Mixed Washington Signals

Any head of state can embrace a position they want as long as they don't get entangled physically with the sovereign nations to which they speak; however, some messages from Washington recently seem harder to read that "smoke signals" on a windy day! I'm not sure the patron saints at the Vatican could discern if the smoke was white or black coming from the smokestacks of Washington these days. 

First we have Obama very involved and telling a head of state (Israel) exactly what they should no and not do. Demands have been made about giving Palestine state hood even though they vow to wipe Israel off the face of the earth. How is it that any head of state can so dictate such policy towards a sovereign state: especially one that has been our friends in so many ways?

And then there's Iran!

The government has been killing demonstrators, imprisoning and torturing dissidents, and shutting off as much news and information coming out of the nation as possible as a means of covering up their atrocities. And yet our administration is initially TIMID about saying anything that might hurt future diplomatic relations. However, when scenes from Iran show such brutality that staying moderate in our condemnation was a political liability. Finally, our nation calls such treatment of the opposition as "appalling".

Then we have an up-and-coming dictator in the making in Honduras and we condemn the actions immediately!

Let's see now. The president, Zelaya, wanting to be a dictator forever, like Chavez, illegally fires the military heads, defies the Supreme Court orders, and goes against the pronouncement of the legislature and nothing is said. However we say nothing. Then when he defies even his own party, Supreme Court, and Congress, and the military is ordered to remove him, we call FOUL.

One has to wonder just how much moral authority we need to exercise on the rest of the world, and maybe we could even come up with some definitions that are consistent to to the rest of the world we look like we know what we're doing outside of furthering our own interests. Ah, but maybe that's too much to ask out of politicians. Oh yes, and one other things. All presidents (maybe exempting Reagan) did it so this isn't an anti Obama infomercial.