Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Hillary Clinton is the New Baghdad Bob




No need to worry guys, the Arab Spring is working just fine. Just listen to Hillary Clinton’s speech from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (via Jihad Watch) packed with absurdities like these.
For the United States, supporting democratic transitions is not a matter of idealism. It is a strategic necessity.
It might be more of a strategic necessity for China and Russia, considering that the democratic transition replaced allies with Islamist enemies. It’s obviously a strategic necessity for Huma Abedin and her friends. But it’s a strategic disaster for us.
And we will not return to the false choice between freedom and stability. And we will not pull back our support for emerging democracies when the going gets rough. That would be a costly strategic mistake that would, I believe, undermine both our interests and our values.
How would abandoning Islamists be a betrayal of either our interests or our values?
Do our interests lie with the Muslim Brotherhood? Do our values? Do Hillary Clinton’s values or interests align with movements that call for the destruction of Israel and oppose a woman or non-Muslim running Egypt.

So we have mobilized more than $1 billion in targeted assistance since the start of the revolutions. And the Obama Administration has requested from Congress a new $770 million fund that would be tied to concrete benchmarks for political and economic reforms. And I again urge Congress to move forward on this priority.
Yes, please Congress. Send more money so that the Muslim Brotherhood can dig deep into Egypt and turn it into another Iran.
Consider Tunisia, the birthplace of the Arab revolutions. Last year, an Islamist party won a plurality of the votes in an open, competitive election. I know some in Washington took this as an omen of doom. But these new leaders formed a coalition with secular parties and promised to uphold universal rights and freedoms, including for women
Yes and in private they were conspiring with Salafists to eliminate universal rights and freedoms as a recently released video shows.
But that’s okay, we’ll be sending them money anyway.
We’re establishing a Tunisian-American Enterprise Fund with an initial capitalization of $20 million to stimulate investment in the private sector and provide businesses with needed capital.  The Overseas Private Investment Corporation, OPIC, is offering $50 million in loans
Money. Who counts it anyway?
Egypt, of course, the largest Arab nation, cornerstone of the region, we’ve seen its new elected leadership say that the success of Egypt’s democratic transition depends on building consensus and speaking to the needs and concerns of all Egyptians, men and women, of all faiths and communities. Now, we stand with the Egyptian people in their quest for universal freedoms and protections. And we’ve made the point that Egypt’s international standing depends both on peaceful relations with its neighbors and also on the choices it makes at home and whether or not it fulfills its own promises to its own people.
In Diplospeak, this is Hillary Clinton cautiously backing away from endorsing the Muslim Brotherhood the way that she has the Tunisian Islamists. And that’s revealing already.
Today, these transitions are entering a phase that must be marked more by compromise than by confrontation, by politics more than protests. Politics that deliver economic reforms and jobs so that people can pursue their livelihoods and provide for their families. Politics that will be competitive and even heated, but rooted in democratic rules and norms that apply to everyone – Islamists and secularists, Muslims and Christians, conservatives and liberals, parties and candidates of every stripe. Everyone must reject violence, terrorism, and extremism; abide by the rule of law; support independent judiciaries; and uphold fundamental freedoms. Upholding the rights and dignity of all citizens, regardless of faith, ethnicity, or gender, should be expected.
Here’s where Hillary Clinton goes full Baghdad Bob. She’s laying out a program of how things have to be after admitting that she has no control over the process.
Why “must” everyone do all these things she says? Because otherwise America will stop sending money? Tunisian and Egyptian Islamists have quietly tolerated the persecution of women and Christians. And they still keep getting checks.
But back to Benghazi and the bungled and burgled consulate.
Diplomacy, by its nature has to be often practiced in dangerous places… Our people cannot live in bunkers and do their jobs.
Sure they can. They live in heavily secured facilities even in many allied countries. They live protected by United States Marines.
The question is why the Benghazi consulate had less security than places that were not under threat? But worry not, she’s on the case.
No one wants to find out exactly what happened more than I do.
I bet.

No comments: