Tuesday, May 13, 2014

The Speech We Need From President Obama

President Obama on the Nigerian schoolgirl kidnapping:
The West has been at war with Islamic Terror for two decades now, a full generation: not a war we chose, but the one that's fallen to us.  Every generation of Americans has its burden.  This is ours.

Islamic Terror has a long history, but first struck America in '93 when acolytes of the Blind Sheikh bombed the World Trade Center.  Attacking low, they killed many but didn't topple even one Tower.

9/11 was the signal day for Al-Qaeda in particular and Islamism in general.  Most Muslims don't support terror as a tactic.  Islamists do.  They embrace recruiting young people - little kids even - to blow themselves up so long as they take out lots of infidel. That is evil.

Islamism is evil because their strategy emphasizes the killing and maiming of innocent civilians.  Terrorists aim for collateral damage.  Their motto is Collateral Damage R Us.

Islamism perverts one of the world's greatest religions, a cancer at its core that will take great leadership to defeat.  Leadership from where?

Leadership from within the Muslim Community hasn't been richly forthcoming, to put it charitably.

Leadership from the Infidel World, er, the rest of us, has been unsteady, uncertain and intermittent: not our finest hour as it were.

Two hundred Nigerian schoolgirls changed all that however.  This hostage situation galvanized the entire world just as it galvanized me.

So I sat down with President Goodluck Jonathan, because I'm that kind of guy.  Plus my Father's from Africa, as you know.  Mostly, I recognize that a setback for Islamism on the world stage would be a major victory in our war against Islamic Terror - Hard Power delivering Soft Power benefits.  Thus I had American interests squarely in mind.

"Goodluck," I said, "We've got an opportunity here to do the world good, do Africa good, do Nigeria good and do those innocent girls good.  We're gonna team up my best troops with your best troops, like teaming up NFL All Pros with NBA All Stars, with Google behind 'em."

What could he say?  I'm offering SEALs, Deltas, U.S. Marines, whatever the mission requires.  Speaking of mission, America's troops are eager for a clearly defined mission with such a rightly heroic goal.

Boko Haram has done the modern world the favor of exposing some of Islamism's most hateful elements.  Haram means forbidden.  Boko means Learning, for girls and about Western ideas especially.

Boko Haram targeted schoolgirls because Islamists think they shouldn't go to school.  That makes this a girl's and more generally a Woman's Rights story, even though it's primarily an Islamism story.

Boko Haram must be defeated and I, Barack Obama, am the President to do it.  It's time for the good guys to fight back.  America has been the good guy before, more times than any other nation ever.  We can again.

I will stand in the well of the Congress and ask my fellow Americans to follow me into this fight.  It's not one we chose.  It's one that fell to us.  The Greatest Generations rise above such enemies of freedom.

Our generation can rise to greatness. If not us, who? If not now, when?