Tag Archives: International Diplomacy

Obama’s Advice: Don’t Do What I Do

President Obama recently returned from his overseas trip.  A trip in which he paid a visit to Ghana to deliver a speech to the Ghanian Parliment.  Now, don’t get me wrong, I think that it’s perfectly acceptable, recommended in fact, that Presidents travel the world and deliver speeches like this.  Further, I actually enjoyed the message that he gave early:

We must start from the simple premise that Africa’s future is up to Africans.

I love it.  In fact, it’s what is at my Libertarian heart.  Personal Liberty-Personal Responsibility.

Most of the speech was as you would expect, but I did have to laugh at Obama’s advice on creating wealth:

No business wants to invest in a place where the government skims 20 percent off the top … or the head of the port authority is corrupt. No person wants to live in a society where the rule of law gives way to the rule of brutality and bribery.

So, lemme get this straight.  Obama’s advice to Ghana is for the government NOT to take a cool 20% off the top.  But his advice to America is to increase the skim we are already taking off the top?

Nice.

A Tale of Two Nations

So, we have two nations involved in power conflicts; Honduras and Iran.  In Iran, we have a nation that is a center player on the world stage.  They are center in Mid East peace, they continue to provide oil and their regime continues to insist both on having nucs and destroying Israel.  In Honduras we have, well, not much.  Interesting take that our President has in handling each crisis.

In Iran, I think that Obama is right to be very careful and avoid giving too much ammunition to the current ruling party.  Anything that we would be able to do or say* would be used by the sitting President as meddling by the US and would simply stir up anti-American sentiments in that nation.  The President is right to allow the people of Iran to work this out for themselves.

The other nation, Honduras, is another matter all together.  Here, Mr. Obama IS inserting himself and calling for the ousted leader to be reinstated.  While it’s true that a sitting President was “arrested” and taken out of country, the facts on the ground are not very clear that the sitting President was a lawful one.  IN any event, Mr. Obama is clearly NOT affording the people of Honduras the same opportunity as he is the people of Iran.

Which brings up the question of why.  My thoughts: the sitting President is an ally of Hugo Chavez, an ideological brother of President Obama.

* Let’s not forget that Obama’s Administration IS talking.  In fact, they are talking about taking credit for the protests.

…privately Obama advisers are crediting his Cairo speech for inspiring the protesters, especially the young ones, who are now posing the most direct challenge to the republic’s Islamic authority in its 30-year history.

In both cases, claiming to energize the protesters and then just letting them hang AND defending Socialist regimes–Obama is showing what we knew when all ya’ll not me elected him.  He is a rookie at this whole thing.