{"id":3038,"date":"2009-06-12T16:44:07","date_gmt":"2009-06-12T21:44:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aberfoylesecurity.com\/?p=3038"},"modified":"2016-06-07T16:47:25","modified_gmt":"2016-06-07T21:47:25","slug":"president-obamas-outreach-to-the-muslim-world-i-afghan-taliban-attack-barack-obamas-arrogant-cairo-speech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aberfoylesecurity.com\/?p=3038","title":{"rendered":"President Obama\u2019s Outreach to the Muslim World (I) \u2013 Afghan Taliban Attack Barack Obama\u2019s \u201cArrogant\u201d Cairo Speech"},"content":{"rendered":"

Andrew McGregor<\/strong><\/p>\n

June 12, 2009<\/strong><\/p>\n

U.S. President Barack Obama\u2019s June 4 speech in Cairo was seen by many observers as an outreach to the Islamic world. Within that world, some welcomed his words, some wait to see if deeds of substance accompany those words, while others, such as the Afghan Taliban, described the President\u2019s words as nothing more than \u201cmisleading slogans\u201d that \u201cfailed to deliver a clear and true message to the Muslim world.\u201d The speech failed to contain any \u201csign of practical change in the hostile policy of America towards Muslims\u201d (Afghan Islamic Press, June 5).<\/p>\n

\"Obama<\/a>In a point-by-point deconstruction of the speech, the Afghan Taliban analyzed and condemned most of the material within the President\u2019s address, which sought to lay a groundwork for repairing relations with the Islamic world:<\/p>\n

\u2022 The Taliban described the president\u2019s claims of tolerance and good-will as inconsistent with American actions, particularly those of its \u201coccupation forces,\u201d which are committing \u201cmass murder\u201d and imprisoning Muslims in Afghanistan and Iraq in \u201cthe most hateful prisons of the world.\u201d As a result of these \u201cillegal\u201d activities, \u201cObama\u2019s baseless speech has no importance.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2022 The statement objected to the President\u2019s justification of the occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq as part of a \u201clegitimate struggle to secure U.S. interests\u2026 According to national and international laws, the occupation of independent countries and hostile war against their free nations cannot be called a legitimate war.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2022 The Taliban accused the President of wanting to separate Muslims from \u201ctheir real protectors,\u201d the mujahideen.\u00a0 The speech is described as an effort to divide the Muslim community. \u201cToday, all vigilant Muslims are engaged in jihad in one way or the other. Therefore, the U.S. war against the mujahideen is considered a war against all Muslim nations and Islam.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2022 Obama\u2019s claim that America was not seeking a permanent military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan is contradicted by the ongoing construction of military bases and airports in both countries, as well as the President\u2019s stated intention of sending additional military forces to Afghanistan. \u201cThis large number of airports and countless number of military bases are established at a time when they do not need even half of them, given the number of their forces and daily military flights. This shows that Americans are intending to permanently remain in and occupy the region.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2022 The President\u2019s contention that U.S. forces will leave Afghanistan if peace is achieved \u201cis quite funny\u2026 The presence of Americans is the main cause of violence and the current problems in the region. Jihad and resistance against American forces will continue as long as they are present in Afghanistan.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2022 The Taliban also objected to the President\u2019s use of the Jewish Holocaust to demand that Muslims avoid the \u201cdeeply wrong\u201d practices of \u201cthreatening Israel with destruction \u2013 or repeating vile stereotypes about Jews.\u201d The Taliban statement claims President Obama \u201cdescribed Israel as the most innocent and worthy nation of the world\u201d while summarizing the 70-years of Palestinian suffering in \u201ca few misleading words.\u201d While the President did contend that \u201cthe continuing humanitarian crisis in Gaza does not serve Israel’s security,\u201d the Taliban condemned Obama for failing to speak about the blockade of Gaza and Israeli efforts to deny the passage of medicines and basic food items to Gazan residents. The President also ignored the fact that \u201cmass murders are committed [in Palestine] at every moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

In its summary of the President\u2019s address, the Taliban statement remarked that President Obama did not come with conciliatory intentions, but with an \u201carrogant notion\u201d to give orders to the Muslim world.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This article first appeared in the June 12, 2009 issue of the Jamestown Foundation\u2019s Terrorism Monitor<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Andrew McGregor June 12, 2009 U.S. President Barack Obama\u2019s June 4 speech in Cairo was seen by many observers as an outreach to the Islamic world. Within that world, some welcomed his words, some wait to see if deeds of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,125],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-afghanistan","category-jihad-theory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aberfoylesecurity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aberfoylesecurity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aberfoylesecurity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aberfoylesecurity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aberfoylesecurity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3038"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.aberfoylesecurity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3038\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3040,"href":"https:\/\/www.aberfoylesecurity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3038\/revisions\/3040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aberfoylesecurity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aberfoylesecurity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aberfoylesecurity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}