Curmudgeon's Corner

No Coincidence; This Was A 9/11 Celebration!

Posted by Al Campbell on Sept. 12, 2012

U.S., Political, Quality of Life, People Making A Difference

The Middle East difficulties, if killings can be termed ‘difficulties’, of last evening were no coincidence.  These ‘incidents’ occurred on 9/11, on the anniversary of among the worst incursions on America’s soil that we have witnessed in several lifetimes.  Egypt and Libya are Islamist strongholds and those countries permitted outrageous conduct by their citizenry without any visible effort to intervene to protect American soil.  By all indications, the actions of those riotous citizens were actually condoned by the governments.

Our government was also ‘missing in action’ while this was occurring and following the actual occurrences.  A lame, at best, statement by our Secretary of State who reports directly to the President made no mention of anything but our regret at the loss of life.  Instead of the near-apology, that statement should’ve been made by our President who should also have made it very clear that this will not be permitted to occur without ramifications.

This has been handled by a person who had no foreign policy experience when he was elected and the statement made earlier today by the would be President was much more indicative of what an appropriate response sounds like.  The claim that Romney couldn’t handle foreign policy just lost its steam.

What, might you ask, are the things we could’ve done and could still do?  We could tie the actions of those governments to the aid we provide, for starters.  We will no doubt continue to pour money down those two drains as we apologize for our Christian heritage in the face of Islamist protesters.

Our ‘Mr. Nice Guy’ approach hasn’t worked.  That is obvious to even a neophyte; it ought to be very painfully obvious to our leadership.  If we are to continue to support those governments, then we ought to get our money’s worth.  We seem to think that by continuing to pour more and more money into a country no matter its actions toward us that we will eventually win them over to our way of thinking.  That doesn’t work; it only serves to drain our coffers while we build up the recipient countries so they can be even greater thorns in our side.  We have tried this time and again and seem to still have not learned our lesson.

Some will only respond to strength.  We are not good at making a show of strength but, instead, seem willing to take more and more slaps across the face thinking those slaps are meaningless.

We need better leadership than we elected nearly four years ago.  We proved that “we are not the ones we’ve been waiting for”, contrary to a famous statement made over and over again by the then candidate Barack Obama.

This was not a coincidence; it would’ve occurred without regard to having anything remotely approaching a valid reason for the rioters to have done what they did.  As I am closing this writing, I am listening to a very non-impassioned delivery of the President as he read from the prepared statement.  He made no statement about this not ever being tolerated again.  He did nothing but read a prepared statement.  He took no questions.  I am greatly disappointed at the response of my country to this barbaric action taken apparently in the name of a religious leader.  This situational response should go far to helping Americans better understand what the coming election is all about.  We need to make a change before we step in something we can’t scrape off our boots.