The Apologists
by Patrick J. Buchanan
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For 50 minutes, Obama sat mute, as a Marxist thug from Nicaragua delivered his diatribe, charging America with a century of terrorist aggression in Central America.
After Daniel Ortega finished spitting in our face, accusing us of inhumanity toward Fidel Castro’s Cuba, Obama was asked his thoughts.
“I thought it was 50 minutes long. That’s what I thought.”
Hillary Clinton was asked to comment: “I thought the cultural performance was fascinating,” she cooed.
Pressed again on Ortega’s vitriol, Hillary replied: “To have those first-class Caribbean entertainers all on one stage and to see how much was done in such a small amount of space. I was overwhelmed.”
Thus the nation that won the Cold War, contained the cancer of Castroism in Cuba, liberated Grenada, blocked communist takeovers of Guatemala and the Dominican Republic, and poured scores of billions in aid into this region was left undefended by its own leaders at the Summit of the Americas.
Nor was this the only unanswered insult. Hugo Chavez, who has called Obama an “ignoramus” and Bush “El Diablo,” walked over to a seated U.S. president and handed him the anti-American tract “Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent.”
The book blames Latin America’s failures on white Europeans.
It opens, “Renaissance Europeans ventured across the oceans and buried their teeth in the throats of the Indian civilizations.”
Civilizations? Before Pizarro and Cortez, the Inca and Aztec empires these conquistadors overthrew were into human sacrifice.
Evo Morales, the Aymaran president of Bolivia, who is using the race card against Bolivians of European descent, implied a U.S. role in an assassination plot against him.
Argentina’s Cristina Kirchner, who allegedly received black-bag money from Chavez, ripped into America for its role in the 1980s. Under Reagan, America aided Britain in the Falklands War, after the Argentine junta invaded the islands, and assisted the Contras in their war of national liberation to oust Ortega’s Sandinistas.
Again, Obama offered no defense of his country.
President Lula da Silva of Brazil, who blames the world financial crisis on “white, blue-eyed bankers,” told Obama that any future Summit of the Americas without the Castro brothers was unacceptable.
Perhaps Obama believes in turn-the-other-cheek diplomacy, though it is hard to find much success in history for such a policy. Perhaps pacifism is in his DNA. Perhaps he shares the indictment of America that is part of the repertoire of every Latin demagogue.
Whatever his motive, in Trinidad, there were not two sides to the story. There were the trashers of America on the Latino left and a U.S. president who wailed plaintively, “I’m thankful that President Ortega did not blame me for things that happened when I was 3 months old.”
But, the Bay of Pigs, had it succeeded, would have given Cubans 50 years of freedom instead of the brutal dictatorship they have had to endure. And it took place four months before Barack was born.
Obama’s silence—signifying, as it does, assent—in the face of attacks on his country is of a piece with the “contrition tour” of his secretary of state.
“Clinton Scores Points by Admitting Past U.S. Errors,” was the headline over Saturday’s New York Times story by Mark Landler:
It has become a recurring theme of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s early travels as the chief diplomat of the United States: She says that American policy on a given issue has failed, and her foreign listeners fall all over themselves in gratitude.
On Friday, Mrs. Clinton said … that the uncompromising policy of the Bush administration toward Cuba had not worked. …
The contrition tour goes beyond Latin America. In China, Mrs. Clinton told audiences that the United States must accept its responsibility as a leading emitter of greenhouse gases. In Indonesia, she said the American-backed policy of sanctions against Myanmar had not been effective. And in the Middle East, she pointed out that ostracizing the Iranian government had not persuaded it to give up its nuclear weapons ambitions.
Sandler wrote that Hillary brought to mind Bill Clinton:
On a single trip to Africa in 1998 … Bill Clinton apologized for American participation in slavery; American support of brutal African dictators; American ‘neglect and ignorance’ of Africa; American failure to intervene sooner in the Rwandan genocide of 1994; American ‘complicity’ in apartheid …
Yet, as C.S. Lewis reminds us in God in the Dock, “The first and fatal charm of national repentance is … the encouragement it gives us to turn from the bitter task of repenting our own sins to the congenial one of bewailing—but, first, of denouncing—the conduct of others.”
Bewailing the policies of Bush as failures and standing mute in the face of attacks on his country and predecessors may come back to bite Obama.
For when Jimmy Carter assumed a posture of moral superiority over LBJ and Richard Nixon, by declaring, “We have gotten over our inordinate fear of communism,” it came back to bite him, good and hard.
COPYRIGHT 2009 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.
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1 Comment by Robert on 22 April 2009:
“Bewailing the policies of Bush as failures and standing mute in the face of attacks on his country and predecessors may come back to bite Obama.”
Maybe and maybe not. I think Obama is much closer in political theory to the ravings he listened to with some patience than Mr. Buchanan is willing to believe. Also I think the people who support Obama are much more informed than Pat gives them credit. Why should Obama knock himself out denouncing mean socialist abroad, when the american republicans got them elected at home?
“For when Jimmy Carter assumed a posture of moral superiority over LBJ and Richard Nixon, by declaring, “We have gotten over our inordinate fear of communism,” it came back to bite him, good and hard.”
Yep it did Pat, but evidently the Republicans learned nothing from that experience except “monkey see, monkey do,” because years after the Russians left Afghanistan having “taught Jimmy Carter a lesson.” the Republicans sent America back in to teach… Exactly who a lesson?
2 Comment by Sempronius on 22 April 2009:
“…it came back to bite him, good and hard.”
Looks like the Monroe Doctrine has come back to bite good and hard.The assorted Mestizos and Indios at the recent conference are the logical outcome of two centuries of anti-European-especially Latin European-policies rooted deep in,steady now,the American right no less than the left.There,I said it.
Angl-American conservatives are the most dangerous liberals in the world.When their anti-Europeanism comes back to bite them,as it often does,they fumblingly try to temporize by dusting off old, discarded,anachronistic liberal policies originally designed to prey upon Europe,and attempt to apply them against current beneficiaries of our past anti-European actions.
They think themselves clever,these conservatives.
But they are neither wise nor clever.The left,more thoroughgoing and more ruthless,instinctively knows when to change tact and turn on a erstwhile ally,make further gains,and reign (or attempt to reign) supreme.This is what we’re faced with in Latin America.And everywhere else,including the White House,for that matter.
The left,foreign and domestic,is after power;it is determined to get it.Buchanan and his ilk are ill-equipped,intellectually or otherwise,to prevent it from succeeding.
Only the resucitation of European power can truly remedy the problem.Only as a subordinate part of a European whole can we escape the consequences of past conservative folly.
3 Comment by Lee on 22 April 2009:
According to Naomi Klein’s “Shock Capitalism”, Latin America, having been subjected to Milton Friedman and his U of Chicago Boyz, and their Israeli/CIA torture and murder intimidation and enforcement of the “Freedom to Choose” by the rich, will be repudiating a lot more American interventions. Ecuador has already told the US to get out after their base lease is up this year, which will put a little crimp in the US drug wars in Columbia. Watch for Latin America to soon repudiate all the debt that previous dictators were persuaded to take on and stick to their citizens. Normally, Pat makes good points but seems to hold back from the obvious conclusions. This time he seems to have totally missed the point which his observations seem to demand.
4 Comment by Robert on 22 April 2009:
Sempronius,
“Only the resucitation of European power can truly remedy the problem.Only as a subordinate part of a European whole can we escape the consequences of past conservative folly.”
And this will never happen in America. The very thesis of her cult is “uniformity against unity” and right now the ancient institutions that still understand,or at least once understood that unity does not mean uniformity, have been wrecked by the tides of political violence and intellectual sins. God only knows when that rip tide will recede back into its rightful domain.
5 Comment by Sempronius on 22 April 2009:
Nice application of the Monroe Doctrine by the way.
6 Comment by Derek Leaberry on 22 April 2009:
America’s friendship with Britain was not only more important than our relations with Argentina in 1982, it is more important now. As for the Monroe Doctrine, it should be disavowed as irrelevant for our times. The Monroe Doctrine was thought to be needed at a time when America feared re-colonization of the hemisphere. The War of 1812 had ended less than a decade before, our capital had been taken by a small British force in 1814 with the White House and Capitol burned to the ground, and most of the Spanish Empire in the Americas had only become independent nations months previously. Today, no European nation has the will to project any military power anywhere. The Monroe Doctrine is as meaningful to modern America life as the Wilmot Proviso, the Brooklyn Dodgers or the Gold Standard.
7 Comment by Josh Cooney on 22 April 2009:
If Reagan helped Britain in the Falklands, it was only by staying basically neutral in the affair, or, more precisely, by turning his back on his strongest allies in Latin America, the Argentine Junta, who were fanatical anti-communists. Britain, moreover, didn’t need any help. Argentina managed to do everything wrong that they possibly could.
8 Comment by Josh Cooney on 22 April 2009:
Of course, I don’t mean to suggest that Reagan should have sided with Argentina, but if I were an Argentinian official who did everything the U.S. asked for in the “war on communism,” I wouldn’t be a big fan of Reagan.
9 Comment by Tom Piatak on 22 April 2009:
Derek Leaberry is right. There is something to be said for an ally that actually fights at your side, as the British not only did in WW I and WW II, when they were obviously major beneficiaries of our efforts, but also in Korea, Gulf War I, and Gulf War II, when the benefit to Britain from fighting with us was far from clear. With respect to the Falklands, we did give the British logistical and intelligence support. As I recall, this was a point of contention between Caspar Weinberger, who was pro-British, and Jeane Kirkpatrick, who was pro-Argentinian. Reagan sided with Weinberger and the British.
10 Comment by Josh Cooney on 22 April 2009:
“But, the Bay of Pigs, had it succeeded, would have given Cubans 50 years of freedom instead of the brutal dictatorship they have had to endure. And it took place four months before Barack was born.”
My favorite part of that fiasco is the CIA hatched plan to paint up their planes to look like Castro’s. This way the rest of the world would think Castro was bombing his own people! I understand Mr. Buchanan’s point about not needing to tour the world apologizing for American foreign policy, but some of this stuff really was rediculous when you reflect back upon it.
William Fulbright was the only one in the know who objected to the Bay of Pigs, much like PBJ would later object to two Iraq wars. I’m sorry, but I don’t see the moral difference. It’s good for America to be interventionist if it’s communism but bad if it’s something else?
11 Comment by Ray Olson on 22 April 2009:
A very good set of reactions, so far, to a very ill-thought-out piece by a commentator who is usually more cogent.
I may be thick, but I am totally flummoxed by this paragraph:
‘Yet, as C.S. Lewis reminds us in God in the Dock, “The first and fatal charm of national repentance is … the encouragement it gives us to turn from the bitter task of repenting our own sins to the congenial one of bewailing—but, first, of denouncing—the conduct of others.”’
Doesn’t the quotation suggest that Obama et al. are doing the right thing, viz., not turning from repentance to denunciation of others?
What’s in the ellipsis?
12 Comment by Clyde Wilson on 22 April 2009:
#11. Ray, you are very cogent. We need something from Buchanan more than the usual Republican rah rah for virtuous America.
13 Comment by Josh Cooney on 22 April 2009:
My memory was a bit foggy on the Bay of Pigs. The idea to fly B-26s identical to Castro’s was to make it appear as though Cubans were defecting. Nonetheless, the plan was intended to mask American involvment. This might have suggested to Kennedy and the CIA the dubious nature of the operation, since they went to such lengths to hide it from the country and the world. Apparently not.
14 Comment by vatvince on 22 April 2009:
Comment by Derek Leaberry #6
As a co-parishioner, I will accept most, but not all, of Signor Leaberry’s premises regarding the fact that certain events have been OBE – overtaken by events, as well as circumstance – such as the gold standard, or the Wilmot Proviso. That is beyond cavil. There is, further, a historical validity in such an assumption, but his inclusion of the Brooklyn Dodgers as something not relevant today is fraught with…shall I say it?… heresy, and I will begin his re-education on Sunday after Mass. Was it not Justice Holmes who claimed that “youth is wasted on the young?”
15 Comment by Tom Ridenour on 23 April 2009:
Bewailing the policies of Bush as failures and standing mute in the face of attacks on his country and predecessors may come back to bite Obama.
It is my sense that Obama has no intention of defending America in any respect or to any degree. Since he sat willingly year after year, Sunday after Sunday, listening to a black bigot abuse the pulpit by ranting and raving and wishing the damnation of God down on America, why should it surprise us in any way that Comrade “O” would listen patiently to a brief 50 minutes of much milder and less profane rhetoric from these Latin American thugs. Hillary, of course, is right at home. She probably didn’t want to leave.
Of course, the left is already accusing any one who speaks against him as being a racist. I’ll have to confess I certainly oppose him because of the singular issue of his color–––I’m going on the record and will not deny it. Put simply, I don’t think and have never thought that America should have a RED president.
16 Comment by McCallum on 23 April 2009:
“White, blue eyed bankers”
My goodness, the world is screaming out loud for Sam Francis.
McCallum
17 Comment by Derek Leaberry on 23 April 2009:
I must admit partial error in the inclusion of the Brooklyn Dodgers in my little list of irrelevancies. As long as the Bums are part of historic memory, Reese, Snider, Campanella, Furillo, Hodges, Robinson, Koufax(whose best years were to come after Brooklyn was betrayed by O’Malley) and other heroes of now-demolished Ebbets Field will live on as much as Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia remains part of the historic memory of some Southerners. And it is vital to the fully formed human to retain historic memory whether it is a memory observed during one’s lifetime or a historic memory, like Washington’s Continentals crossing the icy Delaware, of the long past. My greatest regret with regards to historic memory in America is that most of my countrymen have little to none.
When every son and daughter of Brooklyn who were fans of the Dodgers go to their Heavenly reward(or the alternative), will the Brooklyn Dodgers be as relevant to Brooklyn as Ty Cobb is to the wastelands of Detroit? I hope not. Of course, any person interested in the history of the vibrant neighborhoods that made up Brooklyn at its zenith would be obtuse not to understand how the travails of the Brooklyn Dodgers helped patch together a united Brooklyn. The Brooklyn Dodgers remain part of historic memory whereas the forgotten Wilmot Proviso and the Gold Standard(but to a few libertarians) are not. May it always be so.
18 Comment by Sempronius on 23 April 2009:
Why was it more important?What could Britain do if we didnt support her,join the Soviet Bloc?Did we support her during the Suez crisis?
If the Monroe Doctrine is so irrelevant why were conservatives invoking it in Grenada and Nicaragua right about the same time as the Falkland Wars?
The Spanish Empire was our ally in our bid for independence from Britain.Those newly independent South American republics were largely tools of British imperialism,our supposed enemy.It is curious how British aggression against the U.S. in 1814 justifies our support of a mainly British strategy aimed against Spain,our former ally.Go figure.
Europe’s will to project military power is subjest to circumstances,and is liable to change.Also,Europe can exert influence in ways other than militarily.
As for the Monroe Doctrine’s actual significance,I’d like to note two things.If its significance alters in direct proportion as it either diminishes or augments (Latin) European power-Argentina is probably the most European country in the Western Hemisphere-then you have illustrated my point beautifully.And secondly,the consequences of certain policies exist long after the policies disappear.See my post from yesterday.
Tu quoque Tom Piatak?The Gulf Wars came after the Falklands;they dont count.(And besides,the British were just as wrong to participate as we were/are).It would be more correct to say that we fought by the British side in the two World Wars.Big difference there.The Korean war hardly measures up,and unlike WW’s I and II,it ended in a draw.
No “entangling alliances,”remember?
19 Comment by Hermann on 23 April 2009:
Based purely on Buchanan’s essay I would say that the South Americans had more than a modicum of truth on their side and, while I don’t think much of Obama, sometimes it is best to just shut up and listen.
Agreed that this is not one of Buchanan’s better efforts.
H.F. Wolff
20 Comment by John Smith on 24 April 2009:
The Democratic coalition is composed of militant leftists and disparate “minority” groups united mainly by a genocidal loathing of white people. It’s hardly surprising that their representatives didn’t object to the openly racist hate-fest down south. What is really interesting is the absolute failure of Conservatives and the Republicans to gain any traction from these complaints (including the Saudi bowing incident). Once upon a time these things would have caused a firestorm. The corrupt, treasonous class bigots who run the Republican Party and the Conservative movement have supported the notion of “creedal nation” for decades and now the atomization caused by that idiotic belief (and its chief practical form, mass immigration) is beginning to show results. They’re attempting to appeal to the honor of a nation that no longer exists, one which they helped to destroy.
21 Comment by Ed Roberts on 24 April 2009:
“For 50 minutes, Obama sat mute, as a Marxist thug from Nicaragua delivered his diatribe, charging America with a century of terrorist aggression in Central America.”
Why are you surprised, Mr. Buchanan? Obama is a Marxist thug himself, and the US Government (not America) is indeed guilty of more than a century of terrorist aggression in Central and South America.
Your beloved GOP is to blame for the Obama presidency. The GOP leadership could easily have made the case that Obama isn’t a US citizen, early on, and he would never have been in the democratic primary. Instead, they concentrated their efforts on blocking Ron Paul’s candidacy.
Strain at a gnat and swallow a camel. I do wish you’d wake up a little.
22 Comment by Nicholas MOSES on 24 April 2009:
@Semipronius: I actually agree with you on many points, but the fact that the Anglo-American original sin regarding Latin America was to ignite the fire that burned the Spanish Empire means fixing that error will require a long and painful reparation. At least, in the years since, Britain has not been altogether unfaithful to us in return.
If we now as Anglophone Americans prosternate before His Majesty King Francis II, beg forgiveness for our* three hundred and twenty one years of infidelity and pledge our undying loyalty, would he know what to do with us? Most likely he would know better than Elizabeth Windsor in the same situation, but the world must be taken as it is.
Which begs the question: WHAT, oh, what is the point of remarking on politics in this day and age?
*By blood I am not, so far as I can trace, “Anglo-American,” but my ancestors were deracinated and assimilated enough that I simply have no other lot to cast. It would be foolish and futile to wish I were still Austrian or Norwegian, let alone French.
23 Comment by Etienne Gervaise on 24 April 2009:
@21 Nicholas
We could make amends by selling the Spanish Puerto Rico for a whole dollar. After all, we did take it in in an illegitimate newspaper-driven war. Maybe they’d be happy to solve the Cuban problem, too.
24 Comment by M.J.Harrington on 24 April 2009:
I remember reading that Mr Buchanan supported Argentina in the Falklands War.
25 Comment by Derek Leaberry on 24 April 2009:
I don’t remember that Buchanan supported Argentina in the Falklands War but I do remember that the late Senator Jesse Helms supported Argentina. It may have been the only time Senator Helms was in error.
26 Comment by Josh Cooney on 24 April 2009:
Poor England. The last hurrah of her once great navy was over a group of useless, rocky islands near that great strategic outpost–Antarctica! Her Royal Navy was then scrapped and made into knives and spoons. Ms. Thatcher got her war and won re-election–she fought it for much more honorable reasons, I’m sure.
27 Comment by M.J.Harrington on 24 April 2009:
If Britain had not recaptured the islands our reputation and influence would have vanished completely, and Thatcher’s reform of the British economy would never have happened since she would have been broken. Another side effect of the war was that the military junta collapsed and Argentina became a democracy. The British war dead amounted to 255 men including five merchant seamen, and the cost of it was paid out of the Budget contingency fund. All wars are bad, but this one was cheaper than most.
28 Comment by Nicholas Moses on 24 April 2009:
@27: The fate of the Empire was sealed in 1914 and Labour has ruined everything Britons of good will ever fought to save. The cultural decay in Britain is endemic, and an early Thatcher defeat would only have hastened its coming. The face of the New Labour which rose from the ashes of the old is anti-British and anti-worker to boot. As for the Conservatives, they are now but Whigs draped in blue. Thatcher did what she had to, but it was all for nothing.
29 Comment by Josh Cooney on 24 April 2009:
@27 I have no idea why our reputation would have “vanished completely” if England lost the Falklands. Isn’t this the same thing that the neocons always say to get us into a war? Namely, that if we don’t assert our military might we will appear weak to the world? In fact, that is why I was mocking Thatcher and the Brits. They were pretending that they were still Great Britain. The same way America pretends to be tough by fighting such superpowers as Vietnam, Granada, and Iraq, twice.
30 Comment by Nicholas Moses on 25 April 2009:
@29: It wouldn’t have been exactly gracious of Britain to abandon her loyal subjects to an Argentine takeover and a loss of their personal autonomy. It may not have been worth the price, but at least in this case I’m not sure South America has a real gripe. Argentina made a huge error. Is there any moral high ground in contemporary politics?
31 Comment by M.J.Harrington on 25 April 2009:
@29
I am sorry. I am English and I should have mentioned it, and I am a Tory not a neocon. The Falklands war had nothing to do with great power pretensions. The question was whether we were to be regarded as a serious country of any kind. In fact I would say that Thatcher was the first Conservative prime minister whose outlook could be called “national” rather than “imperial.”
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are different again. Who rules in Baghdad, and who rule in Kabul, are not fighting questions for England.
32 Comment by Josh Cooney on 25 April 2009:
#30 I agree. England was basically justified. And Argentina was incompetent at every level of their military and political structure. If you like reading military history, you’ll like Martin Middlebrook’s The Argentine Fight for the Falklands. For a short war, it’s actually very interesting.
No there usually is not a moral high ground. I still don’t like a hard line RealPolitik, however.
33 Comment by Josh Cooney on 25 April 2009:
#31 I agree with you too. My comments were basically silly.