NATO Elects a Hater

Okay, not a hater. Well, not in your typical Western eyes, anyway.

Via Memeorandum:

STRASBOURG, France – NATO leaders appointed Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen as NATO’s new secretary-general Saturday after overcoming Turkish objections to a leader who angered Muslims around the world by supporting the right to caricature the Prophet Muhammad.

Yeah, the last thing you want in a leader is respect for individual rights.

NATO’s outgoing head, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, said NATO’s 28 member nations reached unanimity after a series of Turkish “concerns” were addressed at the alliance’s two-day, 60th-anniversary summit.

Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told reporters that his government’s requests had included the closure of a Kurdish satellite television broadcaster based in Denmark; the establishment of contacts between NATO and Islamic countries; appointment of a Turk as an aide to Fogh Rasmussen and senior NATO command positions for Turkish generals.

As Jihad Watch puts it: “Translation: Abandon your principles to appease us, or else.”

Erdogan said President Barack Obama had been heavily involved in the negotiations.

“Our president gave his approval after receiving information that our reservations have been addressed under the guarantorship of Obama,” Erdogan said. “We hope our concerns will be met.”

Obama said there had been “important efforts to make sure that everyone felt included.”

I’d prefer a strong statement in support of free speech, but I can appreciate a little meaningless politics-ese here, given the circumstances.

Fogh Rasmussen infuriated many Muslims by defending freedom of speech during an uproar over a Danish newspaper’s publication of the cartoons in 2005. He has also angered Turkey by opposing its membership in the European Union.

I wonder the latter part of that paragraph has more to do with their objections than the first.

Turkish leaders argued that Fogh Rasmussen on the grounds that he would be a bad choice at a time when NATO was trying to win support from Muslims in Afghanistan and Pakistan, according to a diplomat from a member country who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

I can certainly appreciate the need for smart diplomacy, but I’m also glad those objections didn’t carry the day. Let’s be as nice to Muslims in Afghanistan and Pakistan and other places as we can be, but let’s also make sure they understand that we have principles, too, which they have to respect just as much as they want us to respect theirs.