John Bolton
President Obama’s outreach to the Muslim world has been a welcome development after eight years of President Bush’s “us vs. them” approach. “Let me say this as clearly as I can,” he told the Turkish parliament yesterday. “The United States is not and will never be at war with Islam.” He told Turkish students today, “You will find a partner and a supporter and a friend in the United States of America.” Middle Eastern leaders are embracing Obama’s outreach already.
But apparently, the conservative establishment finds such outreach objectionable. On Fox News yesterday, John Bolton, Bill Kristol, and Sean Hannity all derided Obama’s comments to the Turkish parliament. They argued that in fact, the Iraq war served as evidence of America’s concern for Muslims. CNN’s Lou Dobbs also decried Obama’s praise for the “great civilization of Iran”:
BOLTON:There are an enormous amount of things we’ve done to benefit Muslims in countries all over the world. We have nothing to apologize for.
KRISTOL: But could Barack Obama say something that would be mildly unpopular to an audience which he was speaking? No. Could he say that the war in Afghanistan or the war in Iraq are just and that we have fought for Muslims, incidentally under President Clinton we fought for Muslims in Bosnia and Kosovo?
HANNITY: It seemed to me…that this was an attempt to apologize for toppling Saddam Hussein and the war on terror.
DOBBS: In his efforts to charm our allies, President Obama noted that Islam helped shape the world for the better, including the United States. He even declared Iran to be a great civilization.
This is all they have. The right-wing pundits are out of material and floundering. These men got used to being listened to; they were respected members of the Great Club of Republicans in Power and now they have to screech to be heard. It is fitting that their wrong-headed ideology was finally discovered by the majority and their party lost and lost and lost the election. But they cannot reverse themselves now. They are painted into a corner. They have to keep this nonsense flowing.
John Bolton, who was the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N and had to be appointed by Bush through a loophole that allowed vacation appointments because even Republicans wouldn’t back him, and stated many times that the U.N. he was appointed to serve was incompetent, says we have nothing to apologize for. Sheeesh!
I disagree. Saddam was a mean dictator. But that does not give us the authority to drum up charges against him and then conduct an illegal invasion that even Richard Pearle admits, and consequently an illegal occupation causing massive civilian deaths and civilian displacement, poverty, and loss of sustenance.
I think we have much to apologize for.
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