-By Gary Krasner
Imagine.
The Muslim gang who raped Obama’s wife announced that they raped her as punishment, because she had not covered her head in public, as Islamic law requires.
At a news conference, President Obama announced that while he respects all beliefs, and does not wish to denigrate the opinions of the rapists who say that women must be modestly attired, he also stated that there is absolutely no justification for this type of senseless rape of Michelle. None.
The above incident never happened. But thanks to former CNN correspondent Bernard Shaw, we have a precedent for pondering such parallels, when Shaw proffered such a hypothetical scenario when he questioned presidential candidate Michael Dukakis during the debates.
However, Obama’s hypothetical answers may look familiar to you. That’s because he actually uttered those words in his reaction to the invasion of our Libyan embassy in Benghazi, Libya, and the murders of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans there. (The next day we learned that Stevens was raped and tortured to death.)
This is what Obama actually said on September 12, one day after the attacks and after the 911 anniversary:
The United States condemns in the strongest terms this outrageous and shocking attack. Since our founding, the United States has been a nation that respects all faiths. We reject all efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others. But there is absolutely no justification to this type of senseless violence. None. The world must stand together to unequivocally reject these brutal acts.
This was part of Obama’s first statement in response to the first assassination of a US ambassador in over 4 decades. And it was disgraceful. HOW SO? There happens to be a small issue and a larger issue involved here.
That smaller issue may be obvious to those who perceive words in their literal meaning. You cannot, for example, claim that an action is “unequivocally” wrong, yet in the same breath state that there’s “no justification” for it. Something that is unequivocally wrong is something in which conditions cannot even be contemplated, let alone be applied. But that changes once you add that justification is, or is not, warranted. Because it shows that justification was contemplated! The “no justification” clause dilutes the power of the “unequivocal” clause.
Indeed, in remarks that followed this September 12th news conference, Obama, Hilary, and other officials, including the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon, had all evaluated the content of the video trailer that offended Muslims, and agreed with the Muslim assailants that the video was despicable and atrocious and denigrated a great religion. But by merely viewing and evaluating the content of the video for possible justification for the violence committed, that alone negated their claim that the violence committed was “unequivocally” wrong.
I have no intention, by contrast to the the Administration, of either viewing this video, or even commenting that it lacks justification for violence, because I don’t need to—-because my rejection of violence in response to free expression of ideas is literally unequivocal and unconditional. Apparently in a way that the Administration’s is not.
There were only two acceptable kinds of responses to the violence: Either you don’t mention the killer’s justifications at all (the mocking of their religion) in your condemnation of their actions (which would be the true unequivocal stand), or else when you do mention the killer’s justifications, rather than commiserate with their complaint—by stating that you respect their beliefs and reject those who would denigrate them—instead you defend the free speech rights of the victim of the violence.
Had Obama, the supposed great communicator, wished to be effective in defending the Constitution and the right of Americans to speak freely, he would have expressed outrage SOLELY at the actions of the killers, and would not have commiserated with them over the CONTENT of the free speech—-the very justification they were supposed to be unequivocally dismissing! In other words, Obama should have defended the Constitution, which he had sworn to do, and not defend the sectarian laws of Sharia, which he is expressly NOT required to do.
But what about the larger issue? That’s where it gets worse.
When an action is so horrifying and appalling (or “outrageous and shocking” as obama stated) as murder or rape is, then you must NEVER commiserate with the offenders!
But that is what Obama had done. He had juxtaposed free speech with rape and murder. He spoke out against free speech (if Muslims find it insulting), and in later speeches, he condemned the video in specific terms, while in the same breath insisting that the murder and rape of Ambassador Stevens was not justified.
Jews may find this moral equivalence familiar, when the mainstream media juxtaposes the unprovoked suicide bombings and rocket attacks on israeli civilians, with the military response by the IDF, along with increased security measures (protective fence and check points). The two are NOT comparable, yet the news media and anti-zionists refer to it as the “cycle of violence.”
This betrayal of free speech by liberals was demonstrated by one of Obama’s politically correct disciples. Only it was worse, because his condemnation of the free speech was greater than the murders of innocent Americans. On the morning of September 21, 2012, Mayor Mike Bloomberg was interviewed on the John Gambling radio show. (go to the WOR archives.) Bloomberg described the anti Islam movie trailer as “despicable”, but he called the riots and murders “disgraceful”. Look up the definitions of each word. He considered a movie with actors playing a part far worse than the real and actual murder and rape of an american ambassador and the violation of american sovereignty.
And that is why the parallels to the hypothetical rape of Michelle are helpful in understanding why Obama’s comments were wrong and injurious to free people in the US and the world. The similarities are striking. Obama’s response to the rape of Michelle, in similar fashion to the rioters in Libya and Egypt, was to commiserate with her rapists. He OPENLY agrees with their rationale that women should be modestly attired, and he doesn’t support those who denigrate such beliefs, which had undermined the second clause—-that there was “absolutely no justification for this type of senseless rape.”
There are no shortages of analogies. I just used the rape analogy because Ambassador Stevens was also raped, and because we as a society have completely dismissed any scintilla of justification for this crime. You don’t rape women—-period! If you claim as a defense that the woman was provocatively dressed, that would just ensure your conviction by the jury, and not mitigate the charges.
If Obama learned that a child was sexually abused, would he have said that there was no justification for it?! No. But he does say, TO THE WORLD, that there’s no justification for raping and torturing to death on video our ambassador—–who represents our nation. Yet he didn’t express the same zero-tolerance for killing innocent embassy people because one of their fellow countrymen back home expressed his opinion on video?
Or suppose someone killed your brother over a verbal insult. The killer seeks legitimacy by citing justification—-the fact that he was insulted. The way he can obtain that justification is to have you listen to the words of the insult—-just like Obama had to have seen the anti Islam video, in order for him to have rendered judgment on it. But the correct response is to raise your hand and say, I will not hear it, because there is no verbal slight that could possibly justify killing another person.
The incorrect response would be to listen to the killer recite the insult to you, before you render judgment. Why is it incorrect? Because merely listening to the complaint conveys to the killer and audience that there may be an insult that MIGHT justify his extreme response. Otherwise, why mention it at all? Stated in the opposite way, if you want to convey a message that there exists an insult that WOULD justify murder, then you would listen to the insult that triggered the reaction.
That is why Obama has no moral character: In order to commiserate with the murderers of Ambassador Stevens with his condemnation of the video about Mohammed, he had to have watched the video. He then announced that he thought it was a deplorable video, and that it wrongly denigrated their beliefs. Then came the moral equivalence: That despite being deplorable, it didn’t justify the killing and torturing of innocent Americans.
He didn’t say that the killing and torture of real people was deplorable. Only that it was unjustified. He saved his harshest criticism for play actors mocking a religious figure in a video.
A genuine leader would have announced that he would not even have considered rendering an opinion of someone’s right to free speech, in any context in which it is weighed against the claimed right to kill and torture innocent third parties—–let alone the speech makers. IT WAS THE KILLING THAT RENDERED ANYTHING ABOUT THE VIDEO ITSELF TOTALLY MOOT!!
What Obama had done was dishonor our nation, our values, and the slain American Ambassador and those private contractors who died trying to save his life.
Obama prefers to bully the weak (an American speaking freely) and be a toady to the powerful (Muslim rioters and their Islamist governments). A weak american citizen vs the ummah, from which Obama was raised as a child.
Rather than rendering a judgment about the movie, Obama should have focused squarely on the reprehensible and deplorable (NOT “unjustified”!) acts of murder. Obama SHOULD have said:
You can enforce your values, such as they are, upon your own people. But you cannot enforce those values on Americans. We have our own values. They are the values of John Locke, the political philosopher who believed that society will advance and flourish only if we tolerate those whose beliefs we hate. As president, I am sworn to defend every american’s right to freely express his views, ESPECIALLY in the face of threats of violence.
But he didn’t. In effect, he apologized by expressing solidarity with the muslim mob’s anger, by condemning a fellow American’s free speech.
We have a president who cannot admit that Islam could be at war with the US while he’s president, so he adopts the PRETEXT used by the rapists and killers of our ambassador—-that it was instigated by some obscure video that an american private citizen produced.
And no one should be surprised at this. We saw previews of this cowardly stance with Obama’s Orwellian redefining “Islamic terrorism” as “man-caused disasters”, and the “war on Islamic jihad” as “overseas contingency operations”. Also, to avoid angering our enemies, he calls the Muslim Brotherhood “a mostly secular organization” and invites it’s terrorist leaders to the White House and endorse their candidates in Egyptian elections. He invited them to his speech in Cairo in 2009, against the prophetic warning of Egyptian President Mubarak.
And the result? Any child who spent time in a playground in any tough neighborhood could have predicted it. Weakness is a provocation.
On September 19, Egypt’s chief prosecutor issued arrest warrants against eight US citizens, based on their alleged involvement in the production of the Internet movie critical of the prophet Mohammed. Egypt’s general prosecution issued a statement announcing that the eight US citizens have been indicted on charges of insulting and publicly attacking Islam, spreading false information, and harming Egyptian national unity. They could face the death penalty if convicted.
The aim was clear. As Salafi attorney Mamdouh Ismail stated, the indictment will “set a deterrent for them and anyone else who may fall into this.” The aim was to deter Americans from exercising free speech that they deem critical of Islam.
Yussuf Qaradawi, who heads the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt—-the party Obama had supported—-urged in a sermon 3 days following the murder of Ambassador Stevens, that Muslims insist that the US place prohibitions on the free speech rights of American citizens by outlawing criticism of Islam—just as the Europeans have done in recent years in the face of Islamic terror and intimidation.
And what was President Obama’s response to Egypt’s call for the abolition of freedom of speech in America?
Silence.