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Austin Bay on the diplomacy of fools.
Poles knew September 2009 would be a bitter month. It marked the 70 anniversary of their country’s great geo-political catastrophe, the start of World War 2 and their nation’s imprisonment.
The 21st-century bitterness Poles did not expect was President Barack Obama’s shocking Sept. 17, 2009, announcement. To “reset” U.S.-Russia relations, Obama said he had terminated U.S. participation — which meant Polish participation as well — in what Poland and other U.S. allies regarded as an essential NATO and European defense program: deploying long-range anti-missile missiles in Poland (Ground Based Interceptors).
The peaceful order Obama said his decision would achieve dismayed Poles who know from experience that the Kremlin’s version of a reset usually involves Russian military resurgence, not peace. Obama’s abrupt termination of a major, negotiated multi-lateral policy worried them. His failure to consult Warsaw infuriated them. History added injury; the date on which he announced his flip-flop appalled them. …
… Polish dismay with US optimism precedes Obama. In 2001 they cringed when George W. Bush said he looked in Vladimir Putin’s eyes and got “a sense of (Putin’s) soul.” Poles saw a KGB colonel gulling a naive American. …
… World War 2 taught Poland that collective defense matters. Weak nations need strong allies. But in a world where destructive actors possess long-range missiles and have the intent to use them, an adequate defense requires international participation. The Poles understand that a robust missile defense is a key element in collective defense protecting constructive nations from destructive actors. They also understand that constructing and deploying complicated weapons requires a long lead-time.
Obama’s September 2009 concession didn’t transform. It may yet yield strategic disaster. Moreover, he does not learn from his mistakes. Utopian goals guide his Iran policy. He breaks promises on whim, and today allies wonder if Obama would honor America’s NATO commitment. …
And it’s not that the history is inaccessible, Pickerhead wrote a piece in March, 2010 that kicked off with reference to the slight we gave to Poland.
Perhaps it is strange for a free market blogger to suggest American knowledge of Russian history is woefully inadequate. But, we really are ignorant of that part of the world. If the Obama administration knew more, maybe they would have picked another day to tell Poland we were caving to the Russians and canceling plans for Eastern Europe’s missile defense shield. Instead, they picked the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland. That was a minor event in the overall war, but it was followed by typical Bolshevik horrors, including the massacre of 22,000 Polish officers at sites like KatynForest.
Poles will never forget.
As we approach the rolling 70th anniversary of the major events of World War II it is easy to forget the conflict was underway for almost two years before all hell really broke loose. This period started with the September 1939 invasion of Poland by, first Germany, and then Russia. Then came the German invasion of France and the Low Countries in May 1940, and finally the German move against Russia in June 1941. In the eight months between the invasions of Poland and France, headline writers had fun reporting on the “Bore War” and called it ”Sitzkrieg” rather than Blitzkrieg.
In and around Russia, though, there was a lot of activity. A border incident with Japan in Mongolia at Khalkhin Gol turned into a small war, and in Europe there was the Winter War with Finland. The world ignored the first because it was far away and overshadowed by the contemporaneous Hitler-Stalin Pact; was aghast at the second, and kicked Russia out of the League of Nations. The Red Army’s poor showing against Finland was further embarrassment for Russia and led to Hitler’s fatal misunderstandings about Soviet forces. …
In yet another example of his thundering ignorance, the president has proposed mandatory voting. What would he do? Would he hire another 16,000 IRS agents to complement those hired to enforce the health care act? Pickerhead has always maintained that free people are those who don’t feel the need to vote. John Fund starts the comments.
Since he will never again see his name appear on a ballot, President Obama is finally telling us what he really thinks.
“If everybody voted, then it would completely change the political map in this country,” Obama said yesterday at a Cleveland town hall meeting. “It would be transformative if everybody voted.”
He also said it would be “fun” to force through a constitutional amendment restricting the free-speech rights of Americans to contribute money to politics. Fun?
Mr. President, we wouldn’t be America anymore with forced voting and people fined or jailed for using the First Amendment to express political views.
When it comes to voting, only eleven nations in the world actually enforce laws requiring people to vote. Several nations have tried them and dropped the idea, including Chile, Fiji, and Italy, which rescinded the policy in 1993. “There was finally a consensus that it was a basic infringement of freedom,” says Antonio Martino, a former Italian foreign minister. “Forcing people to vote violates their freedom of speech, because the freedom to speak includes the right not to speak.”
Indeed, not voting can send a message just as much as voting. If times are good and major parties are in broad agreement on major issues, a low voter turnout can be a sign of a healthy democracy. Similarly, in times of discontent when major parties are not offering up clear and compelling alternatives, non-voting signals that the legitimacy of the process is being questioned.
President Obama gave his real motivation away during his Cleveland riff by noting that Democrats stayed home in last November’s election, in which his party was crushed. It won’t surprise you that his motivation is political. Recall his famous post-election comment that he also heard the voices of Americans who didn’t vote. This week the president said “the people who tend not to vote are young, they’re lower income, they’re skewed more heavily towards immigrant groups and minority groups. We should want to get them into the polls.” But rather than blame himself or his party for the failure to inspire his ostensible supporters to vote, the president is turning to the idea of dragooning them to the ballot box.
The columnist George Will once said: “Really up-to-date liberals do not care what people do, as long as it is compulsory.” President Obama has joined their ranks. …
John Hinderaker comments on compulsory voting.
… It is hard to know where to begin. The idea of forcing Americans to vote is, frankly, un-American, and would have been regarded as such by every American political leader from George Washington through George W. Bush. If an American wants to stay home on election day, it is his God-given right to do so. The idea that policemen should herd Americans to the polls, or the IRS should withhold extra taxes if they don’t appear on a voter list, is repugnant. …
WSJ Editors weigh in.
We’re going to need more IRS agents. That’s the gist of President Obama’s latest bid to impose yet another mandate on the American people. This time he wants to require all Americans to vote, whether they want to or not. …
… Some Americans have already got a taste of what President Obama’s fondness for government by mandate means. Before it won its Supreme Court case, the crafts chain Hobby Lobby was faced with fines of $1.3 million for every day it refused to obey the contraceptive mandate. This year, with the April 15 tax deadline approaching, many young and healthy Americans who have disobeyed the Obama mandate to buy health insurance from the government’s limited menu are going to have to deal with the IRS.
“Everything not forbidden is compulsory.” That line comes from British writer T.H. White, in his novel recreating the life and times of King Arthur. White meant it as mockery. President Obama doesn’t get the joke.
Shame, Shelby Steele’s latest book, is reviewed by Joseph Epstein.
‘You,’ a character in Ossie Davis’s 1961 play “Purlie Victorious” says to another, “are a disgrace to the Negro profession.” The line recurs to me whenever I see Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson making perfunctory rabble-rousing remarks in Ferguson, Mo., Madison, Wis., current-day Selma, Ala., or any other protest scene where their appearance, like Toni Morrison on a list of honorary-degree recipients, has become de rigueur. I wonder if Shelby Steele has also been called “a disgrace to the Negro profession,” and this for diametrically opposite reasons. Had he been it could only have been by people who, despite their endless cries for social justice, in one way or another have a deep emotional if not financial investment in keeping black Americans in the sad conditions in which so many of them continue to find themselves.
Shelby Steele is one of the very few writers able to tell home truths about the plight of black Americans. …
… The author has a fierce racial pride, and his writing about blacks in America is without condescension and imbued with deep sympathy. He is a brother, make no mistake, but a brother quite unlike any other. What distinguishes him is his openly stated belief that blacks in America have been sold out by the very liberals who ardently claim to wish them most good. He regrets that affirmative action, multiculturalism and most welfare programs purportedly put in place to show racial preference, far from liberating black Americans, have failed to advance their fortunes. Judging from high crime, divorce and unemployment rates, as well as relatively low rates of high-school and college completion, a case can be made that liberal policies have harmed them. To cite a single statistic: In 1965, the year after passage of the Civil Rights Act, 23.6% of black births in America were to single women; today that number is 72%….
… The author’s conclusion is that black America sold itself out, entered “a Faustian pact,” as he puts it, by placing its destiny in the “hands of contrite white people.” Doing so, he writes, “left us pleading with government, not for freedom, which we had already won, but for ‘programs’ and ‘preferences’ that would be a ladder to full equality. The chilling result is that now, fifty years later, we remain—by most important measures—in the position of inferiors and dependents.” The liberalism that has come into prominence since the 1960s, Mr. Steele believes, “has done little more than toy with blacks.” …