I tuned into
the Morning Joe (MSNBC) this morning and was delighted to find that Joe wasn’t
there. It soon became evident that his cynicism was. +Brian
Shactman, a regular on the show, was sharing his opinion about the Middle East (Syria,
Egypt) by remaking the remark, “Repair [Americas] reputation overseas . . .” he
implied that American’s reputation in the world was bad and it somehow was
Obama’s fault. The big question I have
for him is to ask, “In whose eyes is America’s reputation bad?”
In a blog titled American Foreign Policy (firetreepub.blogspot.com;
8/20/13), I explained what I see as a dramatic change in American Foreign Policy
under Obama. In the eyes of almost every county, with few exceptions, American
foreign policy has historically been bad—a bully policy. At the same time, in
the eyes of Americans, it has been sterling; as the most powerful country in the
world, we love ourselves as champions of democracy, freedom, fairness, and benevolent
caretakers of the rest of the world. We love our power. The countries in the most
of rest of the world did not see it that way. As long as we controlled their governments and
as long as they did and said what we wanted them to do and say—that they loved
us, for example—they were our friends. We took their oil, we exploited their labor,
we depleted their natural resources, and we contaminated their environments
with our industrial pollution. In the words of John McNasty, either they comply
or bomb, bomb, bomb.
A few called our bluff, broke free, and expressed their true
feelings; +Hugo Chaves, and +Fidel Castro, for example. Our media excoriated
these dissenters to the point that everyone in the county felt they were evil. I
refer to all of this as the Reagan foreign Policy but in truth, our government’s
foreign policy, from the start, was ugly and we should not be looked at it with
pride. The response to Brian Shactman’s
remark is that our reputation in the world was truly terrible and Obama is
trying to fix it. The world respected us because they feared us; that same as an
NRA punk with an AK47 and 500 rounds of ammunition in a classroom of children
is respected, but not loved.
The sea change
that Obama is trying to bring about in our foreign policy in the eyes of some is
naïve but for most, if they understand it, know it is well intended. To be fair
and honest is admirable but is not the most profitable way to do business. The
neo-cons see our armies as tools to force “good deals” for themselves; they do
not understand the word ‘fair’; thus, hate Obama.
It only makes
sense in the context of the evolution of social biology or evolutionary psychology.
Steven Pinker, a cognitive scientist, wrote a brilliant book The Better Nature of our Angels, in
which he asked the questions, “What is the world coming to? and “How bad was
the world in the past?” The book was well document and illustrated that the
world is changing. The number of violent incidents is becoming less and less and
in addition, there is a diminution in the violence in each incident.
The United
States foreign policy is finally following that trend. Pinker put emphasis on
the incidence of violence, murder etc and by including wars, included foreign
relations. The message for foreign policy was clear. The world is changing from a violent place to a peaceful place, from a
greedy place into an altruistic place. It is hard to believe that Obama and Hillary
Clinton are the only ones who have read and understands that message. This is
just one of many reasons I think Obama is a truly great president and why Hillary
should be our next president. Who else understands that Egypt is fighting
to become a democracy and not a caliphate equivalent to a cesspool of continued
religious violence? The neo-cons in control of the Republican Party, the
business as usual types, would sell out democracy to Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood
supporters in exchange for the right for American companies to do business in
Egypt. I hope Obama can resist them.
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