Filed under: Foreign Policy, History, Latin America, Middle East | Tags: Central America, Honduras, Politics
White House sources have said that President Obama just isn’t interested in foreign policy. People who know him well say that he has never really had any interest in history. It shows.
Democrats do have trouble recognizing who our friends are and who are the bad guys. Jimmy Carter was astounded when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, and still can’t get over his love affair with Hamas. All sorts of Democrats were sure that Ho Chi Minh was the good guy, and a number even went to N. Vietnam to visit. Castro is idolized for his communist paradise with its 15,000 imprisoned enemies of the state. You have seen the tee shirts and posters featuring that bloody killer Ché Guevara.
Two weeks ago, President Obama refused to “meddle” in a totalitarian country where unarmed, peaceful students demonstrating in the streets were being beaten and shot for opposing the election that they believed to be fraudulent. He didn’t want to take sides. Now he’s eager to “meddle” in the situation in Honduras. And goodness, is he meddling! National Review’s Andy McCarthy says:
Now that the president has decided it’s okay to meddle in Honduras (where they are fighting to preserve their democracy against the Chávez-style thug who Obama wants to re-install) but not Iran (where thousands of Iranians who seek democracy are being killed, maimed and jailed by a regime which has been at war with the United States for 30 years), the president’s tack is to say that Honduras’s action in removing Zelaya is “not legal.”
What on earth makes Obama think he knows better about what is legal under the law of Honduras than the Supreme Court of Honduras and the law-writing legislature of Honduras? The Honduran military acted after Zelaya defied an order by that nation’s highest court which pronounced his coup attempt illegal; he has been replaced under a Honduran legal process by that nation’s Congress, which essentially impeached him and democratically voted in a successor. That sounds pretty legal to me. I am the first to admit I am not an expert in Honduran law, but I’d bet the Honduran Supreme Court has a better grasp on it than President Obama. On the issue of what is legal in Honduras, as between Hugo Chávez and the Honduran Supreme Court, our president has decided to go with Chávez.
Secondly, as IBD notes, the Obama administration is now “threatening to halt its $200 million in U.S. aid, immigration accords and a free-trade treaty if it doesn’t put the criminal Zelaya back into office.” Can someone explain to me how it is that Obama is willingly giving $900M to Hamastan (i.e., the jihadist-controlled Gaza strip) but would pull back a comparative pittance of aid in order to penalize a poor country in our own hemisphere for trying to preserve its democracy against a would-be left-wing dictator?
The Obama administration is about to release their plan for meddling in the “peace process” between Israel and Hamas-controlled Palestine. He is not impressed that Israel is our greatest ally in the Middle East, but wants to bully, arm-twist and demand that Israel agree to his proposals. Obama seem to be interested in a feather in his cap rather than peace on the ground. His lack of knowledge about the history of Israel, as demonstrated in his Cairo speech, leads him to the false conclusion that if Israel just gives up more land, more security, and more settlements then the Arabs will make peace, for all they want is their own state.
Unfortunately the Palestinians have already turned that one down. Every one of the Islamist Mullahs’ rallies is led with cries of Death to Israel, and Death to America. It would seem sensible to assume that they mean it.
Obama seems to have a gift for picking the wrong side.
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American Elephants 
I’ve always been torn on the whole Che Guevara deal. He was certainly an idealist from a wealthy family, who was willing to give up life of ease to follow his heart of finding that elusive sense of utopia. A killer, for sure, and damned good at it. Certainly a soldier you’d rather have on your side than go up against him…at least from a small arms perspective.
Your thoughts?
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Comment by Mike Lovell July 1, 2009 @ 7:49 amThere is an odd characteristic in the left, that some fall in love with the idea of revolution. The idea of tearing the whole thing down and starting over. We refer to our “Revolutionary War” but it was more accurately the War of Independence. Nevertheless, the French were inspired and had their own bloody revolution in which they really tried to tear everything down and start over, and in just a few years they were simply back with an emperor instead of a king. Jamie Glazov has a new book out “United in Hate” on the romance of the left with dictators, thugs and some of the worst tyrants on earth. If you don’t want to read the book, go to Amazon and read some of the reviews.
Che was an idealist in about the same way a lot of naive sophomores are. Castro took to him because he also had some education and was somebody Castro could have revolutionary talk with. Castro put Che in charge of the notorious La Cabana prison where Che indulged his enthusiasm for genocidal execution: 14,000 innocent Cubans executed for opposing the regime. Often they were executed first, then had a trial later. As far as I know his family was not wealthy. Che went to medical school, but dropped out and there is no evidence he ever became a doctor. He enjoyed killing too much. No accomplishments. As a soldier, he was apparently a coward, and vanished when things got tough.
You sound like you have seen either “The Motorcycle Diaries” or “Che.” See Discover the Networks for an assortment of articles. Or you might enjoy the fictional (but accurate) account in WEB Griffin’s “Brotherhood of War” series on the Army, the last two, I think, deal with Che in the Congo and South America. They are very popular with military people.
My own theory is that those who succumb to the “romantic view of revolution” are inspired by the graphic woodcut of Che that appears on so many t-shirts. If you look instead at photographs of him, he looks like the pimply kid who sat in the back of the class and was always causing trouble. His classmates referred to him as the pig, because he didn’t bathe.
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Comment by The Elephant's Child July 1, 2009 @ 3:14 pmThe elephant says that you were being funny, as usual, and I shouldn’t take you seriously. Sorry. I get a little stirred up by the main meddler above, and lose my sense of humor. :>)
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Comment by The Elephant's Child July 1, 2009 @ 11:55 pmWell, it seems the elephant has learned me well….ask him about the book I’m trying to write…and you will see why I must learn to lie to myself before I can make it a successful ruse on the liberal market!
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Comment by Mike Lovell July 2, 2009 @ 7:19 am