Saturday, July 16, 2011

More Hillary Cluelessness

She's baffled--baffled!--as to why freedom seems to be ebbing away in "progressive" Turkey, which she touts as a model for--wait for it--the Arab world:
ISTANBUL (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, chiding a NATO ally whose support is critical to American goals in the Mideast, said Saturday that Turkey must act on concerns about backsliding on human rights and its secular traditions.
Speaking politely but firmly about the moderate Muslim nation, Clinton said the recent arrests of dozens of journalists and curbs placed on religious freedom were "inconsistent" with Turkey's economic and political progress.
She said Turkey should recommit itself to the course of modernization and embrace the democratic institutions of statehood. By doing so, Turkey could serve as a model for Arab nations now in the midst of revolt or transition, America's top diplomat said.
"Across the region, people in the Middle East and North Africa are seeking to draw lessons from Turkey's experience," she told reporters at a news conference with Turkey's foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu. "Turkey's history serves as a reminder that democratic development also depends on responsible leadership."
She called on the Turkish people to use their constitutional reform process to "address concerns ... about recent restrictions on freedom of expression and religion" and boost protection for the rights of minorities.
Those concerns have stalled Turkey's bid to join the European Union and further cement ties with the West. Clinton noted that the U.S. long has backed Turkey's EU membership...
Um, she does know that there's no love lost between Ottomans and Arabs, and that Turkey's Erdogan is an egregious Islamist whose new curbs on freedom are fully consistent with sharia, right?

4 comments:

Carlos Perera said...

I think many of us make the mistake of assuming that because someone is in a position of authority, power, influence, eminence, etc., he/she must have more on the ball than the rest of us. Well, they usually do, in the sense of being better able to _climb_ up a hierarchy than the common herd. Nobody doubts Hillary's superior talents along these lines. And, being hierarchically-oriented social animals, we tend to presume that those at the top of the hierarchy are globally superior.

However, one of the most frightening epiphenomena of hierarchies is that the person who climbs to the top is not necessarily a top-flight intellect or particularly well-versed in the nuts-and-bolts of the organization over which he/she has control. Perhaps the most egregious recent example of this epiphenomenon has been the series of embarrassing gaffes uttered by--shudder--the U. S. Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, who infamously told the House Intelligence Committee that the Muslim Brotherhood was "largely secular," that it "eschewed violence," and that it had "decried al-Qaeda as a "perversion of Islam." Actually, one can easily imagine Hillary saying similar things. Heck, even George W. Bush, no tendentious Lefty he, seemed really to believe that "Islam is a religion of peace." (Mouthing a shibboleth is just so much easier than serious study!)

Perhaps the ultimate word on the subject was written in _Mad_ magazine in the mid-1960s (back when they still wrote intelligent, creative satire), when they did an uproariously funny piece with the theme that people on whose superior expertise we rely--physicians, engineers, airline pilots, etc--were likely to be just as incompetent as the rest of us. Whatever its actual applicability to those professions, the principle does seem broadly applicable to our present governing class.

Kaffir_Kanuck said...

And Haroon was crooning about the booming Turkey just this week. Always backing the wrong horse Harpoon is.

scaramouche said...

CP--Barack Obama and his minions are exceptionally incompetent.

KK--Harpoon is a Muslim shill for all things Islamic. What's Hillary's excuse?

Kaffir_Kanuck said...

I thought it was obvious, she's a cluelesss lefty. Less clueless than Barrack, but still clueless.

I see you went to read Siddiqui's piece. I've noticed the comments he gets have gone from 50% in favour to 90% nasty over the past year & 1/2.

Time for a journo pool. When will the Toronto Red Star finally dump Haroon Siddiqui?