Did Obama Bring Islamist Spring? NO...But Free Speech and Bad Attitudes Did

The Atlantic has an "article" entitled "Did Obama Cause the Islamist Spring" as they call it.

As one who has served as a Terrorism Analyst for the Middle East and 9/11 on TV since 1991, my answer is NO.

Obama did not create the strive in the Middle East (which has only been going on for over 2,000 years now). What did cause the uprisings and attacks against American consulates was an intentionally inflamatory extreme low budget two bit movie made by a crackpot who lied to the actors about the nature of the film, designed to cause anger. That in turn was exploited by the Islamist extremist fringe who troll the Internet looking for trash like this, so they can use it to incite anger on their side, so both extremes are making hay on it.

You are free to call someone a son of a bitch. And they are free to punch you in the nose. In this case it provided cover for some extremists to kill our Ambassador. That speech wasn't so free when it takes lives - because it accomplished its intended goal, so sow hate and violence by degrading others.

But it doesn't always work, but is good for us.

Two days ago over 30,000 Libyans angered by the death of Ambassador Stevens, whom they regarded as their friend from America, stormed the militia camps of extremists and drove them out of their camps in their town.  They were backed up by Libyan military, weak as they are.

These are the militias that used the anger from the video defaming their supreme religious leader to launch what we now know was a terrorist strike on our US Consulate in Benghazi Libya, resulting in the death of Ambassador Stevens and three other Americans.

Free speech isn't necessarily free when it results in the violence it was intended to incite. It is the same as shouting "Fire" in a crowded theater to cause a panic. It worked.

By the way, the consulate had limited security. Why?

Because Congress under Paul Ryan had CUT their budget to do this kind of security upgrades!

The unstable and weak Libyan government that needs American support to grow and prosper and build on its democracy that the killers of Ambassador Stevens want to destroy.  Now that Libya is free of the dictator Gaddafi who once bombed an American airliner Pan Am 103. The Libyan people hate Al Qaida. Libyans don't want them running their country. We have to make sure that doesn't happen by being involved and supporting their fledgling democratic government.

Egypt is another matter. No Americans died in Egypt but the new President Morsi is part of the Muslim Brotherhood that rejects Al Qaida, but isn't necessarily a paid-for Mubarak dictator either.  Our only leverage with them is what President Obama is doing - but it is a tricky road in many ways. The Egyptians who started the revolution were secular, not religious, but the Muslim Brotherhood was better organized. It will take Obama's chess-like strategy to deal with this character.

These issues involve complex issues far beyond Governor Romney's expertise. If you can't even meet our allies without offending them (as he did the British at the Olympics), he has no chance of threading the complex needle called the Middle East where each country is vastly different in culture, interests and attitudes. I was in Cairo when President Carter flew in for the first ever peace treaty between Israel and an Arab country - Egypt.

I have been involved with this area over 30 years, starting with the Fortune 500. I know...President Obama is still our best choice for both domestic and foreign policy crises every President faces.

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