Obama’s Muslim speech
My brief reaction to Barack Obama’s speech to Muslims in Cairo last week:
- Fairly innocuous and fawning in most respects, with a lot of verbiage and little concrete material. In other words, typical political speech full, unfortunately, of politically correct language (“extremists” instead of “terrorists”).
- Irritating in some respects. Each time he would bring up an issue, such as human rights, he would talk about what the U.S. has done rather than the problems that exist in Muslim nations. On the other hand, perhaps he was just getting the thought into their heads and then trying to say, “Hey, we’re doing our part, now you do yours.”
- He promised to make a particular effort to help Muslims, especially Muslim students, to have economic success in the U.S. Why not all foreign students or all students of all religious backgrounds?
UPDATE: As pointed out at jihadwatch.com, Obama also claimed for Islam a “tradition of tolerance” that doesn’t exist. That’s clear from the many Christians, Jews, Baha’is and others that Muslims have persecuted, sometimes violently. Anytime they didn’t in a Muslim-run nation, it was only because a dhimmi tax was paid by the non-Muslims. This statement by Obama is either a result of ignorance or an attempt to whitewash Islamic history.
Good insights on the Israel content of the speech here.
