Posted by
Cary Wesberry on Sunday, July 13, 2008 5:27:21 PM
Of coures Obama would never use the term "Islamic fascism", for him the term is "Islamic extremism". Heaven-forbid he names the enemy for what it is and what sort of ideology they subscribe to. The excerpt below shows how Obama really views the war against Islamic fascism not as a war against approximately 100,000,000 radical Islamists, but as more of a World Court criminal justice situation. One thing that is refreshing however; Obama is open to handing down the death penalty to Osama Bin Laden if he is convicted. So don't worry, we have that going for us. Here's part of the interview Barack Obama gave to Fareed Zakaria at CNN:
ZAKARIA: Do you believe, when looking at the world today, that Islamic extremism is the transcendent challenge of the 21st century?
OBAMA: I think the problems of terrorism and groups that are resisting modernity, whether because of their ethnic identities or religious identities, and the fact that they can be driven into extremist ideologies, is one of the severe threats that we face.
I don't think it's the only threat that we face.
ZAKARIA: But how do you view the problem within Islam? As somebody who saw it in Indonesia ... the largest Muslim country in the world?
OBAMA: Well, it was interesting. When I lived in Indonesia -- this would be '67, '68, late '60s, early '70s -- Indonesia was never the same culture as the Arab Middle East. The brand of Islam was always different.
But around the world, there was no -- there was not the sense that Islam was inherently opposed to the West, or inherently opposed to modern life, or inherently opposed to universal traditions like rule of law.
And now in Indonesia, you see some of those extremist elements. And what's interesting is, you can see some correlation between the economic crash during the Asian financial crisis, where about a third of Indonesia's GDP was wiped out, and the acceleration of these Islamic extremist forces.
It isn't to say that there is a direct correlation, but what is absolutely true is that there has been a shift in Islam that I believe is connected to the failures of governments and the failures of the West to work with many of these countries, in order to make sure that opportunities are there, that there's bottom-up economic growth.
You know, the way we have to approach, I think, this problem of Islamic extremism ... is we have to hunt down those who would resort to violence to move their agenda, their ideology forward. We should be going after al Qaeda and those networks fiercely and effectively.
But what we also want to do is to shrink the pool of potential recruits. And that involves engaging the Islamic world rather than vilifying it, and making sure that we understand that not only are those in Islam who would resort to violence a tiny fraction of the Islamic world, but that also, the Islamic world itself is diverse.
And that lumping together Shia extremists with Sunni extremists, assuming that Persian culture is the same as Arab culture, that those kinds of errors in lumping Islam together result in us not only being less effective in hunting down and isolating terrorists, but also in alienating what need to be our long-term allies on a whole host of issues.
ZAKARIA: If U.S. forces in Afghanistan captured Osama bin Laden, what would you do with him, and you were president?
OBAMA: Well, I think that, if he was -- if he was captured alive, then we would make a decision to bring the full weight of not only U.S. justice, but world justice down on him. And I think that -- and I've said this before -- that I am not a cheerleader for the death penalty. I think it has to be reserved for only the most heinous crimes. But I certainly think plotting and engineering the death of 3,000 Americans justifies such an approach.
Now, I think this is a big hypothetical, though. Let's catch him first. And the fact that we have failed to seriously go after al Qaeda over the last five years, because of the distraction of Iraq, I think we are now seeing the consequences of that in Afghanistan.
That's not the only problem we have in Afghanistan. We have not dealt with the narco-trafficking that's taking place there. We have not provided farmers there an option beyond poppy. I think the Karzai government has not gotten out of the bunker and helped organize Afghanistan and government, the judiciary, police forces, in ways that would give people confidence.
So, there are a lot of problems there. But a big chunk of the issue is that we allowed the Taliban and al Qaeda to regenerate itself when we had them on the ropes. That was a big mistake, and it's one I'm going to correct when I'm president.
I find it interesting how Obama makes sure to note that terrorism comes from groups resisting modernity based on their ethnic and religious identities. Let's not get too specific there Barack. This sort of generalizing is done to herd people into believing there are many other groups in the world engaged in terrorism, even at the same level as Islamic fascists. Which groups are those exactly? What other groups of terrorists are blowing up buildings around the world and beheading infidels, along with their own people, under the fascistic rule of national socialism based upon one religion and one ideology? I must have missed the mass murder committed by the Buddhist Brigade of Moral Authority or the constant suicide bombings from the Hindu High Honor Guard of Virtue.
The New Messiah then goes on to say there is a correlation between poverty and Islamic terror, then states there is no direct correlation between poverty and Islamic terror. So which is it? For Obama I guess it's both depending on which answer suits him at the time. In this particular interview both answers suited him one right after the other. Can that even be considered a response? I call it incoherent babbling. Fareed Zakaria seems to eat it up though.
So how does Obama plan to deal with the problem of Islamic terrorists? He thinks we should aggressively hunt down al-Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden and bring them to trial in either a U.S. court or a world court, or both. Apparently Barack hasn't been paying attention to what our soldiers are doing in Afghanistan every day of their lives for the last five or six years. U.S. soldiers put themselves purposely in the line of fire of al-Qaeda and the Taliban in order to draw the enemy out into a fight and kill them. Again, this happens almost every day. Obama obviously doesn't feel that is enough aggression and wants to be more proactive by sending in more troops, or so he leads us to believe. If that's the case then why not take soldiers out of Germany and Japan instead of jeopardizing operations in Iraq? Fareed doesn't quite get that far in this interview, though I'm sure he has it on the top of his list for the next one.
After hunting down and killing terrorists, something he believes no one else has been doing apparently, Obama says we must engage Islam peacefully instead of "villifying" it. We must understand their culture and that Sunnis and Shiites are not the same. We must understand that the Persians in Iran are not like the people of Syria. In short, Barack Obama plans to send an army of cultural anthropologists into the Middle-East on a fact-finding friend-building mission so that America can understand how all our troubles with Islamic fascists are really due to our misunderstanding of their culture. It's okay to accuse a woman of anything you like because she made you mad so you can have her stoned to death by an angry mob of people who simply misunderstand their own religion. Obama is even more brilliant than I could have ever imagined.
On top of it all, Barack says the Afghans are growing too much opium. He wants to teach them to grow something else instead. Like wheat or corn or brussel sprouts. Believe it or not, opium is used in many prescription drugs which are approved and completely legal. I know it's hard for a former dope smoker like Obama to understand, but opium is not just used to make heroin for anarchist college students. Instead of taking away Afghanistan's only crop, how about we teach the farmers to sell their opium to someone else besides narcotics traffickers so we don't have to completely destroy the nation's economy.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the next President of the United States! The man whose foreign policy will surely change the face of the planet.