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Tuesday, April 19, 2016

Consistency in US Foreign Policy

About a year and a half ago, I visited the Falkland Islands.  It's a very quiet place with few people.  In fact, there are over one hundred times more sheep there than people.  The islands have been British for the last 200 plus years with a short break in the 1980s when Argentina invaded and took control.  The British, under prime minister Thatcher, launched a major military force which threw out the Argentine invaders in a bloody war.  Argentina claims the islands, which it calls the Malvinas Islands, as an integral part of Argentina.  To be clear, the Falklands are about 200 miles off the coast of Argentina and about 6000 miles from London.

Not long ago, the Argentines again began making noise about retaking the Falklands.  Even though Britain is a close ally and has been in control of the Falklands for centuries, and even though the USA supported the British during their war with Argentina in the 1980s, president Obama said that America was neutral in the dispute over control of the Falklands.  Let's not forget that the residents of the Falklands had voted in a referendum that they wanted to stay part of the UK and the margin in that vote had been 96 to 4%.  Without question, the will of the local people is to stay with the UK, but Obama said the USA is neutral.

I bring up the Falklands because of the American position announced yesterday regarding the Golan Heights.  Israel has been in control of this area for 50 years.  That means that the area has been part of Israel longer than it was part of Syria.  Like the Falklands it is sparsely settled and mostly agricultural.  There are essentially no Syrians in the area.  The residents are either Israeli Jews or Druse.  There is no local push to rejoin Syria.  The Syrians did invade the region, but they were pushed out by the Israelis in a bloody fight.  When the Israeli prime minister repeated the other day that the Golan is and will remain part of Israel, the Obama administration fell all over itself to announce that it did not recognize Israeli control of the region.  Somehow, the principles of non-intervention which led to America being neutral between our closest European ally Britain and Argentina did not get applied in the dispute between our Middle Eastern ally Israel and Syria which is home to ISIS, al Qaeda and the Iranian puppet dictator Assad.  Nope, Obama sided with ISIS, al Qaeda, Assad and Iran.

All of this leads to only one question:  has Obama lost his mind?

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