite of what your point is.
America is no empire and we haven’t conquered, though the power is obviously there to do so.
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