A foreign perspective of President Obama

reprinted in part from the Jerusalem Post:

As he suffocated to death at the US consulate in Benghazi on the 11th anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the US, did ambassador Christopher Stevens understand why he and his fellow Americans were being murdered?

Chris Stevens arrived in Benghazi at just as Muammar Gaddafi was ousted.  It was apparent then as the rebels with whom he worked included jihadist fighters associated with al-Qa'ida. Their significance became obvious when the rebel forces hoisted the flag of al-Qa'ida over the courthouse in Benghazi to celebrate their victory.

Did Stevens understand what this meant? Perhaps. But his boss, Hillary Clinton, certainly didn't. Following Tuesday's attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, Clinton said, "Today, many Americans are asking - indeed, I asked myself - how could this happen? How could this happen in a country we helped liberate, in a city we helped save from destruction? This question reflects just how complicated and, at times, how confounding the world can be."

Clinton then proclaimed with utter certainty there was nothing to be concerned about. "We must be clear-eyed, even in our grief. This was an attack by a small and savage group, not the people or government of Libya," she said.  Of course, what she failed to mention was that after the rebels felled Gaddafi's regime - with US support - they began imposing Islamic law over the country.

  

And Clinton was not the only senior US official who didn't understand.  The day after the murders, General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff called pastor Terry Jones in Florida and asked him to withdraw his support for the film he believed Mohammed negatively. Dempsey's belief that a third-rate riff on Mohammed supported by a marginal figure in Florida is the cause of the terrorist attacks on US embassies is not simply shocking. It is devastating.

It means that this senior military officwr is of the opinion that the party to blame for the embassy assaults was an American pastor. That film apparently was released about a year ago and received little notice until last month when a Egyptian television station broadcast it.  If the film had never been created, they would have found another - equally ridiculous - pretext.

And here we come to the nature of the attacks against America that occurred on the 11th anniversary of the September 11 Jihadist attacks.  It is obvious that the rioting that is still taking place makes clear these were not acts of spontaneous rage about an amateur internet movie. They were premeditated.  

And in Egypt, the mob was led by Muhammad al-Zawahiri, the brother of al-Qa'ida chief Ayman al-Zawahiri.  The day before the attacks, al-Qa'ida released a video of Ayman al-Zawahiri in which he called for his followers to attack the US in retribution for the killing in June of his second-in-command Abu Al Yahya al-Libi by a US drone in Pakistan. Zawahiri asked for the strongest act of retribution to be carried out in Libya.

The US's first official response to the assault on its embassy in Cairo came in the form of an embassy Twitter feed apologizing to Muslims for the film.

As for the attack in Libya, it apparently came as no surprise to some US officials on the ground. In an online posting the night before he was killed, US Foreign Service information officer Sean Smith warned of the impending strike. Smith wrote, "Assuming we don't die tonight. We saw one of our 'police' that guard the compound taking pictures."

The co-ordinated, premeditated nature of the attack was self-evident. The assailants were armed with rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns. They knew the location of the secret safe house to which the US consular officials fled. They laid ambush to a marine force sent to rescue the 37 Americans hiding at the safe house. 

Yet Clinton and Dempsey could not fathom why the attack occurred.  Like Dempsey, the US media was swift to focus the blame for the attacks on the film.

By Wednesday afternoon the media shifted the focus of discussion on the still ongoing attacks from the film to an all-out assault on Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney for his temerity in attacking as "disgraceful" the administration's initial apologetic response to the attacks on the embassies.

With President Barack Obama's inauguration, American foreign policy shifted.  Obama and his advisers agree that jihadist Islam is the predominant force in the Muslim world. But in their imaginary world, jihadist Islam is a good thing for America.

Hence Obama believes that Israel - the first target of jihadist Islam's bid for global supremacy - is a strategic burden rather than an ally to the US.  Obama abandoned its most stalwart ally in the Arab world, then supported the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood to power in the most strategically vital state in the Arab world.

And Obama supported a Libyan rebel force penetrated by al-Qa'ida which is setting the stage for the re-institution of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.

It is impossible to know the thoughts that crossed Stevens's mind as he lay dying in Benghazi. But what is clear enough is that as long as imagination reigns supreme, freedom will be imperiled.