[Marxism] And David Horowitz praises the imperialist heart of Obama's politics

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Sounds like even mad-dog David Horowitz is getting a little embarrassed
about the crackpot senescence of the Republican Party these days. But be
that as it may, his analysis is actually a contribution to understanding
Obama's speech.
Fred Feldman 


http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2009/06/05/obama_horowitz/print.html

Fellow conservatives, admit it: Obama gave a great speech
In front of the whole Muslim world, he defended Israel and the Iraq and
Afghanistan wars. What's not to like? 
By David Horowitz

Jun. 05, 2009 | 

Yes, he rewrote history, particularly the history of Muslim and Arab
rapacity and bigotry, and he pandered a lot. But the pandering was in large
part diplomacy and far less than conservatives were predicting, and far less
than the pandering that characterized his previous attempts to mollify the
Muslim world. He most pointedly did not apologize for American actions after
9/11, or seek to find excuses for the terrorist attacks in our policies and
behavior before 9/11. On the contrary, he deliberately opened the wound of
9/11 to justify America's wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

"We did not go by choice, we went because of necessity. I am aware that some
question or justify the events of 9/11. But let us be clear: al-Qaida killed
nearly 3,000 people on that day. The victims were innocent men, women and
children from America and many other nations who had done nothing to harm
anybody. And yet al-Qaida chose to ruthlessly murder these people, claimed
credit for the attack, and even now states their determination to kill on a
massive scale. They have affiliates in many countries and are trying to
expand their reach. These are not opinions to be debated; these are facts
... "

And Iraq! This is the war he had opposed as unnecessary and wrong, until
now. In Cairo he did not apologize for "Bush's war" or America's
"occupation." He said that the Iraqis were better off without Saddam
Hussein, which obviously could not have happened without the war -- a
truism, which for seven years Democrats failed to concede. Where Kennedy and
Gore and Obama himself condemned America's war as "unnecessary," "illegal,"
"based on lies," an aggression against a "fragile and unstable" country that
could not defend itself, Obama, speaking in a Muslim capital, defended our
presence in Iraq as driven by a desire to give Iraqis their freedom and
their country. Bush could not have said it better.

As for the Middle East conflict, Obama began -- began -- by telling the
Muslim world that the bond between Israel and the United States is
unbreakable, and by opening the wound of the Jews that made a homeland for
them a moral imperative: "America's strong bonds with Israel are well known.
This bond is unbreakable. It is based upon cultural and historical ties, and
the recognition that the aspiration for a Jewish homeland is rooted in a
tragic history that cannot be denied."

And then he characterized Holocaust deniers like Ahmadinejad as despicable,
and identified them as a cause of war in the Middle East, and announced that
he was going to Buchenwald the next day (clearly to underscore that fact):
"Around the world, the Jewish people were persecuted for centuries, and
anti-Semitism in Europe culminated in an unprecedented Holocaust. Tomorrow,
I will visit Buchenwald, which was part of a network of camps where Jews
were enslaved, tortured, shot and gassed to death by the Third Reich. Six
million Jews were killed -- more than the entire Jewish population of Israel
today. Denying that fact is baseless, ignorant, and hateful. Threatening
Israel with destruction -- or repeating vile stereotypes about Jews -- is
deeply wrong, and only serves to evoke in the minds of Israelis this most
painful of memories while preventing the peace that the people of this
region deserve."

And while Obama made false parallels between Jews and Arabs as contributors
to the intractability of the Middle East conflict and rewrote some history,
he also said in no uncertain terms that it was Palestinians who had to
renounce violence (and here he drew no parallels and no moral equivalence)
and had to recognize the Jewish state -- something even the "moderate"
terrorist Abbas refuses to do.

And to underscore this point he drew a parallel between the struggles of
American blacks for civil rights and Palestinians. But unlike Condoleezza
Rice, who not too long ago drew the same parallel to aggrandize the PLO
terrorists as civil rights activists, Obama drew a sharp and revealing line
of distinction between them: "Palestinians must abandon violence. Resistance
through violence and killing is wrong and does not succeed. For centuries,
black people in America suffered the lash of the whip as slaves and the
humiliation of segregation. But it was not violence that won full and equal
rights. It was a peaceful and determined insistence upon the ideals at the
center of America's founding."

And that was really the core of Obama's speech. It was a defense of
America's founding and America's mission. We are a tolerant nation and a
peaceful nation, Obama told 1.5 billion Muslims, and we will accept and
embrace you if you reject the violent and hateful among you and walk a
peaceful and tolerant path. And this tolerance must extend not only to the
Jews of Israel, and other infidels, but to Muslims among you who are
oppressed, specifically Muslim women: "The sixth issue that I want to
address is women's rights. I know there is debate about this issue. I reject
the view of some in the West that a woman who chooses to cover her hair is
somehow less equal, but I do believe that a woman who is denied an education
is denied equality. That is why the United States will partner with any
Muslim-majority country to support expanded literacy for girls, and to help
young women pursue employment through micro-financing that helps people live
their dreams."

That is not pandering. It is saying that America's democratic, tolerant,
inclusive way needs to be the path to the future for the Muslim world.

Conservatives will make a great mistake if they fail to see this speech for
what it was, and treat it as another round in the partisan food fight. It
was not an appeasement of our enemies. It was a forthright statement by an
American leader in a Muslim capital explaining why America is in fact the
global leader in those battles that matter most to people everywhere:
freedom, equality, and peace. As conservatives we have many quarrels with
the Obama administration -- and we should have. But this speech is not one
of them.



 





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