After his disastrous Univision appearance last week and a gaffe-tastic “60 Minutes” interview Sunday night, President Obama sealed the deal on a trifecta of failed appearances today with a deeply offensive speech before the entire world at the United Nations.
In a speech Obama framed as a tribute to Chris Stevens, our murdered Libyan ambassador, the only mention the President made of the appalling and preventable security failures that left our ambassador, consulate, and three other Americans so vulnerable, was this bizarre and heartless passage: [emphasis added]
But the attacks of the last two weeks are not simply an assault on America. They are also an assault on the very ideals upon which the United Nations was founded – the notion that people can resolve their differences peacefully; that diplomacy can take the place of war; and that in an interdependent world, all of us have a stake in working towards greater opportunity and security for our citizens.
If we are serious about upholding these ideals, it will not be enough to put more guards in front of an Embassy; or to put out statements of regret, and wait for the outrage to pass. If we are serious about those ideals, we must speak honestly about the deeper causes of this crisis. Because we face a choice between the forces that would drive us apart, and the hopes we hold in common.
Today, we must affirm that our future will be determined by people like Chris Stevens, and not by his killers. Today, we must declare that this violence and intolerance has no place among our United Nations.
There are two elements of this passage that are outrageously offensive, the first obviously being the idea that guards in front of an embassy won’t make a difference; or at least any kind of difference that matters.
It was the anniversary of September 11, a top al-Qaeda operative had made direct threats to Americans in Libya, Stevens himself was worried about his personal security, and there appears to be intelligence that went ignored regarding the possibility of an attack. And yet, there were no Marines and no precautions taken when the anniversary of 9/11 alone should’ve been reason enough for heightened security.
And yet, in front of the world today, we have the man ultimately responsible for these security lapses holding up his helpless hands and telling us that security doesn’t matter — that it’s not about Marines guarding embassies but about something existential; one of those super-duper intelligent things where Obama talks at a level mere mortals can’t comprehend or appreciate.
In the wake of the preventable murder of four Americans at the hands of terrorists, how dare Obama even nudge the insinuation that it will “not be enough to put more guards in front of an Embassy.” It STARTS with Marines in front of embassies. It starts with Americans protecting their own at all costs and letting the world know just how high that cost will be if they dare attack.
Obama’s ideals will not protect an embassy from terrorists, but you can bet the United States Marines can.
Which brings me to the second outrageously offensive portion of the speech, and that’s this incredibly naïve idea that we are dealing with an ideology that can be negotiated with. Obama seems to think understanding and tolerance are antidotes to the pure undiluted evil responsible for the World Trade Center attack eleven years ago and the rape and murder of an American ambassador two weeks ago.
If you can’t grasp the concept of evil for the sake of evil, you can’t fight that evil. Sure, you can run a push-button war with drone strikes, but the moment you start touchy-feely encounter sessions with evil, all they smell is weakness.
And the result is exactly what we’re seeing in the Middle East today: Chaos, dead Americans, and al-Qaeda flags flying proudly over our embassies.
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