03/07/10

Indonesian students protest Barack Obama's visit



JAKARTA, Indonesia – Scores of Islamic students staged protests outside Jakarta's parliament and in at least three other major Indonesian cities on Friday against President Barack Obama's upcoming visit to this predominantly Muslim country.

The students carried banners branding Obama as an enemy of Islam and an imperialist in downtown Jakarta as well as in the provincial capitals Padang, Yogyakarta and Surabaya.
 

They also threw shoes at large pictures of Obama's head. An Iraqi journalist was sentenced to a year in prison for throwing his shoes at U.S. President George W. Bush during a news conference in Baghdad in 2008.

Protest organizer Ahmad Irhamul Fikri, spokesman for the Coordinating Board for Campus Proselytizing Institute, said bigger rallies will be staged next Friday in more Indonesian cities ahead of Obama's March 20-22 visit.
 

Presidential spokesman Robert Gibbs explained that such demonstrations of hostility toward Obama are rare in Indonesia, where he enjoys widespread popularity because he spend part of his childhood in Jakarta while his mother was married to his Indonesian stepfather.

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The Rodney Dangerfield president. "I tell ya, I can't get no respect..."

By the way, if you don't have respect, there's no way that you will ever get it. It can not be purchased or commanded or forced. It is earned deep in the hearts and minds of the respecters. It is the highest honor that can be given from one human to another and recognizes the depth of honor, character and integrity in the respected person. Frequently the honor is given in the form of a posthumous Medal of Honor earned by a young Soldier or Marine who gave his life to save the lives of his squad mates. Rarely has any genuine form of respectful honor been earned by a self-serving, corrupt politician sent to Washington as a servant of the people and soon turned to a betrayer of the people, growing fat at the public's expense and weakening the nation.

The People see and remember. We are the People