Does Anti-American Violence Mean Obama Has Failed?

[DonViejo]

-snip-

As he addresses the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday, President Obama no doubt will feel compelled to condemn the kind of opportunistic violence that led to the death this month of four Americans, including our ambassador to Libya.*
But the president should not dwell on this topic. For just as extremists are using the appearance of an anti-Islamic video on YouTube as an excuse to fan violence and anti-American hatred across the Arab world, Obama’s opponents are using it at home to attempt to draw a direct line between the president’s decision to tip the balance against the dictatorial Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in early 2011 and the death of Americans in Libya.*

Granted, a presidential election campaign is in full swing, and Israel’s less-subtle supporters always viewed Obama’s refusal to help prop up Mubarak as reckless and more evidence of his lack of concern for Israel’s security.

But claiming, as the American right currently does, that Obama has appeased American enemies and caused chaos with a needless intervention in Libya is not only incorrect factually, it’s also contradictory. How is it the same voices so eager to plunge into the carnage in Syria—a far more complex and difficult intervention case—seem to believe that the existence of anti-American factions in post-Qaddafi Libya proves we should never have supported rebels there?

What nonsense. Anti-Americanism has deep roots in the Arab world that will not be addressed with a few nice words and subtle shifts of policy. Surely, the first step down that road is ending the practice of lavish support for Arab rulers who torture and repress their people?

-snip-

Read more
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_reckoning/2012/09/25/does_anti_american_violence_mean_obama_has_failed_.html

[pinto]

1. No.

[monmouth]

2. No..n/t