WarSclerotic

Nobel Peace Prize-winning president urges U.N. to destroy Islamic State, Washington Times, Dave Boyer, September 24, 2014

U.S. President Barack Obama addresses the 69th session of the United Nations General Assembly at the U.N. headquarters, Wednesday, Sept. 24, 2014.

[W]e have reaffirmed that the United States is not and never will be at war with Islam. Islam teaches peace.” He added, “The only language understood by killers like this is the language of force.”

In advance of next week’s meeting at the White House with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Mr. Obama said the situation in the Middle East looks “bleak” and laid down a marker for negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.

“Let’s be clear: the status quo in the West Bank and Gaza is not sustainable,” Mr. Obama said. “We cannot afford to turn away from this effort — not when rockets are fired at innocent Israelis, or the lives of so many Palestinian children are taken from us in Gaza. So long as I am president, we will stand up for the principle that Israelis, Palestinians, the region, and the world will be more just with two states living side by side, in peace and security.”

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Exactly one year after proclaiming that the world was “more stable,” President Obama urged the United Nations Wednesday to confront rising emergencies around the globe, from terrorists rampaging in Syria and Iraq to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to the deadly Ebola epidemic in West Africa.

“We come together at a crossroads between war and peace, between disorder and integration, between fear and hope,” Mr. Obama told the United Nations general assembly. “Each of these problems demands urgent attention.”

Mr. Obama said pledged the U.S. will spend more on the emergencies, and blamed the international community for allowing the problems to fester.

“We collectively have not invested adequately in the public health system of developing countries,” he said. “We have not confronted forcefully enough the intolerance, sectarianism and hopelessness that feeds violent extremism in too many parts of the globe.”

He again criticized Russia’s “aggression” in Ukraine and said the world would lift sanctions against Moscow if Russia de-escalates the war.

Despite renewing America’s war against terrorists in the Middle East, Mr. Obama said his administration is not engaged in a “class of cultures.”

“I have made it clear that America will not base our entire foreign policy on reacting to terrorism,” he said. “Rather, we have waged a focused campaign against al Qaeda and its associated forces — taking out their leaders, and denying them the safe-havens they rely upon.

“At the same time, we have reaffirmed that the United States is not and never will be at war with Islam. Islam teaches peace.”He added, “The only language understood by killers like this is the language of force.”

Later Wednesday, Mr. Obama is expected to urge the U.N. Security Council to pass a broad new resolution that would impose global travel bans on fighters intent on enlisting in overseas wars, a measure aimed at the Islamic State. Administration officials have said they believe the resolution has enough support to be approved.

In his speech to the U.N. last year, Mr. Obama said “the world is more stable than it was five years ago.” He said “new circumstances” would allow the U.S. to shift away from a “perpetual war footing.”

Two days after expanding airstrikes into Syria against the militant group, Mr. Obama asked the world “to join in this effort.”

“Those who have joined [the Islamic State] should leave the battlefield while they can,” the president said. “Those who continue to fight for a hateful cause will find they are increasingly alone.”

He also urged nations and Muslim communities to reject sectarian strife, calling for “a new compact among the civilized peoples of this world to eradicate war at its most fundamental source: the corruption of young minds by violent ideology.”

“That means cutting off the funding that fuels this hate,” he said. “It’s time to end the hypocrisy of those who accumulate wealth through the global economy, and then siphon funds to those who teach children to tear it down.”

Mr. Obama said it’s “true” that the U.S. “has plenty of problems within our own borders,” and pointed as an example to the civil unrest spawned by a white police officer shooting black teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., in August.

“In a summer marked by instability in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, I know the world also took notice of the small American city of Ferguson, Missouri — where a young man was killed, and a community was divided,” Mr. Obama said. “So yes, we have our own racial and ethnic tensions. And like every country, we continually wrestle with how to reconcile the vast changes wrought by globalization and greater diversity with the traditions that we hold dear.”

But Mr. Obama said Americans “welcome the scrutiny of the world, because what you see in America is a country that has steadily worked to address our problems and make our union more perfect.”

“America is not the same as it was 100 years ago, 50 years ago, or even a decade ago,” he said. “Because we fight for our ideals, and are willing to criticize ourselves when we fall short.”

In advance of next week’s meeting at the White House with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Mr. Obama said the situation in the Middle East looks “bleak” and laid down a marker for negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.

“Let’s be clear: the status quo in the West Bank and Gaza is not sustainable,” Mr. Obama said. “We cannot afford to turn away from this effort — not when rockets are fired at innocent Israelis, or the lives of so many Palestinian children are taken from us in Gaza. So long as I am president, we will stand up for the principle that Israelis, Palestinians, the region, and the world will be more just with two states living side by side, in peace and security.”

This entry was posted on September 24, 2014 at 5:46 PM and is filed under Iraq war, Islam, Israel, Palestinians, Obama, Syria. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.

Tags: Islam, UN