Krauthammer Blasts Obama Administration For Apologizing To Egyptian Mob

Charles Krauthammer, always spot on, blasted the U.S. for apologizing to the mobs that destroyed a U.S. flag at the embassy in Cairo, and killed and wounded two Americans at the consulate in Libya in protest of an anti-Islam film produced in the U.S. by Coptic Christian Egyptian expats.

“That statement is am embarrassment,” Krauthammer said. “That’s a hostage statement. That’s a mob of al-Qaida sympathizers in Egypt forcing the United States into making a statement essentially of apology — on 9/11 of all days — for something of which we are not responsible. I would issue a statement saying to the mob, ‘Go to hell.’ The way America works, the way a democracy works, is that everybody has a right to express themselves. We don’t police our speech and you ought to apologize to the United States for storming an embassy and the violation of the ultimate sacred principle of democracy, which is protecting embassies and missions abroad. For the U.S. to what, essentially, issue a veiled apology, I think is disgraceful.”

Krauthammer on Obama The Drone Warrior

I love Charles Krauthammer. He's always spot on, and his article on Obama's hypocrisy regarding his Pakistan drone attacks is right on the money.

Obama, Nobel Peace Prize winner, who vilified Bush for his war tactics shuffles cards to see who goes next. Not that anyone is complaining about drone attacks, it's the hypocrisy that matters. And the fact that, as Krauthammer puts it:

It yields no intelligence about terror networks or terror plans.

One capture could potentially make us safer than 10 killings. But because of the moral incoherence of Obama’s war on terror, there are practically no captures anymore. What would be the point? There’s nowhere for the CIA to interrogate. And what would they learn even if they did, Obama having decreed a new regime of kid-gloves, name-rank-and-serial-number interrogation?

Here's the first part of his commentary:

Barack Obama: Drone Warrior

By Charles Krauthammer, Published: May 31

A very strange story, that 6,000-word front-page New York Times piece on how, every Tuesday, Barack Obama shuffles “baseball cards” with the pictures and bios of suspected terrorists from around the world and chooses who shall die by drone strike. He even reserves for himself the decision of whether to proceed when the probability of killing family members or bystanders is significant.

The article could have been titled “Barack Obama: Drone Warrior.” Great detail on how Obama personally runs the assassination campaign. On-the-record quotes from the highest officials. This was no leak. This was a White House press release.

Why? To portray Obama as tough guy. And why now? Because in crisis after recent crisis, Obama has looked particularly weak: standing helplessly by as thousands are massacred in Syria; being played by Iran in nuclear negotiations, now reeling with the collapse of the latest round in Baghdad; being treated with contempt by Vladimir Putin, who blocks any action on Syria or Iran and adds personal insult by standing up Obama at the latter’s G-8 and NATO summits.

The Obama camp thought that any political problem with foreign policy would be cured by the Osama bin Laden operation. But the administration’s attempt to politically exploit the raid’s one-year anniversary backfired, earning ridicule and condemnation for its crude appropriation of the heroic acts of others.

A campaign ad had Bill Clinton praising Obama for the courage of ordering the raid because, had it failed and Americans been killed, “the downside would have been horrible for him. “ Outraged vets released a response ad, pointing out that it would have been considerably more horrible for the dead SEALs.

That ad also highlighted the many self-references Obama made in announcing the bin Laden raid: “I can report . . . I directed . . . I met repeatedly . . . I determined . . . at my direction . . . I, as commander in chief,” etc. ad nauseam. (Eisenhower’s announcement of the D-Day invasion made not a single mention of his role, whereas the alternate statement he’d prepared had the landing been repulsed was entirely about it being his failure.)

Obama only compounded the self-aggrandizement problem when he spoke a week later about the military “fighting on my behalf.”

The Osama-slayer card having been vastly overplayed, what to do? A new card: Obama, drone warrior, steely and solitary, delivering death with cool dispatch to the rest of the al-Qaeda depth chart.

So the peacemaker, Nobel laureate, nuclear disarmer, apologizer to the world for America having lost its moral way when it harshly interrogated the very people Obama now kills, has become — just in time for the 2012 campaign — Zeus the Avenger, smiting by lightning strike.

Read the rest here.