By Bruce Walker
Five
decades ago, during the heart of the Cold War, a term entered modern political
vocabulary: The Ugly American. Based upon a 1958 novel of the same
name, the phrase began to be used to describe the whole range of thoughtless
mistakes which Americans made and which led to the loss of friendship among the
peoples of the world.
Today,
the Obama Administration has brought the Ugly American back to life. Our
nation and our people have always had jealous rivals. The French, whose
revolution failed miserably, are loath to respect an American Revolution which
proved a spectacular success. Marxist ideology led Russia and China to be
hateful to America, whatever ordinary citizens of those countries might have
felt. Arabs and Moslems, seeking someone to blame for their poverty and
impotence, find America (and Israel) very tempting targets.
But
America still has many natural and cultivated friends, though in less than one
year, Obama and his lieutenants have succeeded in irritating, confusing, and
angering these friends. It is as if Obama has contorted the Arab maxim
“The enemy of my enemy is my friend” into the “enemy of my friend is my
friend.” Obama seems determined to be the Ugly American.
Israel
is an excellent example of this. If we have a pure ally in the world
today, it is Israel. America, like Israel and like every sane leader of
every free nation, does not want Iran to get nuclear weapons. So when
Israel suggests that it may undertake, alone, the burden of all free nations –
taking out Iran’s nuclear capacity – Obama’s advisors warn that if the Israeli
Defense Force flies over Iraq without our consent, our air forces will shoot
down the Israeli warplanes.
Israel
need not be pushed to this desperate action if Obama had passionately and
publicly called for the end of the horrid reign of mullahs in Iran, after the
Chicago-style presidential election of Ahmadinejad. One might have
thought that American “progressives” would find a regime that exterminates
gays, stones uppity women, and imposes draconian theocracy ought to be in the
crosshairs of American Leftists. That assumes that the Left hates
homophobia, patriarchy, and theocracy more than it hates America – a false
assumption.
When
our largely toothless Secretary of State travels to India, the world’s largest
democracy and a nation which, like us, looks with concern at the mad rulers of
Iran, an unstable Pakistan, and a growing Chinese menace, she lectures the
Indian government, which is trying to lift its people out of poverty, on the
left’s risible Green agenda.
While
Obama nods toward an Iranian government which denies the Holocaust, seeks
nuclear weapons, and considers America the Great Satan, it gratuitously snubs a
constitutional government in Honduras and trusts, instead, the Marxist
law-breaker who sought an illegal plebiscite to extend his term of
office. Girls are not shot in the streets of Honduras. Huge
protests are not broken up by special gangs of thugs. In fact, the whole
of the constitutionally elected government of Honduras has concurred that
former President Zelaya broke the Honduran Constitution. No matter.
He hates America, and that counts most. Now he is reported back in
Honduras. Does anyone wonder who America will support in an Honduran Civil
War?
The
same is true in South America, where the boorish thug Chavez crushes
opposition, including the media voices of the opposition, to loud yawns from
Washington or even approving words from Obaman czars. Obama appears to
respect the goon who runs Venezuela: he shakes hands with the Venezuelan
strongman after receiving a ghastly book from a man who describes our nation as
the “most murderous empire that has existed in the history of the world” (N.B.
Chavez is probably not our friend.) Meanwhile, Congressional Democrats
offend Columbia, a close ally in South America, by putting the Columbia
Free-Trade Agreement on indefinite hold.
Britain
has been with America through thick and thin without political ideology of
governments affecting that special relationship. But Obama appears intent
upon offending the prime minister and even the sovereign of this old and
important ally. Czar Putin of Russia, however, is given smiles and
unearned concessions. Even the timing of Obama’s offending our allies
seems deliberate, as many have noted the our decision not to defend new NATO
allies like Poland was on the seventieth anniversary of the Russian invasion of
Poland.
There
are people around the world who will always hate or distrust us, like the
mullahs of Iran or Kim Jong Il or Castro. Obama seems determined to
befriend these mortal enemies. Then there are peoples, nations, and
leaders which share natural interests with America, like Israel, Poland, India,
Columbia, and Britain. Toward these nations and their leaders,
Obama seems bent on being the very ugliest Ugly American.
© 2009 Bruce Walker — All Rights Reserved
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Bruce Walker is the author of two books: Sinisterism:
Secular Religion of the Lie, and The Swastika against the Cross: The Nazi
War on Christianity.
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