In Defense Of Obama Not Going To Paris

Much is being made of President Obama’s failure to attend the Paris unity march yesterday. Apparently Eric Holder was sent but he was nowhere to be found when 40 world leaders locked arms in a show of unity against Muslim terrorism. This isn’t even a matter of Obama leading from behind, it’s a matter of him not showing up. On the other hand, wasn’t the Paris unity march sort of odd? Where was the unity march with world leaders when the US was attacked on 911? Where was it when London was attacked? Where was it when Australia was attacked last month? Where is the unity march for the 2,000 people murdered in Nigeria last week by the Muslim group Boko Haram? We could even make the argument that France wasn’t even united. How can a nation call itself united when the fastest growing political party in France over the last decade, le Pen’s “far-right” National Front, is banned from the unity marches?

Let’s be perfectly honest about the satire magazine Charlie Hebdo. This rag is disgusting and vulgar. They have depicted Jesus Christ in the most obscene ways imaginable, just as they have depicted the false prophet Muhammad. Does this mean they deserve to be firebombed and murdered? Of course not. It’s important to note that only Muslims attack over vulgar satire. Having said that, do we conservatives here in the United States really want to rally around Charlie Hebdo as the symbol of free speech in the west? This is an especially important questions for conservatives who are also Christians. While Charlie Hebdo may have the right to print their vulgar magazine, we do not need to rally around that magazine as a symbol of free speech in the west. Not rallying around Charlie Hebdo doesn’t mean we support barbarian Muslim terrorists. Quite the contrary, it means we’ve thought about the magazine and decided it isn’t worth rallying around even when we’re very much opposed to the Muslim terrorist attacks against it.

Obviously President Obama didn’t show up in Paris because le Pen’s National Front was banned from the unity march or because Charlie Hebdo is vulgar and not worth defending free speech over. He also didn’t show up because he found it odd that leaders from around the world showed up for a French unity march but did not show up after other terrorist attacks. He isn’t even playing the race card by either going to Nigeria or demanding everyone go there as an act of unity against Boko Haram. That leaves the question why he didn’t show up. One could reach the conclusion that because the administration has supported Muslim extremists like the Muslim Brotherhood in the past Obama is reluctant to push back against Muslim extremists even after a major terrorist attack. Considering that in Syria Obama has supported al Qaeda, perhaps he’s unwilling to oppose them publicly in Paris.

The more likely conclusion is that Obama is just lazy and didn’t want to go to Paris. Perhaps he thinks the United States had no interest in being represented at the unity march. Perhaps more likely, the President didn’t feel like going to Paris and his staff failed to grasp the enormity of what was going to happen. In doing so they missed the photo op of a lifetime for Obama, who surely would have been right in the middle next to French President Francois Hollande. Not even the Vice President showed up, which suggests that the administration really didn’t grasp what was going on in Paris. Or perhaps it suggests that they just didn’t care. After all, this is an administration that is very reluctant to call acts by Muslims terrorism. Perhaps the President didn’t really want to be associated with a demonstration against something he would likely call a local criminal act if it happened here in the United States.

No matter what Obama’s reason for not going to Paris is, the fact that he didn’t go isn’t something to get excited about. Nigerian Christians are being murdered by the thousand by Boko Haram, American Christians should be far more disturbed by those events. Charlie Hebdo is a vulgar, disgusting rag and isn’t the symbol of free speech in the west. If it is such a symbol, it’s only a symbol of how far we’ve fallen from our historic Christian roots. Why exactly does the world have to be unified against Muslim barbarians over Paris but not over Boston, London or Sydney? The answer of course is that the Paris attacks were an attack against free speech but again we’re talking about the most vulgar form of free speech. We can defend free speech without lowering ourselves to the level of Charlie Hebdo. Whatever Obama’s reasons for not going to Paris, he ultimately made the right decision. Our President does not need to participate in a unity day for the French people. Especially a unity day that explicitly excludes certain Frenchmen based on their political views.

In 2002, Chen Keinan's mother and one year old child were killed by a homicide bomber in Petah Tikvah, Israel. With the smug way both Europe and the drive by media deal with the terror against the Jews in Israel (and maybe everywhere else), Chen Keinan gave this warning:

>>>>>>>Chen: I'll tell you how I see the future: I think Israel is like the canary in the coal mine, and that's what the Europeans - and I am sorry, I know this goes to Europe, and I said different [more positive] things to America [on CNN-USA] - but we in Israel are dying now. We are slaughtered on a daily basis, but - you're next! You're next, buddies. I understand that you have a lot of Muslim minorities. That's OK, everybody should live where he wants - but you are appeasing terrorism! And you hope that if you tolerate it, and try to understand its motives, and you give it reasons, whatever they are, I ask the Europeans: Do not tolerate murder! I don't want to use the word terrorism, because it's banal. Do not tolerate murder, do not appease the terrorists! Not for oil, and not because you're scared - because the more fear you show, the faster it's going to be on your doorstep - and then, G-d help you, because you gave it legitimacy. And my baby's blood is just as precious as any French blood -- G-d help these hypocritical people..."

Maybe it was important for the image of the firm for those business leaders to attend events like that. It sure isn't important for the image of the U.S. to send leaders to political rallies overseas. The leadership of the United States of America does not answer to the people who organized that rally, nor does it answer to the people who hosted it. In fact, I don't give a flaming sh!t what any of those people think about the U.S. leadership.

Quite frankly, I am very surprised there aren't more conservatives here on FreeRepublic who feel the same way.

If this country couldn't even muster the will to hold a national "unity rally" in the aftermath of all those incidents in which AMERICAN CITIZENS were victims, then why the heck would anyone criticize a U.S. president when he doesn't attend a rally like this in a foreign country?

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