Germany’s Angela Merkel was there arm and arm with French President Francois Hollande. They were there to show solidarity in the face of the gruesome murders of the Charlie Hebdo journalists and policemen. Binyamin Netanyahu was there. So was Mahmoud Abbas, who was strangely smiling in a sea of glum faces. Also present was David Cameron. Mali’s President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita also went. Putin did not go, but sent his Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. King Abdullah II of Jordan also went along with many leaders from around the world.
But no Obama.
Joe Biden and John Kerry did not go too. Eric Holder was in town, but opted out. This strikes me as a deliberate act by Obama to snub the event. The question is ‘why’. His spokesman gave some lame excuse that the onerous security arrangements would have inconvenienced Parisians.
I think the real reason lies elsewhere. In my opinion, I think Obama was sending a message to Muslims that he sympathizes with their anger at those who mock their prophet. The attack on Charlie Hebdo was prompted by the cartoons about Prophet Mohammed.
In a speech following the Benghazi attack, Obama said, ‘The future must not belong to those who slander the Prophet of Islam.’ Mocking the Prophet of Islam was precisely what Charlie Hebdo was doing in their cartoons.
Obama may have lied about keeping your health care plans, red lines, transparency and many things, but he meant it when he made this promise to Muslims. Going to the Paris march himself or sending someone more high ranking that the US ambassador would have been construed by the jihadists and millions of Muslims who support them that Obama supports Charlie Hebdo’s right to lampoon their Prophet.
Obama, having lived in Muslim majority Indonesia, must understand Islam pretty well. He would surely know that criticizing their Prophet would enrage Muslims, sometimes to the point of violence. As I explained in my earlier article, there are a number of hadiths in which Prophet Mohammed ordered people to be killed for poking fun at him.
Lest there be doubt as to what mainstream Muslims feel about those who blaspheme their Prophet or insult Islam, here is a partial list:
1) The Salman Rushdie affair. The Ayatollah Khomeini gave him a death sentence for writing the book, ‘The Satanic Verses.’
2) Egyptian student, al-Banna got a three year sentence for atheism and insulting Islam.
3 ) Rally in Pakistan honored the Charlie Hebdo killers.
4) A Saudi blogger sentenced to 100 lashes and 10 years’ jail for insulting Islam.
5) Even in supposedly ‘secular’ Turkey, a composer Fazil Say, was convicted of insulting Islam on twitter.
6) In ‘moderate’ Indonesia, where Obama spent a few years of his life, an editor was charged for publishing a cartoon which Muslims consider as blasphemous. The chief editor faces a 5 year jail term instead of the death penalty, a requirement under sharia. I suppose that is why Indonesia is considered as ‘moderate’.
From this quick survey, you can see that the penalties for insulting Islam or its Prophet ranged from a prison sentence to the death penalty. Therefore, it seems the most likely explanation why Obama stayed away from the Paris march was because he knew that the majority of Muslims sympathized with the aims of the Charlie Hebdo killers. Some may not agree with the violence while others actually approve the killings. But nearly all Muslims agree with the aims, which was to stifle criticism of Islam and its Prophet.
The Paris march by one million people was also an affirmation of the values of the Enlightenment which includes free speech. Pity Obama decided to side with the Muslim world than with western civilization.
A successful businessman and author, Robert H. Lee has spent years extensively researching the history of nations for his book Saving Democracy from Suicide. (LINK: www.savingdemocracyfromsuicide.com) A self-professed Americaphile, Lee resides in Singapore with his family, but he previous lived in the United States where he went to the University of Michigan for his MBA.
We lose 12 artists and four Jews, and it is considered a tragedy, but we lose two thousand Nigerians in a day and it s a statistic. We are beginning to mimic Uncle Joe with our priorities. The village in Africa was Muslim, is that why it is ignored?
The Yadzizis (sic) are Christians, they are being ethnically cleansed from the face of the earth. The young girls perform sexual favors for the Muslim perverts who like the idea of slavery. Our Blacks and Leftists continue to point the finger at America and its beginning because of the slavery that was abolished over 150 years ago, but present-day slavery by the Muslims who sold a major portion of Africa into slavery is a pretty cool idea, especially when you think of blonde teenagers who can be made to perform any perversion under the guise of the prophet, well actually, if they are nine and you deem them ready for sexual intercourse, they are ready. What a quaint religion, it fires the libido of perverts and gives them license to unleash their inner desires. Yes, our president stands to protect a fine group, terrorists who aren’t really Muslims, but are given every opportunity to participate in their religious rites and while Osama would not be considered a true Muslim, his body is buried at sea with full Muslim honor and tradition.
And for our troubles, at least one out of three released Gitmo prisoners turns back to terror with a renewed dedication to kill Americans like you and me.
If the Muslim world had to elect our president, would they choose Obama?
I will be so happy when that name and smug profile are buried forever in the dustbin of negro history.
Be careful not to step on your knuckles as you leave.
Good one Greg! His arms are disproportionately longer than average!
Because the ill winds are blowing and obama is standing behind muslims.
That poor Saudi blogger is sentenced to 1,000 lashes, not 100.
He was supposed to get 50 a week but the Saudis are scared that will kill him, just more slowly than the thousand all at once.
So, they skipped today’s 50 to give his backside a chance to heal better than it had.
In ”moderate” Indonesia, where Obama spent a few years of his life, not only did an editor get prison time, but a Bible publisher has been put out of business, his life’s work confiscated and jail time simply because he used the term, ”Allah,” for ”God” in the Arabic version of the Holy Bible.
Yet, guess what? Allah is NOT a name, it is merely a title, meaning ”god.”
So, the publisher is ruined for using a term CORRECTLY!
Somehow, Islam pushed the truth of a matter to one side when ”insulting Islam” is concerned!
BTW, no where in all of Mo’s writings do we ever learn a Personal Name for his ”god.”
At least, in the Bible, God’s Name is repeated about 6,000 times as ”yhwh.”
Usually most Bibles use the title ”God” where it has the ”Tetragrammaton,” only in four places does the King James’ Bible place an English version of that personal name, Jehovah.
Who is Mo’s ”allah?”
Satan, is who he looks and acts like.
So how many American elected vonservatives were there ?
Maybe the French were still pissed at Americans over the. “Freedom fries”
Whoa! His prophet also. Once emaculated muslin, always muslin or now “apostate”. Can’t have that. By the way, does anyone know if there is room on Air Force 1 for a female centric, balloon tire bicycle and limp helmet?
@Skook: Yeah, you don’t want to insult this fine group by implying they hold some abhorrent views. Naahhh.
But, does ANYTHING confirm that this administration is comprised of nothing but a bunch of idealistic, out of touch, lived-too-long hippies than Kerry trotting out Taylor to sing a song to PROVE to France we are all in on the war on terror? While this draws harsh criticism from conservatives and anyone with a functioning brain, just imagine how the terrorist react. No doubt, they fear us even more now.
@Bill: Imagine being a terror cell commander in the U.S.. You are maintaining discipline among a hundred Middle East immigrants and recent converts from the black felon population of our prisons. They are all cutthroat killers who want to create havoc and mayhem within the borders of America, but your leaders want a foolproof plan that will deliver terror and death. Your troops are laughing at Obama’s response to the French atrocities, they want to join in and create their own death and destruction.
America’s allies are aghast at the response of crooning to victims and enemies with a folksinger, but Obama and Kerry see the move as a statement. They don’t hate the terrorists: they love the terrorists. They want to find out the problems America has caused, so that they can correct them, but for Obama’s great love and knowledge of all things Muslim, he doesn’t realize, they want to kill us and rape our women and girls. That is their mission. That is the foundation of their religion. So winning them over with a washed-up folksinger is like playing badminton in a typhoon, a total waste of time that makes you look stupid and impotent.
No way Obama could keep a straight face, pretending to be sad over dead men who dared either be Jewish or insulters of Islam.
Look what law he just broke in Jerusalem:
Fox guarding henhouse is an image that comes to mind.
Add to that the hens giving all the foxes tooth-and-claw sharpeners.
Is Obama stupid or just so pro-Islam he doesn’t care about more dead Ambassadors?