Well, guess I wasn't the only one to view Obama's Muslim speech in particular and his approach to foreign policy in general with alarm and extreme skepticism. This from an Israeli op-ed piece in Jerusalem Post:
Anything not in keeping with Obama's visions of sugarplums - even killjoy genocidal aggression - can presumably be overcome by expressions of affection and therapeutic introspection. That's what progressive professors inculcated into Obama, and why he now atones to ungrateful Europeans and hostile Muslims for supposed American conceit. That's why he intimates Israel had been "disrespectful" of the pitiable Palestinians who failed in their tireless efforts to obliterate it. We Israelis are just the victims of an anomaly, a complex of gross irrationality.
To achieve enlightenment and rehabilitation in the eyes of those who know better, we need only cease seeing the worst in our mortal enemies. We must stop focusing on Arab media's harangues against us, on mosque sermons demonizing Jews and on kindergarten exhortations to please Allah by slaying Israeli infidels.
Only if we plug our ears and put blinders on will we regain normalcy and acceptance. Obama-speak compromise obliges Israel to take existential risks. Arab cooperation requires they wait patiently for Israeli suicide rather than rush in for the precipitous slaughter.
Coated with enough sugar, this poison pill appears the perfect cure. Refusal to swallow it becomes unreasonable rejectionism, which upsets the delicate international equilibrium.
Of course, the Post is a puppet of the Israeli right - but tell me what media source isn't a factional puppet these days? If you don't have an agenda you don't an audience and you don't have profits. Suppose it's always been this way so complaining about it possibly a little tired or naive.
Still, op-ed in Washington Post illustrated somewhat above's point, as writer claimed the genius of Obama is that he rejected entirely the 'clash of civilizations' template. But that's my problem with him: he wants a rhetorical victory because every victory of note in his life has been rhetorical: he's smart, he went to a good school, got a law degree and got a good job - that's what a lot of smart people in America tend to do; he became a social activist - a lot of smart, left wing types with law degrees tend to do that; he went into politics - a lot of smart, ambitious people with law degrees who don't want to practice law and who don't have business skills tend to do that. Admirable accomplishments? Sure. Special? No. Once you strip away the theatrics, the rhetorical victories, the ambition, there's not much there of interest. He wants it to be about Huntington et al and how they see the world because that's how he sees the world, as a verbal construct vulnerable to his charms - and why not? that's how he got to where he is, that's a battle he feels comfortable fighting because it comports with his narrative of the world and of himself. Unfortunately, the narrative has little real value outside of his narrow and superficial uses of it - Huntington didn't create the underlying realities and circumstances of 'civilization', he just interpreted them - nothing wrong with disagreeing with his interpretation, but in the end all you're doing is replacing one point of view with another - the circumstances remain and will insist on their own interpretation as far as the ways of the world go.
Nothing wrong with a debate of ideas - but it's not going to help you much when the barbarians are hammering at the gates. My problem with Obama, with the left in general, is that they not only want to believe, need to believe that that's not true - they in fact do believe it - it's all about getting people to buy into a narrative that's in the end ideological self promotion - new would be philosophes of a new would be enlightenment: "if only people could be made to see the world as we see it everything would be fine" - then along comes the reign of terror, Napoleon, 100 year of political stagnation, the rise of capitalism and a feast of crudities, Marxism, Fascism, two ruinous world wars and one not so ruinous cold one... you get the point... although the funny thing is a true philosophe would answer "if you had only listened to me..."
But at least I understand where the enlightenment boys were coming from, I can see how if you were a smart young man of means in that century how you might convince yourself of a certain conceit concerning progress - new worlds literally were being discovered, astounding things were indeed afoot - I get it - which only adds vigor to my query: what the fuck is Obama talking about?
