The Romance is Gone

All of the best stories have told, in some way or another, how the strong differ from one another: the heroic strong man defends the weak, and the wicked strong man takes advantage of them. In the cowboy movies, the good wear white hats; the bad black.

I know international relations aren't supposed to be about romance (I admit: realism keeps nations out of trouble a good deal), but one can't help noticing how ugly it is for the big dogs in the world to rip at the throat of small fry--like Honduras. Especially when strong powers go about the business of oppression without a care in the world--like China.

I think back to the interlude between the World Wars, when the West experienced its strongest revulsion to war. A good deal of romance was attached to Wilson's dream of the League of Nations and the same romance came to its successor, the United Nations. But when the UN condemns constitutional procedures to defend the people's liberty in a small, poor state and keeps regimes like the PRC on the Human Rights Council, the romance is banished like a mist, and a happy romping ground turns to barren desert.

But my expectations of the UN have been low for the entirety of my short life. America was different. It was a place that kept the romance of justice alive, even when it could not always strike the decisive blow and rescue the weak and oppressed. But what is this? I find America delivering kicks into the side of the Central American Republic.

Perhaps I'm putting it too strongly. Hans Bader writes here.

Is this what America has become? Obama, what is this hope?