In Human Events this morning: jihadists and Islamic supremacists worldwide showed unalloyed joy at Obama’s election.
Besides Democrats, one group has shown unalloyed joy at the election of Barack Obama as President of the United States: jihadists and Islamic supremacists worldwide.
Achmad Sobry Lubis, the secretary general of a virulently anti-American jihadist group in Indonesia, the Islamic Defenders” Front (FPI), declared that he “praised Allah for Obama’s win.” Lubis explained: “This is what we all wanted and we are now very hopeful that he can restore peace in the world.” Eid Kabalu of the Filipino jihad group known as the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) said that “as promised, President-elect Obama has to reduce U.S. involvement in war, which, in effect, will make global peace reign under his administration. That is good for us in Mindanao and the world.”
More mainstream figures in the Islamic world said the same things. Mohsen Bilal, the Minister for Information of Syria, another avowed enemy of the U.S., said that he hoped that “the victory of Barack Obama will contribute to a change in foreign policy of the United States and will allow the move from a politics of war and embargo to a policy of diplomacy and dialogue.” Sultan Fuad Kiram I of the Sultanate of Sulu and North Borneo concurred, explaining that he was “optimistic that the U.S. under his administration would be friendly with the rest of the countries in the whole world, especially Islamic countries.”
How can Obama make global peace reign during his administration and restore America’s friendship with Islamic countries? Ahmed Yussef of the jihad terror group Hamas said that Obama’s election gave the U.S. a “chance for a change, after his predecessor, George W. Bush destroyed relations with the external world.” But he emphasized that Obama would miss this chance unless he changed “United States strategy not only in Palestine, but also in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
Taliban spokesman Qari Mohammad Yusuf Ahmadi sounded the same notes: “We want him to change the policies of President Bush. He could end the years-long war by withdrawing U.S. and allied troops from Afghanistan.” Zaki Bani Ershaid, the Secretary General of Jordan’s Islamic Action Front, the country”s largest political party, hinted that the easiest way for him to do so would be to get American troops out of Iraq and stab Israel in the back: “A real change in the U.S. policies cannot materialize without rectifying the erroneous attitude considering Israel an ally, withdrawing troops from Iraq.”
Bani Ershaid appeared confident that Obama would do all this and even declared that Obama’s victory was “tantamount to an apology from the American people for the crimes committed by the outgoing Republican administration in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.”
Since so many Americans believe the Bush administration owes the world an apology for the American incursions into Iraq and Afghanistan, it is worth noting that the Jordan’s Islamic Action Front is that country”s branch of the international Muslim Brotherhood movement, which in its own words is dedicated in this country to “eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and “˜sabotaging” its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and Allah’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.” That’s from “An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Brotherhood in North America,” a 1991 presentation by Muslim Brotherhood operative Mohamed Akram that was released last year by Federal prosecutors.
Is the President-elect aware of this effort to destroy Western civilization from within and of the fact that among those applauding his election and stated foreign policy goals are members of the principal organization advancing this effort? Has he pondered the implications of this?
It is nice to be loved, and Barack Obama is certainly loved in the Islamic world. As President, however, he will very soon face the choice between continuing to be loved and acting to defend his country against those who would destroy it from both within and without. He almost certainly won’t be able to have it both ways.
Americans should be made decidedly uneasy by this Muslim enthusiasm for the new President. We can only hope that he will ultimately opt to reassure us even at the expense of enraging and alienating all these newfound friends he has won.