Over 2 years After President Obama’s Cairo Speech…

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A souvenir shop's owner displays a recently made metal plaque reading 'Obama, New Tutankhamun of the World' in Cairo, June 1, 2009. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh

Then:

“My dear sir, President Obama… We all hated America before you came, but now… an olive branch and a… ‘Hamama’ [dove]!”Abbas Chechan, Iraqi poet

And now:

“When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature they will like the strong horse.”Arab proverb

Wasn’t our standing in the world supposed to improve in the Age of Obama? Weren’t we “hated” due to 8 years of oppressing Muslims under the evil, warmongering Bush Regime?

A recent Zogby analysis- Arab Attitudes, 2011– finds that President Obama’s charm offensive Apology Tour, his bowing and bombing campaigns, his “support” for Libyan rebels and non-support for Iranian democracy, distancing and abandonment of traditional allies (Israel & Mubarak), his broken promise to close Gitmo, his perpetuation of Bush-era wars (and in some ways, expansion) in spite of the name-changes and the makeovers, have all resulted in a worsening of America’s standing in the Arab world:

Executive Summary
• After improving with the election of Barack Obama in 2008, U.S. favorable ratings across the Arab world have plummeted. In most countries they are lower than at the end of the Bush Administration, and lower than Iran’s favorable ratings (except in Saudi
Arabia).

• The continuing occupation of Palestinian lands and U.S. interference in the Arab world are held to be the greatest obstacles to peace and stability in the Middle East.

• While many Arabs were hopeful that the election of Barack Obama would improve U.S.-Arab relations, that hope has evaporated. Today, President Obama’s favorable ratings across the Arab World are 10% or less.

• Obama’s performance ratings are lowest on the two issues to which he has devoted the most energy: Palestine and engagement with the Muslim world.

• The U.S. role in establishing a no-fly zone over Libya receives a positive rating only in Saudi Arabia and Lebanon, but, as an issue, it is the lowest priority.

• The killing of bin Laden only worsened attitudes toward the U.S.

• A plurality says it is too early to tell whether the Arab Spring will have a positive impact on the region. In Egypt, the mood is mixed. Only in the Gulf States are optimism and satisfaction levels high.

Expectations ran high in the Arab world that President Obama might bring about change they could believe in. But like many Americans, they’ve grown disillusioned with this President, bringing approval ratings lower in 2011 than in 2008 (the last year of President Bush’s 2nd term). Anti-Americanism in the Muslim world has not been quelled by this president:

C. Substantial majorities of Arabs in almost every country view both the U.S. and Iran as not “contributing to peace and stability in the Arab World.” The U.S.’ contribution to the region is viewed less positively than Iran in every country except Saudi Arabia.

Lebanon is the only Arab country that sees Iran contributing to peace and stability in the region.

The roles of Turkey and Saudi Arabia are appreciated by strong majorities in every country.

D. Overall, Arabs view the two greatest threats to the region’s peace and stability to be “the continuing occupation of Palestinian lands” and “U.S. interference in the Arab world.” Only in Saudi Arabia does the concern with “Iran’s interference in Arab affairs” rank as a top concern.

President Obama’s foreign policy ranks below that of Erdogen, Sarkozy, Ahmadinejad, and Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz.

Turkish demonstrators step on a poster of President Barack Obama during a protest in Istanbul April 7, 2009. REUTERS/Gurcan Ozturk

It is noteworthy that the two issues on which the Administration has invested considerable energy—”the Palestinian issue” and “engagement with the Muslim world”—receive the lowest approval ratings – less than 9% across the board.

Apparently the Israel-Palestinian issue remains a hot-button topic in the Middle East and how it affects U.S. relations with the Muslim world there.

Neither did the killing of Osama bin Laden do anything to improve our favorable ratings in the countries surveyed (which apparently did not include Pakistan….but we already know how most Pakistanis feel about having their sovereignty violated).

A plurality in Egypt say they are worse off now than they were before the Arab Spring but remain optimistic for the future.

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Hard Right re#55 Disagree As a born and raised New Yorker I can assure you the American Jew stands solidly with Israel and admittedly would like to see Obama toughen his stance.
Will the Jewish vote ,solidly Dem, vote for an evangelical Perry or Bachmann.Not likely.
H.R. I’m all for openess and honesty.Did you serve?

Semper Fi

@rich wheeler:

Pfffft. The facts show otherwise on liberal Jews and Israel, Rich. They also show how obama isn’t a friend of Israel. Or do you think having someone like Samantha Power on his team is proof to the contrary?
What exactly does my service or lack thereof have to do with anything? I’ve stated several times before I could not serve due to medical reasons.

H.R. What FACTS show the American Jewish community does not support the State of Israel.

I’m watching Al Jazeera live as a rebel parades in front of the camera with a gold-plated AK-47.
They have stormed the Gaddafi compound but, apparently none of the Gaddafi family was still there.
One wonders where this guy (Muammar Gaddafi) is?
Had he already been spirited out of country?
Is he in (or on his way to) Venezuela?
There is a rumor that a tunnel connects the compound with that hotel where the media are surrounded by Gaddafi-loyal forces.
Would they surround it if they only wanted to hold foreign media hostage?
Or, more likely, that Gaddafi is holed up somewhere in that hotel?

Nan Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye.

Conservative blogger, Howard Portnoy, notes that, in the past, Obama has projected savings of $1 trillion related to the troop drawdown in Iraq and Afghanistan, although the drawdown was already scheduled to take place and the fighting was never expected to continue into the next decade.

So, he asks; Will Obama Announce Savings on “Future Fighting?”

Obama could use the same fuzzy math to claim equally large savings in the Libya campaign.
$12 billion have already been spent on bombing Libya.
I wonder how much we “saved?”

Nan 12 Billion spent deposing crazed dictator with American civilians and soldiers blood on his hands.

American casualties Zero— PRICELESS

Semper Fi

@rich wheeler:

BZZZT! Wrong. If that was the case they wouldn’t have helped elect obama and would do more to stand up for Israel. Like I said, they criticize Israel for protecting itself and pressure them to cave to the palestinians. That isn’t support.
Do you think obama supports Israel?

Obama administration works to be sure Libya doesn’t turn into Iraq

“The Obama administration scrambled Monday to ensure that the U.S.-backed rebels who appear on the brink of victory in Libya don’t follow the grim path Iraq took eight years ago when jubilant celebrations in Baghdad gave way to wholesale chaos and bloody civil war.

“With rebels still battling troops loyal to Moammar Kadafi in the heart of Tripoli, the capital, U.S. officials and allied governments pushed rebel leaders to prevent the type of widespread looting and revenge killings that swept Baghdad shortly after the U.S.-led invasion overthrew dictator Saddam Hussein in April 2003.”

“…The White House reaffirmed that it would not send troops to Libya, even in a peacekeeping role, and NATO officials gave no sign that they were prepared to field a peacekeeping force to help the rebels secure a nonviolent transition to a new national government, as many experts argue will be needed once Kadafi is ousted.”

Greg, I would be highly curious to see exactly how Obie Zero Kenobi thinks he can effect Libya, preventing it from turning into the clash of powers post Gaddafi. It was only US and coalition troops on the ground that helped turn that tide in Iraq. Since Obama says no boots, just what does he think he can do in a realistic sense? More lip service?

Gee… that’s working out so well in Egypt, eh?

BTW, I thought you all declared victory yesterday, and poo pooh’ed my skepticism? Hummm… today, still no celebratory throngs of the “liberated” happy denizens hitting the streets in joy. Just more dozens of guys in tees, with guns, posing for cameras with fingers up. Wow… the “future” of Libya is there for all to behold.

Oh yes, the two Gaddafi sons they were supposed to have arrested? One escaped, aided by Gaddafi forces. Apparently the other one never was arrested, since he sauntered into the journalist Tripoli hotel today, pointing out that all everyone had read seemed to lack considerable truth.

According to the NYTs article I linked in the paragraph above, the rebels stormed an empty compound, and stole… get this… Gaddafi family medical files?? Is this to be their basis for Gaddafi’s trial? Not memos to military and historical plots, but medical files? This is their first regime documents priority?

HR I don’t know where you reside but I”m assuming it’s not an area where most of your friends and neighbors are Jewish. They vote Dem. based on social issues. They DO NOT criticize Israel for protecting themselves.Ridiculous statement H.R.
Obama supports Israel and like the Bushs and Clinton and Reagan and Carter seeks peace in that region.

@Greg:

One has to wonder, though, what, exactly, will be the result, and who will be drawn into that vacuum created by the loss of power by Ghaddafi. My guess is that militant Islamists will attempt to fill that vacuum. And, who will stop them?

Obama’s political opponents are trying to convince voters that Obama is anti-Israel. This plays into the general narrative that Obama is a closet Muslim, or whatever. It’s very possible to be pro-Israel and yet to be opposed to certain Israeli policies, such as expansion of settlements, which, by the way, large numbers of Jews living in Israel also oppose, e.g.

Israel’s National Insurance Institute homepage.

“The National Insurance Institute collects insurance contributions from all residents in accordance with their income and insurance status, and pays benefits to those entitled. In this way, income is transferred from groups which are well off economically to weak and vulnerable groups, and the National Insurance Institute thereby contributes to a more just distribution of the national income and to a reduction of poverty.”

Why, *sputter* they’re a bunch of SOCIALISTS!

Alan Dershowitz disagrees with you Rich.
http://www.hudson-ny.org/2374/glenn-beck-israel
“The reality, however, is very different. The Jewish state is demonized by the hard left in America, by virtually the entire left in much of Europe, and by most of the left and right in Ireland, Norway and Sweden. Its right to exist is denied by a high proportion of Arabs and Muslims, and most of the Arab and Muslim nations do not have diplomatic relations with Israel.”

More proof.
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/mankoff/2009/01/must-jews-support-the-state-of.php

Still More
http://israelmatzav.blogspot.com/2011/08/nick-kristof-shills-for-j-street.html

More
http://www.jpost.com/Features/InThespotlight/Article.aspx?id=211520

MOre
http://www.redstate.com/dhorowitz3/2011/05/24/obama-lied-aipac-died/

A poll of Amrican Jews. It’s from 2005, but I doubt much has changed
http://www.ameinu.net/news/pressreleases.php?pressreleaseid=14

@johngalt, #66:

Reports I’ve heard recently on the news suggest that there’s really not much of an Islamic extremist element in Libya–mainly because Gaddafi ruthlessly eliminated them. The thinking seems to be that problems are more likely to arise out of opposing tribal interests.

According to Dershowitz:

Defenders of Israel, even those critical of some of Israel’s policies, are banned from speaking at universities, are attacked personally by the hard left media and are treated as pariahs by their academic colleagues.

Item:

At the “liberal” University of Caifornia Irvine, 11 Muslim students were arrested for taunting during a speech on campus given by the Israeli ambassador. The Muslim Student Association subsequently lost its campus accreditation. The were supposed to go on trial this week.

http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/local/orange_county&id=8307526

– LW/HB

@Greg:

And I understand that, Greg, however, being in close proximity to the middle east would necessarily create an opportunity for them. As well, assuming that the one roadblock to their gaining traction in Libya is removed, it is logical to assume that groups within the militant islamic community would be looking that way, as has been suggested plenty with AQ possibly involved with the rebels. To not question this, and to discount it offhand, is not something one should do. Just a thought.

@Greg: In addition to the tribal issues, there are three major rebel groups that will be vying for power. If Q’s forces weren’t totally defeated and have merely slipped away to wage an insurgency, that will present another problem. He may have learned something from what happened in Iraq. Here’s a good analysis that addresses the point you brought up. Time will tell how this unfolds.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/aug/22/libya-rebels-ntc-future

@openid.aol.com/runnswim:

Now that is some good news. Thanks Larry.

@johngalt, #72:

I agree that those elements will undoubtedly see any instability in the area as an opportunity.

@another vet, #73:

Interesting article. It’s hard to know to what extent a common enemy has been the main thing keeping the factions from going at each other. Wanting control of the oil might have exactly the opposite effect.

@rich wheeler:
Rich, that wasn’t my point.
And, as in every expenditure or stat this gov’t puts out, it is all liable to be ”adjusted.”
(Usually upwards.)
——–
My point was Obama using the end (supposed end, as it is looking more violent today) of action (kinetic action) as a way to pretend he ”saved” our budget a bunch of money.
As he did with both Afghanistan and Iraq.
Playing games with numbers is not really saving taxpayers a dime.
but it is Obama’s way.

H.R. Your refs, afirm to me what I am told by my Jewish friends and business associates They support the Israeli Govt’s efforts to bring a lasting peace to the M.E. They recognize the legitimate existance of a Pelestinian state, They will defend Israels right to exist,some with their own blood if called apon.
They are immeasurably proud of Israel.It’ll be a cold day in hell before they vote for anyone associated with the Tea Party,

Shalom

@Hard Right:
That IS good news.
—————–
And the MSA at Berkeley are also in court this month because of their harassment of the Jews who go to school there.
The lawsuit claims Berkeley has tolerated years of programming by the anti-Israel student group the Muslim Students Association (MSA) despite reports of Jewish students being cursed at, threatened and assaulted.

In 1995, the MSA at UC Berkeley conducted a rally in support of Hamas.
In April 2002 the MSA publication at UC Berkeley, Al-Kalima, voiced its support of Hamas and Hizballah.
MSA was established by the Muslim Brotherhood in 1963 to serve as a platform to spread Islam and Islamic ideas to college campuses in the U.S.

By continuing to authorize and fund MSA as an official student organization, the lawsuit alleges, the university allowed itself to become a dangerous and threatening environment for Jewish students.

MSA sponsored “Apartheid Week” events, specifically the mock checkpoints that they stage on campus, create an actionable hostile environment harassment.

Students at the checkpoints carry “realistic looking assault weapons—’imitation firearms’—as part of the event,” Siegal wrote, citing a California statute prohibiting such reenactments unless they are authorized by the school.

Brian Maissy, a current student, similarly described the fear created by the annual “Apartheid Week” events.
Maissy, who wears a yarmulke, said the students with the fake assault rifles yelled, “Are you Jewish?” at him and other passersby.
The event occurs at the entrance to campus and is difficult to avoid, Maissy said.

University officials did not act to protect the students, he said, and he fears for his safety on campus.

The officials denied that there was an anti-Semitic crisis on campus and “actively and intentionally” allowed it to continue, lawyers for the students say.

The lawsuit seeks damages, a five-year ban on MSA on campus, and a loss of university funding for the group.
The plaintiffs also argue that UC Berkeley must create an independent fact-finding body to handle student complaints of hostile environment situations on campus.

The case is scheduled for trial September 22.

@RICHARD WHEELER:

Then you didn’t read those references if you truly think it re-affirms what you are claiming.

@another vet:

Drugs r bad, m’kay?

If he isn’t proof of what drug use does to you, I don’t know who is.

@Greg: Israel’s National Insurance Institute homepage.

…snip…

Why, *sputter* they’re a bunch of SOCIALISTS!

Greg, I have no intention of encouraging, nor contributing to your bait/switch debate. Tho I can certainly understand just why you’d be desiring to do just that.

But I will give you some homework so that you may prevent yourself from sticking your cyber foot in your keyboard mouth in the future. Read the history of the Israel health care system. Allow me to give you a few hints to look for….

1: Why would a country who had 96% of insured citizens in 1995, and 90% insured since the 80s, feel the need to mandate a national health care system 1995? Was it possible that the miniscule 4% uninsured actually was draining their funds? Answer… no. It was playing catch up for government owned/controlled medical services since 1948. Their budgetary needs were actually because of the government in control of the health care.

2: Since the 1973 mandate that employers pay health insurance taxes for their employees, and those funds constitute 30% of the health care budget, why were they still in a budgetary crisis? See above… still chasing their tails for government controlled health care for decades, and with an exploding population of Holocaust victims after the war.

3: As of May of this year, how’s all that catching up on debt they incurred for decades of government insurance doing? Ooops… severe physician shortages, leading to over worked and over burdened nurses, having to absorb the tasks that physicians cannot fill. Even today, more than 45% of all hospitals remain state owned and operated.

In other words, due to historic costs that burdened the nation, they… like the US… are looking to widen the net of healthy participants today in order to pay past bills. In our case, it was because of legislated ponzi schemes and no foresight. In theirs, a new country that began with government controlled medical, and the rapid increase in Holocaust immigrants. Either way, it chasing Peter today to pay Paul’s bills from yesterday.

Do your homework, and stop shifting the subject. And also try to remember that Israel has about 6 million in citizens to the US 310 million. One more thing I think you’ll love… it’s for “citizens”. Israel requires any new immigrants to register to participate, and generously offers an exchange humanitarian visa entry program to Palestinians who flock there for medical care, under an arrangement with the PA. Their enemies are often humanely treated at no cost under this program.

@Nan G, indeed on the long history of the MB to reach out to college campus. The quest to reach the young was expanded as they embraced the social media, and the post I wrote in my first months as an FA author here about their FB launch is still applicable today.

It’s no secret, nor new application of propaganda, to exploit the young, veritually empty political vessel. Wm Ayers has been doing it for years. One can generally gauge the success of both Ayers, and radicals such as the MB, when you look at career intelligensia, who spend decades of their more formidable young adult years collecting various sheep skins, and not interacting in the real world. Thus it is those who are perceived to be the “most educated”… in the higher education sense… that are the most hard headed and hard core socialists.

Hopefully, the MB will not spawn educators of the same ilk to haunt our campus grounds. We have enough problem attempting to reverse the “social and economic justice” indoctrination, without adding jihad to the mix.

@Hard Right: He’s consistent with his drug use. He spouted the same stuff about Afghanistan and Iraq. Considering he keeps getting re-elected, it’s probably safe to say that Ohio has managed to consolidate a number of their wingnuts into one congressional district.

Hi Wordsmith:

Vietnam is as I related it to be. You want to fold it into a much broader Sino-Soviet narrative. That’s not what is was. Ho Chi Minh fought against colonialism all his life. He was the George Washington of Vietnam. He’d have won the reunification elections not because of the reasons you propose, but because he was beloved by his people.

Don’t take my word for it; ask General/President Dwight David Eisenhower.

The fact is that Ho Chi Minh didn’t want to “work” with either the Soviets or the Chinese. He wanted to work with the USA. When the French re-colonized, he asked the USA for help. We turned him down. He didn’t fight his whole life for Vietnamese independence, only to lose it. So, of course, he took help where he could find it. But this had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with Soviet (or Chinese) expansion efforts. Vietnam was NEVER the puppet or satellite of the Soviet Union. Not North Vietnam. Not the reunified Vietnam, following the defeat of the USA.

With regard to the question of Indonesia, or the rest of Indochina for that matter, what the USA should have done is not fought a terribly misguided proxy war in Vietnam, but take a stand, if a stand needed to be taken, alongside a country which wanted us there, e.g. Thailand, if it had come to that, or else directly in Indonesia.

Vietnam was a horribly misguided war, which caused huge damage to the the USA and the unnecessary deaths of millions of people.

With regard to Iran, the mistake was the CIA installing the Shah in the first place. With due respect to Reagan, the suggestion that a simple arrest of 500 people would have quelled the Iranian Revolution is ludicrous, cheap Monday morning quarterbacking. Most Iranians hated the Shah. I lived in the DC area, circa 1979, and the Iranian expatriates in America, who’d come years earlier for economic reasons and were successful professionals and the like participated in large protest demonstrations in and around DC. I remember a Washington Post column where it was stated that the standard cocktail party greeting from an iranian was “Death to the Shah.” It wasn’t a literal wish — it just meant death to the Shah’s regime.

But OK, blame Carter.

With regard to Egypt and Libya — I’ll also stand by what I said. Obama played both situations as well as they could have possibly been played. It’s simply a personal opinion, but that’s the way I see it.

It’s the 21st century. It’s time the USA started getting on the right side of history, dictator and self-determination-wise.

– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA

Larry, you seem to miss the fact that dictatorships are a way of life in the ME. At least in Iraq they had once been more democratic and had previously been able to hold elections for leadership that weren’t rigged. There were many Iraqis who still recalled that freedom and wanted it back.
By Carter trying to “get right with history”, he helped create the biggest threat to the ME. Again, fantasy over reality is what brought us here. Lastly Larry, you have made it clear with your dreamy eyed posts about the overthrow of ME dictators that you think it’s so wonderful. We are already seeing signs in Egypt that it is anything but true. As long as your ego is assuaged tho, that’s all that matters, eh?

@openid.aol.com/users/110: You bemoan us supporting dictators but then advocate that we should have supported Ho who was responsible for killing tens of thousands of his own people. And comparing him to George Washington? How many Americans did he kill when he became President? Ho was the Lenin/Stalin or Mao of VN, not the George Washington.

As Wordsmith pointed out, contrary to revisionist history, the Communists were not very nice people.

@openid.aol.com/users/110:

With regard to Egypt and Libya — I’ll also stand by what I said. Obama played both situations as well as they could have possibly been played. It’s simply a personal opinion, but that’s the way I see it.

For the third time, Larry, you are assuming something about Obama, concerning Egypt and Libya, when the outcomes of those situations are not even close to being resolved, and the end results are not going to be known, or felt, until many years in the future. At least this time you qualified it by stating that it is your opinion, instead of declaring it an irrefutable fact like before. Still, though, the assumptions needed to make that leap of logic are rosier than experience would lead us to believe. Did you get new glasses or something?

Hi Another Vet (#91): There’s a difference between “supporting” someone and just keeping our nose out of other people’s business. Whatever we may think of Ho Chi Minh today, it is a fact that he was regarded, by his own people and in his own time, as a lifelong anti-imperialist, who devoted his life to Vietnamese independence from all foreign domination, specifically including domination by the Soviet Union and China. It’s also a fact that he was revered by a large majority of his own people (according to Eisenhower, by 80% of his own people). If the Vietnamese wanted to have their economic experiment with communism Marxism) and their government experiment with Communism (Leninism), that was their business and their decision, not ours.

I think that the US should have made it clear to France that we would not support their efforts at re-colonization, post-WWII. That’s the only “support” of which I would have been in favor. I wouldn’t have lifted one finger to assist Ho Chi Minh, but neither would I have done anything to oppose him. We had absolutely no dog in that particular hunt, and that’s the way we should have left it.

P.S. I’d like to propose a thought experiment:

WHAT IF:

1. When Ho Chi Minh asked for our assistance in preventing the French from coming back into Vietnam for the purpose of re-colonizing it, post WWII, what if we’d agreed, but laid out conditions — observance of human rights, etc., but non-interference with respect to the experiment with socialism, and then provided him with the same sort of economic assistance provided to post-War Europe (Marshall Plan). It it not entirely conceivable that this would have reinforced his independence from the Soviet Union and China and paved the way for a Vietnam which would have ended up much closer to becoming a Swedish-style socialist state than it is today, along with preventing millions of deaths?

2. What if we’d normalized relations with Castro’s Cuba decades ago?

– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach CA

@Wordsmith, #86:

Wouldn’t that kind of suggest that allowing Gaddafi to remain in power was the lesser alternative to choosing between two evils, then?

Why always choose the lesser of two evils when there might be a third option that’s better than both? Why shouldn’t oil-rich Libya become a prosperous, western-friendly Muslim nation? Why automatically reject that possibility?

Hi John Galt: Just for the record: nothing I have ever said here or may ever say in the future is an “irrefutable fact.”

What I say falls into two categories:

1. Refutable “facts” (every so called “fact” is potentially refutable, given better evidence or new evidence)
2. Opinions.

– LW/HB

@Greg:

No one rejected it greg. We are looking at current info. It looks like Libya will be going to the jihadists. Do you think that’s a good thing?

@openid.aol.com/users/110:

I will admit that the first time I responded, that your comment wasn’t delivered as “irrefutable fact”. However, the second time, in post #32, had you saying “Thank god he didn’t(screw them up)”. I took that to mean that you were making a statement that could not be refuted. Possibly it was the manner in which it was said. And, I did admit that the third time you stated it, you qualified it as your opinion.

The fact remains, and I will claim it as “irrefutable”, is that only time will tell whether Obama’s actions in regards to both Libya and Egypt were correct, on the right path, just so-so, damaging to the US, or downright disastrous for the US. How long that time will be is anyone’s guess, I just don’t believe that one can reach a conclusion on Obama’s actions so soon after.That last, of course, is just my opinion, but as history is typically judged at a much later time, I believe I will stand by that.

@Wordsmith: @Nan G #24:

And, frankly, those Iranians who want to overthrow the Ayatollahs are just as Muslim/Islamic as the Ayatollahs are.
Maybe the lead sled dog would change, but for everyone not in the lead, the view would remain the same.
So, perhaps we did the right thing there.

Are you so sure those wishing to overthrow the militant theocratic Islamist regime currently in power are just as Islamist fundamentalist? Or is it that you simply are against Islam in general?

Did you follow the politics of the ”Green Revolutionary leaders,” Wordsmith?
Mir-Hossein Mousavi Khameneh ran against Ahmadinejad and a lot of Green Revolutionaries supported him.
Even the former Iranian President Khatami withdrew from the election in support of Mir-Hossein Mousavi Khameneh.

So, what kind of Muslim is Mir-Hossein Mousavi Khameneh?

He is a firm believer in the Twelfth Imam form of Islam.
As is Amadinejad.

As to the Islamist Iranian constitution Mir-Hossein Mousavi Khameneh wanted it followed to a ”tee.”
Quote:
“You can’t follow some parts of the constitution and throw the rest into a bin.”

When he was running for office he said he is ”for” women’s rights.
But, as you might be aware, a woman’s place in Sharia/Islam is considered more ”free” by Muslims, than any women’s places in other nations or places or times.
So, what that means in actuality might be something quite different from what you or I miught think of when we see the words, ”women’s rights.”

The revolutionary youth were strong supporters of this guy.

@openid.aol.com/users/110: Before responding, let me say that I am not sticking up for the French. They dropped the ball and we, being the new prominent western power, were left hanging onto it. On to your experiments.

1. Ho was a Communist first and foremost. Check out his bio. He was a Communist before he was a nationalist therefore he was looking to unite Vietnam under a Communist dictatorship. He did not disband the Indochinese Communist Party in 1946 like he pretended to do. His “model” for Vietnam was based on Stalin’s model for the Soviet Union and Mao’s model for China. When he went to France for independence, his deputy Vo Nguyen Giap was busy killing, imprisoning, or exiling political opposition. Ho’s factions were made up of pro Soviet and pro China factions but no pro western factions. He was not a Southeast Asia version of Tito therefore he was pro Soviet, pro China, or a combination of both. When Ho went to Truman for help, Truman never responded. Based on what was happening in VN, do you think Truman was going to support someone like that, especially over the French who we had just lost tens of thousands of lives liberating from the NAZI’s? Had we have laid out terms like you suggested, based on Ho’s actions, background, and subsequent history, I seriously doubt that he would have abided by them.

2. As for Cuba, Castro is/was a Communist dictator who we should have taken out when we had the chance. Not doing so and allowing him to become a Soviet puppet, brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. I’ve known Cubans who risked life and limb going back to Cuba to smuggle out family members. He’s not the nice guy the Hollywood historical revisionists make him out to be. He too was a brutal Communist dictator. Before he took power, Cuba was the up and coming star of the Caribbean. Now, you are either a rich Communist or a poor Communist. So much for bettering Cubans.

As for your Ike link, I’m well aware that he said most Vietnamese would have voted for Ho. But again, when you look at history, ten times more fled South than North in the 50’s. In ’68 after the VC were crushed during the Tet, a U.S./SV victory that our press labeled a defeat, the North had to launch a conventional invasion to finally conquer the South. 2 million more fled. In 1976, 99% voted for the Communist candidate. An clear indication of rule through fear. Based on those facts, I question the extent of the support the Communists actually had.

@openid.aol.com/users/110:

2. What if we’d normalized relations with Castro’s Cuba decades ago?

Then odds are the Castros would be in a much more solid position of power than they are now.