The Arrogance of Appeasement; The Appeasement of Arrogance

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Obama Busily Appeasing Jihadists
by Robert Spencer
04/30/2009

“To the Muslim world,” said Barack Obama in his Inaugural Address, “we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect.” After 100 days, how’s that going? Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad summed it up best, responding contemptuously to Obama’s offer to sit down to talk without preconditions and taunting Obama for his impotence: “We say to you that you yourselves know that you are today in a position of weakness. Your hands are empty, and you can no longer promote your affairs from a position of strength.” Ahmadinejad is also turning Obama’s campaign promise against him. When Obama indicated that he wouldn’t impose preconditions on negotiations with Iran, the Iranian saw an opening. Now, he’s apparently demanding preconditions for the talks by pressuring Obama for concessions on the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
Iran’s Thug-In-Chief spoke like an aggressor who has spotted an appeaser, and is determined to wring from him as many concessions as possible. How has it come to this so quickly? Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano seem to have made it a top priority of their administration’s opening act to weaken our position with the Islamic jihadists:
• They quietly dropped the term “war on terror.” Napolitano even went so far as to say that she preferred to refer not to acts of “terrorism” but to “man-caused disasters” (NOW had no recorded comment about her sexist language). Meanwhile, a DHS report on “right-wing extremists” had no trouble referring to veterans and conservatives of all kinds as potential “terrorists.” This suggested a disquieting will to silence and demonize the political opposition, all the while regarding the real terror threat with extraordinary myopia.

• Obama named Los Angeles Times columnist Rosa Brooks as an advisor to the undersecretary of Defense for policy. Brooks is venomously anti-Israel and once wrote that al Qaeda was “little more than an obscure group of extremist thugs,” and that the Bush Administration had only imagined that it was a “vast global threat.”

• He has tapped Harold Koh to become the legal adviser for the State Department. Koh has said that he had no objection to Sharia’s being applied to “an appropriate case” in the United States.

• In a startling breach of protocol, Obama bowed deeply to the King of Saudi Arabia, implying an obeisance that isn’t going to free us from our dependence upon the oil sheikhs any time soon.

• While on a trip to Europe, he refused to visit the American Cemetery at Normandy, but made a point of visiting a mosque in Istanbul. He expressed, in an address to the Turkish Parliament, his “deep appreciation for the Islamic faith, which has done so much over the centuries to shape the world—including in my own country.” It’s unclear how he thinks Islam has shaped the U.S., other than to lead to innovations in airport security. His statement did nothing but embolden the jihadists who have dedicated their efforts to bringing Islamic law to the West.

• Obama said also that “the United States is not and never will be at war with Islam” -- indicating that he had no intention of addressing the ideological challenge that Islamic jihadists present to the West, or of acknowledging the fact that although the U.S. is not at war with Islam, many Muslims consider Islam to be at war with the U.S.

• Obama invited to the White House the head of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, a 56-nation body that has declared its intention to compel the United Nations to criminalize all criticism of Islam.

• He has declared his determination to open negotiations with “moderate elements” of the Taliban, despite the fact that no such people have ever been found.

• He has declared his determination to close Guantanamo, despite the fact that over 60 former Gitmo detainees have returned to the jihad.All this and more in just 100 days. The Obama Administration apparently doesn’t know the difference between appeasement and diplomacy. A diplomat will sell you and your nation for a price. An appeaser will give it away without getting anything in return.

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=31671