Obama on Afghanistan: My apology for the Koran-burning calmed things down
posted at 8:20 pm on February 29, 2012 by Allahpundit
Skip to 3:30 for the key bit. I actually like this answer, even though the “calmed things down” bit is nonsense in the same way that the infamous “jobs created or saved” metric for the stimulus was. There’s no way to tell what would have happened without O’s apology. In fact, the riots went on for several more days after it was made public on February 23, punctuated by the murders of two U.S. officers inside the Interior Ministry in Kabul on Saturday, February 25. Would things have been worse if “only” Gen. Allen had said sorry? Who knows? But as I say, I like his answer — not for what it includes but for what it doesn’t. There’s no pretense here of being truly sorry for having offended Afghans’ cultural sensibilities or of apologizing because it’s the righteous thing to do. When asked, he says he did it to save lives, full stop. It was a means to an end. This is as close as we’re apt to get to an admission by O or his diplomatic deputies of the point I made yesterday, that the fulsome respect paid when Islam is insulted in a high-profile way has little to do with genuine sensitivity and everything to do with managing the death toll. If we’re going to have a global double standard on blasphemy, let’s at least be honest as to why. He’s a little more honest here than western politicians usually are. Now let’s see what he does on the not one, not two, but three separate investigations of the Koran-burning that are currently ongoing in Afghanistan. If the news reports of what happened are correctly, the guys who burned them are probably guilty of nothing worse than some form of negligence. How severely will they be scapegoated beyond that? Given that “sensitivity” now requires barring all non-Muslim U.S. troops from requesting a copy of the Koran from their military chaplain, I’m not optimistic.
If you have the stomach for it, go watch Scott Pelley put Gen. Allen and Ryan Crocker through the wringer for 11 minutes on Koran-gate. Since I lack the stomach, I’m not embedding it here. Exit question via Blackfive:
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The people in power in North Korea must simply have no hearts. How can anyone enjoy life knowing that it is at the expense of causing millions of people to live miserable, horrible lives? What kind of mentality do these people have?
Rogervzv on May 19, 2013 at 11:08 AM
North Korea: It’s hard to compete in the news cycle with this IRS stuff.
Oil Can on May 19, 2013 at 11:12 AM
Shouldn`t we be shooting these down? You know, for target practice?
ThePrez on May 19, 2013 at 11:14 AM
You know all those heart-wrenching commercials with the starving children and the admonishment “How can you not do something?” How does the rest of the world stand by and let North Korea do this to its people? Especially those countries that enable North Korea?
AZfederalist on May 19, 2013 at 11:16 AM
Thankfully we don’t have an embassy there or Bark would have to arrange for it to be overrun and destroyed.
Bishop on May 19, 2013 at 11:22 AM
No revolution in all of human history has ever been launched by desperation or starvation or even the most ghastly levels of human suffering. Revolution begins with hope, and hope alone.
If the desperate people of North Korea had even the slightest hope of freeing themselves from this Gulag of a country, they would long ago have done so. The problem for the people of North Korea is not the government of North Korea, it’s all the governments and leaders around them who mumble and dither in their rancid worship of “stability” while they do nothing to stop the ongoing atrocity.
As long as no one will stand up and declare “Enough!” as Reagan did with the Soviet Union, then the horror of these desperate peoples’ lives will continue to play out, year after year.
As Einstein once said, there are always bad people in this world, but the real evil is in those who know and just sit and watch in cowered silence.
Lew on May 19, 2013 at 11:31 AM
Boomarang reusable rockets.
Whodathunkit?
unclesmrgol on May 19, 2013 at 11:32 AM
Visual Metaphor of the day…
Drudge has Air Force 1 stuck on a runway in a fog.
workingclass artist on May 19, 2013 at 11:54 AM
Take that, water!!
fogw on May 19, 2013 at 11:55 AM
I expect
KGBIRS audits of NK’s Chubby to start post haste…workingclass artist on May 19, 2013 at 11:56 AM
Narcissistic.
Like Obama.
fogw on May 19, 2013 at 11:58 AM
Yeah..and all the celebrities that pick a cause and care sooooo much about some people/places..
Mum on selective places.
The Freak show Rodman..”I love him” visit.
They will go on and on about the poor, hungry,diseased,oppressed,women,gays in some countries and crickets on others.
I find the hypocrisy and selective heart break enough to hurl.
The 80′s…Do they know it’s Christmas Time, We are the World…yeah right.
bazil9 on May 19, 2013 at 12:04 PM
.
It’s a dark spirit, devoid of any light, life, or love.
listens2glenn on May 19, 2013 at 12:06 PM
US Diplomacy is in the very best of hands…
Gotta see it to believe it…
Your Tax Dollars at Work… US Embassy Produces ‘Gangnam Style’ Video to Push Visas
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2013/05/your-tax-dollars-at-work-us-embassy-produces-gangnam-style-video-to-push-visas/
workingclass artist on May 19, 2013 at 12:10 PM
From the minuet they are born..the molding begins.
No conscious. Jet black hearts crafted.
Raise evil..you most likely will get it.
When I see that pic of him..young, fat maggot..in power..it is beyond disgusting.
bazil9 on May 19, 2013 at 12:11 PM
Now, now, guys, it’s just a cultural thing. Mustn’t judge.
OldEnglish on May 19, 2013 at 12:35 PM
Dear God… they have a 12 year old leading an army of the damned, and Hell bent on having his tantrum soothed..
and completely clueless at the nuclear fire he can bring down on his own country, not that a million deaths would bother this jackal..
My training on a nuclear hit was fairly graphic..
had to be, SAC always operated on a war time tempo, always on a hair trigger. Without giving away too much 30 year old out dated intel,, People at the point of detonation, literately vaporize,.. hundreds of meters out, the intense heat flash and radiation char flesh, melt eyes, reduce limbs to crumbling stumps. Beyond that point, thousands of meters out, flash burns flake your skin off, permanent blindness as your eyes` boil.. but that isn’t the end of it, at the speed of sound, the blast wave rolls out, obliterating everything in it’s` path but the most hardened structures, which have already become crematoriums..
Buildings blown apart by the shock wave, by the air pressure extremes.. the tiniest grains of sand are hurled with the force of a rifle bullet.. a mile or more further out, still heat flash blast damage, depending on the tonnage of the detonation,.. atomic, probably in the kilotons range.. begins to peter out..
then the all consuming dust, a thick black cloud of ash, soot, human remains and building materials, all saturated with the high levels of alpha beta and gamma radiation.. all deadly, you breathe it, drink it, absorb it through the mucus membranes of your eyes and lips..
and this is what that inbred moron plays with?
and the world China included, tries to tolerate humor him?
what happens when that is not enough anymore?
You either kill a rat, or leave it be, as my long time hero once said.. you can’t deal with him, the rules never stop changing, the demands ever growing.. I won’t pretend to know the answer, but we cannot keep going on like this with a snake like him.
best maybe if we pay two of his generals to just push his head under the bath water.. and hope we picked two sane ones..
mark81150 on May 19, 2013 at 12:54 PM
It’s BHO’s most diabolic plan yet, stop the rise of the seas with NKOR missiles!
What? It won’t work? Irrelevant!
Difficultas_Est_Imperium on May 19, 2013 at 4:43 PM