M A I N P A G E


Friday, October 10, 2008

In the debate, Obama echoed Carter's "be kind and understanding to our enemies, be tough on our friends" approach to foreign affairs 

posted by Erik @ 09:10

How in the world can conservative commentators write with a straight face that this woman should be vice president of the United States?
asks Thomas L. Friedman in the New York Times.
Do these people understand what serious trouble our country is in right now?
It's the same question we conservatives would like to put to liberal commentators like Friedman himself, albeit not about their vice presidential candidate, but about their (much more important) presidential candidate.

Whatever the alleged lack of experience that the Republicans' choice for vice-president may have, it can hardly be greater than that of the Democrats' choice for chief executive — a man with only two years in the national legislature.

During the latest debate, Barack Obama skewered John McCain and/or the Bush administration for not acting friendlier toward Iran or North Korea, all the while, in so many words, issuing threats to Iraq and Pakistan. In the third and last debate, Obama went on to lambaste Columbia (totally misrepresenting — i.e., caricaturing — the situation in the process).

We have seen the this fairy tale-type of foreign policy before (speak to all and all will be well or, at least, all problems will lessen and start getting resolved). If Iran is in the threatening, inimical position it is now, it is largely thanks to Jimmy Carter's similar "be kind and understanding to our enemies, be tough on our friends" approach to foreign affairs.

If the Camp David accords were a success, the 39th president's State Department managed to alienate one faithful (if distasteful) ally after another. And two of them — Nicaragua's Somoza and Iran's Shah — were overthrown during his tenure, both of whom were replaced by régimes arguably far more more repressive and more hostile to Washington if not the Western world itself. While Carter — a man at the time almost as young as Obama — preached Americans to get rid of their alleged outdated anti-communism and to focus on America's own alleged sins and those of its allies, Afghanistan, Angola, Cambodia, Grenada, Mozambique, Ethiopia, South Yemen, and Nicaragua fell into the Kremlin's sphere while Moscow proceeded to invade Afghanistan — leading the idealistic (and naïve) Carter to state how shocked he was to have been lied to.

We are seeing similar echoes in today's Democratic candidate and it is without the least hesitation that I say that I will take Palin over Obama any day.

Update: A shortened version of the above text was printed in the International Herald Tribune.

It also appeared on the website of The Cleveland Plain Dealer

Read also:

|

FAIR USE NOTICE: This site may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not been pre-authorized by the copyright owner. Such material is made available to advance understanding of political, economic, scientific, social, art, media, and cultural issues. The 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material that may exist on this site is provided for under U.S. Copyright Law. In accordance with U.S. Code Title 17, Section 107, material on this site is distributed without profit to persons interested in such information for research and educational purposes. If you want to use any copyrighted material that may exist on this site for purposes that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. // AVIS : En vertu de l'article L. 122-5 du Code de Propriété Intellectuelle, ce site Internet peut contenir des citations dont l'usage n'aura pas reçu l'autorisation du détenteur ou de la détentrice du droit d'auteur. La présentation de ces citations se fait dans le but de faciliter la découverte de divers sujets politiques, économiques, scientifiques, sociaux, artistiques, médiatiques ou encore culturels. L'article L. 122-5 du Code de la Propriété Intellectuelle dispose et autorise « les analyses et courtes citations justifiées par le caractère critique, polémique, pédagogique, scientifique ou d'information de l'oeuvre à laquelle elles sont incorporées ». A contrario, les emprunts qui excéderont les dispositions du « droit de citation », devront obtenir l'autorisation du détenteur ou de la détentrice du droit d'auteur.