AS WE VOTE – AT 9:21 A.M. ET: America votes in primary elections today, and we have taken that right to vote for granted. While we vote in peace and freedom, others around the world are facing genocide. The president of the United States (for another ten months) shows indifference. From Kirsten Powers at USA Today:
Hillary Clinton has said it. Marco Rubio, too. The European Parliament, the U.S. Catholic bishops and Pope Francis have also uttered the important word to describe Islamic State’s systematic elimination of Christians and other religious and ethnic minorities in the Middle East.
It’s called genocide.
The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, the Iraqi and Kurdish governments, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have called what is happening by it’s correct name.
But not so the Obama Administration. The president and his representatives refuse to embrace the word and the attendant responsibilities that come with recognizing the campaign of terror in the Middle East.
So it’s left to the House of Representatives to speak out on behalf of the United States. Today, Congress will join the global chorus of condemnation and take up a resolution cosponsored by 203 members of Congress — including 62 Democrats — to say what the president will not. The resolution declares that the atrocities against Middle Eastern religious and ethnic minorities constitute “war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.” It declares that it is the sense of Congress that all governments, including the Unites States, should recognize this reality. The resolution is expected to pass with overwhelming bipartisan support. A bipartisan companion bill in the Senate has ten cosponsors.
COMMENT: The basic truth is that Obama is a cold, petty man, who really doesn't care about things like genocide. He cares about his legacy. His legacy includes getting the United States– which he regards as a very defective nation – out of the Middle East. It also includes polishing the image of Islam. Not the best man to fight genocide.
March 15, 2016 |