President Obama has responded to the Egyptian military’s massacre of Coptic Christian protestors in Cairo Sunday with a pointedly even-handed statement that calls equally on Christians and the military to show restraint.Does Mr. Obama really think there's an equivalence between running over peaceful protestors with an armored vehicle and shooting at the people who are trying to run one over? Does Mr. Obama think the Copts should not protest the burning of their churches? Does he think that if they would just shut up when their leaders are arrested and their sons and daughters are killed in the streets Egypt would be able to "move forward and forge a strong and united" country? Why are the Copts advised to exercise restraint, but persecuted Libyans were supported with cruise missiles and drone strikes? Nothing about his response to this atrocity makes any sense.
“The President is deeply concerned about the violence in Egypt that has led to a tragic loss of life among demonstrators and security forces,” Obama said in a statement released this week. ”Now is a time for restraint on all sides so that Egyptians can move forward together to forge a strong and united Egypt.”
Incredibly, Obama is not only equating the deaths of peaceful protestors and their killers, but he is suggesting that Egypt’s increasingly persecuted Christian minority should show as much “restraint” as their tormentors and refrain from vigorously objecting to the growing abuse.
More than two dozen people, most of them Copts, were killed as security forces attacked demonstrators protesting the burning of a church.
The Egyptian military has denied the killings, but news reports, eyewitness accounts, and videos posted to the Internet contradict the claims, with footage showing armed personnel carriers ramming through crowds of protestors and a soldier firing at them. The dead, according to forensic reports, were either crushed by being run over or were shot.
Three soldiers are also said to have died, but this appears to have occurred as protestors were fighting for their lives. There can be no mistaking that this was a slaughter of civilians.
This video shows some of the aftermath of the carnage: Christians are being systematically eliminated in Somalia. There are no Christian churches left in Afghanistan. Christians are being arrested and driven out of Iraq, Iran and now Egypt, and Mr.Obama, from the comfort of the White House, tells them that they need to show restraint so that Egypt can be strong and united. Good grief.