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| Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe |
It is no surprise that Al Qaeda has launched an abuse offensive against
Barack Obama. He is, after all, their worst nightmare come true.
The standing of the US in the world since the election of President Obama has so increased, especially in the Muslim world, that any anti-American rhetoric will have a far harder time to stick. That makes recruiting harder. It makes suicide bombers harder to convince to give up their lives for an idea. They are not doing it for the money after all. It is all about ideas. Under Bush we were loosing he ideas battle, under Obama we have the potential to win it back. I hope we remain on this track. The way to beat terrorism is to undermine its support system from the public, not by force which inevitably acts to increase more hatred and hence makes recruiting easier.
It is also no surprise to hear the political right in the US also follow in the footsteps of Osama and for the same reason. An intelligent and successful centrist, or even left leaning political policy will undermine years of making the word "liberal" a bad word. As Rush Limbaugh stated several days ago on the Fox Sean Hannity show, speaking of the Obama Presidency, "I want him to fail." Indeed, just like for Osama, Limbaugh NEEDS Obama to fail or he looses his credibility as a political thinker. That this also means he wants the US to fail does not seem to bother to Mr. Limbaugh, as his priority is the ratings game, that is his business. That Mr. Hannity did not immediately jump in to denounce such an outrageous anti-American statement also tells us something. The fact is that Obama has potentially put Osama Bin Laden, anti-Americanism, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity (and Fox News generally with few exceptions), Glen Beck, and the other glib one dimensional pundits of the right on the wrong side of history and they are rightly terrified by it. This would include the pundits like Charles Krauthammer who advocated in print the sort of unilateralism that got us into the Iraq mess in the first place. They make their living by selling us on the fact that they know what they are talking about and more than that they have insight we should learn from and act under. The fact that they have been so wrong about things this past eight years is a serious problem for them. That is why they harp on the only two talking points that still they can fool us with. 1. that the surge worked (it was the financial surge of putting 90,000 Sunnis on the payroll that changed the game not the additional troops) and 2. that "Bush kept us safe", which is like closing the barn door after the horses have escaped. Under this logic ALL the Presidents after Roosevelt have kept us safe from foreign terrorists within the territorial United States EXCEPT Bush.
We might add the talking point that 'the Iraqis are happy and better off without that cruel dictator Saddam Hussein', like it is our job to rid the world of evil dictators.
In the first place, as bad as Saddam was, he was not in the league of many other dictators that we were happy to support, and indeed we supported him. All the atrocities that we blame him with have been highly exaggerated as this is necessary public relations to cover our reason for being in Iraq. The worst Saddam can be made to seem the more we can validate our invasion of Iraq. Sure, no question the world is a better place without him but what about the over 200,000 Iraqis that died because of our Iraq misadventure, not to mention the thousands who died (well documented) due to the sanctions we placed on him prior to the invasion.
To be blunt and amoral to make a point, Saddam kept a lid on his country rife with sectarian rivalries by targeted political assassination of anyone who posed a problem or a potential problem. His sons and his security forces (like ours) could cross the boundaries and that added to the abuses and killing. But in the harsh world of reality we are in fact talking small numbers on a yearly basis. This is th
 It is no surprise that Al Qaeda has launched an abuse offensive against Barak Obama... | | |
e exact same policy that the Turks used to keep a lid on Iraq for so long when it was under the Ottoman Empire. They actually put a number on what was necessary to do this, at "100 people a year". I certainly don't condone such a policy but compare that with the tens of thousands we have killed to accomplish the same thing. Big difference when you use that perspective.
Secondly where are we on the issue of Robert Mugabe, the Sudanese, and a number of other leaders that are destroying their countries and killing their people? I don't hear any talk of invading them. We are happy to do huge business with the Communist Chinese, a potential rival to US power if there ever was one, yet with little Cuba we wont talk to them at all and certainly do no business. Where is the consistency and moral statement the US is making to any of this?
It appears to me that across many walks of life in the US we have been following false profits and its all now coming home to roost. I would suggest that listening to the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Bill Kristol, Charles Krauthammer, fraline Colter, Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity is like listening to financial advice from Bernie Madoff. Sounds good at first especially when you don't dig deeper and know your subject but in the end its just plain hokum. These people actually don't KNOW anything.
I wish President Obama luck and hope he can stick to his ideals that won him the election. The world will be a lot safer if he does, and I for one will be glad to see the likes of Osama Bin Laden, Rush Limbaugh, and Sean Hannity get the discredit they so richly deserve.
More on Miles Copeland: When Miles Axe Copeland III was born on May 2, 1944, there was a very bright star in the sky, though no one is quite certain which star it was. There were also V-1 and V-2 rockets dropping in the near vicinity, as it was the height of the World War II blitz of London. Miles' father, Miles Axe Copeland, Jr., was stationed in England in the American army doing counter-intelligence for the O.S.S. (Office of Strategic Services), where he met and married Miles' future mother, Lorraine Adie, who was in British Intelligence S.O.E (Special Operations Executive). Miles' passport shows his birth date as April 2 because father Miles made a mistake on the original application. Throughout life, Miles has had surprise birthday parties thrown on April 2 and people wish him happy birthday one month early. Rarely has anyone, except close family, wished him happy birthday on May 2. (The psychological damage done to him due to this fluke is unknown)... Read on...
