Myanmar freed an ailing American whom it had sentenced to seven years of hard labor and handed him to an influential U.S senator on Sunday, a move that could help persuade Washington to soften its hardline policy against the military regime.
So, Burma is a thug state that we don't like because it oppresses its people and now seeks nuclear weapons.
The Burmese arrested, tried, and sentenced a mentally disturbed American, becoming a thug state unjustly holding a mentally disturbed American.
An American Senator chats up the thug rulers who then release the American prisoner.
So we return to the situation of Burma being just a plain thug state.
Yet the act of releasing the American to get us to the status quo ante is deemed to be such an advance in Burmese junta good will that we should "soften" our "hardline" policy against the regime.
Burma, North Korea, and Iran all use the "grab an American and then release them" ploy to get better relations. And we let them get away with it. This is apparently that "smart" diplomacy we've heard so much about.
The Hondurans have so much to learn to be wise in the ways of modern statescraft.
