Are people really making this big a deal about the fact that Obama shook Chavez’s hand. People are freaking out because Venezuela is a socialist country and Chavez is kind of crazy and hates America. Their human rights record sucks and they’re against everything we’re for economically. This isn’t anything we didn’t already know.
There’s another country that’s pretty similar to Venezuela. Its called Cuba and Obama said he was going to try a different tact with them as well, since, as I noted before, our foreign policy with them has worked so well over the last 50 years.
I’m just trying to make the point that people shouldn’t be so surprised.
I’m looking forward to when Obama meets with China for the first time though. We all know that he’s going to shake their hands and smile when he’s talking to them. But its okay when he does it with them because they have a really good human rights record and they’re totally on board with running their economy like ours and having really balanced trade with us.
No, the difference between countries like Venezuela and Cuba and countries like China and Russia is that one group has big guns and that seems to be the only thing one of the foreign policy camps respects. It seems their mindset is that we should bully everyone that is smaller than us and doesn’t have big guns, and placate and play nice with the people that do have big guns, even if they’re just as bad or worse than the countries without big guns. If you want to operate that way you can probably get what you want most of the time, but when things get more complicated and you need to get buy-in from a much broader collective, you’re going to have a harder time finding allies.
All that being said, I’m not exactly a fan of Chavez. I don’t agree with the way he’s nationalized industries in Venezuela recently and his basic socialist tendencies aren’t my cup of tea, but since I don’t live in Venezuela, I don’t have to worry about it all the much. If the Venezuelan people voted him into office and aren’t happy with him, then that’s for them to deal with.
I agree with the general thrust of your “friend=countries with big guns, not friends=countries without big guns” notion, with one caveat: I think it doesn’t take into account the “useful idiot” idea. Saddam Hussein was never a truly global threat – and not even much of a regional one, truthfully. Yet we made him into what he is through arms deals and the backing of the United States because, at the time – even though we knew he was gassing the Kurds and was a horrible dictator, we considered him a COMPLIANT dictator…and that’s the key. It isn’t just guys with the BIG guns, it’s also tin-pot homicidal crazies who nevertheless are judged to be reliably in line with western interests. Right now, there’s a lovely gentleman I’m sure you’re familiar with by the name of Islam Karimov over in Uzbekistan, whose human rights record (warning: do NOT click on that link if you don’t wish to see graphic pictures) record is arguably every bit as bad – and I would say a good deal worse – than either Hussein’s or Castro’s ever was (though certainly those two are no princes, either). This is also the country which earned intense but brief (because it was quickly swept off the pages of the US press) notoriety for the Andijan massacre, in which armed Uzbek troops fired on an unarmed crowd of protestors, killing….well, the smallest estimate of the total number of dead is 187, with some estimates ranging as high as the one from a defector from the Uzbek police which put the total dead at 5,000. Nevertheless, in spite of stuff like this, Karimov’s Uzbekistan remains an ally and trading partner in good standing. Why? Because he’s our newest-minted buddy in the war on terror, that’s why. I have no idea whether Hillary Clinton’s State Department will get around to reviewing our international alliances with an eye to their human rights records – or WHEN, since we certainly seem to have enough of our own problems to deal with right now – but the Bushies latched onto him quicker than you could say “Saddam had rape rooms,” as soon as they learned that the only way an oil pipeline could go would be through some part of Uzbekistan, and that Karimov (despite having entered politics as a Communist – no kidding, look it up) was “anti-terror.” Based on the links above, I’d have to guess that his opposition to terror didn’t extend to that practiced by his own government within his own borders, but just to “Islamic extremists.” And that was all the Bushies needed to hear. So, despite not having “the big guns,” and the presence of a Myanmar-level of human rights, he instantly became “our friend.”
You know what they say…with friends like these….