DELUSION AND REALITY IN THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION
THE ICONOCLAST
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Tuesday, 21 June 2016
by Michael Curtis
It would be too unkind to say that the Obama Administration
resembles the Grand that Couldn’t Shoot Straight, the appellation given
by the novelist Jimmy Breslin to a story about a Brooklyn Mafia mob.
Yet, even loyal supporters of the Administration are perplexed and
embarrassed by the decision on June 19, 2016 of Attorney-General Loretta
Lynch to redact the most important parts of the transcript of the
self-described soldier of Allah, the Islamist murderer of 49 people in
Orlando, Florida.
Two recent actions have illustrated the insularity of mind, the
remoteness of the U.S. Administration from reality, and given the
impression of a fanatical obsession with a fabricated version of
affairs. One is the repeated refusal by President Barack Obama and, on
June 20, 2016, Attorney-General Loretta Lynch, to acknowledge that
terrorist incidents are linked to if not the result of Radical Islam.
The other is an unwillingness to abide by the Freedom of Information Act
of 1966 that allows anyone to request information from executive branch
government agencies.
It is inexplicable why Barack Obama and Loretta Lynch still persist in refusing to utter the words Radical Islam as
if they were a kind of witchcraft in referring to the terrorists in the
U.S. The murderers told us who they were and explained their actions.
Major Nidal Hassan who killed 13 at Fort Hood on November 5, 2009 said
he was linked to the notorious terrorist leader Anwar al-Awlaki.
Muhammad Abdulazeez who killed 5 at Chattanooga, Tenn., on July 16,
2015 was motivated by Islamist propaganda. The couple that killed 14 in
San Bernardino on June 12, 2016 were home grown terrorists inspired by
Islamist groups.
Why cannot the President and the Attorney General accept the
references to Islamic terrorism by the perpetrators including those made
by the murderer Omar Mateen in Orlando, Florida in his calls to the
police during his intervals of murdering 49 people? Mateen had clearly
said he had pledged allegiance to the ISIS leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi
and the ISIS organization. It is unrewarding that the Administration’s
excuse for not speaking frankly is desire to avoid alienating supposed
allies in the Muslim world.
What an extraordinary difference between the Obama Administration’s
inability to speak truth to the American public and the forthrightness
and clarity of French political leaders in responding to terror in their
country and elsewhere in Europe. After the ghastly series of massacres
starting on January 7, 2015 at the Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris and
the nearby kosher supermarket that killed 17 people, French Prime
Minister Manuel Valls stated the obvious.
The Obama administration should heed Valls’ words, “We are at war,
but not against a religion, not against a civilization, but at war to
defend our values. It is a war against terrorism, against jihadism,
against Radical Islam.” After the terrorism on March 22, 2016 at the
airport and metro station in Brussels, Valls repeated the reality, the
existence of war against the three mentioned enemies.
President Obama correctly said that all of us have a responsibility
to refute the view that groups like ISIL (ISIS) somehow represent
Islam. The problem is that no serious critic of his foreign policy has
suggested this is the case. All accept that the vast numbers of Muslims
in the U.S. and around the world are peaceful people. But it is the
height of irresponsibility to deny or overlook the fact that a part of
the Muslim community can be characterized as adherents of Radical Islam,
one expression, if a perverted one, of Islam.
Similarly, it is not true that addressing the terrorists correctly
as Radical Islamist will in some way discourage efforts to combat them,
or suggest the West is fighting a war against a religion, or even worse
encouraging would be jihadists to join the terrorist groups. The
statement and decision of Loretta Lynch in redacting the specific enemy,
Islamic jihadists, from the transcript of the 911 calls made by the
terrorist becomes incomprehensible, except as one that is politically
motivated and thus politicizing the Department of Justice.
Both Lynch and Obama have spoken of the Orlando massacre as an act
of terror, an act of hate. But neither mentioned it was inspired by
terrorist ideology or that Mateen stated his allegiance to the world’s
major terrorist group. It is a truism that Mateen was not directed by
ISIS or was part of a larger operation. ISIS has fully explained its
strategy of calling for lone wolf operations, rather than relying on
large scale, disciplined and organized ones.
Lynch’s actions and non-actions have revealed a wider problem in
the Obama Administration, the lack of transparency if not the continuing
politicizing of the Department of Justice, already familiar from
members of previous and present administrations, such as John Mitchell
in the Nixon administration, and Eric Holder, the previous
Attorney-General. On April 1, 2016 the White House was inexcusably
undiplomatic by censoring a video of French President Francois Hollande
and redacting his remarks that Islamist terrorism is at the root of
terrorism.
On a number of occasions Obama has assured the country that his
administration is the most transparent administration in history. His
memorandum to the heads of executive departments and agencies declared
that the Administration would, consistent with law and policy, disclose
information rapidly in forms that the public can readily find and use.
Accordingly there has been some commitment to transparency. But,
even admitting the growing problem because of the increase in the number
of requests for information, there have been frequent departures from
this noble principle. Rather, there has been secrecy, and imperfect
closure of information of off the record and concealed meetings. We know
the State Department edited the transcript of the journalist James
Rosen. The White House spin-doctor Ben Rhodes has arrogantly revealed
his deception of the media and the general public over the nuclear deal
with Iran.
Censorship has been rife. It may be true as the administration
argues that some information needs to be private, but the clear and
frequent pronouncements, made clear in the media, by Mateen do not fall
in this category.
The record of the Administration regarding secrecy and openness and
transparency has been imperfect. Pertinent to the ongoing presidential
campaign, a federal judge in May 2015 rebuked the State Department for
not releasing the emails of Hillary Clinton, and ordered them to be
released in batches every 30 days.
More broadly in 2014, the Obama administration censored or refused
to release more government records than in any previous year. About 39 %
of total requests for information were censored or access was denied.
In about 30 % of other instances, no records could be found or the
request was found unreasonable. Federal officials could not find any
records for one sixth or 13,000 requests for information.
Happily, it was a severe backlash and strong public concern from
American citizens about the proposed redaction by Lynch that caused the
Department of Justice to change its mind and make public the seemingly
whole transcript of Mateen’s remarks. The Administration’s behavior, by
denying or minimizing reference to the perpetrators as Islamic or linked
to ISIS in some way, is largely political in character. Its explanation
that by redacting the information it is preventing spreading of Islamic
propaganda is a specious one. The families of the 49 killed in Orlando
deserve better from their rulers.
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