The Hill News

The Washington Post reports that President Obama’s speech was greeted with apathy in the Arab world. There is a picture of a “rebel fighter” in Libya in dashing beret, Che whiskers and an AK-47. Fifteen thousand have died in Libya alone in the “Arab Spring” â€" the phrase popularized by nerd American journalists like those who politely raise their hands at Obama press conferences. It was supposed to make Egypt the new Silicon Valley for hip young Muslims who use smartphones, not AK-47s. All conquests are attempts to make The Others like us. This one to make the random hordes of the Arab deserts more like nerd-generation archetype Mark Zuckerberg.

The idea of this slaughter was brought to Obama by his national security adviser, Samantha Power. It can’t be all Power’s fault; the rush to invade â€" to make Islamabad a hip, Muslim Mill Valley â€" pervaded the nerd press. But perhaps they had heard expressions like “Repression will fail ... t! yrants will fall” and America “cannot hesitate to stand squarely on the side of those who are reaching for their rights” before, from the Ayatollahs, from the Soviets, from the Americans.

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