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PrintJune 14, 2009
Obama Bullies Palau
With nation after nation turning down the "opportunity" to house detainees from Guantanmo Bay, I thought Obama discovered Palau by ordering Robert Gibbs to spin a Replogle globe and stop it with his finger.
I was wrong.
Johnson Toribiong, the President of Palau, conducted an interview with the Associated Press, and declared that the deal to transfer 13 Uighurs to his small pacific island is "tentative" and about "50-50". However, further examination of the situation leads to the conclusion that Obama knew that he could force Toribiong between a rock and a hard place and if he intends to act in the best interest of his nation, he has to take on the Uighurs.
Here's why.
In 1995, Palau joined The Compact of Free Association with the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) and the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) which endows the nations with U.S. federal funding in exchange for certain defense rights including the use of defense sites.
While the FSM and RMI both renewed their respective compacts in 2004, Palau's Compact is set to expire as of September 30, 2009.
Contrary to initial reports, Toribiong has already denied that the U.S. has offered to pay Palau to take the Uighurs and that makes sense -- because Obama doesn't need to pay.
For the last 15 years, Palau has received U.S. aid via the Compact exceeding $850 million.
Reasonably, I'm sure Toribiong is reluctant to house terrorists on his island, and he's diplomatically tried to avoid making such a declaration, offering instead an irrational assertion that perhaps the Uighurs won't like the new climate or the ocean, despite the fact these are individuals that have spent the spent the last eight years in the Caribbean.
The question at hand here is does Toribiong want to extend that Compact or not?
Ultimately, there was no coincidence here, and once again as Charles Krauthammer has pointed out in the past, Obama doles out the sugar and the spinach. In this case, the sugar is the possible renewal of a financially beneficial compact for the Palauans, but the spinach is the housing of unwanted and potentially dangerous terrorists.
Palau doesn't have much of a choice.
