Parties in the Middle East may see a U.S. hand in this week’s suicide
bombing that killed Syria’s Defense Minister and a number of senior
security officials. British Foreign Minister William Hague, to his
credit, condemned the attack, but there was silence from Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and President
Obama. Within American political circles, the failure to condemn an
abhorrent act is generally viewed as an endorsement of that act.
Contrast that with the Obama Administration’s response to this week’s suicide bombing in Aybak, the capital of the Afghan province of Samangan, which killed a group of senior Afghan security officials who were attending a wedding. U.S. General John Allen immediately called it a “senseless and cowardly act of insurgent terror,” a “despicable act” and referred to suicide attacks as acts of terror. The U.S. Embassy in Kabul issued a press release, which reads, “The United States condemns in the strongest terms the suicide attack.” On July 19, 2012, at the State Department’s daily briefing, its spokesperson, Patrick Ventrell, was asked to comment on the suicide bombing in Syria and all he would say is that it was a “major incident.”
Apparently, Obama Administration policy is that suicide bombers are good if they are attacking U.S. adversaries and evil if they are attacking U.S. friends. This hypocritical stance was born in the early 1980’s when the U.S. supported Islamic extremists who were fighting Soviet troops in Afghanistan. That support for Usama bin Laden and other radicals came back to haunt the United States, but the government did not learn any lessons from that debacle. The Obama Administration’s policy in Syria, and in Iran where it continues to support the anti-Iranian MEK terrorist group, undermines the global war on terror. If there are good terrorists, and if the United States’ surrogates use terrorist tactics, that softens the label of “terrorist.” Criminal groups who target civilians in order to spread terror are particularly heinous, and deserve universal condemnation and prosecution. The problem is that if both sides use the same tactics, then the “terrorist” label becomes simply a synonym for one’s adversaries (i.e., everyone who opposes the U.S. is a terrorist and everyone who criticizes the U.S. is a terrorist supporter or sympathizer).
Read more: http://www.kabulpress.org/my/spip.php?article116584
Contrast that with the Obama Administration’s response to this week’s suicide bombing in Aybak, the capital of the Afghan province of Samangan, which killed a group of senior Afghan security officials who were attending a wedding. U.S. General John Allen immediately called it a “senseless and cowardly act of insurgent terror,” a “despicable act” and referred to suicide attacks as acts of terror. The U.S. Embassy in Kabul issued a press release, which reads, “The United States condemns in the strongest terms the suicide attack.” On July 19, 2012, at the State Department’s daily briefing, its spokesperson, Patrick Ventrell, was asked to comment on the suicide bombing in Syria and all he would say is that it was a “major incident.”
Apparently, Obama Administration policy is that suicide bombers are good if they are attacking U.S. adversaries and evil if they are attacking U.S. friends. This hypocritical stance was born in the early 1980’s when the U.S. supported Islamic extremists who were fighting Soviet troops in Afghanistan. That support for Usama bin Laden and other radicals came back to haunt the United States, but the government did not learn any lessons from that debacle. The Obama Administration’s policy in Syria, and in Iran where it continues to support the anti-Iranian MEK terrorist group, undermines the global war on terror. If there are good terrorists, and if the United States’ surrogates use terrorist tactics, that softens the label of “terrorist.” Criminal groups who target civilians in order to spread terror are particularly heinous, and deserve universal condemnation and prosecution. The problem is that if both sides use the same tactics, then the “terrorist” label becomes simply a synonym for one’s adversaries (i.e., everyone who opposes the U.S. is a terrorist and everyone who criticizes the U.S. is a terrorist supporter or sympathizer).
Read more: http://www.kabulpress.org/my/spip.php?article116584
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