generalspeaking

And Reality Is...

Optimism, admittedly, is a wonderfully self-availing tool with which to face life's adversities. It helps enormously to lift peoples' spirits above the mundane and disappointing occurrences in life that a pessimistic view might very well work to inhibit hope for the future. But an overvaluing sunny view of life's opportunities and peoples' basic, inbred or acquired behaviours, views, values and other characteristics should never superimpose itself over careful scrutiny of possibilities, defaulting the intelligence to blind trust.

Or, in the case of world events and the interactions of world leaders, one submitting to the trusting hope that his own finer nature would miraculously, inevitably impress itself on that of a psychopathic leader or a sociopathic administration, instantly achieving reform and a newfound, albeit dilatory, respect for humanity at large. Take, for example, the sublimely confident and eminently empathetic President of the United States, Barack Obama. He suffers from a reversal of the usual low-self esteem complex.

He is imbued with a level of self-confidence given to few. Encouraging him to insist that, in his singular way, he has taken John Lennon's appeal to heart, and is willing to go the extra mile to 'give peace a chance'. Mr. Obama appears convinced that as long as he is sincere and conciliatory, any to whom he extends the proverbial hand of friendship will be disarmed and reciprocate. His pure spirit, turned to good works, would communicate to others, stimulating them to respond in like form.

The result, however, appears on the record to be otherwise. His overtures are deemed to be insincere and unworthy of a world leader, for to seek to pacify those whose intention is to do harm to others brings the reward of scorn from those vigorously repudiating the opportunities extended them. They have no need of the opportunity to establish warm relations with a country they despise, evidently, and have invited Mr. Obama to kiss their Muslim backsides.

The trip to Turkey, where in Instanbul Mr. Obama addressed the Turkish Grand National Assembly in his attempt to reach out to a Muslim audience has not resulted in warmer relations between Turkey and the West. Long aspiring to join the European Union, that is more remote than ever, since Turkey under its new Islamist government has stretched the gap between it and the West, once so conformingly comforting.

Turkey has chosen to abandon its traditional relationship with Israel for the greater advantage of chumming with Iran and Syria, denouncing Israel as a country that should be outed as a genocidal state, with President Erdogan personally clearing Sudan of those Darfur-inspired charges. President Obama's message of "the importance of Turkey, not just to the United States, but to the world" somehow failed to impress the Islamist administration.

"When people look back on this time, let it be said of America that we extended the hand of friendship", declared an earnest President Obama. Obviously incapable of foreseeing that his generosity would be rejected. (As a peculiar expression of political weakness, in actual fact.) Forcing the United States and other NATO allies to cancel a joint air exercise traditionally including Israel, when Turkey excluded its one-time ally and chose instead to proceed with joint military exercises with its latest pal, Syria.

President Obama's Cairo trip, undertaken to alter his country's relationship with the world of Islam, somehow failed to make the grade, as well. Sternly impressing upon Israel that she alone must make sacrifices. Encouraging the Palestinians along with the other Middle East countries to believe that the Palestinian Authority could proceed with demands at all levels of entitlements. In the process exacting sacrifices from Israel to reach a peace accord, leading to a general collapse of the peace talks.

When Iran's presidential elections were exposed for the fraud that they represented, and the opposition parties mounted a series of protests which the Islamic Republic of Iran's administration countered by setting the Basiji militia and the Republican Guard upon unarmed protesters, there was no support for the courageous Iranians emanating from the United States government. Despite the violence visited on the protesters, the arrests, torture and killing, just low-key murmurs of 'disappointment'.

Iran's dismissal of American-led EU-supported recommendations with respect to the country's insistence on its divine right to obtain nuclear power (and nuclear weaponization) reveals the country's delight in playing cat-and-mouse games with the UN, the IAEA, and the international community. Revealing too in no little degree its contempt for the weakness of those who display their frail commitment by appealing to the presumed better nature of such regimes.

The assurance given Russia by President Obama on his trip there, that the United States would surrender its plans to install a missile defence system in Poland and the Czech Republic, in an unstated exchange for Russia's assistance in pressuring Iran on the nuclear issue also left the United States with a one-sided victory. In the process, leaving east European allies in a distressed state of disappointment - but then, that situation should never have evolved in the first place.

President Obama is now in China, a country that holds billions of dollars of investment in a cash-strapped American economy. He is there to encourage more open trade relations with the emerging economic giant and world power. At the very time when other countries of the world are shouting foul at the U.S. Congress for exacting new trade protectionist measures. To burnish his credentials as a human-rights activist, President Obama plans to raise the question of human rights during his trip.

Life is very complicated. President Obama is doubtless an honourable man, seen in his own mirror image of self. Without doubt he aspires to represent as the epitome of an honourable man, one for whom human rights concerns are outstanding. While he exhibits few cautions when confronting and conciliating world leaders whose exploits in the field of abusing human rights are undeniable, he was cautious in deciding not to meet with the Dalai Lama. In contrast to his predecessors who all did just that.

At the summit in Singapore just past, with leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Mr. Obama effectively officially gave accreditation to Myanmar's military junta by speaking to the Burmese leader - 'engaging Burma' - to recognize their opposition, urging free elections. Which the Burmese opposition characterized as a sham, giving legitimization to the ruling junta. President Obama did speak on behalf of Aung San Suu Kyi, asking for her release from detention.

Will the brutal, oppressive Myanmar leadership, which initially refused all foreign aid for its people in the horrendous aftermath of their cataclysmic earthquake, leaving people to rescue themselves, now see the error of their ways and repent? Restoring Aung San Suu Kyi to her rightful place as the democratically-elected head of a government that would certainly not permit the ruling junta any place in the administration of the country?

Just as surely as a modest Barack Obama, nobly and gently turned down the Nobel Peace Prize in favour of its finally being presented to thrice-nominated human rights activist, and currently imprisoned Liu Xiaobo.

Labels: Traditions, United States, World Crises

posted by Pieface @ Sunday, November 15, 2009