Vicious Rants of an Angry Yellow Man

Observations about couple of current events. First the back and forth the last few days between Obama and Romney regarding the anniversary of the killing of bin Laden. This was a great victory for Obama and in this election year it is no surprise that he is going to bring this to the front. He pointed out that Romney had said in the past that not so much resources should be spent in hunting down bin Laden. Romney hit back by saying that even Carter would have ordered the raid. To me, this is not much of an issue. I don't think that Obama will gain too much by talking a lot about this between now and November. Certainly his secret trip to Afghanistan yesterday does appear to be spiking the football in the end zone. The truth is that Obama was lucky. Sure Carter would have ordered the raid. He did that against Iran, remember? That didn't turn out too good and Carter was humiliated. Neither president went on the raids himself and had little to do with the outcome. But the lucky one became a hero and the unlucky one became the goat.

To me the raid was not reason why I think Obama would be better on foreign policy. I think he is much more measured in using force. When people were telling him to enter Libya or stay out, he did the right thing by getting NATO to do the job with our support. No American lives were lost with the success there. While both talk about the support for Israel, it is obvious to me that Romney (and almost any other Republican) would be more likely to preemptively strike Iran. It is this war hawk mentality that I think is very dangerous to our country. Anyone can order the most powerful force in the world to attack. It takes much more leadership to use force only when necessary. I think Obama would have gone into Afghanistan in 2001 but he would not have gone into Iraq and cost us thousands of lives and a trillion dollars.

The other event is about Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng. I think this whole thing was planned to embarrass China at the worst moment: the arrival of Hilary Clinton and Tim Geithner in China. Chen was supposedly under house arrest. I am sure that China has been monitoring his computer, cell phone etc. But if he was truly under house arrest, I find it hard to believe that he could have escaped and went all the way from Shandong to the U.S. embassy in Beijing without being apprehended. The guy is blind, he had to climb a fence! How did they know the guards are not going to be watching and they can get by them. After that they had to traveled hundreds of miles to Beijing. If he was under house arrest, how long before the guards realized he was not there anymore? Once they found him missing, I am sure they figured that he is going to a western embassy. Policemen would have been there and arrest him before he gets in. So I don't think that he was monitored that closely by China.

Chen has young children and a wife. What did he think would happened to them if he escaped? This does not sound like a guy who wanted asylum to get out of the country, unless he is very selfish. Throughout his stay in the embassy he had told the Americans he wanted to stay in China but just want better conditions. Then once the deal was made and he got into a hospital he said that the Americans had left him and that his family was threatened. He then wanted to leave the country with his family. Well, he knew darn well that that was not possible once he is in Chinese hands again. I think with all the world watching, Chen and other human rights activists know that any mistreatment to him and his family would be more eggs on China's face. Even if China keeps its bargain and do not harm them, I think the activists will complain about mistreatment anyway. To me this was all planned out just to embarrass China, nothing was going to be accomplished in the name of human rights.

But of course, this one man's action had big consequences. There were a lot on the table with Clinton's trip. North Korea, Iran, Syria, world trades are all important topics that will affect the lives of millions of people. Now China is mad and the Obama administration is going to be accused by the Republicans that it mishandled the situation by giving Chen back to China. No important work will now come out of this scheduled high level meeting. I think this planned show of escape is rather selfish on the part of Chen. I don't think he helped the cause of human rights in China and may hurt millions in other parts of the world. Not to mention he put his family at great risk with nothing to show for it.