…as a state-sponsored madrasah:

if we think it probable or possible that a man would only mutate into such a monster after undergoing the Guantanamo experience, then I can suggest one reason why that might be. Nothing prepared me for the way in which the authorities at the camp have allowed the most extreme religious cultists among the inmates to be the organizers of the prisoners’ daily routine. Suppose that you were a secular or unfanatical person caught in the net by mistake; you would still find yourself being compelled to pray five times a day (the guards are not permitted to interrupt), to have a Quran in your cell, and to eat food prepared to halal (or Sharia) standards. I suppose you could ask to abstain, but, in such a case, I wouldn’t much fancy your chances. The officers in charge were so pleased by this ability to show off their extreme broad-mindedness in respect of Islam that they looked almost hurt when I asked how they justified the use of taxpayers’ money to create an institution dedicated to the fervent practice of the most extreme version of just one religion. To the huge list of reasons to close down Guantanamo, add this: It’s a state-sponsored madrasah.

Of course, I don’t think that’s an excuse to shut down Gitmo, but it is an excuse to rethink our “tolerance” of the totalitarian ideology with which we’re at war, but won’t admit it. I can only shake my head at the insanity of those who thought that the Bush administration was too hard on radical Islam. Would we handing out copies of Mein Kampf to German POWs during the war (ignoring the fact, of course, that these are not POWs but illegal combatants)?

And more on the president’s naivety and historical ignorance:

The same near-masochistic insistence on taking the extreme as the norm was also present in Obama’s smoothly delivered speech in the Egyptian capital. Some of what he said was well-intentioned if ill-informed. The United States should not have overthrown the elected government of Iran in 1953, but when it did so, it used bribed mullahs and ayatollahs to whip up anti-Communist sentiment against a secular regime. The John Adams administration in the 1796 Treaty of Tripoli did indeed proclaim that the United States had no quarrel with Islam as such (and, even more important, that the United States itself was in no sense a Christian nation), but the treaty failed to stop the Barbary states from invoking the Quran as permission to kidnap and enslave travelers on the high seas, and thus Thomas Jefferson was later compelled to send a fleet and the Marines to put down the trade. One hopes that Obama does not prefer Adams to Jefferson in this regard.

Any person with the smallest pretense to cultural literacy knows that there is no such place or thing as “the Muslim world,” or, rather, that it consists of many places and many things. (It is precisely the aim of the jihadists to bring it all under one rulership preparatory to making Islam the world’s only religion.) But Obama said nothing about the schism between Sunni and Shiites, or about the argument over Sufism, or about Ahmadi and Ismaili forms of worship and practice. All this was conceded to the umma: the highly ideological notion that a person is first and foremost defined by their adherence to a religion and that all concepts of citizenship and rights take second place to this theocratic diktat. Nothing could be more reactionary.

That would be too politically inconvenient to mention.

Obama, in Cairo:

As a student of history, I also know civilization’s debt to Islam. It was Islam – at places like Al-Azhar University – that carried the light of learning through so many centuries, paving the way for Europe’s Renaissance and Enlightenment. It was innovation in Muslim communities that developed the order of algebra; our magnetic compass and tools of navigation; our mastery of pens and printing; our understanding of how disease spreads and how it can be healed. Islamic culture has given us majestic arches and soaring spires; timeless poetry and cherished music; elegant calligraphy and places of peaceful contemplation.

So far, so good (though I’ve never seen much evidence that he’s really a “student of history”). But this next seems like a stretch:

And throughout history, Islam has demonstrated through words and deeds the possibilities of religious tolerance and racial equality.

Note that he provides no examples of this, and the world abounds with counterexamples to the proposition. For example, I always find it either amusing or appalling that African-Americans who embrace the religion don’t understand that it was Arab traders (Muslims) who sold their ancestors into slavery to the Europeans.

This next bit is even more amazing, though:

I know, too, that Islam has always been a part of America’s story. The first nation to recognize my country was Morocco. In signing the Treaty of Tripoli in 1796, our second President John Adams wrote, “The United States has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Muslims.” And since our founding, American Muslims have enriched the United States. They have fought in our wars, served in government, stood for civil rights, started businesses, taught at our Universities, excelled in our sports arenas, won Nobel Prizes, built our tallest building, and lit the Olympic Torch. And when the first Muslim-American was recently elected to Congress, he took the oath to defend our Constitution using the same Holy Koran that one of our Founding Fathers – Thomas Jefferson – kept in his personal library.

Now, when I see the words “Islam has always been a part of America’s story,” and “Tripoli,” the Treaty of Tripoli is not the first thing that comes to mind. What comes to mind is the Marine Corps anthem, which talks about “the shores of Tripoli.” Because that was the first foreign war in which we engaged after gaining our independence and becoming a constitutional republic — a war against Muslims resulting from their continual piracy and kidnapping of American sailors. And of course, they didn’t restrict their kidnapping to ships at sea — many people (and many women and children) were plucked from the shores of Europe and the British Isles, and sold into slavery. By Muslims. They were equal-opportunity slavers, enslaving both blacks and whites. Perhaps this is what Obama meant by their promotion of “racial equality.”

Anyway, anyone familiar with the actual history of relations between the young United States and the Barbary Pirates would be astonished to read the above paragraph coming from a supposed “student of history.”

Now, I’m not saying that he should have peeled that particular scab off the old wound– just that it’s bizarre to talk about our early relations with Islam without mentioning it. It would have been better to simply avoid discussing that particular period in history at all.

I guess that this must be a result of studying history in the US public school system. Maybe he should have gotten vouchers.

And of course, there is nothing particularly Islamic about wearing a “hijab.” It’s a recent fashion (and part of the religion’s long-time subjugation of women). I hope that he doesn’t plan to have the US government defend the right to cover the face for driver’s license photos, or to not require Muslim nurses to wash their hands before and during surgery, as has occurred in the UK.

What is annoying about this speech (even ignoring the utter whitewashing of the history of Islam), is that he’s once again, or still (though more subtly this time) running against George Bush, with the implication that Bush was at war with Islam, regardless of the painstaking politically correct steps he took to avoid that impression, to the point of having the FBI coordinate and cooperate with the terrorist-sponsoring organization, CAIR. This speech was unnecessary, at least as far as healing our relations with Islam or the world. But it will help reinforce domestically the false history from this “student of history” that the war (when they’re willing to admit that we are at war) is all Bush’s fault.

I’ll probably talk about the section on Israel and the “Palestinians” in another post, when I find time.

[Update a while later]

It’s worth noting, as it is in comments, that the Treaty of Tripoli was one of several, and basically a negotiation of how much tribute should be paid by the US to the Barbary Coast for a guarantee of unhindered passage by American ships through the Mediterranean and near Atlantic, after the loss of protection by first the British and later the French navies. It was basically a formalized extortion racket, which eventually (and it didn’t take long) broke down and resulted in the young US raising a Navy and engaging in the Barbary Wars, to avoid further tribute. Again, it seems a tender issue to raise in a speech addressed to Muslims.

[Update early afternoon]

Andy McCarthy has similar thoughts.

[Update a couple minutes later]

Platitudes and naivete. Robert Spencer dissects. Of course “platitudes and naivete” is a pretty good description of any Obama speech, so it doesn’t really distinguish this one.

Marty Peretz is shocked, shocked, that Obama only sees one country to be pressured in the Middle East. But I’ll bet he didn’t vote for John McCain.

I didn’t watch, but reportedly Newt dismantled Dick Durbin on Meet the Press yesterday on the subject of the disingenuity (if not outright mendacity) of the Obama administration claims to be breaking from the Bush administration on military commissions and Guantanamo. Andy McCarthy makes him into rubble today.

2. Durbin’s “right of counsel” claim is a joke — and one you’d think Democrats would be too embarrassed to keep repeating given the number of Obama administration lawyers who, along with their former firms, spent the last eight years volunteering their services to America’s enemies. Under the Bush commission system, the terrorists already had U.S. taxpayer-funded military lawyers and were, in addition, permitted to retain private counsel — and there was no shortage of American private lawyers (such as several at Attorney General Eric Holder’s firm) who have taken up these cases. If there’s anything these terrorists have gotten plenty of, it’s top-flight legal representation.

3. The claim that “in seven years in Guantanamo there were exactly three [detainees] who were convicted by military commissions” is another screamer. The main reason for delay in the commissions process has been the aforementioned legion of volunteer American defense attorneys who ground the system to a halt by various court challenges. At the end of this legal barrage, the only real change in the commissions was a formal one — they are now authorized by Congress rather than by presidential directive (as Bush, like FDR, had used). As a practical matter (and Obama is all about being practical, right?), they operate exactly the same way. Moreover, the current delay — now in its fifth month, with several more months to go — is because President Obama himself stopped the pending commissions against 21 terrorists (when trial was imminent in several of them) so he could first “study” them and, now, propose these illusory “changes.

There’s a lot more. These people must think that we’re as stupid as they are.

…from Keith Olbermann:

Neurotic. Paranoid. False to fact and false to reason. Forever self-rationalizing. His inner rage at his own impotence and failure dripping from every word and as irrational, as separated from the real world, as dishonest, as insane, as any terrorist.

The amazing thing about Ben Affleck’s spoof of him on Saturday Night Live was that it was so close to reality. He must write this drivel himself. I can’t imagine any self-respecting network writer coming up such over-the-top lunacy.