Al Qaeda Is In Trouble Now....Obama Accuses Them Of Racism

This is a mixed bag. At least he calls them terrorist too, so there's that.

In an interview earlier today with the South African Broadcasting Corporation to air in a few hours, President Obama disparaged al Qaeda and affiliated groups' willingness to kill Africans in a manner that White House aides say was an argument that the terrorist groups are racist.

Speaking about the Uganda bombings, the president said, "What you've seen in some of the statements that have been made by these terrorist organizations is that they do not regard African life as valuable in and of itself. They see it as a potential place where you can carry out ideological battles that kill innocents without regard to long-term consequences for their short-term tactical gains."
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Explaining the president's comment, an administration official said Mr. Obama "references the fact that both U.S. intelligence and past al Qaeda actions make clear that al Qaeda -- and the groups like al Shabaab that they inspire -- do not value African life. The actions of al Qaeda and the groups that it has inspired show a willingness to sacrifice innocent African life to reach their targets."

Allah thinks this is some kind of strategic communications strategy designed to put a wedge between blacks in Africa and AQ. I'd like to believe that but I stopped giving the Obama administration the benefit of the doubt over a year ago. Given the willingness of Islamic groups to kill blacks (see Genocide, Sudan), I'm not sure a terror bombing here and there or a Presidential scolding will make much difference.

Over the years AQ has made it pretty clear that when it comes to killing, it doesn't matter to them if people are white, black, brown, yellow they are willing to kill them. Hell, religion doesn't even matter too much to al Qadea, they've probably killed far more Muslims in Iraq, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, etc than they have Jews and Christians.

More to the point, it's getting harder and harder to avoid the conclusion that this President and his administration see everything through the prism of race. If this language resonates with anyone it may well be American liberals who have shown talking about, let alone fighting, Islamic fascism is beyond their interest and seem to think it's racist in and of itself.

That's what makes this quote from an administration official in the same story even stranger.

"Additionally, U.S. intelligence has indicated that al Qaeda leadership specifically targets and recruits black Africans to become suicide bombers because they believe that poor economic and social conditions make them more susceptible to recruitment than Arabs," the official said. "Al Qaeda recruits have said that al Qaeda is racist against black members from West Africa because they are only used in lower level operations."

"In short," the official said, "al Qaeda is a racist organization that treats black Africans like cannon fodder and does not value human life."

So, if AQ instituted and Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity Employment program they'd be less awful?

When it comes to AQ it's not the racism...it's the Islamic terrorism stupid. Anything that avoids that reality hurts the effort to combat them.

Well Intended But Futile [ace]: I look at this benignly -- Obama is trying to say something that will make Al Qaeda less attractive to Africans.

Fine. But it belies his jackass worldview and childish belief in soft power.

Newsflash: "Racism" is a big, mean word in the United States and decadent West but in the rest of the world it means nothing. The rest of the world affirmatively embraces racism -- the rest of the world has no qualms whatsoever about this stuff. None at all.

Ever talk to an Arab (as in, from an Arab country) about Jews? There is just no caution whatsoever about jumping immediately to things we get all excited about when Mel Gibson says them.

Even the Japanese, Western in outlook, liberal, and progressive -- why, a Prime Minister attempted to buck up George Bush the elder regarding the United States' poor performance in student achievement, noting, sweetly, that without all those blacks we'd do a lot better.

I mean, he was trying to be nice. He didn't think he was saying anything wrong.

I have no problem with Obama saying this. My problem comes with all of the liberal pansies' soft-power crap, that they think this is an effective substitute for stuff that actually has a chance in hell of working.

So African jihadists are going to give up murder because Obama called them racist?

Shit, Obama calling Americans racist couldn't even get them to stop jeering at town halls.

Obama is singularly well-positioned to make this sort of gambit, but singularly-well positioned to make a wholly ineffectual and meaningless gambit is still not all that terrific.

posted by DrewM. at 11:51 AM

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