Senator Obama's defense by an admiring liberal-progressive columnist amounts to nothing much. The Senator remains an insipid shadow of his liberal-progressive forerunners in foreign affairs.
Peter S. Canellos, the left-wing Boston Globe's Washington bureau chief, in his "National Perspective column for May 20, 2008," depicts Senator Obama as a bold and even heroic voice for sound foreign policy.
Despite the headline — Obama makes case for diplomacy, loud and clear – the writer reports only Senator Obama's now familiar, vacuous phrases eschewing military force and relying exclusively upon diplomatic negotiations. Most of Mr. Canellos's column instead concerns Senator Obama's ripostes to thrusts from Senators Clinton and McCain. The Senator may have dealt effectively with the political debate, but that hardly vindicates what amounts to appeasement of thugs like Iran's Ahmadenijad.
Mr. Canellos writes:
Barack Obama may still be proposing policies that strike conservatives as weak and foolish. But after his aggressive response to President Bush's apparent criticisms of his foreign policies last week, it's clear that he's doing so in a forceful and politically savvy way.
Obama's approach to foreign policy – which emphasizes negotiations more than threats of military action – first emerged as a campaign issue last summer, when Hillary Clinton was looking to show off her expertise and make Obama look like a neophyte . . .
"Strong countries and strong presidents meet and talk with our adversaries," Obama said at an Aug. 19 debate. "We shouldn't be afraid to do so. We've tried the other way. It didn't work."
. . . Obama is trying to argue for a kind of muscular liberalism – that by being more open to the world, and more credible as a negotiating partner, the United States can achieve greater safety and security.
There you have it, folks. Muscular liberalism is being open to the world and credible, whatever that may mean in practice.
Perhaps it means Democrat/Socialists in Congress approving fast-track trade negotiations with Colombia, then stiff-arming that nation by failing to honor their promise to bring the trade agreement to a speedy vote. Perhaps the Senator believes that torpedoing our major trading partners by reneging on our negotiating commitments will, in a muscular way, build the diplomatic credibility of the United States.
In any event, muscular liberalism is depressingly flabby compared to the approach of our first liberal-progressive President, Teddy Roosevelt. Teddy is famous for the foreign policy admonition that we should speak softly, but carry a big stick.
In his 1904 State of the Union message, Teddy announced the "Roosevelt Corollary" to the Monroe Doctrine: "Chronic wrongdoing, or an impotence which results in a general loosening of the ties of civilized society . . . may force the United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such wrongdoing or impotence, to exercise an international police power." In various Latin American trouble spots, Teddy didn't hesitate to send in America Marines to quell revolutions and to take control of local government operations to protect what he conceived to be American interests.
While such conduct is hardly recommendable, it is decisively true that the rest of the world, for the first time, began to take the United States seriously in foreign affairs and to tread lightly whenever their actions might infringe upon our national interests.
An enduring effect of his activism was that Teddy became the model for his young cousin Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Both had been marinated in the exhilarating and then novel doctrines of socialism while at Harvard. According to liberal-progressive historian Samuel Eliot Morison (The Oxford History of the American People), Teddy had long been radical in his domestic policy views.
In his 1912 Bull Moose Party campaign for the Presidency, Morison wrote,
[Teddy's] ideas, clarified and systematized as the "New Nationalism," included . . . the relatively new conception of social justice – the reconstruction of society by political action . . . He declared that the rich man "holds his wealth subject to the general right of the community to regulate its business use as the public welfare requires," and that the police power of the state should be broadened to embrace all necessary forms of regulation.
Teddy would have approved Senator Obama's socialistic program of higher taxes, greater regulation, price controls, and deficit spending to redistribute income. But Teddy would have taken one look at the foreign policy sensitivity of Senator Obama and his liberal-progressive colleagues and dismissed them as a bunch of spineless namby-pambies.
viewfrom1776@thomasbrewton.com
http://www.thomasbrewton.com/
Read more articles by Thomas E. Brewton
Wow, the Obama/Ahmadinejad debacle is coming in barrow-loads.
“Appeasement” seems to be the flavor of the day.
I have already posted a Comment on the real danger we face, but when it comes to the issue of real appeasement, perhaps they are worth repeating.
Here they are – again – appeasement followed by Koranic verses:
"The face of terror is not the true faith of Islam. That's not what Islam is all about. Islam is peace.”
The Koran 5:151: “Soon shall we cast terror into the hearts of the Unbelievers … their abode will be the fire ..”
“The Muslim faith is based upon peace and love and compassion.”
The Koran 2:216: “Fighting is prescribed for you …” and verse 217 - “Tumult and oppression are worse than slaughter ..”
The Koran 4:95: “Not equal are those believers who sit [at home] and receive no hurt, And those who strive and fight in the cause of God [Islam] with their goods and their persons. God hath granted a grade higher to those who strive and fight with their goods and their persons …” [and see Koran 4:20]
The Koran 5:36: “The punishment of those who wage war against God and His Apostle … is: execution [beheading in Islam], or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides.”
The Koran 9:29: “Fight those who believe not in God nor the last day [ie, in Islam] … (even if they are) of the People of the book [Jews and Christians], until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.”
“So it's a good time for people of these great faiths, Islam, Judaism and Christianity, to remember how much we have in common.”
“Islam, as practiced by the vast majority of people, is a peaceful religion, a religion that respects others.”
The Koran 2:90: “Miserable is the price for which they [the Jews] have sold their souls, in that they deny (the revelation) which God has sent down, in insolent envy that God of His grace should send it to any of His servants He pleases.”
The Koran 2:65: “And we all knew those amongst you who transgressed in the matter of the Sabbath [the Jews]: We said to them: ‘Be ye apes, Despised and rejected’.”
The Koran 5:65: “Those who incurred the curse of God and His wrath, those of whom some [the Jews who do not accept Islam] He transformed into apes and swine.”
The Koran 3:67: “Abraham was not a Jew Nor yet a Christian; but he was true in faith and bowed his will to God’s (which is Islam), and he joined not gods with God.” [see also Koran 2:132]
The Koran 5:19: “In blasphemy indeed are those who say that God is Christ the son of Mary.”
The Koran 5:16: “O People of the Book [Christians and Jews]! There hath come to you Our Apostle [the Prophet Mohammed], revealing to you much that ye Used to hide in the Book [the Bible], and passing over much (That is now unnecessary).” ie The Jews and Christians falsified the Scriptures.
The Koran 5:78: “Christ the son of Mary was no more than an Apostle” - and verse 80 – “Say: ‘O People of the Book! Exceed not in your religion the bounds (of what is proper), Trespassing beyond the truth, Nor follow the vain desires of people who went wrong in times gone by, - who misled many, and strayed themselves from the even Way.” [ie, from Islam]
I could go on, of course, but perhaps these extracts give a flavor of the issue at stake.
By the way, the un-attributable quotes are from President Bush - http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/ramadan/islam.html
If this is not “appeasement” then I don’t know what is.
Whether we talk to the Iranians, wonder around the gardens of the Western Whitehouse hand-in-hand with the Saudi King, kiss their cheeks (of both varieties) in the hope that they may help us out of our present energy predicament, or simply start bombing, the problem is being ignored. The problem is Islam itself.
If the truth be told, and the truth is always unpleasant, the appeasement of talking to the Iranians is nothing compared to deluding ourselves that the problem has nothing to do with a vicious ideology that has immunity because it is protected by another delusional concept – the ‘RIGHT to freely practice religion” – irrespective of the intolerance and hatred espoused by the religion.
Does no-one out there consider it odd that we should ‘tolerate’ and ‘respect’ a religion that shows utter contempt for the rest of humanity?
I have been kicking at this door for the last 26 years, so I don’t expect that these efforts will bring it down. We in the West are all too easily distracted by chaff – and that is all the Obama/ Ahmadinejad debacle is all about.
Instead of focusing on the real bogeyman, let’s find a scapegoat! Obama is a gift from ‘heaven’!
While he is out there, we needn’t bother addressing real issues. And he has all the ‘qualities’ needed to scare the hell out of everyone. What a ‘blessing’!
Alas, when we wake up to the reality of the situation, we will all be screaming blue-murder. Why did no one warn us? Well, you have been warned!!
Joseph BH McMillan http://www.freedomvrights.com
Comment by Joseph BH McMillan | May 27, 2008