[Swiftwater Gazette] Road from Serfdom

[Brad Haslett]

Some analysis of Obama's snub of the Berlin Wall anniversary -

November 9, 2009  Posted by Scott at 5:39 AM

Hillsdale College Professor Paul Rahe writes on the celebration of the
anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall today from which President
Obama has chosen to be absent:

    Today marks the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin
Wall. To those in my generation, this seemed an almost miraculous
event. Berlin had long been the flashpoint in East-West relations.

    It was with regard to Berlin that Josef Stalin first tested our
resolve, breaking the Four-Power agreements with regard to that city,
which was located deep in the Soviet Zone of occupied Germany, and
cutting off access from the West by road and rail.

    Our response, under Harry Truman, was the Berlin Airlift, which
delivered food and other supplies by air to those isolated within the
American, British, and French Zones in that city. This was the first
clear, undoubted sign that we would not stand idly by while the Soviet
Union took over western Europe. Its historic importance cannot be
overstated.

    The second Berlin Crisis took place in August, 1961 when Soviet
leader Nikita Khrushchev and his Easter German counterpart Erick
Honecker took up a suggestion publicly floated by Senator J. William
Fulbright, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (and
privately supported by John F. Kennedy) and built the Berlin Wall.

    This, too, was a breach of the Four-Power agreement, which
specified that Berlin be an open city. Khrushchev and Honecker built
the wall because it had become the practice for young people in East
Germany, especially those with marketable skills, to travel to East
Berlin, cross over to the West, and fly on to West Germany to start a
new life. One consequence was that, prior to August, 1961, East
Germany was not economically viable.

    J. William Fulbright and some in the Kennedy administration
entertained hopes not unlike those entertained by the Obama
administration with regard to Iran. If the Russians found themselves
unthreatened in Eastern Europe, they reasoned, they would relax and be
more amenable to working out a modus vivendi with the West.

    They soon learned that they had blundered -- for our failure to
send in the bulldozers to knock down the wall, which Harry Truman
urged that we do, led to a crisis of confidence within the western
alliance, and it was this crisis that occasioned John Kennedy's
dramatic flight to Berlin and the speech in which he said, "Ich bin
ein Berliner." It did not matter that this meant, in German, "I am a
jelly donut." No one expected linguistic competence from an American.
Everyone understood that he meant to say, "Ich bin Berliner: I am a
Berliner."

    It would be a while, however, before the Kennedy administration
would recognize the full consequences of its display of weakness. As a
consequence of such foolishness, the United States would soon be faced
with the Cuban Missile Crisis. The Obama administration can expect to
be rewarded in a similar fashion by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

    In the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Soviet Union,
chastened, gave up its policy of brinksmanship and sought by indirect
means to bring about the collapse of the West. The event that took
place twenty years ago signaled the fact that we had outlasted the
Soviets.

    We have much to be proud of. Never in human history has there been
a sustained conflict over four decades between two great power blocs
in which no great war took place and one of the two won a decisive
victory resulting in the dismantlement of the rival alliance and even
the dismantlement of the country that led it. We made mistakes in the
course of the Cold War, but -- despite partisan divisions -- we
managed to maintain a more or less consistent policy of containment
and, after a time, strategic engagement. We -- and the world -- owe a
great debt to the Cold War presidents: especially, to Harry Truman and
Ronald Reagan, who were the most stalwart. This was arguably America's
finest hour.

    It is, I think, significant that Barack Obama chose not to join
the other heads of state and heads of government who have gathered in
Berlin today to celebrate what was a remarkable and blessed event.

    Back in June, in two separate posts on Power Line - here and here
-- I drew attention to our current president's propensity for
communicating different messages to different audiences by means of
gestures of one kind or another. Here is what I then wrote:

        Barack Obama has a history of belittling his adversaries [by
indirection]. In April, 2008, he was caught on tape during a debate
with Hillary Clinton, rubbing his hand across the right side of his
face and extending his middle finger in an obscene gesture that many
in the audience could see it but she could not, and when this provoked
laughter on the part of his supporters he responded with a knowing
smile. Later, after accepting his party's nomination, he did precisely
the same thing during a debate with John McCain; and, after Sarah
Palin remarked at the Republican National Convention that the only
difference between a pit bull and a soccer mom was lipstick, he
observed at a rally that a pig with lipstick is still a pig. Again,
many in the audience caught the dig and they, too, were rewarded with
a knowing smile.

        Obama is, in fact, a master of the insulting gesture. There is
no other construction that one can put on his conduct towards Gordon
Brown when the British prime minister paid him a visit shortly after
his inauguration. First, in an ostentatious manner, he returned to the
British embassy a bust of Winston Churchill that had been loaned to
his predecessor. Then, when Brown presented him with a pen made from
timber used in a British ship once involved in putting down the slave
trade, he gave him in return a stack of movies on DVD which could not
be played on machines sold in Europe.

        Were Obama a yokel, one might be able to explain this away.
But a yokel he is not, and there are State Department protocol
officers who are highly sensitive to the proprieties. It is no
accident that, at about the same time, the White House press secretary
intimated in the presence of members of the British press that there
was no special relationship between the United States and Great
Britain. Obama's gesture was a calculated insult--meant to be
understood only by those to whom it was directed.

        If we are to comprehend what is going on, we must pay close
attention not only to what Obama says but to what he conveys in other
ways. His tone is nearly always moderate but what he hints at and what
he intimates by way of body language often convey the opposite Witness
his warm embrace of Hugo Chavez. Behind the thin veneer of politeness,
there is, I suspect, something ugly lurking. In the first of the
autobiographies that he claims to have written, Barack Obama
frequently speaks of himself as being in the grips of rage. We would
do well to take him at his word. If we are to stop him from doing
great damage to this country and to our friends and allies, we must
take every opportunity that comes our way to unmask the man.

    In a later post, which can be found here, I added:

        We now know - thanks to events in the Honduras - the meaning
of Obama's gesture with respect to the Venezuelan dictator, and I
would suggest that we must regard in a similar light the timing of
Obama's announcement of his administration's shift in policy regarding
missile-defence in Europe. For it can hardly be an accident that he
chose the seventieth anniversary of the Soviet Union's invasion of
Poland as the occasion.

        We must keep in mind the fact that Obama is not a yokel and
that the State Department is there to prevent an ill-informed
president from unnecessarily stepping on toes. What happened last
Thursday was a deliberate gesture. It was aimed at our allies in
eastern Europe and at Russia, and it was recognized as such in Poland,
the Czech republic, and Russia. Vladimir Putin spoke of Obama's
decision as a courageous act. Our friends in eastern Europe would not
have used that adjective. A signal has been given, and they know the
meaning.

        We are living in a dangerous time. It seems highly unlikely
that Barack Obama will get his way in domestic affairs. The Democrats
may control Congress, but they now fear a rout in 2010, and they are
likely to tred with caution from now on. In foreign affairs, however,
presidents have a relatively free hand, and this president has ample
time to do damage to a country that, there is reason to suspect, he
deeply hates.

    President Obama chose not to go to Berlin for a reason. Once
again, he is signaling that his administration is in the process of
turning its back on our erstwhile allies in Europe. He has thus far
persistently made it his practice to embrace our enemies and to stiff
our friends. We should not for a moment underestimate the significance
of this. It means that he believes our policy in the Cold War
wrong-headed, and it means that he intends to line us up now with the
likes of Hugo Chavez, Vladimir Putin, Fidel Castro, and Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad. It is by no means an accident that the man in the State
Department now in charge of our policy towards Iran is on the board of
Iran's main front-organization in the United States. Ed Lasky's report
regarding this matter is well worth reading.

Paul A. Rahe holds the Charles O. Lee and Louise K. Lee Chair in the
Western Heritage at Hillsdale College. He is the author, most
recently, of Montesquieu and the Logic of Liberty: War, Religion,
Commerce, Climate, Terrain, Technology, Uneasiness of Mind, the Spirit
of Political Vigilance, and the Foundations of the Modern Republic and
of Soft Despotism, Democracy's Drift: Montesquieu, Rousseau,
Tocqueville, and the Modern Prospect.



    * Authors: John Hinderaker, Scott Johnson, Paul Mirengoff



On 11/9/09, Ed Kroposki <ekroposki at charter.net> wrote:
> Brad, the Lion of Memphis, excellent article.  Ought to be sent to everyone
> on Rhodes list, ostriches who do not understand history and economics.
> Ought to be sent to everyone with email.
>
> That begs the question, if you know someone has email, but pretends not to,
> is there a way to get their email address?
>
> Ed K