And I Would Have Gotten Away With It, Too...
I was going to make a point about our selective "meddling" in other nations' affairs, but someone beat me to it:
Protesters take to the streets in Iran in opposition to election fraud, and against a regime which is openly hostile to the U.S., and Obama treads with the greatest of care. First silence, then mixed messages, assuring the regime we want to negotiate with it regardless of election fraud. [...]
The President of Honduras, who is aligned with our enemies such as Hugo Chavez, attempts an unlawful referendum giving him a third term. The Honduran legislature and courts rule such a referendum illegal, and put a stop to it when the President moves forward anyway. Acting on a court order, the military removes the President in order to protect Honduran democracy. There are swift and furious denunciations from Obama, who declares the action "not legal." The ultimate meddling, telling Honduras what is or is not legal in Honduras, regardless of what the Honduran courts say.
As I've said before, under this style of diplomacy, it pays to be our enemy.
posted by LAGuy @ 12:28 AM
5 Comments:
very simple- act where you have the most leverage and are more likely can to achieve the desired result. Supporting military coups in the past has resulted in support for leaders like Chavez
Anon is correct. Honduras is one small proxy for the fight between Chavez and the US for influence in Latin America. With this stance we take away his greatest p.r. weapon -- "here they go again, destabilizing your governments and bankrolling coups" -- with the rest of Latin America. The details don't matter if people just see a continuation of our wrongdoing of the past.
Who said anything about supporting military coups. (Let's assume this is a military coup.) Let's even say we agree with the belief that everyone justifiably hates America, and that being hated is a disaster. All I'm noting is that here's a guy who didn't want to meddle when our clear enemy was repressing a movement for greater democracy (and let's ignore how that turned out), but couldn't wait to meddle (according to his definition) to please anit-American leftists.
Who said anything about supporting military coups.
Hugo Chavez did, because he didn't anticipate being outflanked by Obama. He reacted as though he were still facing Bush, who would have decided who was the good guy and who was the evildoer, and spoke his mind about it. I respect that straightforwardness, but it's fair to say there are other ways to get stuff done.
Now Chavez looks silly to the rest of Latin America, as well as seeming like he's maybe the bully they need to worry more about now, rather than the US. And if you want to dismiss those in the region with long, bitter memories of our prior involvement in coups as "anti-American leftists," I would suggest that you're so branding the majority of people in the region.
Forget what Chavez said (I thought this was about what I said), let's look at what Obama said. He was the one who believed we shouldn't "meddle," i.e., criticize what other countries are doing. So all he had to do was say nothing, but he couldn't wait to get involved here on the side of Chavez and Castro.
I doubt endorsing bad ideas and people (which, I fear, is what Obama really supports) is the solution to our problems in Latin America or anywhere else, (and hating what America's done in the past is even worse) but even if it were a good idea, it's not what Obama claimed we should do.
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