Arab Attitudes

By Alan Caruba

According to a recent Zogby poll taken in Arab nations, “The United States is viewed less favorably in much of the Arab world today than it was during the final year of the Bush administration and President Obama is less popular in the region than Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.”

The poll results were released by the Arab American Institute, described as a “nonpartisan research and advocacy group.” Yeah, I believe that, don’t you? The poll was conducted by the Zogby organization and James Zogby is the president of the Institute.

There are Christians and Jews born in Arab nations, but when I speak of Arabs it is exclusively those who are Muslim.

The fact is that I don’t believe anything Arabs say on any day about anything. Yes, I am biased, but as the phrase goes, “Everything I know about Islam I learned on 9/11.” Mumbai, India has just suffered a second terrorist attack and it really doesn’t matter who’s specifically to blame because it is Muslims who committed it.

The fact is that on any given day you can read headlines or hear stories of Arabs committing murder and mayhem on one another and on what they call “non-believers.” The Syrian despot is shooting people in the streets where they are calling for his overthrow. We learned that Osama bin Laden was plotting a 9/11 anniversary attack on the U.S. A bomber struck at funeral service for the assassinated brother of Afghanistan’s president. And on and on and on.

How many people do Arabs have to kill before we get around to figuring out that Islam is a murderous cult that has been killing each other since the Sunni/Shiite schism shortly after the death of Mohammad and killing everyone else who would not convert or pay extortion?

I am also thoroughly sick of a White House that steadfastly keeps trying to get Americans to be more tolerant and understanding of Muslims, here and abroad. Ask any European what it is like when their Muslim population reaches a point where it begins to demand that everyone else accept Sharia law and behave like a Muslim.

Why should anyone be tolerant of the Palestinians when a recent survey revealed that 73% of those surveyed agreed that Jews, i.e., Israelis, should be annihilated?

Ask them why there are whole sections of major European cities where non-Muslims dare not venture, including the police. In parts of London and across England, Islamists are creating “Sharia law enforcement zones. As this is written, Muslim enclaves are being established all around America and, of course, some want to build a mosque within a short walk of Ground Zero in New York City.

The West should stop pretending that Islam isn’t better described as a totalitarian political entity than an alleged religious one. When not being ruled by or trying to overthrow dictators throughout the Middle East and northern Africa, the human rights track record of Arab or Muslim nations is deplorable. In January 2010, Freedom House released its annual survey of political rights and civil liberties, “Freedom in the World 2010.”

According to Freedom House, “The Middle East remained the most repressive region in the world” followed by Africa that had “suffered the most significant declines.”

“The most repressive region in the world” and the Arab American Institute tells us to be concerned that “In 2008, only nine percent of Egyptians had a favorable attitude toward the United States” and that Barack Obama’s popularity “has plummeted to just five percent. Recall, it was Obama who led off his term with a speech in Cairo, quoting “the holy Koran”, during his concerted outreach to the Arabs of the Middle East.

Similar data reflected less favorable attitudes toward the U.S. in Morocco, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates since the end of the Bush administration. According to the poll results, Arabs are more favorable to Iran these days and it is a Persian theocratic thugocracy. Arabs respect the threat and use of power.

George W. Bush was under the impression that Iraq could be dragged into being a democratic nation if the U.S. would do them the favor of capturing Saddam Hussein so he could be hanged by his victims. He also believed that Afghanistan, a Stone Age nation, could be coaxed into modernity if the U.S. just killed enough Taliban.

With considerable irony, Barack Obama has managed to get the U.S. involved in a civil war in Libya for the same purpose, the removal of Muammar Gadhafi. In the process he revealed the weakness of NATO while “leading from behind.”

Obama’s singular “success” in the Middle East has been to authorize the assassination of Osama bin Laden, for which he took full credit without mentioning the years of intelligence gathering that preceded it, nor his predecessor.

Published initially in 2010 and now reissued as a paperback edition, in “A Privilege to Die” by Thanassis Cambanis, the author reports that “Hezbollah has inculcated millions—including many beyond Lebanon’s borders—into its ideology of Islamic Resistance, which is coupled to an unusually effective operation program. That recipe has put Hezbollah in the pilot’s seat in the Middle East, steering the region into a thicket of wars to come.”

If the West does not come to Israel’s defense, it will seal its own doom for generations to come. The Arabs in particular and 1.3 billion Muslims in general don’t like us much and would like to see a mosque on every corner of every city and town in America, including just down the street from Ground Zero.

© Alan Caruba, 2011

Watch this Video about Muslim Beliefs. It's Scary!

Obama's War on America

By Alan Caruba

While the debate rages about the White House policy regarding conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, a very real war is being waged here in America…by President Obama and his appointees.

It was particularly noticeable to anyone paying attention that Obama has yet to have called the Fort Hood massacre an act of Islamic “terrorism” despite ample evidence that it was.

Within his administration, some very strange appointments are occurring, not the least of which is the presidential appointment of Arif Alikhan to a top job in Homeland Security. Alikhan is a Muslim and a former Los Angeles Deputy Mayor.

In his new job, Alikhan will be the Assistant Secretary for the Office of Policy Development. In his former job, he was in charge of public safety for the city and observers noted that he was responsible for derailing the LA Police Department’s plan to monitor activities and individuals within the Muslim community.

Vincent Gioia, a retired patent attorney, living in Palm Desert, California, first called this to public attention in late September on his blog. Gioia noted that Los Angeles is home to “numerous radical mosques” and where “some of the 9/11 hijackers had received support from local residents. “Alikhan is strongly anti-Israel; he has referred to the terrorist organization Hezbollah as a ‘liberation movement’” despite the fact that is on the U.S. official terrorist list.

If Alikhan was opposed to law enforcement authorities monitoring individuals, organizations, and local mosques in Los Angeles, one must assume that it will become the policy of the Homeland Security Department on a nationwide basis.

The failure of law enforcement and national security agencies to alert the military that the Fort Hood murderer was known or suspected of being a jihadist suggests that failures of this sort on a national basis will guarantee more 9/11s.

In late September, Janet Napolitano, the Homeland Security Secretary swore into office Damascus-born Kareem Shora, the national executive director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, to a position on the Homeland Security Advisory Council, a group of “national security experts that advises the Secretary. One can only imagine what kind of advice she will be receiving from someone heading up an organization whose purpose is to whitewash the continuing record of Islamic terrorist activities in America.

Samantha Power is a member of Obama’s National Security Council and is widely known for her anti-Israel views including the notion that everything the U.S. does in the Middle East reflects Israeli influence. Responsible for shaping national security policies, Power reportedly doesn’t believe Iran is developing nuclear weapons despite the fact that it is obvious to everyone that it is…and bragging about it. Presumably her advice to the president will favor America’s and Israel’s enemies.

What is apparent to anyone paying attention is that Obama has surrounded himself with the most radical advisors and members of the administration imaginable. It was bad enough that FDR’s and Truman’s administration had been thoroughly infiltrated by Soviet agents, but Obama’s is blatant about its choices.

There’s Chief Diversity Officer, Federal Communications Commission, Mark Lloyd, who formerly worked for George Soros, the billionaire who funds anti-America groups. Lloyd publicly praised Venezuelan Communist dictator, Hugo Chavez. He’s no fan of the First Amendment or of conservative radio and television news commentators.

Obama’s ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, who has been oblivious to the failings of the UN. She is on the board of the UN Fund for UNICEP, an agency that has reportedly been “repeatedly caught giving aid to terrorists.” She is the epitome of see no evil, hear no evil.”

Another appointee with ties to George Soros is Rosa Brooks who used to work for a foundation funded by him. She has never seen a terrorist group that wasn’t the fault of America’s war on terrorism. No fan of the war in Iraq, one must assume this applies as well to Afghanistan. She is the Under-Secretary of Defense for Policy!

This is the pattern at this point, barely a year into the Obama administration, and it is confirmation that Obama is more involved with his war on America than any other enemies on his radar screen.

Commander-in-Cliche

By Alan Caruba

Some of my favorite science fiction villains are the “shape-shifters” like the cyborg from the 1984 “Terminator” movie. Barack Hussein Obama reminds me a lot of those creatures.

All during the campaign, the use of his middle name was decried as a subtle form of racism, suggesting his Muslim roots, but when he took the oath of office, there it was and, in Cairo, Obama stressed those same roots. Salaam Alaykum everyone!

His Cairo speech, however, was met predictably by his Arab Muslim audience with less than enthusiasm and, as always, the endless complaints by people for whom democracy is an illusion and oppression is a way of life.

Our Commander-in-Cliché did not disappoint anyone by saying anything original. “We have a responsibility to join together on behalf of the world we seek.” No kidding! Wow! Obama is under the impression that America and the nations of the Middle East “share common principles—principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.”

I suppose that explains all the bombings of mosques, the beheadings, the endless turmoil from so-called Palestinians who have refused to accept a two-state solution for six decades or been assimilated into Muslim nations for all that time. For Obama, their situations was one of “occupation” but it doubtful that Obama will ever reference the many Arab “settlements” in the West Bank or the way Arabs have pushed out Jewish and Christian residents from Israeli cities whenever they gained a majority foothold.

For the Arabs, the response to his speech was the very tired claims about the Palestinians (there is not, nor ever was, a “Palestinian” state. Palestinians are stateless Arabs.) The Arab man in the street tended to dismiss Obama as “just a prettier face,” as one Cairo electrician put it. “I don’t expect much from the man.” Both newspapers and ordinary Arabs who had previously welcomed Obama’s election warned against emulating George W. Bush by “lecturing Muslims about democracy.”

Osama bin Laden put out the word that Islam was locked into a very long war with America, democracy, human rights, whatever. The man desperately needs killing.

There is, of course, one genuine democracy in the Middle East and that is Israel. Iraq’s first steps toward democracy were made possible by an American invasion, the removal of Saddam Hussein, and our continued military presence. If we go, democracy is likely to leave with us. That leaves Turkey which has practiced democracy with some success so long as its army can keep Islamists from taking over.

With considerable irony, having stopped in Saudi Arabia just prior to his Cairo speech, a Saudi newspaper warned Muslims against having high expectations. “The Islamic world should not think that Obama is coming to be an ally or a supporter,” said an Al Riyadh editorial.

In Tehran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the guy that runs Iran, said “The nations of this part of the world…deeply hate America because during many years they have seen violence, military interference, rights violations, discrimination…from America.” Not like Iraq under Saddam who invaded Iran and made war for eight years; that guy was a real statesman. In Iran, you can get hanged for just about anything including littering.

As for Israel, Khamenei called it a “cancerous tumor in the heart” of the Muslim world. And Iran backs up that bile by funding both Hamas and Hezbollah, the two Palestinian terrorist organizations. Egypt and Jordan who both signed peace accords with Israel probably disagree.

Obama called the bonds between America and Israel “unbreakable”, but it’s hard to know what this presidential shape-shifter will say tomorrow, so proceed with caution.

For his Middle East Muslim audience, Obama’s speech largely fell on deaf ears. The only things they want is for Israel to go away, for the U.S. to get out of Iraq and Afghanistan, and for Islam to be the lone religion of the world. With more than a billion Muslims in the world, however, it is doubtful they all agree on any common view of America or the future.

One thing we do know, however, even if Obama does not, is that there are just over two million Muslims in America and one assumes most are happy living here. His deliberate tripling of that number suggests ignorance or his rather odd notion that America is not a Christian nation and is, in fact, a major Muslim one.

Is Obama sincere in his latest appearance on the world stage outside of the White House? He could be just the pathological narcissist we have come to know from the days of his campaign. He could be a Muslim with a secret agenda. It is hard to know anything for sure about Obama except that, since taking the oath of office he has tirelessly worked to destroy our economy in every way possible. Overseas, no one appears to take him seriously.

On June 5, Obama visits Buchenwold, the former Nazi concentration camp. He might just make a connection between that place and Israel’s right to exist on its own terms, not his. In Tehran, Mamoud Ahmadinejad will be busy telling everyone who will listen that the Holocaust never happened.

Fortunately for our Commander-in-Cliché, he gets to strut and fret his stuff upon the world stage again as he pays homage to D-Day on June 6, the 65th anniversary of when Americans continued their tradition of rescuing Europeans from themselves. Now there is very little left of Europe to rescue. It has long since become Eurabia.

No doubt he will deliver another speech filled with hope and change and, well, whatever. We’ve heard it all before. He’s beginning to bore everyone, but worse, he’s beginning to scare everyone, too.