Is this that “smart power” we’ve heard so much about? President Barack Obama has responded to the siege at the US embassy in Pakistan in the only way he knows how: By attacking free speech and sticking his mug in front of a camera.
Marked by the U.S. Embassy seal, advertisements condemning an anti-Islam video appeared on Pakistani television on Thursday in an apparent attempt to undercut anger against the United States, where the film was produced. Hundreds of youths, however, clashed with security officials as they tried in vain to reach the embassy in Islamabad amid anger in many countries over the film’s vulgar depiction of the Prophet Muhammad.
The advertisements appear to be an effort by the U.S. government to dampen chaos surrounding the film and undo some of the damage to America’s image in the Muslim world. Violence linked to the movie has left at least 30 people in seven countries dead, including the American ambassador to Libya. Two people have died in protests in Pakistan.
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The television ads in Pakistan feature clips of President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton during press appearances in Washington in which they condemned the video. Their words were subtitled in Urdu.
“We absolutely reject its content and message,” said Clinton in the advertisement.
A caption on the ad reads: “Paid Content.”
This president is unspeakably, dangerously, unbelievably narcissistic, foolish and incompetent.
Well, either that or he’s using current circumstances to take American prestige and our freedoms down another peg.
After watching his behavior over the last week, culminating with his campaign’s redesign of the American flag, I’m going with the latter. Plus the foolishness and narcissism.
Here’s something kind of interesting. On Twitter, someone asked me today about the UN Responsibility to Protect, or R2P doctrine. It’s the stated reason that Obama agreed with Valerie Jarrett, Susan Rice and Hillary Clinton and involved the US in that illegal war in Libya. While the US responsibility to protect foreign populations from their own murderous leaders is debatable, the president’s responsibility to protect US embassies abroad is not. Those embassies are sovereign US soil. They are currently under siege while this president pretends a film is the reason for it. This president is not protecting our embassies with anything more than a token show of naval power and his own grating face on Pakistani TV sets.
Great post. Now, the question is, which society is he trying to protect? The embassies on sovereign soil or the societies in those islamic countries?
Once the rioting gets out of control, we may have another Syria, more “genocide.” This is what the UN is looking at, not the paltry numbers holed up in the US embassies.
Who is the President serving through this apology? Where do his loyalties lie?
Obama’s face won’t stop the jihad, but it’s sure stopped the economy…
American soldiers are going to have to pay for this with their blood one day, because the Muslims will continue to be emboldened.
Just like 3000 folks paid with their blood on 9/11 because the Clinton administration did not kill bin Laden when they could have–and ignored other attacks.
An assumption here is that groveling in a TV ad will make things better. But Obama and Hillary make the US look weak in these ads. Moreover, they support the rioter’s premise that their rage is a legitimate response to this video. Finally, keeping the video front and center adds fuel to an already raging fire. All I can see is this video making things worse.