By Frank J. Tamel
Simpleminded Appeasement of our Adversaries is Folly
It was C.S. Lewis who, in his unforgettable Screwtape Letters, wrote:
"The greatest evil is not done now in those sordid 'dens of rime' that Dickens loved to paint. It is not even done in concentration camps and labor camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed, and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voice."
Excert from Ronald Reagan's evil empire speech in 1983:
Well, because these "quiet men" do not "raise their voices," because they sometimes speak in soothing tones of brotherhood and peace, because, like other dictators before them, they're always making "their final territorial demand," some would have us accept them at their word and accommodate ourselves to their aggressive impulses. But if history teaches anything, it teaches that simpleminded appeasement or wishful thinking about our adversaries is folly. It means the betrayal of our past, the squandering of our freedom. So, I urge you to speak out against those who would place the United States in a position of military and moral inferiority. … I urge you to beware the temptation of pride - the temptation of blithely declaring yourselves above it all and label both sides equally at fault, to ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire … and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong and good and evil.
Only Liberal Leaders get Tested
I am sick and tired of tinhorn despots making Joe Biden’s prophecy, “Mark my words, it won’t be long and some country is gonna test this president,” come true. Why is it that progressives are always the ones who are tested? Do you think for a moment that Kim Jung Il would use Hawaii as a target if Ronald Reagan was President?
At precisely the same time North Korea tested one if its missiles, we should have been “testing” our missile defense system. Oops, we didn’t realize that your missile was flying so close to our test zone. Sorry ‘bout that. By the way, we’ll be doing a lot of “testing” in the future.
I find it ironic that Iran held fifty-two Americans hostage for 444 days during Jimmy Carter’s administration and released them at the precise time that Reagan took the oath of office. Now, with Carter Light in office, Iran is behaving badly again. Obama needs to take a page from the Gipper’s playbook. Reagan’s support for Solidarnosc during the Gdansk Shipyard strike in Poland in 1980 helped to strengthen Lech Walesa’s resolve and eventually defeat communism in Poland. Reagan’s powerful “Evil Empire” speech in 1983 helped the Eastern Bloc to bring about the collapse of the Soviet Union without a shot being fired.
Barack Obama is no Ronald Reagan
Obama is supposed to be such a great orator that listeners literally feint at the sound of his words. Perhaps a powerful message of solidarity with pro western Iranian students along the lines of, “Mr. Khamenei, tear down this wall of oppression,” during the first hours of Iran’s demonstrations would have helped bring down a criminal regime in Iran. We’ll never know because Obama, who is no Ronald Reagan, never made that speech.
.jpg) Iranian protesters were begging for American leadership to bring their plight to the world stage. Why else would they print their protest signs in English if not an appeal to America? They wanted Americans to read the signs and, if nothing else, to lend their support loudly and clearly. Obama was obviously hedging his bets with his three-day delay, gambling that the Mullah’s regime would prevail.
When The One finally did speak, it was to notify the Iranian regime that he would continue to dialog with Iran’s Supreme Leadership. Several days later he barely hinted at support for the students, but only after he was beaten to the punch by a Congress that finally got something right. Obama’s gamble paid off. After Obama’s tepid response, Iranian leadership unleashed their brand of terror on the students with beatings, disappearances, and sniper fire from rooftops, murdering protesters in bloody reprisal. There is no hope and change for Iran. The terror regime remains intact to pursue its nukes and export terror worldwide.
During the presidential campaign Obama complained that America’s worldwide esteem was at its lowest ebb. He and only he knew how to get other nations to like us again. Here’s the dirty little secret: None of them ever liked us very much, and some of them, including Iran, just plain hate us.
Perhaps Obama’s agenda is more sinister than just making other nations like us. Could it be that Obama wants to make us like them? Some of his policies seem to indicate that just as his economic strategies are leveling the playing field by relegating every citizen, rich and poor, to the middle class, his foreign policies, along with the recently passed Cap and Trade tax, will eventually turn us into another third world country
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