With each passing day, the vapidness of the Obama administration’s foreign policy becomes more clear. Lofty words spoken in the capitals of Europe and the Middle East were just words. From the warm embrace of the bully Hugo Chavez, to the cynical mixed-messages on the Iran protests, Obama has shown a willingness to “work with” repressive regimes hostile to the United States while ignoring friends.
Now it is Honduras, where Obama sides with Manuel Zelaya, a Chavez-prototype who tried to put himself in a perpetual presidency, in violation of Honduran court orders to the contrary. The evidence is overwhelming that had the Honduran military not acted, Honduras would have gone the way of Venezuela.
When is Obama going to learn that you cannot work with the Hugo Chavez’s and Mahmood Ahmadinejad’s of the world. That doesn’t mean military action, but it does mean standing up to them on the world stage, and supporting our friends.
The world loves to pick on small nations standing up to tyrants. Which is why is it not surprising that the international community so quickly has coalesced around isolating Honduras. As with perpetual attacks on Israel at the United Nations and other international organizations, the position of the United States is critical to Honduras. Will we stand with our friend, or join the mob?
John Kennedy’s speech in Berlin in 1963 says it all. Then, the battle line was in Berlin and the enemy was communism. This weekend, the city is Tegucigalpa and the tyranny is Chavez-style ego-socialism.
Sure, Honduras is not perfect, but the choice of the people, the courts, and the legislature not to allow Zelaya to gain a stranglehold on power, like Zelaya’s friend Chavez, should be respected. Substitute names and places, and the point of Kennedy’s speech applies as much today as it did almost a half-century ago:
There are many people in the world who really don’t understand, or say they don’t, what is the great issue between the free world and the Communist world. Let them come to Berlin. There are some who say that communism is the wave of the future. Let them come to Berlin. And there are some who say in Europe and elsewhere we can work with the Communists. Let them come to Berlin. And there are even a few who say that it is true that communism is an evil system, but it permits us to make economic progress. Lass’ sie nach Berlin kommen. Let them come to Berlin.
Obama should fly to Honduras and give a “Let them come to Tegucigalpa” speech. But he won’t. Because Obama’s no John Kennedy.
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