Recently in Barack Obama Category

Maybe Obama is hoping that those chimerical "moderate Taliban" of whom he is so fond will end up running these provinces, and give up their desire to win the rest. "Afghan Source: The U.S. Has Offered the Taliban Control in Return for Quiet," from MEMRI, November 22 (thanks to all who sent this in):

An Afghan source in Kabul reports that U.S. Ambassador in Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry is holding secret talks with Taliban elements headed by the movement's foreign minister, Ahmad Mutawakil, at a secret location in Kabul. According to the source, the U.S. has offered the Taliban control of the Kandahar, Helmand, Oruzgan, Kunar and Nuristan provinces in return for a halt to the Taliban missile attacks on U.S. bases.

Source: Al-Watan (Saudi Arabia), November 22, 2009

Obama is on the run. He has spent the past year in many separate, long trips all over the place. In Great Britain, he gave Gordon Brown some DVDs and Michele Obama in chummy fashion -- nobody here but us queens -- put her arm on the Queen's shoulder. In Russia, Obama decided to hold a Town Meeting to which both dissidents and members of the government, that is, of the K.G.B., were invited. He thus effectively shut up the dissidents and appalled all Russian liberals, who were distinctly unimpressed with his understanding of their situation.

In China, he received nothing for all his attempts at "dialogue" with others far more worldly and ruthless than he -- not once did he suggest, for example, that the American government, or American consumers, could stop buying Chinese goods in an organized fashion, if China did not cooperate on Iran and North Korea, though that conceivable threat should have been an obvious one to slyly make.

Then of course he went to Cairo, where he delivered a speech on Islam. Though that speech contained more grotesque misinformation about Islam -- its texts, its tenets, its attitudes, its atmospherics -- than any speech by any non-Muslim leader in history, it did not even have the intended effect. The intended effect was to win over Muslims. Yet they are -- our "allies" that is, never mind our declared enemies -- just as intransigent, just as corrupt, just as determined to use us and inveigle as much aid as they can, just as unwavering in their desire to create the conditions that will inexorably lead to the disappearance of the tiny non-Muslim nation-state of Israel.

Free speech panel at Restoration: McCarthy, Emerson, Spencer

Andrew McCarthy, with whom I had the pleasure and honor of participating in a panel discussion on free speech along with Steve Emerson yesterday at Restoration Weekend, explains why moving the trial of the 9/11 masterminds to New York is so wrongheaded. "How Obama is courting danger: Civilian trials set back the war on terror," by Andrew C. McCarthy in the New York Daily News, November 22:

The prosecution team I led in 1995 convicted the notorious Blind Sheikh and 11 others for conspiring to wage a terrorist war that included the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and attempting (unsuccessfully) to attack New York City landmarks.

Consequently, some observers seem puzzled that I'm a vocal critic of civilian trials for our terrorist enemies. But they are confusing litigation success with national-security success. So is the Obama administration in deciding to transfer Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four other 9/11 plotters to federal court in Manhattan.

We certainly can convict terrorists in civilian court. We've done it too many times for that to be a serious issue. It's also indisputable that the U.S attorney's office in Manhattan, where I was privileged to work for 18 years, is without peer in the expertise needed for such complex prosecutions. I have every confidence the Justice Department could convict KSM & Co.

The problem on this ride is not the destination; it's the journey.

We are in a hot war, overwhelmingly authorized by Congress, against vicious enemies still plotting attacks that could dwarf the carnage of 9/11. To deal with war crimes, Congress in 2006 endorsed military commission trials, which have a rich pedigree in our history, are fully consistent with our Constitution, and better enable us to withhold intelligence methods and sources.

Indeed, the Obama administration concedes that military commissions are sound: Attorney General Eric Holder has announced that the bombers of the warship Cole will face one.

From a legal standpoint, it makes no sense to try the Al Qaeda quintet in civilian court. Eleven months ago, these men were prepared to plead guilty in their military commission and proceed to execution. Yet the Obama administration pulled the plug on that commission. This was a transparent sop to the left, which wants to judicialize war-fighting and is repulsed by the intelligence-centric, prevention-first counterterrorism strategy that has protected us for eight years from a reprise of the 9/11 atrocities.

Now, our enemies will be given a full-blown civilian trial with all the rights of the American citizens they are sworn to kill. They will get a year or more to sift through our national defense secrets. They will have wide latitude to turn the case into a trial of the Bush administration - publicizing information about anti-terrorism tactics that leftist lawyers will exploit in their quest for war crimes prosecutions in foreign courts against current and former U.S. officials.

In the military system, we could have denied them access to classified information, forcing them to accept military lawyers with security clearances who could see such intelligence but not share it with our enemies. In civilian court, the Supreme Court has held an accused has an absolute right to conduct his own defense. If KSM asserts that right - as he tried to do in the military commission - he will have a strong argument that we must surrender relevant, top-secret information directly to him. And we know that indicted terrorists share what they learn with their confederates on the outside....

Read it all.

If he can make it there, he'll make it anywhere

It could jeopardize counterterror programs and thereby endanger Americans, but who cares? "9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to go on trial in New York," from the Telegraph, November 13 (thanks to Anne Crockett):

President Barack Obama said the September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other Guantanamo Bay detainees will be put on trial in New York City.

Speaking in Tokyo, Mr Obama said Mohammed, the self-proclaimed organiser of the al-Qaeda terrorist plot that killed almost 3,000 people in 2001, would face "exacting" US justice.

Bringing such notorious suspects to US soil to face trial would be a key step in Mr Obama's plan to close the US detention centre at Guantanamo Bay.

Mr Obama initially planned to close the centre at the US naval base on Cuba by Jan 22 next year, but his administration is no longer expected to meet that deadline.

It is also a major legal and political test of Mr Obama's overall approach to terrorism. If the case suffers legal setbacks, the administration will face second-guessing from those who never wanted it in a civilian courtroom.

Indeed.

The New York case may force the court system to confront a host of difficult legal issues surrounding counter-terrorism programmes begun after the 2001 attacks, including the harsh interrogation techniques once used on some of the suspects while in CIA custody. The most severe method - waterboarding, or simulated drowning - was used on Mohammed 183 times in 2003, before the practice was banned....

It's up to you, New York, New York!

Here is a terrific new piece at Pajamas Media by my friend and former Jihad Watch writer, Raymond Ibrahim:

In a blog entry for Islamist Watch, David J. Rusin shows how the word "jihad" continues to be euphemized in the West. Despite Islamic law's unequivocal portrayal of it as a military endeavor to empower Islam, jihad is still being peddled as "nothing more than a student laboring to pass algebra, a mom driving her kids to soccer practice, or, in the words of the Cambridge study, a civic-minded person engaged in 'lobbying, activism, and writing' -- a community organizer of sorts." Rusin concludes by observing: "Why Islamists peddle such specious definitions should be clear. More baffling and disturbing is why they gain traction among so many Westerners."

Indeed, therein lies the irony: Islamist perfidy is only to be expected; Western naivety, on the other hand, which, if anything, should have begun to dissipate in our post-9/11 world, has burgeoned to the point of nearly making the former unnecessary. For while there is no doubt that Islamists (and their misguided Western cronies) distort the meaning of jihad, increasingly, even when the true meaning is in plain sight, America's leaders and media still fail to discern it. In other words, apathy -- or willful blindness -- regarding jihad has become so deep-seated in the West that Islamists need no longer actively dissemble.

Consider: When President Barack Hussein Obama addressed the Islamic world from Cairo on June 4, 2009, he said: "As the Holy Koran tells us, 'Be conscious of God and speak always the truth' [Sura 9:119]. That is what I will try to do -- to speak the truth as best I can, humbled by the task before us." Let us for the moment put aside the fact that Sura 9, from whence Obama quotes, contains the most violent and intolerant exhortations in all the Koran (which is saying something). The problem here is that the original Arabic text of Sura 9:119 says absolutely nothing about "speaking the truth." The word "speaking" is nowhere in the text, and "truth," as an abstract, is a wrong translation for sadiqin, which refers to people. The verse most literally translates as "fear Allah and be with the truthful." In other words, Muslims should stand firm with fellow Muslims ("truthful" serving as a Koranic epithet for "Muslims" the same way "believers" often does). It is, as ever, a call for divisiveness -- of Muslims (the "truthful") versus infidels (the "false").

Had Obama or his Mideast advisors and speechwriters simply bothered to read this verse in context -- verse 9:111, a jihadi all-time favorite, looms just above, promising believers paradise in exchange for their killing and being killed -- or if they had bothered consulting mainstream Muslim exegeses, they might have known that this verse is part of a Koranic segment that deals exclusively with fighting infidels: Muhammad and several Muslims were preparing to invade Byzantine territory. Some Muslims wanted to stay behind. It was then that Allah/Muhammad threatened them with this verse to "fear Allah and be with the truthful" (i.e., join ranks with your fellow Muslims on the warpath). Sentences later, this exhortation culminates in one of the most famous calls to violence in all the Koran, regularly evoked by modern-day jihadis: "O you who believe, fight those infidels who dwell around you, and let them find harshness in you!" [9:123]....

Read it all.

"Taliban" means, of course, "students." I.e., students of Islam. But somehow they have missed the peaceful teachings of Islam that are so plain and patent to everyone else that only "Islamophobes" have trouble seeing them. How is it that these students of Islam don't know, as Obama put it yesterday, that "no faith justifies these murderous and craven acts; no just and loving God looks upon them with favor"?

"Taliban promises repeat of Fort Hood massacre: report," by Nick Allen in the Telegraph, November 11 (thanks to all who sent this in):

The Taliban claimed there would be more attacks like the Fort Hood shootings unless Washington ends it policies in Afghanistan and Iraq, according to a report. It also described the US army psychiatrist who carried out the massacre in Texas as a "hero".

The SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors jihadist websites, said it had picked up a Taliban message praising the attack.

The message said: "The recent attack on the military base in Texas warns that if the occupation policy of the American rulers continues in this way, without them folding the carpets of occupation and transgression in Afghanistan and Iraq, it is natural then that incidents and attacks similar to Texas will spread to the Pentagon and other American military centres.

"According to media reports, the hero of the attack is a Muslim psychiatrist and major in the American army, of Palestinian origin."...

Actually, if it comes to this, it is fairly clear which one Obama would choose.

"'Obama must choose - Israel or Iran,'" from the Jerusalem Post, November 11 (thanks to Sr. Soph):

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called on the US to choose between Israel and Iran on Tuesday night, according to Iranian state media.

Ahmadinejad said that for a real change in relations to take place, a choice must be made.

Speaking in Istanbul at the 25th Session of the Standing Committee for Economic and Commercial Cooperation (COMCEC) of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, the Iranian president said that it was up to US President Barack Obmaa to illustrate his motto of "Change."

Remember: Obama wants to explore "areas of cooperation" with the OIC.

"The support of both Israel and Iran can't go hand in hand," he was quoted as saying by IRNA. "No change is made unless great choices are made."

"We would welcome the changes, and wait for big and correct decisions to be made... We will clasp any hand that is extended sincerely toward us, but changes should be made in practice."

Addressing the same conference a day earlier, Ahmadinejad said that capitalist excesses caused the global economic meltdown and are un-Islamic, as leaders at a Muslim forum touted their religion's banking system a way to revive battered economies.

He also slammed investments that pay interest, deemed usury by Muslims, and said they had contributed to financial and social problems such as homelessness.

"Usury, which is entrenched in the capitalist system, is perhaps the main reason why the system has gone bankrupt," Ahmadinejad said. "It is a way of accumulating capital without working. Usury, according to the Koran, is fighting with Allah."...

Will Honest Ibe Hooper and Brave Ahmed Rehab of CAIR please explain to the Thug In Chief how he is Misunderstanding Islam and the Koran?

They rejected the offer; they'd prefer to have the whole thing, thank you.

"US Offers Taliban 6 Provinces for 8 Bases," by Aamir Latif for Islam Online, November 2 (thanks to all who sent this in):

ISLAMABAD - The emboldened Taliban movement in Afghanistan turned down an American offer of power-sharing in exchange for accepting the presence of foreign troops, Afghan government sources confirmed.

"US negotiators had offered the Taliban leadership through Mullah Wakil Ahmed Mutawakkil (former Taliban foreign minister) that if they accept the presence of NATO troops in Afghanistan, they would be given the governorship of six provinces in the south and northeast," a senior Afghan Foreign Ministry official told IslamOnline.net requesting anonymity for not being authorized to talk about the sensitive issue with the media.

He said the talks, brokered by Saudi Arabia and Turkey, continued for weeks at different locations including the Afghan capital Kabul.

Saudi Arabia, along with Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates, were the only states to recognize the Taliban regime which ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001.

Turkish Prime Minister Reccap Erodgan has reportedly been active in brokering talks between the two sides.

His emissaries are in contact with Hizb-e-Islami (of former prime minister Gulbadin Hikmatyar) too because he is an important factor in northeastern Afghanistan."

A Taliban spokesman admitted indirect talks with the US.

"Yes, there were some indirect talks, but they did not work," Yousaf Ahmedi, the Taliban spokesman in southern Afghanistan, told IOL from an unknown location via satellite phone.

"There are some people who are conveying each others' (Taliban and US) messages. But there were no direct talks between us and America," he explained....

But hey, if it didn't work the first hundred times, there's always hope for the 101st.

"Obama calls for new relationship with Iran on anniversay [sic] of embassy takeover," by Michael Muskal for the Los Angeles Times, November 4:

President Obama today called for a new relationship with Iran in a statement that marked the 30th anniversary of the takeover by Iranian militants of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.

The seizure of the embassy by radical students marked the beginning of Iran's turn to hard-line policies. Fifty-two Americans were held hostage for 444 days.

"This event helped set the United States and Iran on a path of sustained suspicion, mistrust and confrontation," Obama said in his statement. "I have made it clear that the United States of America wants to move beyond this past, and seeks a relationship with the Islamic Republic of Iran based upon mutual interests and mutual respect."...

And the response:

"Iran's Khamenei rejects U.S. outreach," by Thomas Erdbrink and William Branigin for the Washington Post, November 4:

TEHRAN -- Iran's supreme leader, spurning what he described as several personal overtures from President Obama, warned Tuesday that negotiating with the United States would be "naive and perverted" and that Iranian politicians should not be "deceived" into starting such talks.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 70, said Obama has approached him several times through oral and written messages. It was the second time that Khamenei, who wields ultimate political and religious authority in Iran, has referred to the president's outreach.

The White House has not confirmed sending letters to the Iranian supreme leader but has acknowledged a willingness to talk to Tehran and said it has sought to communicate with Iranian leaders in a variety of ways.

In his harshest comments yet on the Obama administration, Khamenei said in a speech Tuesday that the United States has ill intentions toward Iran and is not to be trusted.

"The new U.S. president has said nice things," he said. "He has given us many spoken and written messages and said: 'Let's turn the page and create a new situation. Let's cooperate with each other in resolving world problems.' "

Khamenei said he had responded in March to Obama's overtures, referring to a speech in which he said he would wait for changes in U.S. policy toward Iran before reassessing ties.

Since then, Khamenei said, "what we have witnessed is completely the opposite of what they have been saying and claiming. On the face of things, they say, 'Let's negotiate.' But alongside this, they threaten us and say that if these negotiations do not achieve a desirable result, they will do this and that."

Khamenei urged Iranian representatives to be extremely careful when dealing with the United States.

"Whenever they smile at the officials of the Islamic revolution, when we carefully look at the situation, we notice that they are hiding a dagger behind their back," he said. "They have not changed their intentions."...

Iranian authorities, meanwhile, warned the opposition against using Wednesday's commemorative events to stage protests against the government. Opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi have urged supporters to demonstrate during the anniversary rallies, news agencies reported.

"Only anti-American rallies in front of the former American Embassy in Tehran are legal," the head of Tehran's security forces said in a statement. "Other gatherings or rallies on Wednesday are illegal and will be strongly confronted by the police."

Only anti-American rallies.

Dhimmitude from the Secretary of State. What did you expect? It isn't as if she is Winston Churchill's Foreign Minister.

First there was this: "Palestinian anger as Hillary Clinton praises 'settlement concessions,'" from The Times, November 2:

The Palestinian leadership accused the US of caving in over Israeli settlements after Hillary Clinton, the Secretary of State, praised Israel for making concessions.

Having failed to force Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, to meet US demands for a total settlement freeze, Mrs Clinton switched tack during a one-day visit to Jerusalem when she called on both sides to resume peace talks.

"What the Prime Minister has offered in specifics of a restraint on the policy of settlements . . . is unprecedented," Mrs Clinton said....

Nabil Abu Rudeinah, a spokesman for Mr Abbas, said: "The negotiations are in a state of paralysis, and the result of Israel's intransigence and America's back-pedalling is that there is no hope of negotiations on the horizon."

Ghassan Khatib, a Palestinian Authority spokesman, said: "Calling for a resumption of negotiations despite continued settlement construction doesn't help because we have tried this way many times.

"Negotiations are about ending the occupation and settlement expansion is about entrenching the occupation."

The Palestinians insisted that only a total freeze would allow any new round of talks, prompting a call by Mr Netanyahu for them to "come to their senses and enter the peace process". The Palestinians said that the settlements were filling territory that they had claimed as their future state.

Israeli officials said that they would consider a six-month freeze on settlements, but the US has been pushing for at least a year....

And then there was this:

"Clinton Says Israeli Settlements Not Legitimate," from Reuters, November 4, 2009

CAIRO (Reuters) - Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Wednesday that Washington does not accept the legitimacy of Israeli settlement activity but believes that getting to talks is the quickest way to achieve a freeze.

"We do not accept the legitimacy of settlement activity and we have a very firm belief that ending all settlement activity, current and future, would be preferable," Clinton said after meeting with Egyptian officials including President Hosni Mubarak.

After all, it always makes Muslim countries such grateful and cooperative allies of the U.S., now, doesn't it?

"Clinton offers U.S. aid to help boost Muslim ties," from Reuters, November 3 (thanks to Weasel Zippers):

MARRAKESH, Morocco, Nov 3 (Reuters) - The United States will deliver on President Barack Obama's promise of a "new start" with the world's Muslims, offering fresh programmes to promote entrepreneurship, economic development and education, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Tuesday.

Clinton, speaking to a development forum in the Moroccan city of Marrakesh, said the programmes would also aim to encourage scientific and technical collaboration, women's empowerment and cooperation between faiths.

"Women's empowerment"?

In my column in Front Page today I discuss the latest ridiculous encomium being heaped upon the President, and its ominous implications.

The chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, Rocco Landesman, provoked ridicule when he said last week that "Barack Obama is the most powerful writer since Julius Caesar." He didn't mean that Barack Obama is a literary titan who doth bestride the narrow world like a colossus while petty men like Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Tolstoy walk under his huge legs and peep about to find ourselves dishonourable graves. But what he did mean, while no less fatuous, is also disquieting in its implications: for the first time, the United States of America has a president whose supporters talk about him in the same effusive and worshipful tones usually reserved for the likes of Stalin, Mao, and Kim Jong Il.

What Landesman really meant that since Obama was the most powerful man in the world and a writer as well, the President was the most politically powerful writer since Caesar. "This is the first president," Landesman asserted, "that actually writes his own books since Teddy Roosevelt and arguably the first to write them really well since Lincoln." Landesman is wrong about this in several ways: as Scott Johnson at Powerline pointed out that Lincoln never actually wrote a book, and that Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Herbert Hoover and Richard Nixon wrote books without employing ghostwriters. Johnson also mentions Bill Clinton, although I believe his direct authorship is a bit more in doubt, and John F. Kennedy, whose Profiles in Courage was ghostwritten; "my guess," Johnson concludes, "is that JFK and Obama share the attribute of authorship in roughly equal measure."

Probably so. But that didn't stop Landesman from exulting: "If you accept the premise, and I do, that the United States is the most powerful country in the world, then Barack Obama is the most powerful writer since Julius Caesar. That has to be good for American artists." Ludicrous? Yes. After all, the inevitable question is, "What has he done to deserve this?" Do Dreams From My Father and The Audacity of Hope really merit being placed above Churchill's The Second World War, The Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant, or even Theodore Roosevelt's The Strenuous Life?

Landesman's ridiculously exaggerated praise recalls the Soviet literary establishment's hailing of Stalin's turgid Marxism and Problems of Linguistics and Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR as "works of genius." Every German home once had a copy of Mein Kampf, even if nobody in the house read it, and every Chinese citizen once knew that he better own a copy of Chairman Mao's Little Red Book - if he knew what was good for him. Landesman has given Barack Obama the perfect companion to his spurious Nobel Prize: the fulsome and empty literary praise usually reserved for totalitarian autocrats of little or no actual literary accomplishment.

At a time when the Obama Administration is relentlessly demonizing dissenting voices and manifesting a shaky (at best) commitment to the freedom of speech, this is hardly a reassuring message to send. It demonstrates once again this Administration's utter tone deafness and apparent indifference to genuine concerns about its commitment to core principles of the U.S. Constitution - witness Nancy Pelosi's incredulous response of "are you serious?" to a questioner who asked her about the Constitutionality of nationalizing health care. Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, has declared her opposition to attempts at the United Nations to criminalize "defamation of religions" - that is, to make it illegal to speak about the motives and goals of Islamic jihad terrorists. Yet the Obama Administration is sending decidedly mixed signals about its commitment to free speech. Several weeks ago the Obama Administration actually co-sponsored an anti-free speech resolution at the United Nations. Approved by the U.N. Human Rights Council on October 2, the resolution, cosponsored by the U.S. and Egypt, calls on states to condemn and criminalize "any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence."

Yet "incitement" and "hatred" are in the eye of the beholder -- or more precisely, in the eye of those who make such determinations. The powerful can decide to silence the powerless by classifying their views as "hate speech." And now the President of the United States has given his imprimatur to this tyranny. Legal expert Eugene Volokh explains:

"But why the fuss, some might ask, if we're protected by the First Amendment? First, if the U.S. backs a resolution that urges the suppression of some speech, presumably we are taking the view that all countries -- including the U.S. -- should adhere to this resolution. If we are constitutionally barred from adhering to it by our domestic constitution, then we're implicitly criticizing that constitution, and committing ourselves to do what we can to change it."

Obama should withdraw American support for that UN resolution, and urge the passage of a resolution supporting free speech. And he should tell Rocco Landesman to cool his absurd rhetoric. Now, with free speech under attack everywhere, it is not the time to be inviting comparisons with history's greatest oppressors - even comparisons on the absurdity meter.

Finding courage

Obama just had the U.S. at the UN consponsor with Egypt a resolution against inciting religious hatred. But apparently his Secretary of State is not on board, or not completely on board. "Clinton Denounces Proposed 'Defamation of Religions' Policies," by Michelle A. Vu for the Christian Post, October 27 (thanks to Islam In Action):

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton voiced strong opposition Monday to proposed U.N. resolutions on "defamation of religions," saying that such policies would restrict free speech.

In opening remarks for the release of the State Department's Annual Report on International Religious Freedom, Clinton said that while some claim so-called defamation of religions policies would help protect freedom of religion, she "strongly disagree[s]."

"The United States will always seek to counter negative stereotypes of individuals based on their religion and will stand against discrimination and persecution," Clinton stated. "But an individual's ability to practice his or her religion has no bearing on others' freedom of speech."

The protection of speech about religion and religious discourse is important in a world with many different faith beliefs, asserted the high-ranking U.S. diplomat.

Earlier this year, the U.N. Human Rights Council adopted an anti-defamation draft resolution that human rights groups warn would protect a religion rather than adherents of religions.

Leonard A. Leo, chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, last week testified to Members of Congress that the only religion and religious adherents that are specifically mentioned in the "defamation" resolutions - this year's and past years - are Islam and Muslims.

"Aside from Islam, the resolutions do not specify which religions are deserving of protection, or explain how or by whom this would be determined," Leo stated....

And "defamation of Islam," as we have seen so many times at Jihad Watch, means efforts to resist the jihad and Islamic supremacism -- as far as all too many Muslims are concerned.

Surely this will end the jihad, eh? Unfortunately, Obama (like everyone else in Washington) never seems to consider the possibility that the jihad rages against the West for reasons that arise from Islamic theology, not because of anything we can correct by showering goodies upon Muslim nations -- goodies that may well end up being used against the United States. "Obama offers millions in Muslim technology fund," from AFP, October 23 (thanks to Pamela):

WASHINGTON -- The White House Friday highlighted a new multi-million-dollar technology fund for Muslim nations, following a pledge made by President Barack Obama in his landmark speech to the Islamic world.

The White House said the US Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) had issued a call for proposals for the fund, which will provide financing of between 25 and 150 million dollars for selected projects and funds.

The Global Technology and Innovation Fund will "catalyze and facilitate private sector investments" throughout Asia, the Middle East and Africa, the White House said in a statement.

Eligible projects would advance economic opportunity and create jobs in areas like technology, education, telecoms, media, business services and clean technology, the White House said.

OPIC said sample projects could help foster the development of new computer technology or telecommunications businesses, or widen access to broadband Internet services....

Last Thursday, our National Security Adviser declared nothing was going to stand in the way of the creation of a Palestinian state. My column in Human Events today:

Last Thursday, National Security Adviser General James L. Jones declared that nothing was going to stand in the way of the creation of a Palestinian state. Speaking of the Israel-Palestinian conflict at the Fourth Annual Gala of the American Task Force on Palestine, Jones said, "The time has come...to relaunch negotiations without preconditions to reach a final status agreement on two states."

Jones emphasized the President's personal commitment to this resolution: "President Obama's dedication to achieve these goals is unshaken, is committed, and we will be relentless in our pursuit of achieving these."

"Without preconditions." It was a telling indication of how far the Obama presidency has departed from the ringing declarations of Obama the candidate, who stated in a major address to the American Israel Political Action Committee (AIPAC) on June 4, 2008 that "we must isolate Hamas unless and until they renounce terrorism, recognize Israel's right to exist, and abide by past agreements. There is no room at the negotiating table for terrorist organizations." He even said that "the Palestinian people must understand that progress will not come through the false prophets of extremism or the corrupt use of foreign aid."

But speaking at the ATFP gala last week, Jones said nothing about isolating Hamas until they renounce terrorism. Not a word about the need for Hamas or any other Palestinian entity to recognize Israel's right to exist. Nothing about compelling the Palestinians to abide by past agreements, which they have routinely violated. And Jones was entirely mum about the necessity for the Palestinians to renounce "the false prophets of extremism," of which they are obviously still quite enamored.

Obama said different things at AIPAC last year. He did call for the creation of a Palestinian state, but at the same time he denounced "terrorist groups and political leaders committed to Israel's destruction" and "maps across the Middle East that don't even acknowledge Israel's existence, and government-funded textbooks filled with hatred toward Jews." He spoke indignantly of the fact that "Israeli children have to take a deep breath and summon uncommon courage every time they board a bus or walk to school."

How will Obama's "relentless" pursuit of a Palestinian state, "without preconditions," guarantee the safety of those Israeli children? It was noteworthy that the day after General Jones assured the ATFP crowd that that state would be established, Hamas's Al-Aqsa TV broadcast a children's program, "Tomorrow's Pioneers," that featured a Palestinian child expressing a desire to become an English teachers in order "to teach children the language of their enemy." Then a recurring character on the program, Nassur the bear, chimed in: "Like me! Just like I know the Zionist enemy's language."

That Palestinian children are being taught that the U.S. and Israel are the "enemy" is no surprise, but it came last week as yet another indication of just how disconnected from reality is the Obama administration's policy. General Jones, according to an ATFP press release, "said that ending the conflict and the occupation is essential because what is at stake is 'nothing less than the dignity and the security of all human beings.'"

But Obama and Jones manifest a singular myopia about which side is threatening that dignity and security when only one side is teaching its children that the other is the "enemy" -- a sentiment that is in any case hardly compatible with the new era of peace that is supposed to dawn with the establishment of this state. Will the Palestinians cease to regard Israel and the U.S. as their "enemies" once this state is established? Will they begin to teach their children peace and tolerance? Will they renounce the jihad doctrine that will settle for nothing less than the entire destruction of Israel, as their leaders have repeated on numerous occasions?

The real answer to all those questions and others like them is "no," but even worse is the fact that Obama and Jones are not asking them. They appear to be determined to establish a Palestinian state despite the abundant evidence that the Palestinians have not renounced their jihadist intransigence, and will use a new Palestinian state as a terror base from which to launch new attacks against the "Zionist entity" -- just as Israel's withdrawal from Gaza did not usher in the promised new era of peace, but only more jihad.

Obama and Jones should know better. And probably do.

An article in the Washington Post several weeks ago tells you much of what you need to know about Scott Gration, former General and an early supporter of Obama (who was looking around for generals to support him). He spent some time in his youth in the Congo and Kenya, which supposedly qualifies him as an "expert" on a vast place called "Africa" and on a particular place, quite different from either the Congo or Kenya, called the Sudan.

Here's a bit from that article:

Although Gration describes the approach as pragmatic and driven by a sense of urgency, his critics here and in the United States say it is dangerously, perhaps willfully, naive. During a recent five-day trip to Sudan, Gration heard from southern officials, displaced Darfurians, rebels and others who complained uniformly that he is being manipulated by government officials who talk peace even as they undermine it. Still, at the end of the visit, Gration maintained a strikingly different perspective. He had seen signs of goodwill from the government of President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, he said, and viewed many of the complaints as understandable yet knee-jerk reactions to a government he trusts is ready to change.

"We've got to think about giving out cookies," said Gration, who was appointed in March. "Kids, countries -- they react to gold stars, smiley faces, handshakes, agreements, talk, engagement."

As you might imagine, reaction to Gration's comments have been less than positive. The Save Darfur Coalition, Enough Project and Genocide Intervention Network released a joint statement expressing concern the Administration's strategy for promoting peace in Sudan:

The quotes from Special Envoy Gration are deeply troubling. The time is well past for the President, Vice President and Secretary of State to exert much-needed leadership over U.S. diplomatic efforts with Sudan or face the prospect that Sudan will descend into much broader violence....

Jerry Fowler of the Save Darfur Coalition added, "It's jarring to hear talk of 'gold stars' and 'smiley faces' for a regime headed by an indicted war criminal. We have always insisted that the best way to deal with Khartoum is a sensible balance of pressures and incentives. The pressures part of that calculation seems to be missing in General Gration's comments. The Sudanese government is primarily responsible for creating the political instability in Sudan and bears the brunt of the responsibility for ending it. And blaming the victims for not being more open minded towards their oppressors defies logic."

We can only hope that as Administration's national security team meets to discuss the its long overdue Sudan Policy Review the discussion is about a balanced set of incentives and disincentives (or "smiley faces" and "frowney faces"?).

Scott Gration was selected to join Obama's pre-election "team" because, as a former military man, he provided useful protection from suggestions that Obama was anti-military, and also because Gration had as a son of missionaries spent some time in Africa, and that also appealed to Obama.

But we do not have to seek the cover of generals -- some generals are intelligent, and some are dumb, and some are quick learners, and some are hopeless at grasping new things. And we who are not particularly interested in whether or not someone spent time "in Africa" because we know that African states and peoples vary widely, as widely as do the states and peoples of Europe. We would never think of lumping them together, so that if Scott Gration did not spend time in the Sudan, and does not understand the history of the slow and seemingly inexorable Arab move southward at the expense of black Africans, that is, had he not lived in Sudan itself, his experience elsewhere in Africa is of little value.