Let it not be said that I don’t feel for the plight of the nearly 300 Nigerian high-school girls kidnapped by the Islamist group Boko Haram; indeed, anyone with a conscience ought to empathize with them and their duly distraught families. That said, the abduction of these girls and, sadly, their fates (should rescue efforts fail) pale in comparison to the atrocities committed across the world daily against women by Muslim men “in the name of Allah.”
At least two components of this tragic comedy are worthy of examination. One is the blatant and shameless distraction coming directly out of the White House and Hillary Clinton camp. Michelle Obama hit social media with her Twitter hashtag campaign; Clinton followed suit shortly thereafter.
Carried to its logical conclusion, the investigation into the Benghazi attack could topple the Obama administration, and then some. Clinton’s presidential ambitions could be irreparably damaged, depending on the outcome. So, both have ample motivation for diverting public attention from Benghazi. They, the press and powerful Democrats are attempting to set the stage for this investigation to be downplayed as much as possible; this is to say nothing of more subtle manipulation of the process in which the administration will no doubt engage.
Even assuming that Rep. Trey Gowdy and the other committee members are dogged in their efforts, the administration could sabotage and obfuscate the process into oblivion. Will the investigation be able to penetrate the cover-up and reveal the administration’s diabolical Middle East policy? Will the administration’s “Benghazi version” of Lois Lerner be offered up for castigation that will be every bit as unimpressive and ineffectual as that meted out to Attorney General Eric “You don’t wanna go there, buddy” Holder for his contempt of Congress?
Then, there are the administration’s actual foreign-policy objectives themselves, which render their concerns for the Nigerian schoolgirls laughable at best, disgusting at worst.
Why, one wonders, is the administration so eager to condemn Boko Haram for this exercise of their “religious freedom” at this point in time, when atrocities perpetrated by Islamists on an hourly basis are routinely ignored by this bunch? Conservatives have long cited the tendency of the left to ignore Islamists’ crimes against women in light of the left’s ostensibly feminist roots.
The reason is that it has become politically expedient for the Obama administration to condemn Boko Haram, if only rhetorically. Their actual foreign policy objectives in Nigeria are similar to what they were – or are – in Egypt, Libya and Syria: Destabilize the non-Islamist regime in order to pave the way for an Islamist one. In Nigeria, Obama and Co. will publicly oppose Boko Haram’s terrorism and carnage while ideologically (and perhaps covertly) supporting them, and realize the added bonus of being on the right side of women’s issues back home.
One somewhat promising development has grown out of the Boko Haram story concerning prominent individuals publicly taking exception to the proliferation of Islamist-compliant policies. Last week, the City of Beverly Hills voted to pressure the government of Brunei to divest the Beverly Hills Hotel, after powerful Hollywood celebrities protested that nation’s enactment of Shariah law. This provided a springboard, as it were, for the attendant outrage on the part of some Hollywood celebrities over the Nigerian kidnappings.
I like to think I’m as anti-feminist as they come, but Islam, with its thieves’ code of a worldview and history of rape, murder, misogyny and slavery, appears to be the perfect vehicle for knuckle-dragging testosterone junkies to do what they damn well please. Thus, I imagine there is still room for some liberals to come around to its incompatibility with American culture. While the sultan of Brunei and his clan are fabulously wealthy, they were a scant few steps out of their grass huts when they came into their oil money. It’s been reported that their wealth has profoundly corrupted them, and they make the cast of “Dynasty” look like “The Brady Bunch.” The sultan’s brother Prince Jefri, who owns a mega yacht named “T–s,” literally had no idea that people would find this both offensive and absurd.
Finally, I don’t believe for a moment that the Hollywood elites who have determined to stand up for the humanity of the Nigerian school girls have the slightest inkling that their “lord and savior” (as comedian Jamie Foxx articulated) Barack Obama, played a major role in cultivating the environment in which Boko Haram might flourish (the group even came into possession of weapons that inexplicably “found their way” out of Libya during the fighting there).
What those who applaud Michelle coming out against Boko Haram don’t get is that this isn’t Islamic extremism: This is Islam – but one has to start somewhere. The realization on the part of Hollywood celebs and the rest of America that the threat of Shariah is far closer than Brunei is yet to come – but it’s closer than it was two weeks ago.
Media wishing to interview Erik Rush, please contact [email protected].
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