What I do get, with my limited brain capacity, is that to you apparently only expediency matters.
Wrong again. What I'm saying is, in the real world, political expediency is the main concern of high-level leaders of nation-states. That's the way it is, and the Op-Ed you posted, when mentioning the Dalai Lama bit, seemed to willfully ignore that nasty little reality for the sake of their polemic against Obama.
So again, it's not
to me that political expediency matters in foreign relations, but it does to heads-of-state and senior diplomats for the most part.
Hell, if I were magically made President, I'd end all military aid to all foreign countries, starting with Israel and Saudi Arabia, start dismantling our foreign military installations and bring the vast majority of our troops home immediately. But since I'm not naive enough to believe that the person elected Emperor (President) is going to dismantle the Empire, I'm not going to expect a modern US President to act in any other fashion than as a modern US President. And this whole "He should have met with the Dalai Lama before these dictators" shit is a ridiculously naive argument that serves only as a convenient jab at Obama.
By the way, what's so great about the Dalai Lama? You know that he represents a reactionary social class, right? Why aren't you bitching about him not meeting with Hamas? Another reactionary organization, unfortunately, leading the fight for national liberation?
As for meeting with dictators, meeting them is one thing, but fawning on them ?
Yeah, it's fucked up, but it's not the first time its been done, nor will it be the last. At least Obama was quick to condemn the Honduran coup, which very well may not have happened under another administration.
Uttering things like Islam has a proud tradition of tolerance
He's a politician trying to mend fences with the Muslim world, what the fuck did you expect him to say? "Islam sucks, you Muslims need to get your shit together"? I mean, that may be a truer statement to make, but it would be kind of stupid for him to say something like that. And what was the point of him making that statement anyways? To try to encourage Muslims to be more tolerant and give them religious justification for doing so. I suppose instead in his speech to the Muslim world he just should have encouraged mass apostasy-- yeah that would have been a lot more effective.
And as I recall, Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II said the same type of shit. But people didn't make such a big deal about that because they were White men, and they didn't have a bunch of crazies around accusing them of being crypto-Muslims or being Kenyan by birth.
but as you will probably say in your eloquent way :who gives a fuck about Karim Amer, he wields no power ergo expendable, so that was probably why Obama did not find it expedient to mention his case while in Cairo.
Again, in case you missed it the first time, I'm not arguing
for political expediency in foreign policy, just stating it is a
reality, and if you expect a head of state to go around championing the cause of every injustice in the world, without any regard to the diplomatic fallout, then if I ever make it to Denmark, I'll be sure to hit you up, because it's obvious you have access to a large amount of very powerful mind-altering drugs.
Well, do you think it was really necessary to be that servile ?
No, I don't. Then again, I don't think it's necessary to sell S.A. F-16s. But Bush I and II did the same shit, again, just didn't get blown out of proportion by the right-wing crazies.
Topic: Obama Wins a Nobel Peace Prize