In his most recent UN speech Barack Obama went the hopey-changey route instead of traveling down reality road.
Even as the U.S. expanded its most significant military operation since the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq a decade ago, Obama watered down his noble-America rhetoric. Instead, he promoted a more benign kind of American optimism likelier to be soothing to the ears of those on the world stage.
“I often tell young people in the United States that despite the headlines, this is the best time in human history to be born, for you are more likely than ever before to be literate, to be healthy, to be free to pursue your dreams,” Obama said, casting for positive trends amid a cascade of global crises. “For America, the choice is clear: We choose hope over fear.”
Obama’s effort to find notes of optimism on the global scene struck a contrast with the grim picture painted by U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, who decried “barrel bombs and beheadings” and bemoaned “a terrible year for the principles enshrined in the United Nations Charter.”
He cannot even bring himself to properly label the enemy:
“I called this meeting,” Obama explained, “because we must come together — as nations and an international community — to confront the real and growing threat of foreign terrorist fighters.”
At the Washington Times, Joseph Curl described Obama’s speech as “full of naiveté”:
President Obama on Wednesday delivered a speech at the United Nations filled with his usual soaring rhetoric of global collectivism and the importance of “international norms.” But the president also displayed a shocking naivete about global affairs, religion, Islam — a Pollyannaish interpretation on the state of the world and America’s role in it.
As he is so oft to do, Obama refused to pin blame on Islam for anything:
To Mr. Obama, there’s no global conflict of ideology, just “pervasive unease in our world.” To him, the strife is merely the “failure of our international system to keep pace with an interconnected world.” And to him, “it is one of the tasks of all great religions to accommodate devout faith with a modern, multicultural world.”
Then Obama goes on to outright lie:
So is this passage of his speech: ” … the United States is not and never will be at war with Islam. Islam teaches peace. Muslims the world over aspire to live with dignity and a sense of justice. And when it comes to America and Islam, there is no us and them, there is only us.”
But Islam and the holy Koran on which Muslim militant groups like al Qaeda and the Islamic State base their actions do call for the extermination of all who do not follow Islam, do demand that followers kill anyone who leaves the religion, do subjugate women. For the record, the Koran contains more than 100 verses that call Muslims to war with nonbelievers.
Mr. Obama said in his speech that “all people of faith have a responsibility to lift up the value at the heart of all great religions: Do unto thy neighbor as you would do — you would have done unto yourself.” But that is not a cornerstone of Islam. Militant Muslims have a very different belief: “Fight in the name of your religion with those who disagree with you.” And that edict comes straight from their holiest book.
Most offensive was his likening of the white cops or Ferguson to the Islamic jihadists of ISIS:
“In a summer marked by instability in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, I know the world also took notice of the small American city of Ferguson, Missouri — where a young man was killed, and a community was divided,” Obama said in the speech. “So yes, we have our own racial and ethnic tensions.”
Dick Cheney noticed it, and rightly so:
Cheney said the comparison was unwarranted.
“In one case, you’ve got a police officer involved in a shooting, there may be questions about it to be sorted out by the legal process, but there’s no comparison to that with what ISIS is doing to thousands of people throughout the Middle East through bloody beheadings of anybody they come in contact with,” Cheney said. “To compare the two as though there’s moral equivalence there, I think, is outrageous.”
Barack Obama has made the protection of Islam his highest priority, but drawing a moral equivalence between ISIS and the white cops of Ferguson is offensive. One wonders when people in this country will take their blinders off. This time, at least, Obama bashed his own country IN his own country.
Exit question: How many world leaders have you ever seen address the UN and bash their own country?
DrJohn has been a health care professional for more than 30 years. In addition to clinical practice he has done extensive research and has published widely with over 70 original articles and abstracts in the peer-reviewed literature. DrJohn is well known in his field and has lectured on every continent except for Antarctica. He has been married to the same wonderful lady for over 30 years and has three kids- two sons, both of whom are attorneys and one daughter on her way into the field of education.
DrJohn was brought up with the concept that one can do well if one is prepared to work hard but nothing in life is guaranteed.
Except for liberals being foolish.
Accused people have no obligation to testify in front of a Grand Jury.
Yet Officer Wilson, accused of shooting Michael Brown, did so for over 4 hours last week.
What have ISIS fighters done when the world is aghast at their sadism?
They have pointed to the Koran, Hadith and Surah (their own holy books) that they are perfectly following the example of Mohammad, their exemplar.
So, huge difference.
IF Officer Wilson is found guilty of any wrongdoing, the American legal system will punish him…..institutionalizing good conduct.
No matter what ISIS does their religion insititutionalizes their bad conduct as if it is good.
So, huge difference.
Sad Obama can’t see this.
Edited to add:Cognitive Dissonance…..
Compare and contrast Michelle Obama saying:
“We still struggle with violence against woman and harmful cultural norms that tell woman how they are expected to look and act.” September 24, 2014
With THIS video of life under ISIS in Syria:
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2014/09/a-riveting-view-of-life-under-isil.php
Note how they pull a woman in her car over just to tell her how to dress!
I’m not so sure Obama was making a direct equivocation between the activities of ISIS and the shooting of Michael Brown as he was saying, as if to head off any criticism of our moralizing about the amorality of ISIS, “hey, we know we have our problems, we’re dealing with them”. However, he, in his own prejudiced mind, picked the wrong example.
First, as Nanny G says, the facts aren’t in yet and once they are, it could very well look as if this was a person that brought his demise onto himself. Second, at worst, we are looking at the actions of one person in Ferguson; ISIS is an army trained to rape, bury alive, behead, murder and pillage.
Obama could have used, as an example of something we need to work on, Al Sharpton and his racially inflammatory crusades to personally aggrandize and enrich. But, apparently, that did not occur to him.
No such comparison was being made by Barack Obama. The the comparison came from Dick Cheney, who apparently becomes confused if more than one topic comes up in the course of a single speech. Thank God this guy is safely out of office.
@Greg:
So there is no comparison to this:
“In a summer marked by instability in the Middle East and Eastern Europe,”
when in the same sentence he relates it to this:
” I know the world also took notice of the small American city of Ferguson, Missouri”
Never mind that during the public meetings held with the officials of Ferguson and Eric Holder’s In-Justice Department, people were required to show a photo I.D. to prove they lived in Ferguson and the press was barred.
Yeah, I can see the comparison to ISIS and Russia in that.
This is 0Muslim for you… The lazy duffer goes out of his way to highlight the “1 in a million” and yet to be verified Ferguson “issue” while, in the same breath, he fails to mention the extremely common problem of the easily verifiable Black-on-Black and Black-on-non-Black crime and murder rate (both in the U.S. and around the world).
And, let’s be realistic, probably far less than 0.001 percent of the world’s population noticed, let alone cares about, the Ferguson issue. But then again, this is 0Muslim for you…
Sorry to break it to you 0Muslim lovers, but the world does not now, and nor will it likely ever, revolve around Blacks… This is not to mention that you 0Muslim lovers will someday have no choice but to realize that he’s irreversibly pushed Blacks in the US backwards by at least 50 years. Meanwhile, U.S. Blacks had better get used to blaming Hispanics, rather than Whites, for all the problems Blacks bring upon themselves…
Yes. That is correct. No comparison is being made between the psychotic, homicidal behavior of a militant terrorist cult whose members are systematically slaughtering people by the thousand the and the questionable shooting of a young black person in Ferguson, Missouri. Anyone who honestly believes that the two things were being equated is either as dumb as a box of rocks or is allowing people like Dick Cheney to do their thinking for them. Or possibly both.
We have our troubles. Others have their troubles. That isn’t a comparison. It isn’t a suggestion that the two things are somehow equal.
@Greg: When the President of the US puts both Ferguson and ISIS in the same speech being presented to over a hundred people who speaks English as a second language, the image they get is the two are very similar. It doesn’t matter what you think Obama’s intentions were. It only matters how it was received.
@Greg:
As I said, I agree with you. However, I don’t think it needed to be said and I think that was a miserably bad example to use.
@Greg:
Yes, they have their troubles. And we have our troubles. But to mention what is going on in the Middle East in even the same sentence as Ferguson, Missouri only shows one thing; Obama is the most racial president we have ever had. He was trying to make a correlation, and failed miserably.
In the Middle East we have Christians being beheaded, children being crucified, women being raped and then stoned to death, Christian churches being burned to the ground or blow up. In Ferguson, we have mob mentality encouraged by Al Sharpton and Eric Holder; businesses being burned to the ground; police having rocks thrown at them or having shots fired at them.
Well, perhaps there is an equation between the radical subhumans of ISIS and the radical subhumans of Ferguson who have way to much time on their hands because we, the taxpayers, support them as they riot, burn, protest violently as they demand a abdication of our laws that they don’t seem to want to live under.
Everyone of those people in Ferguson who are still protesting violently need to a) have all welfare cut and b) thrown into jail for a year.
Guys, Greg pwned you. End of story.
@Randy, #7:
What Obama was addressing with the reference to Ferguson is the perception people from other nations have of the United States. People outside the United States are not unaware of the frequency of such incidents.
If you’ve publicly suggested to representatives of Muslim nations in a speech at the United Nations that they need to begin dealing with their own internal issues—which Obama has recently done—it’s good psychology to note that we have internal issues of our own that we’re attempting to deal with. Which, in fact, is the case.
@Greg:
What convoluted logic. How is the situation in Ferguson even close to the torture, rape, beheadings and crucifixions of children that is going on in the Middle East?
It obviously isn’t. No comparison was being made. Except by you. You made a goofy comparison between people protesting the shooting at Ferguson and ISIS terrorists.
@Greg:
Obama, the biggest disgrace of a POTUS this nation has ever had, should have never mentioned Ferguson in the first place. But his racial animus would not be held back, so he did.
@Greg: Well Greg, there was quite a few people who believe Obama was making a comparison and many are on the left. Based upon your skewed logic, I believe you should seek professional help, or if you are currently under psychological care , maybe the dosage of the meds you are on is too little or too much.
@retire05, #14:
You’re entitled to your opinion, but a majority Americans who take their civic duties seriously enough to bother to vote have disagreed with you twice.
Some people suspect there’s a racial bias with respect to who police most often shoot dead under questionable circumstances. Some people also suspect there’s a clear racial bias with respect to how people are treated by our legal system. I can understand how some people might feel that way. I can also understand how the first black American president might feel some obligation to comment on that issue. I’ve got no problem with that.
Obama’s speech before the United Nations assembly. There’s nothing he said there that I don’t agree with.
If obama said islam was the problem, he would have to say, “WE are the problem.”
When has he not lied?
When a person says, “us”, doesn’t that mean they and what they belong to? Did obama just admit to being a member of islam? The only time I say, “us”, is when I am referring to something I belong to, even if it is just a group of, “us” getting together.
Where have I heard about him having a problem with white cops before? I did find it ironic that France was warning their citizens to stay away from the Ferguson area before the riots happened.
Don’t you defend the things you believe in the most? So does obama.
How many members of the UN have said ANYTHING GOOD about the USA? We are actually PAYING THE UN to bash us.
@This+one:
“pwned”? Does that mean embarrassed himself in front of us?
@Greg:
There you go, Greg. I think you may be catching on. “Questionable circumstances” is the key phrase and, in case you need reminding, “innocent until proven guilty” applies to white people, too. There are lots of questions in the case of Michael Brown’s death and most of those cast substantial doubt upon the assertion that it is the case of a black boy being killed simply for being black. As such, it was pretty indicative of Obama’s mindset that he chose to use that as an example, if he actually needed to use an example at all.
If he wanted to emphasize racial strife in the US today, why didn’t he use the growing number of black on white crimes? White people being beaten by gangs of blacks, the stupid “knockout” game or random white people, sometimes elderly veterans, being killed by blacks? Or, as mentioned, why not emphasize the great number of blacks killed by other blacks? Or, how about the example of a black man that committed terrorist murders of innocent, random white people in the name of Islam?
No, Greg, apparently it was important for Obama, in a forum viewed by the entire world, to use an inappropriate example that implies white on black racially motivated crime. That, in fact, is the least characteristic example he could have used. Whether he was comparing the Ferguson PD to ISIS or not, he exposed his racism and prejudice. Again.
0Muslim could have implied a far more accurate analogy by mentioning gang violence in America while speaking of the current “instability” in the Middle East.
And let’s face it; only a racist like the lazy duffer 0Muslim would single out the very rare “non-Black on Black” shooting death in Ferguson, while completely ignoring the extremely common “Black on Black and Black on non-Black” shooting deaths and cold blooded murders (as seen not only in this country, but elsewhere in the world).
Such loop-sided and outright racist propaganda, including the Tr*von self-defense killing, became the norm after half-Black/half-White 0Muslim gained the White House.
Lol, and right after Bill laughingly accuses Obama of “…exposing his racism and prejudice. Again.” FMB42 refers to him as ‘oMuslim.’ Oh, the irony and hypocrisy of the right (as if it wasn’t laughable enough to call the guy who happens to be our President and has subject to the most vile racist attacks these past 6 years, a racist himself.
Those on the right really do have a warped sense of reality.
Greg and This+One are making the same mistake that Obama made when he juxtaposed the IS atrocities with the Ferguson shooting:
They all forget that (maybe never realized that) people in Islam do not ”think” in the same way as Westerners.
We, in the West, have a long, fairly deeply ingrained ”cause-and-effect,” thinking process.
So, IF Obama did not actually make a cause and effect relationship between Muslim atrocities and Ferguson shootings, WE, in the West can see that clearly.
BUT Islam rejects cause and effect thinking.
See, Mohammad had such irrational happenings he reported in the Koran that they cannot hold up cause and effect while worshiping as Muslims.
Over the centuries Muslim ”thinkers” have rejected cause and effect thinking as apostasy and as foolish.
SO……
When Muslims hear Obama juxtapose Islamic atrocities with Ferguson shootings they see a relationship between the two that we can parse away.
And, that’s just what liberal apologists for Obama have been doing, parsing reality away.
Shakespeare once wrote that ”Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”
It really does depend on one’s world view in this case.
People who study Islamic thinking know that Obama blew a dog whistle during his UN speech.
People ignorant of how other people think missed it.
Either Obama did it on purpose, or his speechwriter did.
I’m betting it was a speechwriter.
I doubt Obama is this clever.
He seems to be a true romantic in his feelings about Islam.
@Nanny+G:
Nan, there is a saying “Make hay while the sun shines.” This is the Obama strategy. But those like Greggie fail to understand the times are a-changing.
So while our current POTUS tries to push the black grievance train down the track, the truth of the matter is that Hispanics, not blacks, are gaining in numbers and power. So while the poverty pimps, along with our own POTUS continue to say “but, but, white people”, Hispanics don’t suffer from white guilt and are not going to work to increase Al Sharpton’s back account.
The black “condition” in the United States is never going to change until blacks start sweeping their own front steps.
Consistent with Dr. John’s long history of cherry picking reality, siting bigoted and unfounded sources to promote his hate fest, and scraping the bottom of the barrel of intellect in order to sell his propaganda, here we have another example of context manipulation in order to mislead people of reasonable sanity.
And the mindless regular sockpuppets here line up to concur.
Now, let’s pause for a moment and take a look over here in the real world where facts, you know, uh, MATTER! Let’s look at the actual speech and try if you can, to deduce what people over here in the real world who aren’t affected with a festering Obama Derangement Syndrome understand when they read it.
So once again DR John, your profound dishonesty is exposed as anyone who can read on a 4th grade 3rd month level can quickly conclude.
@Ronald J. Ward:
And once again, we are burdened with your profound stupidity.
@retire05: That’s a logical response from one who cannot rebut intelligently because your argument has been destroyed. It makes one wonder why you bothered at all. I mean, something along the line of “oh yeah, well, your mom wears combat boots so take that” would have been an equal admission.
@Ronald+J.+Ward:
Does your mom wear combat boots?
@Greg:
Greg getting in touch with his “inner Bush” 😉
@retire05: Greggie refuses to deal with reality. He still won’t admit Obama lied when he told America if you like your health insurance and/or doctor you can keep them “period’!!
@Ronald J. Ward: You still didn’t answer MY question, Ronald (I am one of those not claiming he made the direct comparison); why did he use THAT example? First, there has been no adjudication that shows that Michael Brown was killed for any reason other than what the police say; that he assaulted a cop with his 6’4″, 300 lb body. What is the purpose of using an example that could very well turn out to nothing more than a cop killing a criminal?
Why use an example at all? Why not simply say we are well aware we have our own issues, but our morality is far above that of people that bury children alive and behead innocent people? What purpose, other than to express his racist contention that in America, white cops still kill innocent black students that never hurt anyone simply because white cops like to kill blacks? THAT is the problem.
Can you address that? Why does Obama always go out of his way to make the WRONG point?
@Wordsmith: Hell, he even wore the same suit and tie Bush wore!! He needs to do more than simply dress like a leader to be one, though.
@Bill, #29:
Have you seen this video? I’m guessing a lot people who were following the story from outside the United States have seen it. Note it’s posted on a popular UK news outlet. (Warning: What the witnesses said is quite graphic.) While there has been no legal finding, a public perception of the event already exists, both here and abroad.
@Wordsmith: The profound difference in the Bush rhetoric of then and the Obama rhetoric of today is that Bush was selling an unneeded and unjustified opening of a can of worms against a country that did not attack us whereas Obama is selling patience while he struggles to contain those worms.
@Ronald+J.+Ward: ISIS hasn’t attacked us, either. And no one (but the left) made the claim that Iraq had attacked us. The threat was (and agreed upon by many high-ranking Democrats) were the WMD’s. Obama’s actions in Iraq and Syria is a (slow, belated) reaction to a clear threat.
@Bill: To be historically honest, Saddam Hussein was handing over $25,000 to the surviving family of every ”palestinian,” who murdered any non-Muslim in Israel.
A couple of those non-Muslims murdered were Americans.
One on a bus (IIRC) and others in malls.
So, just as ISIS beheaded Americans, so, too did people – the head of Iraq was patron to – murder Americans.
@Bill: My primary reason for responding to you is just to see if rebooting fixed that “+” thing on my name.
If you read or listened to the speech, it simply states that “a young man was killed and a community was devided”. I didn’t read or interpret any association of guilt to either party.
I can only read and make asumptions based on my understanding of the English language. I cannot do that for you.
@Bill: Only the left claimed Iraq attacked us?
Damn man, you’re a babbling idiot!
@Ronald J. Ward: Luckily for you, I didn’t ask you to do that. I only asked you to answer a simple question. Too difficult?
@Ronald+J.+Ward: Then you will provide examples of those who did. Be careful, I have the correct information.
@Bill: To be honest Bill, reasonable discussion with you has proven to be a tall order. Accordingly, I’d prefer to converse with people not so confined to Toto land which on FloppingAces, is a challenge in itself.
Granted, I’m guilty of occasionally entertaining the crazies as sometimes it pays off. For example, when you said “lucky for you”, well, that just made me giggle.
i.e. “I’m (RJW) not up to the task.”
i.e. “I’d (RJW) prefer dumb liberals as they are easily snowed.”
@Greg: Have you seen this video? I’m guessing a lot people who were following the story from outside the United States have seen it.
@Bill: To be honest Bill, reasonable discussion with you has proven to be a tall order. Accordingly, I’d prefer to converse with people not so confined to Toto land which on FloppingAces, is a challenge in itself.
Granted, I’m guilty of occasionally entertaining the crazies as sometimes it pays off. For example, when you said “lucky for you”, well, that just made me giggle.
@Bill: I answered your 1st question in my #35 comment as well as in my copy and paste of the speech. Again, I have no control on how you choose, or refuse to choose what’s written in black and white. If you can’t understand the context, obvously any explanation from me would be taken as opinion, something unproven to you, something only subject to whatever you decide to manufacture in your mind. I have no time nor patience for such meaningless babble of intellectual laziness.
Your 2nd question is simply thread jacking, changing the argument of the thread to something else that you prefer, some silly “gotcha” nonsense that ultimately only leads to trolls like you only posing yet a new “gotcha” question to offset your shortcoming of the previous question.
So I’ll concede to being condescending but insignificant resident trolls as yourself and your sophomoric diversions bore me because you are so elementary predictable and stubbornly dishonest. And this has been proven time and time again by you and your cloned cohorts. It’s who you are and what this site is all about.
@Ronald J. Ward:
No, you didn’t.
So, too cowardly to answer that question, too. Surprise. Massive surprise.
OK, let’s render this down to just one question, to make it a number you may be able to handle. Again, why did Obama use as an example a situation that has not yet been proven to be in any way race related? Think about it this way, Ronald (THINK); there is a very good chance that this will turn out to be a shooting as a result of a store-robbing, brutish, bullying punk attacking a cop. If that turns out to be the case, Obama is going to (again) look like an ill-informed, racist law-disregarding, lying idiot. As an American, I would really rather he would stop doing that, as I find it embarrassing as well as undermining the authority of the nation.
Can’t you answer my question? Please, please, please? Pretty please with sugar on top (we won’t tell Michelle)? Or, at least, man up and admit he made a mistake in invoking this episode? One more avoidance and I (we) will have no other choice but to deem you a moron.
@Bill:
Good luck getting a straight answer from RJW. Redteam and I tried for days to get him to give a straight answer on another issue. All RJW knows how to do is obfuscate to avoid being embarrassed.
@Bill: Well, as far as answering your question, yes I did ( let’s please not get into a childish “did not/did too” game) but obviously from your “there is a very good chance……bully punk attacking cop” diatribe, my answer wasn’t what you wanted to hear.
You see, your admission of a conclusion is something that I cannot change unless I were to have hard concrete evidence of (and based on previous discussions with you, that’s not even enough). I cannot possibly give you a conclusive interpretation of the speech when you are adamant of your interpretation.
But I will reiterate that Dr. John’s claim that “Obama likens white cops in Ferguson to Islamic butchers of ISIS” is utter nonsense. From your very own admission in comment #30 (“I am one of those not claiming he made a direct comparison”), you sheepishly somewhat in cowardly fashion concur.
As mentioned earlier, your ability to even troll on a level of a boring challenge simply isn’t there. Debunking Dr. John’s nonsensical and blind bigoted rants is like shooting fish in a barrel, somewhat deminishing the sport. With you it’s like they just jump out of the barrel and spear themselves.
@Ronald J. Ward:
Well, again, no, you didn’t. However, to prove me wrong (as I so obviously deserve), cut and paste on your next post what part of #35 answered my question. That should be pretty easy.
And, I did not “conclude” the scenario I described; I said it was a possibility, based on the evidence available, and, the actual events NOT being definitively known, it was stupid for Obama to use that as an example of racial and ethnic problems. In fact, the racial and ethnic problems occurred when the race-baiters took advantage of the situation and whipped up violence for political gain. What I said (which you so clumsily pretended to avoid understanding) is that, if this turns out to be the case, Obama will (again) look stupid.
I in no way am “sheepishly” concurring. I came right out and expressed my disagreement and then went on to explain why… something you seem incapable of accomplishing.
You cannot claim to have debunked anything when you avoid answering questions. What has been shown is that YOU are the ignorant troll with no answers, no solutions, no independent views. YOU are the intractable parrot with nothing to offer but what has been provided by liberal media excuse vendors.
Now, either answer the question or stop posting. Stop being a coward. Be a man. Grow a pair. Put on your big-boy pants and answer why Obama picked the worst possible example he could have chosen in a place where he shouldn’t have even gone there.
@Bill:
You are asking RJW to do the impossible.
@retire05: He can’t even cut and paste his “answer”. That pretty much says it all.
@Wordsmith:
It warms your heart.
Obama prefers muslime murderers over white cops, black cops, white Americans, Black Americans, any kind of Americans. Anyone who denies this is disillusion.
Can anyone point out how he could have done more damage to the defense, economy, and image of America if he had openly admitted that was his aim? You don’t campaign for (or vote for) “fundamentally changing” something you love.
@JustAl: #49
I’ve been saying the same thing for several years.