02/18/2016 / By JD Heyes
The Obama Administration continues to pick geopolitical winners and losers based primarily on this lone factor: Nations, world leaders and religious and political factions that have historically been U.S. allies are to be marginalized or opposed outright. That is the only thing that explains why this president wants to reverse decades of U.S. policy isolating authoritarian nations like Cuba and Iran, the latter of which openly sponsors and supports terrorism and allegedly contributed weapons to fighters during the Iraq War that were used to kill American forces.
It also helps explain why this president goes out of his way to avoid calling jihadists militant Islamists and why he would seek to force media outlets in the United States from doing the same thing — while making no similar attempt at vilifying those who vilify Christians, Jews and members of other religious faiths.
As reported by The Daily Caller, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said during a recent back-and-forth with members of the media that his boss, President Obama, has a moral obligation to push back against American journalists who plan to publish pieces critical of jihadis because such criticism could lead to terrorist attacks against U.S. military personnel and against American civilians.
“The president… will not now be shy about expressing a view or taking the steps that are necessary to try to advocate for the safety and security of our men and women in uniform” whenever reporters’ work may form the basis of new jihadist attacks, he told reporters at the White House’s daily briefing Jan. 12.
Earnest was referencing the recent attack against the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo, a French satirical magazine that has published cartoons lampooning the Muslim prophet Muhammad. But the majority of Americans, including U.S. journalists, say kowtowing to terrorists is both a dangerous precedent and a slap at the First Amendment’s guarantees of free speech, freedom of the press and free expression.
Press should self-muzzle?
As further reported by The Daily Caller:
The unprecedented reversal of Americans’ civil-military relations, and of the president’s duty to protect the First Amendment, was pushed by Earnest as he tried to excuse the administration’s opposition in 2012 to the publication of anti-jihadi cartoons by the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.
The White House criticized the satire mag a few years ago after its offices were burned by jihadis, following the publication of cartoons lampooning jihadis.
“We are aware that a French magazine published cartoons featuring a figure resembling the prophet Muhammad, and obviously we have questions about the judgment of publishing something like this,” then-White House spokesman Jay Carney said, in a prepared statement. “We know these images will be deeply offensive to many and have the potential be be inflammatory.”
In the most recent attack, eight journalists, two police officers and a visitor were reportedly murdered by two French-born Islamic extremists who said they were affiliated with al Qaeda in Yemen before French police killed them a day later.
In 2012, Earnest said, “there was a genuine concern that the publication of some of those materials could put Americans abroad at risk, including American soldiers at risk.”
He added: “That is something that the commander in chief takes very seriously,” further noting that “the president and his spokesman was not then and will not now be shy about expressing a view or taking the steps that are necessary to try to advocate for the safety and security of our men and women in uniform.”
Obama a defender of Islam — but that’s it
The DC noted the irony of such a statement:
In December, Congress approved and the president signed a $585 billion defense budget to train and equip soldiers, marines, sailors and airmen to defend Americans — including journalists — from foreign threats. The nation’s media industry does not have a defense budget to protect soldiers.
Throughout his tenure, Obama has repeatedly come to the defense of Islam.
“The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam,” he told a worldwide TV audience during a speech at the United Nations in September 2012.”
As a student of history, I also know civilization’s debt to Islam,” he said in a 2009 speech in Cairo. “It was Islam — at places like Al-Azhar [seminary] — that carried the light of learning through so many centuries, paving the way for Europe’s Renaissance and Enlightenment.”
Sources:
http://dailycaller.com
http://www.breitbart.com
http://www.newsmax.com
http://dailycaller.com
Tagged Under: Islamic militants, media, Obama