The killing in Libya of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three others — ostensibly in retaliation for a film that protesters found offensive to Islam — shows just one day removed from Sept. 11 that a clash of cultures is still very much alive in the world. It’s a clash between that part of the world that believes ideas should be met with ideas, called “civilization,” and those who feel it’s appropriate to meet ideas they find offensive with violence, called “barbarism.”
We need to call out the latter for what it is, and to refuse to give it a single millimeter in the fight.
President Barack Obama was criticized by Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney and Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus for allegedly sympathizing with the perpetrators of the attacks, based on a U.S. embassy statement released by the U.S. embassy in Cairo — prior to the attacks — that condemned efforts to “hurt the religious feelings of Muslims.”
That statement seems as if it was intended to calm passions and save lives in the embassy in Cairo and the American consulate in Libya’s Benghazi. And seeing as how it came long before the attacks that killed Stevens, it could not possibly be read to sympathize with attackers. But it sure feeds into the fiction that President Obama is a secret Muslim who hates America, which Republicans are trying to reinforce.
Here’s the president’s actual statement:
I strongly condemn the outrageous attack on our diplomatic facility in Benghazi, which took the lives of four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens. Right now, the American people have the families of those we lost in our thoughts and prayers. They exemplified America’s commitment to freedom, justice, and partnership with nations and people around the globe, and stand in stark contrast to those who callously took their lives.
I have directed my Administration to provide all necessary resources to support the security of our personnel in Libya, and to increase security at our diplomatic posts around the globe. While the United States rejects efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others, we must all unequivocally oppose the kind of senseless violence that took the lives of these public servants.
On a personal note, Chris was a courageous and exemplary representative of the United States. Throughout the Libyan revolution, he selflessly served our country and the Libyan people at our mission in Benghazi. As Ambassador in Tripoli, he has supported Libya’s transition to democracy. His legacy will endure wherever human beings reach for liberty and justice. I am profoundly grateful for his service to my Administration, and deeply saddened by this loss.
The brave Americans we lost represent the extraordinary service and sacrifices that our civilians make every day around the globe. As we stand united with their families, let us now redouble our own efforts to carry their work forward.
Now, Obama can hardly be condemned for saying the U.S. “rejects efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others.” That’s just a defense of common courtesy. But I personally would have preferred adding a little clause in there, somewhere: “But our rights and our traditions proudly preserve the right of anybody to denigrate the religious beliefs of others so if they choose, and we will defend that right in the face of senseless barbarism to the last person.”
Why? Because it’s important to send the message that the American people place the right and concept of free speech distinctly above the right of a person to never hear an offensive word about their concept of God. The attackers of the U.S. embassy in Libya — if they did so out of religious passion — are practicing the ultimate and most insidious form of censorship: murder. They have done so elsewhere in the world, too. We must always and everywhere tell them that it will not work. No one who is not an adherent of a particular religion should be bound by its codes, especially not through force of arms. We maintain the absolute right to keep our own thoughts about the religions of others, and we will not lay down those beliefs, or stop making movies, or drawing cartoons, or living our lives in a civilized society, in the face of retrograde barbarism.
Upon this, we should all of us agree, whether Republican or Democrat, liberal or conservative.
UPDATE: Romney has broadened his attack, saying the president’s response is “akin to apology.” From Politico:
Republican nominee Mitt Romney repeated his criticism of the White House for its initial response to the attacks in Libya that killed four Americans, saying the statement was “akin to apology” and it was “disgraceful to apologize for American values.” While expressing his condolences to the families of those killed, he said the Obama White House response “reflects the mixed signals they’re sending to the world” on American foreign policy and values.
Of course, Obama has nowhere apologized for American values, or even apologized at all. While it certainly is more convenient for Romney to run against the fictional Obama he’s tried to create, the fact is, he’s going to have to run against the actual Obama of the real world.
And while America is the victim of these attacks, and no justification can be credibly mounted to excuse them, America is not always sinless. In those times, the only disgrace is to not apologize for where we’ve done wrong. It’s one of the many mysteries of foreign policy that still eludes Romney, who’s “never apologize” mantra is — to coin a phrase — “akin to jingoism.”
Thank you for reminding me why I, as a thinking, educated conservative, couldn’t possibly call myself a Republican or vote for Romney (or Bush, or a post-2000 McCain).
All the more reason to stay out of Southeast Asia and the Middle East. (I have heard that somewhere before.) All the more reason to develop our own natural resources and not import oil from Southeast Asia and the Middle East.
In fact if we were not importing oil from that part of the world we would not have these problems with their fundamentalist idiots.
I agree that Obama did not go far enough and to your addition I would add “within the borders of our great country” because we are not supposed to be an empire forcing our way of life on all others. Even those barbaric countries run by those fundamentalist (insert religion here) who exist everywhere.
The difference is, here, we enjoy freedom of religion and that results in far fewer fundamentalist idiots. This makes it very difficult for those types to take power.
If we were not so dependent on imported oil (due to overzealous environmentalists) we would not be feeding these enemies all the money they need to take over whole countries and expand. Then we could use our military to defend our borders and not be the worlds police force which is another thing we are not supposed to be or do.
The USA is supposed to lead by example, not force. The USA is supposed to be a beacon not an ax.
Ronald Reagan supported the Islamic Fundamentalists in Afghanistan (including Bin Laden) against the Soviets who were trying to stop terrorism based in Afghanistan from targeting the Soviet Union.
Reagan pulled troops out of Lebanon after the Marine barracks was bombed, sending a message of weakness.
Romney has politicized the events with his uninformed bigoted attack on Obama.
Talk radio haters like Laura Ingraham called our President a “butt-monkey” on her show. We live in a racist society fueled by crazy kook movies like 2016.
This phony “President Obama is always apologizing” line is wearing thin. Mitt has already proven he’s virtually clueless about foreign policy and his latest tirade has even been denounced by Boehner and McConnell.
Mr Sebelius- shame on you for always defending the Obama Administration. Up until yesterday’s attack on America, the Obama-Biden team has been shamelessly getting a free ride from the highly successful Bush-Cheney national security policy developed since 9/11/2011. BUT, THEY NEVER GAVE ANY CREDIT TO PRESIDENT BUSH, for making America safer in the last 10 years until yesterday … On the eve of the 11th Anniv. of 9/11 satanic attack on the USA, the mad & evil Egyptian MD Dr. al Zawahiri –bin Laden’s right hand man– issued a video warning of the attack on America overseas on 9/11/2012, but BARACK OBAMA was asleep at th wheel !!! Can’t blame W.now !
Eddie: Shame on you for not recognizing that this blog is not a defense of the Obama administration.
I ain’t no high falootin’ know-it-all political pundit like you, Mr. Sebelius, but after a poor August and beginning of September showing for the Romney/Ryan ticket, but I see this debacle as a last ditch effort out of desperation.
(NOTE: Poor attempt at sarcasm on my part there, Mr. Sebelius, but work with me. I still enjoy reading your blog. Although, I still say you need to swear a lot more though and use flowery adjectives and adverbs like I do.)
Anyways, I also say this lame attempt by Romney to act like he knows foreign policy is now a game changer. Game, set and match. Because it’s clear he don’t know his ass from a hole in the ground. Romney/Ryan ticket is done for with this lame, uninformed and ill advised attack that missed if he was trying to slam President Obama. It actually backfired and smacked him right between the eyes, showing the electorate out here he is more like a soup sandwich than he is a noted foreign policy expert.
He has basically doubled down on an attack on President Obama, even before all the facts are known, and besides that, he has even went so farrrrrrrrrrrrr to the right that he got ahead of the most avid Fox PORNO (Political Organization-Republican News Only) News low information fact bereft fanatical viewer that unquestioningly suck up everything they say on that sorry excuse for a network like a sponge.
It’s like a pundit said on television today, in that he said that Romney is always saying President Obama is leading from behind….when in actuality, Romney is leading from Rush Limbaugh’s behind.
Colin, you are the only person in North America who suggests I should swear more than I already do! But that’s mostly verbal; I do try to keep the blog relatively clean, now that it’s attached to a respectable newspaper website.
Okay, Steve. So long as you do it verbally. Now I know you ain’t a politically correct wind up machine.
Reminds me of a joke….
Guy buys a parrot. Because he wants a different, exotic pet. The pet shop says he will repeat what you say. Very well behaved, will make a nice pet.
He takes the parrot home. But suddenly finds out the parrot cusses worse than a Sailor. Constantly. Without stop.
He tries to return the parrot, tells the proprietor that look, I can’t have this happening, my boss comes over, my girlfriend, totally unacceptable language, they’ll think I teach him this stuff, but the pet shop says sorry, no refunds, but there’s other things you can do to stop your parrot from spouting obscenities.
So, dejected, the guy goes home with his parrot. Tries to reward the parrot if he won’t cuss. Don’t work. He talks nice to it. Don’t work. He gives it special treats. Don’t work. Still cussing like crazy.
Finally, in a fit of anger, he grabs the parrot by the throat and shakes it, screamining, look! You better clean up your act or…or…or I’ll…
He looks over, opens the door on the freezer part of his refrigerator, flings the parrot in there in rage, slams the door.
Squawking, screaming obscenities for five minutes. Then it’s quiet for a few minutes.
The owner of the parrot suddenly gets a puzzled look, starts to worry, and runs over, opens the freezer, worried the damn parrot has frozen to death.
This totally frightened parrot jumps out, lands on his shoulder and looks him in the eye and says…
“I am profusely sorry for my atrocious behavior and I will endeavor from now on and in the future to never, ever use such foul and obscene language for the rest of my life.”
The guy looks at his parrot in confusion and asks, “What…um….what made you change your mind?”
The parrot then says, “What did the fucking chicken do?”
BOO YAH!
The ROMNEY-RYAN Republican presidential ticket will WIN this November and the MARXIST-LENINIST MAN FROM KENYA will take Shelley Berkley DOWN with him …
Eddie, Steve is a liberal. He doesn’t hide it. But he does appear to let it slant his writing even as he tries to prevent its influence.
In this case Steve was actually saying Obama should have said more and I agree with him with reservations.
But Eddie, you have a long history of crazy ass posts and you are not helping the cause. You are as bad in these posts as Sharron Angle was in that campaign. Take a pill man! This administration is far and away not the first to have intel that was not attended. Remember Pear Harbor.
Steve, Obama MISSED HALF of the daily 7:00 AM CIA & National Security intelligence briefing in the White House, according to CNN. No wonder he missed the second coming of the 9/11 attack on Americans in Lybia, a couple of days ago ! mY MAN, STOP MAKING EXCUSES for your idol (the man simply does not know what he is doing; a community organizer is nothing more than a street trouble maker in Chicago, a Saul Alinsky socialist disciple named Barack).
Obama has never had my vote Eddie. And he does not now.
Its posts like that get you the responses you don’t want.
Take the pill dude.
Fox News poll has Obama winning…
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/09/12/fox-news-poll-obama-has-lead-over-romney-in-post-convention-poll/
I’e been saying Obama gets re-elected for 3 years now.
ITs the Senate thats up for grabs. If the Senate goes Republican Obama becomes Clinton the second instead of Carter II
The Host country is responsible for embassy security. Can the Russians bring in tanks and fighter jets to “defend” their embassies and consulates? What about the Chinese? Can they bring in an atomic bomb to defend their consulates?
The talk radio nut jobs want to blame Obama for the embassy deaths, oh and it is because Obama didn’t go to the meetings? (guess he can’t read and pick-up the phone and ask questions if necessary.)
OK then let’s blame Bush for not reading the memo “bin Laden determined to attack America” and Condoleezza Rice as well. That cost over 3,000 deaths. Also blame the Iraq War, thousands more deaths, on them as well. (looking for the WMD, mushroom clouds you know, Also the DC sniper attacks and the anthrax killings as well. Of course Reagan gets “credit” for the Marine barracks bombing in Lebanon with hundreds of deaths there. (no one brought to justice for that crime either.) So OK it is Obama 4, and Republicans thousands in deaths on their watch,,,looks like that is why Obama will win, just check the FOX POLL. or the WSJ poll, (owned by Murdock as well.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSPifswNk4s&feature=plcp