Death of an Ambassador........

 

Our media is having a field day reporting the events in Benghazi, Cairo and elsewhere in the Middle East. In their haste, they get it wrong and mass confusion now prevails with heated debates over what happened, when and in what order.

 

One thing for sure, our youthful, spirited and optimistic Ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, is dead; killed by a gang of angry men. Photos of Chris lounging around Libyan street corners and coffee shops in conversation with natives gives the impression that he was a man of the people. He believed in Libya and felt that his presence there made a difference.

 

He also believed that his popularity among the Libyans provided immunity to bodily harm. He was dead wrong.

 

As I have repeatedly noted, the Arabs are your friend until you stop feeding them. In this case, it was reportedly the streaming of some ill-advised amateur film deprecating the Prophet Mohammed that triggered the turnabout and violence. We are not yet sure if the violence was planned and if so by whom and why. Speculation is rampant over these unresolved questions.

 

One account states that the vast majority of Libyans were saddened over Stevens killing and that of the other three or four people who also died. I believe they were, but I am also of the conviction that had circumstances been different and that vast majority of Libyans had skin in the game that was under threat, they too would have murderously reacted.

 

When the news broke, there was a strong feeling in America to get the hell out of Libya and Egypt and in the process stop writing them checks and sending advisors, arms and aid. After all, who needs friends that bite the hand that feeds them? The average person here is fed up with the Arabs, their convictions, their costumes and their culture.

 

Nor do most Americans sympathize at all with Arabs who seek to manage our behavior by killing our citizens whenever we do or say something they interpret as offensive. Our freedom of speech includes criticizing anything and everything and sometimes in a cruel and unjust manner.

 

Americans will fight and die for the right free speech no matter who it offends. As a result, a lot of offensive material is spoken and printed and filmed. I believe we are the more vulgar as a result of our freedom of speech.

 

No sooner did the news from Libya go viral than Mitt Romney jumped into the act and in his usual clumsy, foot-in-mouth fashion. The observation of Ann Richards, a Texas stateswoman, about George Bush, being "born with a silver foot in his mouth" applies also to Mitt. The latter can be relied upon to come up with the wrong word or phrase at almost every opportunity.

 

Mitt's sin was not only to politicize the events in Benghazi, but to get the sequence wrong. For example, it is reported that O's statement about the need for religious tolerance was broadcast before it was known that Stevens had been killed. To most, this was an appeal for calm. To Mitt and his speech writers, it was an apology issued in the face of a nasty murder. The loyal opposition and their minions on the political right supported Mitt publicly, but I surely they privately feel Mitt had over reacted and as a consequence, placed his capacity to maintain a cool head during a crisis in question. Someone said that Mitt is shooting first and aiming later.

 

It is not over. We now have a couple of navy destroyers parked off the Libyan coast and US Marine Corps boots on the ground. We are also talking about plans to reinforce, nay, fortify, our embassies in several foreign locations. This effort will cost a pretty penny that we can ill afford. Nor does it send the type of message that reflects our policy of friendship toward newly formed governments like those in Iraq, Libya, Tunisia and Egypt.

 

It is difficult for the American in the street to rationalize the export of billions in support of foreign governments while at the same time spend billions more in fortifying the homes and work places of our diplomats. Many Americans would like to see us simply pull back and pull out and leave the countries of the Arab Spring and others like them to their own devices.

 

Our leaders feel otherwise. They want to either redouble our efforts to assist in democratizing the third world, like O is doing, or they seek to meet terror with armed intervention as Mitt espouses. Our leaders are oblivious to the growing spirit of isolationism among Americans who cannot understand our foreign policies and who blame those policies for the hatred felt by many foreign organizations, governments and citizens toward America.

 

America's foreign policies are further conflicted by the role and influence of Israel. Netanyahu wants to partner up in a strike against Iran. O doesn't even want to talk with him. American Jews traditionally vote Democratic. They are conflicted between their allegiance to Israel as Jews and to America as citizens.

 

Many American Jews seek to unite the objectives of Israel and the USA into a single foreign policy. What's  good for Israel is good for America. One can see strong threads of this argument in the Neo-conservative movement that gained much headway during the W years. There are also many American Jews who do not support Neo-conservative policies and the aggressive means promoted to achieve them.

 

They  are content to support the liberal legacy of the Democratic party; partly out of respect for that policy having facilitated Jewish immigration to America. The impact on all of this on Arabs in general is staggering and frequently fuels their hatred toward America.

 

We live in troubled times.