Wednesday January 28, 2009

I've Been Thinking:

President Obama's first TV interview was with Al Arabiyah.
This Arabic news network is watched by more people than Al Jazeera, it is also less strident.
Al Arabiyah is less well known in the US than Al Jazeera precisely because it is less critical of the West.

I watched the Obama interview several times and I read the transcript.
Several of the ideas expressed in the interview exhibit deeply flawed thinking:
The idea that all Islamic issues are linked including the situations in Pakistan, Indonesia and India.
The idea that the Palestinians should have a contiguous state.
The idea that people are basically the same and that the differences between us can be resolved.

Here's why I disagree with those comments:
Many of the conflicts in the Islamic world are inner conflicts, the Islamic world does not fall under a single rubric and Israel is not at the center of those conflicts.
The Palestinians cannot link Gaza to the West Bank without taking major sections of Israel.
The people who want to destroy the United States and obliterate US influence will stop at nothing to bring about their goal.

I hope that President Obama pays attention to his daily early morning security briefings.
We should begin worrying if the new president moves those briefings from the start of his day to a later part of the day or if the daily briefing is relegated to an every other day briefing.
Should that happen the United States will lose its grip on the world's situation.

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