OBAMA IMPACT ON WORLD AFFAIRS

OUR ATTITUDE OF MUSLIMS AFTER PARIS

The terrible thing that happened in Paris with three “Muslim” terrorist shooting an killing 12 journalists, has generated a plethora of comments. I have no way of quantization, but it seems as if there has been a shift in the nature of the comments. The shift has been from kill all Muslims to these people are Islamic radicals. To me that is a significant shift. When ISIL was forming and gaining ground in Iraq, the public outcry ranged from, “we must put boots on the ground to kill them all” to ban burkas in Canada or “don’t let them build mosques in New York”. However, there was leadership. President Obama stood firm; “No boots on the ground.” In addition, he was advocating the idea that, “only a small sub-set of Muslims were joining ISIL. Of course, his critics immediately attacked him even to the point where they refused to refer to the Islamic radicals as ISIL because the president did; they used the acronym, “ISIS”. Of course, Obama does not treat thing lightly; there are diplomatic implications. ISIL refers to the region while ISIS refers to the political entity, the governing body, which the leaders of radical leaders wanted treated as a state with their leaders having the dignity of being a head of state. In contrast, Obama saw him as a leader of a gang of murdering thugs, no more.

This shift in nomenclature, if real, would be significant. It would indicate a maturing of public thought and put us on the road to finding a solid solution to the ancient problem of a clash between Christians and Muslims. The crusades, so desired by radical in both groups, are obviously not a real possibility; it is a stale 2000-year old idea that dates from 1095 to 1291. They were territorial wars with Muslims in the region vowing to wage holy war (jihad) to gain regional control, which are ridiculous in modern terms.  

What is remarkable is that our president supplied the leadership to achieve this with his simple “no boots on the ground” declaration. I hesitate to mention it because of the intense hate Obama atmosphere created by the radical right-wing political operatives, but what Obama did by saying they have to solve their own problems, was take the side of the Islamist. He did not say no “Christian” boots on the ground but that is how the Caliphs and Imams interpret his edict; however, Obama and the people in the region see it differently. The shedding of caliphate rule and switch to democracy referred to as the Arab Spring is in full progress—as messy as it is sometime—and is gaining ground. I cannot help but think if John McCain and his shallow, idiotic, short-sighted bomb, bomb, bomb, Middle East policy. Obama will stand as a true giant in world history.

When you hear about the Pairs shooting, it may be hard to think if world progress but I think it is there for all to see, if you care to look.

   
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