Nicholas Kristof, "Darfur in 2013 Sounds Awfully Familiar": The "Most Pig Like" Columnist Asks Obama to "Recall His Own Words"

You will recall how Nicholas Kristof took a leave to work on a new book with his wife, after retweeting a message that referred to AIPAC as one of "the 2 most pig like lobbies" in America (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.co.il/2013/07/nicholas-kristof-free-miracle-food-most.html). Kristof, a would-be humanitarian, never bothered to explain why AIPAC, in his mind, deserves this calumny (God forbid, anyone should find anything right about tiny democratic Israel), and now he's back, roaming the world in search of injustice.

In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Darfur in 2013 Sounds Awfully Familiar" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/21/opinion/sunday/darfur-in-2013-sounds-awfully-familiar.html), Kristof decries the horrors again being perpetrated by Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir of Sudan against Darfur:

"Because of the resurgence of violence, the United Nations Refugee Agency has hurriedly built this camp for the Darfuris, and it is saving lives. But, while the world is willing to spend more than $1 billion annually assisting survivors of attacks in Darfur, it seems unwilling to stand up to President Omar Hassan al-Bashir of Sudan or even speak out very forcefully.

The world has moved on, but the killing continues.

. . . .

The United Nations has estimated that more than 300,000 Darfuris were displaced in the first five months of this year — roughly as many as in the last two years combined.

. . . .

In the mid-2000s, an ambitious senator from Illinois complained eloquently that the White House was too silent in the face of evil in Darfur. Is it too much to ask that President Obama recall his own words — and speak out again?"

"Is it too much to ask that President Obama recall his own words"?  Surely you jest, Nicholas.

Kristof might also want to ask what happened to Obama's pledge to recognize the Armenian genocide before he became president. But I suppose that was before Turkish President Erdogan, a serial jailer of journalists, became one of Obama's best overseas friends.

Kristof might also want to ask what became of Obama's more recent pledge to arm the rebels fighting against the tyrannical regime of Bashar al-Assad, who is responsible for the deaths of more than a 100,000 Syrians.

And after obtaining these explanations from Obama, Kristof himself might want to recall the words of his vile retweet and provide us with some sort of twisted explanation.

Roger Cohen's "Libyan Closure": The West Should Not Intervene Owing to "Moral Bankruptcy"

A condensed version of the following blog entry, which was submitted as an online comment in response to Roger Cohen's op-ed, "Libyan Closure", was censored by The New York Times:

Regarding his opposition to Western military intervention in Libya, Roger Cohen writes today in a New York Times op-ed entitled "Libyan Closure" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/08/opinion/08iht-edcohen08.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss):

"But the deepest reason is the moral bankruptcy of the West with respect to the Arab world. Arabs have no need of U.S. or European soldiers as they seek the freedom that America and the European Union were content to deny them. Qaddafi can be undermined without Western military intervention. He cannot prevail: Some officer will eventually make that plain."

There is no mention in this op-ed of the Lockerbie bombing, which killed all 243 passengers and 16 crew members on Pan Am Flight 103. Libya's ex-justice minister, Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, has acknowledged what all the world already knew: Qaddafi personally ordered this bombing in 1988. When weighing "moral bankruptcy", why has Cohen omitted this horror?

Moreover, given Cohen's line of reasoning, should the U.S. also avoid any intercession in the Congo, where 5 million people have been slaughtered, or in Darfur, where another half million people have been murdered, inasmuch as slavery was once legal in the U.S.?

Or given that England expelled the Jews in 1290, did this justify the decision not to bomb the railroad lines leading to Auschwitz during World War II?

Wait until "some officer" ultimately disposes of Qaddafi? How many thousands of innocents will die in the interim?

Personally I prefer immediately making deep holes in Qaddafi's airfields, thereby leveling the playing field for the rebels, and I am embarrassed to note that for once, John Kerry and I are in agreement.

But it need be noted that Roger is in fact echoing the thoughts of President Obama (Surprise, surprise!), who likes "to watch" (http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2011/02/jg-caesarea-middle-east-iq-test.html). As reported in an excellent New York Times article entitled "Discord Fills Washington on Possible Libya Intervention" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/08/world/middleeast/08policy.html?hp), David E. Sanger and Thom Shanker tell us:

"Of most concern to the president himself, one high-level aide said, is the perception that the United States would once again be meddling in the Middle East, where it has overturned many a leader, including Saddam Hussein. Some critics of the United States in the region — as well as some leaders — have already claimed that a Western conspiracy is stoking the revolutions that have overtaken the Middle East.

'He keeps reminding us that the best revolutions are completely organic,' the senior official said, quoting the president."

"Organic"? The president appears to be confusing revolutions with Michelle's garden. Last I remember, the 13 American colonies received no small amount of vital assistance from France during their war of independence, but heck, that was so many years ago.

Kristof's "Chronicle of a Genocide Foretold": Obama Talks Quietly and Carries No Stick

In an op-ed in today's New York Times entitled "Chronicle of a Genocide Foretold" (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/30/opinion/30kristof.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss) in which we are told that Obama needs to get tougher to avoid genocide in Sudan's south, inveterate leftist Nicholas Kristof says there are plenty of carrots being offered by Obama to Sudan's President Bashir, but no sticks:

"I see no evidence of serious sticks. Put yourself in President Bashir’s shoes. It may still be in his interest to plan a genocidal strategy in the coming months if that will enable him to keep the oil. Even privately, we haven’t laid out strong enough disincentives."

What a surprise! Obama has made a name for himself throughout the world as a president who talks quietly, using teleprompters, and carries no stick at all -- in discussions with Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, Myanmar. Only when the talk focuses on U.S. ally Israel are there calls from the left to "break bones" (see Roger Cohen's recent "A Test of Israel's Character" (http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2010/09/cohens-test-of-israels-character-bon.html)).

Remarkable how Kristof acknowledges how the Bush administration knew how to talk with bullying murderer Bashir.

However, nothing can be achieved in Sudan without also acknowledging the true racial overtones of this conflict, which Kristof does not disclose to his readers. This is a country where hundreds of thousands of black animists, i.e. non-Muslims, in the south have already been slaughtered by Arabs from the north with the support of oil-hungry China and the tyrannical Islamic Republic of Iran.

A flaccid, irresolute Obama administration is suddenly going to rein in China and Iran? I wouldn't bet on it. After all, it's much easier and more politically correct today to beat up on tiny democratic Israel.

Thanks, Nicholas, for this mendacious display of would-be candor.

Thomas Friedman's "Saudi Time": A Sure-Fire Peace Proposal! . . . Not

In an op-ed in today's New York Times entitled "Saudi Time" (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/08/opinion/08friedman.html?hp), Thomas Friedman calls upon King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia to take the lead role in bringing about Middle East peace. Friedman writes:

"Some eight years ago, in February 2002, I interviewed then-Crown Prince-now-King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia at his horse farm outside Riyadh. I shared with him a column I had written — suggesting that the Arab League put forth a peace plan offering Israel full peace for full withdrawal from the West Bank, Gaza and Arab East Jerusalem for a Palestinian state — when he feigned surprise and said: 'Have you broken into my desk?' The Saudi leader said he was preparing the exact same plan and offered it up — 'full withdrawal from all the occupied territories, in accord with U.N. resolutions, including in Jerusalem, for full normalization of relations.'”

Friedman concludes:

"King Abdullah should invite Mr. Netanyahu to Riyadh and present [his peace plan] to him personally."

Personally, I would take the Abdullah-Friedman Plan a few steps further . . .

After Netanyahu arrives in Riyadh, signs off on Abdullah's peace plan, and is given a tour of Mecca, we should expect Hamas, Iran's proxy in Gaza, whose charter calls for the murder of all Jews (not just Israelis), to stop firing mortar shells, rockets and missiles (some 11,000 since 2001) into Israel.

And when a "rogue" Hamas operative fires a shoulder-held missile at a 747 landing at Ben Gurion Airport (some five miles from Israel's border with the Palestinian Authority -- Israel is only 9 miles wide at its waist) and sends the jet crashing to the ground, Israel will simply accept the provocation as one of the risks it took for peace.

And Hezbollah, Iran's proxy in Lebanon, will turn its arsenal of 50,000 rockets and missiles aimed at Israel, over to the Lebanese government.

And Saudi Arabia's own war with Shiite rebels, backed by Iran, in Yemen's northwest Saada province, which has left 175,000 people homeless, will end overnight.

And Saudi Arabia will stop lashing and handing out prison sentences to women who have been gang raped.

And Libya will no longer celebrate the release from prison of Lockerbie bombers.

And the killing of Black Africans (some 400,000 murdered) by Sudan's Arabs will suddenly end.

And 35 million Kurds, living in Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran, will be granted statehood, thus putting an end to years of pillage and atrocities directed against them.

And Iran will stop imprisoning and executing its peaceful Baha'i minority, grant homosexuals the basic human rights to which they are entitled, and stop stoning to death women for alleged adultery.

And throughout the Muslim Middle East, there will be an end to "honor killings" against women, and those guilty of murdering their wives, daughters and sisters will be punished.

Quickly, Bibi! I'll drop by your house later today, and let's make those flight reservations to Riyadh!