“Obama, Obama, there are still a billion Osamas!” (Shouted in Cairo today- Andrew McCarthy)
The Corner at NRO ^ | September 11, 2012 | Andrew McCarthy
Posted on Tuesday, September 11, 2012 6:47:16 PM by SE Mom
Nina is exactly right that the appalling statement issued by the Obama State Department, apparently prior to the storming of the U.S. embassy in Cairo today, betrays the president’s agenda to impose on Americans sharia speech suppression standards in blatant violation of the First Amendment. That, however, is far from the most egregious part of today’s episode in Egypt.
To attack another country’s embassy is an act of war. Now, some will be quick to point out that our embassy was not attacked by the Egyptian regime. That is no defense. Everybody was on notice that there might be rioting today. It was in anticipation that there could be trouble that the State Department issued its despicable statement — putting the onus for violence on American free speech rather than Islamist savagery. Further, it was almost exactly a year ago that an Egyptian mob stormed the Israeli embassy in Cairo, doing almost exactly what they did today: scaling the embassy walls, tearing down the Israeli flag, and replacing it with their own flag.
In that instance, as in today’s, the Egyptian regime could have made certain that the embassy was secure. It chose not to. Unlike the Israelis, however, we actually pay the Egyptians nearly $1.5 billion a year in military aid — funding Obama not only continued under circumstances where it was obvious Egypt would be ruled by anti-American Islamic supremacists, but also which the president would now have our bankrupt government complement with yet another billion dollars in economic assistance.
What are we getting for this largesse? Egypt has renewed relations with Iran, is seeking to purchase submarines from Germany that could be used to attack Israeli assets, is re-militarizing the Sinai in violation of the Camp David Accords, and now cannot — actually, would not — even protect our embassy. And all this against a background in which the Muslim Brotherhood’s Supreme Guide, Mohammed Badi, called for violent jihad against the United States in 2010, cheered that excursions into Afghanistan and Iraq have put America in its death throes, and reaffirmed — after the Muslim Brotherhood’s electoral victories — the Brotherhood’s ultimate goal of a global caliphate governed by sharia.
Egypt is an enemy of the United States. We wanted free elections and we got them. What they have given us, as I argue in my imminent new book, Spring Fever: The Illusion of Islamic Democracy, is an Egyptian regime that reflects Egypt’s Islamic supremacist population — among the world’s worst human rights violators.
“Obama, Obama, there are still a billion Osamas!” they cried today as they attacked our embassy, shredded our flag, and replaced it with the al Qaeda flag — the one so popular with the “rebels” in Libya and Syria. One of the 9/11 hijackers was an Egyptian, as is the current leader of al Qaeda, as is the Blind Sheikh. A real ally would be embarrassed. An enemy marks the day like Egypt did. The Obama administration marked the day by apologizing for free speech and declining a presidential audience to the prime minister of Israel — our actual ally in the region. President Obama’s calendar is very busy after all: between campaigning and rounds of golf, he’s blocked a day to roll out the red carpet for Egypt’s new president.
Is it too much to hope that the Romney campaign might see an opportunity here to make a point about American national security and foreign policy under Obama? Remember back in 2002, back when we were following the original “with us or against us” Bush Doctrine — back before the doctrine was warped by delusional visions of sharia democracy? Here’s the question: Would they have dared storm the American embassy in Cairo on September 11, 2002?
