PrintMay 23, 2011
Blarney and Barry
Barack Obama visits my family's homeland today, which is also apparently Obama's ‘homeland' by way of Stanley Ann Dunham's great-great-grandfather. If Obama is, as ironically headlined by the birther-loathing CNN, still "in search of his roots," the home to some of the world's best golf makes for a fitting kinship.
While Obama enjoys talks of indebtedness and bailouts, he and Ireland's President, Mary McAleese, share another fondness -- prostrating to Islam. Speaking in 2010 at an Islamic Awareness Week, McAleese stated, "it is important to acknowledge here the very positive contribution that Islamic students make to the Irish society and economy ... They have proved to be wonderful ambassadors not just for their countries, faith and culture, but for Ireland." You may also recall President McAleese for her famed "Blasphemy Law," which protects Islam from any accurate portrayals by limiting free speech.
Ireland is still one of the European Union's least Islamic-infiltrated countries -- for now. Muslims make up approximately 1% of Ireland's population, but the population has increased tenfold over the last twenty years, according to census numbers. With a Saudi Embassy welcomed to Dublin in 2009, and a growing Islamic Cultural Center with ties to Europe's Muslim Brotherhood, Ireland's Muslim population boom doesn't show signs of slowing.
Naturally, the American media has all but ignored the news of the arrest of Khalid Kelly, an Irish-born convert to Islam and Osama Bin Laden supporter, with ties to Al-Qaeda. Kelly made very public threats to assassinate Obama during his Irish tour, which seems ironic since our football-spiking President and Kelly appear to play for the same team at times. After all, Obama's order to kill friend to Hamas Osama Bin Laden, was promptly followed by his all-but-invitation for Hamas to commence with the destruction of Israel. Sacrificing OBL for the greater cause would seem to be a foreign policy even most jihad-lovers could endorse, contradictory though it may be.
Islam and Ireland seems the ultimate of odd couples -- certainly an insult to the beloved Guinness industry. For the God-fearing, welcoming, kind, honorable Irishmen, I fear their President, like ours, either fails to recognize the Islamic threat, or welcomes it.
