On Wednesday’s Today show, Matt Lauer interviewed Michele Bachmann. He is clearly of the opinion that our joining Libya’s civil war on behalf of the rebels was the right thing to do; she disagrees. In the course of their brief conversation came the following exchange:
BACHMANN: …We don’t know how much al Qaeda is involved in the opposition forces. Why would we want to strengthen al Qaeda’s hand in North Africa? That certainly wouldn’t be in the interests of the United States.
LAUER: Well, well let me, let me flip that coin on, on its, on its other side. If there are flickers, as you say, of al Qaeda among the rebels, would it not be a sign to them or showing them that the United States has compassion and we are willing to use our military might to help all people?
BACHMANN: Compassion for al Qaeda?
This perfectly illustrates the absurd, oikophobic naiveté so prevalent on the Left (and to be fair, on the neoconservative Right as well) regarding the West’s relation with expansionist Islam. What Lauer is thinking here is clear enough: by bombing Qaddafi’s forces and arming the rebels, we can show the Ummah that we are suddenly reborn as a decent, caring people. Our jihadist foes, who would have been our friends all along if we had only been more compassionate, will take it as a “sign” that we have finally turned over a new leaf. Their hearts will thaw, and hand in hand we will usher in a new era of pluralistic tolerance and harmony.
The simpering effeminacy, cultural solipsism, reflexive self-loathing, religious ignorance, and psychological obtuseness of this are just breathtaking. Here we are, locked in the latest stage of a bloody, 1,400-year-old existential struggle with hardened jihadis who will not rest until we either kneel before their God or are annihilated — and Matt Lauer, convinced that way deep down we’re all the same, just wants them to like us.
If we lose in the end, this is going to be why.
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Also, read this about Hillary Clinton’s comments on Bashar al-Assad, March 27:
Also, the US has nothing to prove, anyway. Not to “the Ummah” (what a ridiculous word), or to anyone else. Our general philosophy was clear to all in Bosnia, and to all except very thick ideologues in Afghanistan.
“I have two grandchildren – Maggie is 11, Robert is 9,” Gingrich said at Cornerstone Church here. “I am convinced that if we do not decisively win the struggle over the nature of America, by the time they’re my age they will be in a secular atheist country, potentially one dominated by radical Islamists and with no understanding of what it once meant to be an American.”
Newt Gingrich I can do without.
Anyway, he needn’t worry: an America dominated by radical Islamists is hardly what I’d call a “secular atheist country”.
Precisely.