9-11-12-A Sad Day For America

While we're focused on the economy and jobs in this election, the events of 9-11-12 should remind us that this is still a very dangerous world, and that we desperately need leadership at the top in Washington.  Unbelievably, when our embassy in Cairo is stormed by protesters and our flag is desecrated, our diplomats there put out an apology for an anti-Muslim film that we have nothing to do with!  What kind of leadership is that?  Yes, I know that the White House has disavowed the memo since there has been a storm of protest about it, but it still stands as a testament to a feckless leader who stands behind the fig leaf of killing Osama bin Laden (an important achievement that obscures an otherwise dismal foreign policy record).  As Ross Kaminisky wrote in an excellent article this morning:

"...Why did the first terrorist to touch our flag not receive a "warning shot" to the arm or leg, and the second terrorist, who presumably was not impressed by the admonition, not then have his head blown off?"  http://spectator.org/archives/2012/09/12/a-black-flag-day-for-america

Now we have an ambassador in Libya and three other diplomats killed because of this 14-minute movie that no one here had ever heard of until now.  Could it be that the events in Libya occurred later in the day Tuesday have been prevented if we had taken a much stronger stance in Egypt?

This reminds me so much of the kind of "leadership" we had in 1979-1980 under Jimmy Carter that resulted in 52 hostages being taken in Tehran and held for 444 days.  Carter's foreign policy emboldened our enemies and discouraged our friends to the point that Iran felt unafraid to take Americans hostage and hold them for over a year.

Finally, we found out yesterday that our President refuses to meet with the courageous Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu later this month when he is in New York.  While our friend Israel is in greatest crisis of its existence with the potential for more lives lost than in the Holocaust, our president finds it more needful to be campaigning in Ohio.  Is this the great foreign policy leader that we were regaled with in Charlotte last week?  Why are we not standing with our greatest ally as it faces an existential threat?

Update 1:53 P.M.-I watched President Obama's statement this morning on the Libyan crisis.  He read it flatly like it was some kind of press release.  Amazing!  Four members of his administration killed including his top diplomat in Libya and there is no hint of anger in the President's voice.

I saw an excellent interview with retired Lt. Col. Jack Peters on Fox News expressing some of these same thoughts.  Switched to CNN and the supposedly objective news anchor is laying into a Romney surrogate because Gov. Romney dared criticize the president!  That was totally pathetic!


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