Posted by
flagwaver on Tuesday, June 30, 2009 10:28:28 PM
Two days. Forty-eight hours. That's all it took for President Obama to find his voice in order to condemn the so-called "coup" in Honduras. It took him about ten days to find himself at a place where he could look at the stolen election in Iran and the ensuing crackdown by the ruling mullahs and be more than "concerned" about what was happening. It took him two whole days after the "coup" to openly stick his nose in the internal affairs of the Honduran government, yet to this day he is still trying to avoid "interfering" with the protests in Iran.
Obama's rush to condemn the removal of Manuel Zalaya as "illegal" while standing mute for so long on the Iranian situation says more about him than any words he can ever speak. While saying that his stance on the removal of Zalaya shows that America "will stand on the side of democracy", Obama joins his voice with the voices of such antidemocratic leaders as Hugo Chavez, Raul and Fidel Castro, Rafael Correa, and Daniel Ortega in calling for the reinstallation of Zalaya. Obama rushes to point out that Zalaya was 'democratically elected', which is true; yet he totally ignores the true reason that the Honduran military seized Zalaya and deported him in the first place.
One of the reasons that Hugo Chavez has pledged his support for Zalaya, even going so far as to make an implict military threat if he was not reinstated, is that Zalaya is a close ally and is attempting to follow in Chavez's footsteps. Zalaya was removed for attempting to hold a referendum that would have allowed him to serve beyond his constitutionally mandated term limitation, a referendum that both the Honduran legislature and Supreme Court had warned was illegal. Zalaya was determined to press ahead with his Chavez inspired attempt at remaining in power beyond his term limit, and in a move that was made to preserve their constitutional system the military removed him. There was no military junta put into place, the new president is a respected member of the legislature, and he has been appointed to serve out the remainder of Zalaya's term, with elections to be held at their regularly scheduled time. If this was a coup, it was one of the strangest of all time.
Yet Obama chooses to ignore the facts involved and perverts the word freedom by acting as though Zalaya is an agent of freedom. Obama has thrown his hat in the ring with the leftist, anti-American governments of Central and South America in saying that the removal of a president who defied the legislature, the Supreme Court, and the Constitution of his nation is illegal, while the unconstitutional actions of said president go unremarked upon. The same Barack Obama who cannot find it within himself to condemn the slaughter of innocents in the streets of Iran, people who are trying to throw off the yoke of governmental oppression has no problem condemning the Honduran authorities who are protecting the rule of law there...something that Obama loves to invoke at every occassion. And this same Obama stood by silently while the Iranian government murdered its own people in the streets in order to avoid accusations of "meddling" wastes no time in meddling in the affairs of the Honduran people when a fellow traveller is removed after trying to seize power that he has no right to hold. I am sure that I am not the only person who sees a problem with that, right?
People, we are in the hads of a total novice...which is bad enough. But what is even more worrisome is the knee-jerk leftism he has displayed here by siding with Chavez, the Castro brothers, Correa, and Ortega in demanding the reinstallation of a power mad politician, bent on taking over the government of the Honduras. But hey, maybe Obama is just finding his place among his fellow travellers and letting them know that he is ultimately on their side. Obama's words and actions here lay open the leftist sentiment that animates him and what "freedom" and "rule of law" mean in the Brave New World of Obama.