Ambassador Stevens Murdered By Terrorists He Helped Bring To Power
SEPTEMBER 17, 2012
by Doug Book - The Western Center for Journalism
[EDITED and TRUNCATED with EMPHASIS ADDED by FT]
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| Christopher Stevens, murdered U.S. ambassador to Libya |
The enthusiastic celebration of Arab Spring by the American left has at last been repudiated by the gruesome realities of Islamic Jihad. But don’t expect to hear much about this sudden intrusion of brutal fact into the left’s pathetic dabblings in American foreign policy.
Politically embarrassing events such as the failure to protect American diplomats from being murdered and dragged through the streets before cheering throngs rarely make for lasting headlines, especially not when a Democrat president has ignored advance warning of the threat which he more than anyone else was responsible for bringing about.
“Once the US successfully overthrew [Khadaffy] and began focusing on stabilizing Libya, Ambassador Chris Stevens ceased to be a useful idiot and became a useless nuisance.” This assessment by Frontpage Magazine’s Daniel Greenfield goes directly to the heart of the left’s fantastic belief that becoming best buddies with Islamic terrorists renders American dhimmis immune from a murderous payoff when their services are no longer required.
“Chris Stevens was an avid student of Islam and the Middle East, and consistently strove to build the proverbial bridge between our two cultures in the face of sometimes overwhelming antagonism and bitter misunderstanding,” said a friend of the Ambassador ...
But Greenfield prefers to describe Stevens as “… a Middle Eastern diplomat who typified the new breed going from the University of Berkeley and the Peace Corps to desks in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Syria.” Years of self-delusion about Islam being a religion which befriends those who actively appease its most radical practitioners caused Stevens to rush back to Libya in April of 2011 when the efforts of the “formerly” Muslim President Obama to oust Khadaffy had begun to gather steam.
However, it seems that Stevens succeeded only in offering his diplomatic services to many of the same jihadists who later dragged his corpse through Benghazi streets, all no doubt to the cheers of those members of al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood to whom Obama himself had so thoroughly apologized for the unforgivable religious affronts of the Islamophobic American public.
Many remember the extraordinarily successful appeasement by Jimmy Carter of yet another beacon of the tender mercies of Islamic refinement as the brilliant Georgia peanut farmer betrayed the Shah of Iran in favor of the merciful Ayatollah Khomeini in the Fall of 1979.
Of course the American media refused to blame Dhimmi Carter for the 444 days kidnapped sAmerican spent as “guests” of the new Iranian government, just as today’s ... journalists continue to claim the contents of an obscure 15 minute video to be responsible for Muslim uprisings across the globe. ... [T]hat assaults on the American Embassy in Egypt had been planned before the video was ... known ... apparently just gets in the way of a good story.
... [U]seful idiots like Chris Stevens will continue to [function] in sufficient numbers to betray ... American lives and American interests ... throughout the increasingly barbaric nations of the Middle East. [However] as they continue to advance the farcical notion that “Islamophobic” Americans are somehow responsible for the acts of bestial cruelty practiced for fourteen centuries by the ... worshippers of a cult [that sanctions] “religious” murder, these [deluded individuals] represent an ever increasing danger to the security of the United States ...
Gambling foolishly with their own lives is one thing. Demanding Americans ... share their fate by ignoring [obvious] evidence ... is [another]. It’s time American’s stop following [the leftist march towards] Sharia-mandated extermination.
http://www.westernjournalism.com/ambassador-stevens-murdered-by-terrorists-he-helped-bring-to-power/
RESPONSE:
We kind-hearted, well-meaning Westerners always seem to forget about "Takeeya" the practice sanctioned and encouraged by Islam of using deceit to gain an objective. "We" just don't seem to want to believe human beings are capable of the kind of treachery that very sadly appears to be standard operating procedure in the Islamic world.
Another article on the late ambassador that might possibly be of interest. Sorry, you'll need to copy and paste the link:
<http://thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/ambassador-chris-stevens-the-hero-we-never-knew/politics/2012/09/17/49123>
Another article on the late ambassador that might possibly be of interest. Sorry, you'll need to copy and paste the link:
<http://thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/ambassador-chris-stevens-the-hero-we-never-knew/politics/2012/09/17/49123>
~ FreeThinke
Sadly, Ambassador Stevens was, as Daniel Greenfield pointed out, one of the new breed of diplomats. In my view, the ambassador's philosophical roots were in the kumbaya movement of the 1960s. That particular movement is one form of utopianism. How often have utopias succeeded?
ReplyDeleteWhat happened to the ambassador is an atrocity! He was trying to do "the right thing." But the very concept of the right thing becomes incredibly murky in Islamic countries.
On a personal level, I have found most Muslims whom I meet to be personable, considerate, courteous, etc.
On a personal level, I enjoy certain aspects of Islamic culture: architecture, calligraphy, textiles, some music.
HOWEVER, Islam is what Islam is. And Islam does as Islam does.
----------------
Back in 1996, I wrote THIS ESSAY. FT, you might find the essay interesting.
"We" just don't seem to want to believe human beings are capable of the kind of treachery that very sadly appears to be standard operating procedure in the Islamic world.
ReplyDeleteI've also read that there is no Golden Rule in Islam.
Years of self-delusion about Islam being a religion which befriends those who actively appease its most radical practitioners caused Stevens to rush back to Libya in April of 2011 when the efforts of the “formerly” Muslim President Obama to oust Khadaffy had begun to gather steam.
ReplyDeleteYou should get better sources, FT. What caused him to "rush back" was his government.
The diplomatic corps, like the military, doesn't just take off somewhere on a lark. They do it based upon someone in the executive branch telling them to do so.
We agree on the larger point, but diplomacy always has its place.
Two days in a row you denigrate a man who died serving his country. What's next, a feature on the soldiers stupid enough to go to Afghanistan and get shot by the people they are training?
"What's next, a feature on the soldiers stupid enough to go to Afghanistan and get shot by the people they are training?"
ReplyDeleteThat's probably an excellent idea, Kurt. I wouldn't have thought of it on my own, but perhaps, it's a topic on which I -- or someone better qualified -- ought to expand?
I don't suppose you remember, but at the end of WWII very little sympathy was shown to the Nazis tried as 'war criminals" who tried to defend themselves by saying, "I was only following orders."
We took the position then that citizens and soldiers alike had a moral obligation to oppose and disregard "orders" from a government known to wickedly unfair and morally depraved.
Should we apply a lesser standard to ourselves? And wouldn't that be intolerably hypocritical, if we did?
It must be the German in you that resists the idea that DISOBEDIENCE is a DUTY one MUST perform in resisting corrupt, immoral, or incredibly stupid persons in authority -- even at the risk of being SHOT for TREASON.
One would hope that the days of The Charge of the Light Brigade and the Third Reich are long behind us.
You and I will never agree on this particular subject, but there should be no need for us to engage in a personal feud over it.
You are perfectly entitled to think YOUR way just as I am entitled to think the RIGHT way. ;-)
The ambassador -- if you bothered to read about him in the New York Times article that started this brouhaha -- may have been a lovely, well-meaning person with a sunny disposition who certainly did not deserve to be sodomized, tortured and murdered -- but that did not stop him from being a Useful Idiot in service to the evil forces who used and abused his incredible naiveté.
Reminds me of the moron who made the news a few years ago by insisting it was "perfectly safe" to swim with sharks. He tried to prove his point and wound up being dismembered.
Maybe that wouldn't have been quite so idiotic if ony he'd been acting under direct orders from the White House?
~ FreeThinke
Apparently, our friend SilverFiddle is far more concerned about my breaking the traditional taboo against "speaking ill of the dead," than he is about the grim REALITIES of the situation in the Middle East and the utter foolishness of bringing Wishful Thinking based on the neo-orthodox tenets of Political Correctness, learned in our universities at the knees of Cultural Marxist professors, into the deadly serious, life and death arena of REALPOLITIK.
ReplyDeleteVery few bother to read the comments of others with any degree of thoroughness or comprehension.
So eager have we become to find some excuse -- any pretext at all -- to vent our spleen we have ceased to examine whatever we scan with full comprehension or even the pretense of genuine curiosity to learn what has ACTUALLY been said and WHY.
I've featured another article today at FreeThinke's Blog on the sorry subject of "Krees" Stevens' tragic, unnecessary death.
The man was undoubtedly a lovely person, but that was not enough to stop him from functioning as a USEFUL IDIOT -- an educated imbecile -- an "intellectual moron."
Berkeley? The Peace Corps? An "ARABIST?"
Yes, of course! JUST what we need in dealing with maniacal barbarians!
Poor Stevens was a DUPE. His self-deluded idea of "Araby" was the thing that got him killed.
If anyone had bothered to READ the article I reprinted (in truncated form with link to the original) from the New York Times at FreeThinke's blog), he would understand the context that stimulated my initial observation.
Mr. Stevens eschewed "security" -- didn't believe in it. Ergo, much as I detest Obama, it was not Obama's fault that Stevens was, apparently sodomized, tortured and then murdered by the very people he thought he knew, and professed to love so well.
Whenever the NYT fawns all over anyone, you KNOW the object of their shameless, slobbering, wet-nosed, drippy-assed veneration just HAS to be one of those doctrinaire liberal-progressive types we absolutely do NOT need in Public Service.
This does NOT mean I favor a more hostile, aggressive stance toward the Middle East. It means I think we ought to WITHDRAW from the region and TURN OUR BACK on it.
The commitment The United States has made, since the end of WWII, to pull everyone else's chestnuts out of the fire has been as asinine as it has been hubristic and ultimately self-defeating.
As we all should know by now, George Washington advised us from the beginning to "avoid foreign entanglements" and also to avoid the formation of political parties.
Too bad we didn't take his sage advice!
~ FreeThinke
We took the position then that citizens and soldiers alike had a moral obligation to oppose and disregard "orders" from a government known to wickedly unfair and morally depraved.
ReplyDeleteA false equivalency. He and our soldiers are not committing atrocities as the nazis did. I'm sure your twaddle-filled tirade did not intend to make that comparison, so I will be charitable.
And since you enjoy recycling and reposting your broadsides, I'll do the same:
ReplyDelete@ FT: "As we all should know by now, George Washington advised us from the beginning to "avoid foreign entanglements" and also to avoid the formation of political parties."
What piffle, FT.
Washington said that as he staffed the State Department and dispatched ambassadors around the world, to include "The shores of Tripoli" where Jefferson used those diplomats to teach the Muslim pirates a lesson.
You speak to me of GRIM REALITIES, in ALL CAPS?
I've f'ing seen those grim realities, sir, so save your sanctimonious preachings for people naive and stupid enough to believe you know what the hell you're talking about on this issue, because you don't.
@RN to FT: "As you so pointedly illustrate the sage words of the wise are far to often forgotten or just ignored."
I neither forgot nor ignored FT's dyspeptic trashing of a dead ambassador. I read them and addressed them head-on.
I fail to see what's so "sage" about them.
It's my words that some have stubbornly ignored:
The government sets policy; diplomats and soldiers carry them out. You don't throw rocks at the people in the field for carrying out policy you disagree with; you criticize the government policymakers.
I'll make my other point again, since no one addressed that one either:
We need people willing to learn other languages and appreciate other cultures if we are to carry out effective diplomacy. Calling such people "stupid" and "naive" is not "sage," it is childish and ignorant.
Rational Nation USA said...
ReplyDelete"@RN to FT: "As you so pointedly illustrate the sage words of the wise are far to often forgotten or just ignored."
Silver, I was referring to the words of George Washington. As you well know I frame much of my thought, arguments, and statements (however vague they may be) in the philosophical rather than the practicle.
I take no issue with Ambassador Stevens doing that which his government paid him to do. His choice of occupations was his and his alone.
I do however blame the government of the United States for it's fool headed approach to Middle Eastern affairs. I have known and loved some people from Persia (Iran) so I understand their thinking a bit. If psh comes to shove they will typically stand by their religion and their Muslim brothersvand sisters. On this FT is in my never humble view spot on.
The issue Silver is much more complex than many realize. Therefore emotions tend to take a larger part in peoples thought. Having said this America does not belong in the Arab world. We are seen by the Arabs as imperialists, with some justification. Our best interests would be served by packing up, stopping all aid, and bringing everyone home.
Of course we would need to keep a watchful eye on the burning cauldron and respond militarily IF ATTACKED by a rogue Arab state. That and strand by our ONLY ally in the region Israel.
That's all for now Silver, but do give the philosophical basis on which FT's commentary is supported some thought.
We are pretty much in agreement, RN. "Keeping a watchful eye" entails having embassies and diplomats in the area, and we can do it without getting in their business, or getting involved militarily.
ReplyDeleteAmbassadors are not generally professional foreign service officers. IMO, they're in their posts to keep the State Department professionals and the Charge d'Affaires "cynicism" in "check".
ReplyDeleteI take it back, Stevens was a pro... ex "Peace Corps" but joined the foreign service in '91.
ReplyDeleteI guess he "went native".
Stevens helped empower pro-Qadaffists?
ReplyDeleteFreethinker be tripping.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteYour narrative was both fascinating -- and CHILLING --, AOW. Thank you for the link.
ReplyDeleteSome of the reactions TO it are SO typical of the willful misunderstanding mind games and salivating eagerness to find something -- ANYTHING -- to get nasty about.
The Netfolk sure do love to find excuses to act belligerent, don't they?
Easier, I suppose, to get way with than beating the wife or murdering the mother-in-law, etc.
~ FT
It's got to be tough to walk the line between wanting to appear to the natives in whatever country one works in as friendly, helpful and good...knowing full and well that many of those natives would have you dead just for breathing because you're American.
ReplyDeleteAnd some of those natives will respond well to the kindness of America's heart and others look at an American like this as weak and silly for being nice at all.
What the worker has to remember is it only takes one islamist to do anybody in. And that worker has to protect himself and rely on his government.
Sadly, he couldn't rely on either this time.
Thersites,
ReplyDeleteIn three little words you summed it up perfectly, as you do so often.
"He went native."
Yes. I read two or three of the brief, online "biographies" of the late ambassador, and like so many of the leftist-liberal-progressive-collectivist-activists I've known, personally, he had little love or respect for the blessed land where he was born, little use or liking for the comfortable lifestyles a large proportion of Americans enjoy. Instead, he felt drawn to markedly foreign cultures antithetical to everything The West has built and stood for in the past.
I don't think he was particularly brave or noble at all. I'm not even sure he was "well-meaning" where AMERICAN interests were concerned. From what I've been able to gather he preferred THEIR world to OURS.
If so, how could such a person be expected to preserve, protect, promote and defend the United States of America?
I think he was a victim of his own romantic visions. His dream-like interpretation of "Araby" had little relation to the reality.
Like nearly all leftists he was a victim of his own misperceptions and delusions.
It has nothing to do with how "nice," "kind," "appealing," "deserving," "well-meaning," "attractive," or "well-educated" he may have been.
I'm sure I would have liked him, personally, if I'd had the privilege of knowing him, but, as I've said -- probably more than once -- with a background such as his -- undoubtedly raised by California-liberal parents, then Berkeley, the Peace Corps, a fantasy world induced "love" for cultures and peoples not his own and an obvious distaste, eschewal and disavowal of traditional American values -- Fifty-Two Years Old, Good-Looking and Never Married! C'MON now! -- it seems to me he was one of the very LAST people I'd want to represent OUR country in hostile foreign territory.
~ FreeThinke
Lawrence of Libya...
ReplyDelete...w/o a Sykes-Picot Agreement.
ReplyDeleteFT, I love people and cultures not my own. I just love my own people and uniquely American culture and values MORE.
ReplyDeleteThat pretty much sums it up for me.
We are pretty much in agreement, RN. "Keeping a watchful eye" entails having embassies and diplomats in the area, and we can do it without getting in their business, or getting involved militarily.
ReplyDelete