Despite a Zogby poll back in 2011 indicating that President Obama's "outreach" program to the Islamic world (Ummah) wasn't working, the Obama team continues to pursue a policy of trying to ingratiate itself to the Ummah with demonstrations of humility, deference and respect coupled with offerings of tribute, i.e., the money of American taxpayers.
As an example of the Solyndra-like returns on our money, here is an recent account of the thanks we get in the UN.
* $2 billion annually to Egypt. Result: Egypt votes 79% against the US in the UN.
* $192 million annually to Jordan. Result: Jordan votes 79% against the US in the UN.
* $6.7 billion annually to Pakistan. Result: Pakistan votes 75% against the US in the UN.
* A particularly galling example of the futility of buying the hearts and minds of Muslims is the "piddling" $1.2 billion biennial aid to UNRWA which supports Jordanian refuge "camps" like Baqua. It is a city celebrating it's 50th anniversary. A city full of shops apartment buildings and Mosques. Not exactly tent city or the digs of Occupy Wall Street. Nor is it a town full of authentic refuges who have been driven out of their own countries by rape squads and genocide but rather it is populated by third generation "Palestinians" on the dole. The issue of just who should count as a Palestinian refuge is finally coming to a head in the GOP controlled congress.
As David Greenfield writes in FrontPage:
After September 11, al-Qaeda enjoyed some of its highest approval ratings there, and most Jordanians still do not believe that Muslims carried out the attacks. Despite half a century of aid, 67 percent of Jordanians blame the West for their lack of prosperity and majorities there support suicide bombings against civilians and American soldiers.
Since the Zogby poll the reaction of the Obama team has been to double down on its "outreach" program by disempowering the US military and empowering Muslim militaries. The Obama administration under the leadership of our cuddly, avuncular Secretary of State, Leon Panetta, has proposed cutting the military budget by 1/2 trillion and has commenced selling military drones to Pakistan and Iraq and now Turkey is in the offing.
But what could better exemplify President Obama's policy of ingratiating the Islamic world by disempowering the US and empowering the Islamic world than his recent policy of cutting back on those in the military that qualify for combat pay. American soldiers get an extra $7.50 a day hazard duty pay in combat zones and President Obama just recently cut back on those that qualify. That's $7.50 a day for risking life and limb for the US. That is Obama's way of saving money. He could save real money by making that $750 a day for our combat troops and zero to Baqua and its ilk. And besides, that would spare them the moral hazard of being on the dole.
As Rick Moran wrote back in 2011, Osama's "outreach" program is an exercise in futility since it fails to grasp the intractable commitment of the Mideastern Islamic world to the destruction of Israel:
Wishing the world was a certain way rather than accepting reality and acting accordingly is not just dangerous and naive, it is also the mark of a stupid man. For the Arab world, nothing - repeat, nothing - the US can ever do short of helping them wipe Israel off the map will assuage their feelings of resentment and hate.
And even that would not be enough since the mission of every good Muslim is to make Islam dominant "über alles."
Machiavelli addressed the general question of policy formation in the matrix of power, love, hate and respect:
"Here a question arises: whether it is better to be loved than feared, or the reverse. The answer is, of course, that it would be best to be both loved and feared. But since the two rarely come together, anyone compelled to choose will find greater security in being feared than in being loved."
President Obama seems to think the take-away from this matrix is that the less the US is feared the more it will be loved. But by cutting back on US military power and kowtowing to Muslim leaders the President has put us on a trajectory in which the US will be neither loved nor feared.
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