This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden

  • OAS suspends Honduras; sets up bloodshed

    A week after the dramatic removal of Manuel Zelaya from his position as President of Honduras, the Organization of American States suspended the small country’s membership according to the Wall Street Journal;

    “The suspension takes effect immediately,” Argentine Foreign Minister Jorge Taiana said, reading the resolution before the body. The move temporarily sidelines Honduras from any participation in the OAS, but obliges it to continue observing the body’s rules in areas such as human rights.

    It also deepens the poor Central American nation’s international isolation ahead of a looming showdown on Sunday in the Honduran capital, where Mr. Zelaya plans to return despite warnings of a potentially bloody confrontation and the interim government’s vow to arrest him and put him on trial.

    The small country’s new leaders had told the OAS that Honduras would pull out of the body rather than let Mr. Zelaya back in the presidential seat. In an odd turn of events, the OAS said on Saturday that Honduras couldn’t withdraw because its provisional government wasn’t recognized by the international community.

    So this action which disregards the sovereignty and constitutional authority of Honduras to manage it’s own affairs, has emboldened Zelaya;

    “We will arrive at the international airport in Tegucigalpa, Honduras with several presidents, (and) members of international organizations,” Mr. Zelaya told Caracas-based station Telesur, according to the Associated Press.

    See, here’s how that violates the Honduran Constitution. Article 42 of the Constitution reads “ARTICULO 42.- La calidad de ciudadano se pierde: * * * 5. Por incitar, promover o apoyar el continuismo o la reelección del Presidente de la República; y,” In my Calle J translation; “The legal rights of a citizen is lost: * * * For inciting, promoting or supporting the continuance or reelection of the president of the Republic.” So Zelaya has lost his Honduran citizenship – if he enters Honduras, he’s an illegal alien.

    Archbishop Oscar Andrés Rodríguez of Honduras asks the OAS and Zelaya to reconsider further interference according to the Miami Herald;

    “We think that a return to the country at this time could unleash a bloodbath in the country,” Cardinal Rodriguez said. “To this day, no Honduran has died. Please meditate because afterwards it would be too late.”

    As the OAS has stood mutely and watched the rights of Latin American citizens deteriorate through out the region, they make a stand against one small nation as it exercises it’s Constitution. At the same time, the OAS is considering adding the prison state of Cuba to it’s membership.

  • Why is the media so upset now??

    The other day, Helen Thomas and Chip Reid of the White Press Corps lit up Robert Gibbs about the Obama Administration’s manipulating the news and the discussion about any number of issues;

    Soon after, President Obama took this question at the Town Hall meeting about Health care;

    Turns out that Debby Smith is a volunteer for president Obama’s political machine according to the Associated Press;

    Smith obtained her ticket through the White House. Aides said she was a volunteer for Organizing for America, Obama’s political operation within the Democratic National Committee. Among the other questioners were a member of the Service Employees International Union and a person with Health Care for America Now, which recently organized a Capitol Hill rally for overhauling health care.

    The press generally let Obama and his campaign get away with setting them up during the run up to the election, so why are they feigning outrage and surprise at the way they’re being manipulated now? Did they think things would change?

    More at Michelle Malkin’s

  • Trial for Brit embassy staff in Iran

    Looking for someone to blame for unrest after their June 12th election riots, Iranians are putting some of the UK embassy staff on trial according to the BBC;

    Guardians Council chief Ahmad Jannati said: “Naturally they will be put on trial, they have made confessions.”

    Nine embassy staff were held in Tehran last weekend. Britain says all but two have now been freed.

    EU governments are considering temporarily withdrawing ambassadors to Iran in protest at the detentions.

    Ayatollah Jannati did not say how many employees would be tried or on what charges.

    The Scotsman reports that Jannati claimed the staff member(s) made confessions.

    In the Times Online, government a spokesman denied the legitimacy of the allegations;

    A Foreign Office spokesman denied that embassy staff took any part in demonstrations and demanded more information from Tehran.

    “We are very concerned by these reports and are investigating,” a spokesman said. “Allegations that our staff were involved in fomenting unrest are wholly without foundation. We will be seeking an urgent explanation from the Iranians.”

    Meanwhile, Iranians are still languishing in prisons for their parts in the protests. Popular former president Mohammad Khatami spoke out on their behalf, as quoted in the New York Times;

    Mr. Khatami called the election “a coup against the republicanism of the system,” and warned, “Do not think that suppressing the protests would put an end to them. They will emerge again but in different forms.”

    He also spoke caustically of the mass arrests: “If these people have committed crimes, why are their legal rights as citizens not preserved, why don’t they have access to a lawyer, why are they not tried in a court, why haven’t they been charged?”

    Meanwhile, President Obama remains concerned and hopes that things calm down soon so he continue the rape of our economy in relative peace.

  • Hippie half-assed research

    TSO sent me a link to a POS article from Michael Moore’s empty head, apparently it originated at The Progressive and was written by Elizabeth DiNovella concerning what she calls  “The School of the Americas”.

    It’s actually called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation – it’s been called that for eight years since the Clinton Administration changed it. But I guess it’s too expensive to change their signs and T-shirts when they protest it, so the hippies still call it the School of the Americas.

    Ms. DiNovella tries to link one of the School’s graduates to the Honduran problem;

    The general at the center of the military coup in Honduras has a connection to the U.S. military—General Romeo Vasquez attended the School of the Americas (SOA).

    The School of the Americas…is a combat training school for Latin American soldiers, located at Fort Benning, Georgia. General Vasquez attended trainings at least twice–in 1976 and 1984, according to the watchdog group School of Americas Watch.

    Graduates of the School of the Americas/WHINSEC have a long history of repression and anti-democratic actions. The School has produced at least 11 Latin American dictators, including SOA grad General Juan Megler Castro who became military dictator of Honduras in 1975.

    Actually, while it was called The School of the Americas, 61,000 Latin American officers graduated from the course. Have there been 61,000 dictators in Latin America? So 11 out of 61,000 is a pretty good ratio.

    Now Honduran General Romeo Vasquez was imprisoned by President Zeyala last week for refusing to collect ballots printed and shipped to Honduras by Hugo Chavez – counter to the Honduran Constitution. He was then reinstated by the Supreme Court and the Honduran Congress, then commanded the troops who sent President Zeyala packing to Costa Rica.

    Even though he had the means to control the government in Honduras since he had most of the guns, immediately turned the government back over to the Honduran Congress.

    He was working on orders from the Congress and the Supreme Court who, in turn, were following the dictates of their constitution. Now, if he learned that while at The School of the Americas, it looks like they did a good job. General Vasquez didn’t turn into a dictator, like the 11 people Ms. DiNovella mentions, so I don’t know what her point was. Maybe she was just spouting off more hippie nonsense.

    Michael Moore gets twitchy every time someone mentions The School of the Americas (which was founded by a Democrat President and a Democrat Congress, by the way) and he thought posting that crap would make him look smart.

    But actually it just makes the Left look dumber for only doing half of the research. Now I can’t find anything on Hugo Chavez attending School of the Americas or the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, but I know for a fact, up until a few years ago, he sent his officers to Fort Benning to the school. So does Correa (Ecuador) and Morales (Bolivia). I’m not sure about Nicaragua these days.

  • Real story of the Honduran situation

    You’re probably not as interested in the Honduras thing as I am, but I spent time in the region and it’s hard to avoid this story. One of our readers who lives in Panama sent me this article from the English language Panama Guide.com and it gives a lot of background from the perspective of someone who lives in Honduras. It’s a long article, but I learned things I hadn’t known. For example; (more…)

  • Comparative Politics

    Compare two similar political situations;

    This from Huffington Post by way of Babalu Blog;

    Thousands of Hondurans are now in the streets to protest the coup d’etat in their country. They have been met with tear gas, anti-riot rubber bullets, tanks firing water mixed with chemicals, and clubs. Police have moved in to break down barricades and soldiers used violence to push back protesters at the presidential residence, leaving an unknown number wounded.

    Now compare that to this from the Jerusalem Post by way of Little Green Footballs;

    As the Iranian authorities warned the opposition on Tuesday that they would tolerate no further protests over the disputed June 12 presidential elections, a report emerged of the hangings of six supporters of defeated candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi.

    Speaking after Iran’s top legislative body upheld the election victory of incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, sources in Iran told this reporter in a telephone interview that the hangings took place in the holy city of Mashhad on Monday.

    Tear gas and rubber bullets versus hangings and full metal jacket bullets.

    Which one does our president decide to condemn? The same one that shows respect to him and our flag (in this picture from Weasel Zippers, by way of Ace of Spades) and with popular support the media won’t cover (in a photo at Babalu Blog). The government which treats their dissenters with a bit of humanity.

  • Soltz: Surge is a failure

    John Soltz, who sheepishly admits that he didn’t fight any Chinese in Iraq, is still clinging to the old MoveOn line that the surge is a failure. He’s written it twice in as many days this week and does it again on MSNBC, where he’s apparently living in a broom closet these days. Soltz comes in at about 4:30 in to this video;

    The first time he wrote it was at HuffPo;

    Now we see that, indeed, the surge meant nothing without political progress.

    Then he wrote it again yesterday to throw water on the Iraqi’s Sovereignty Day celebration;

    And so, if the U.S. pulls back, there’s a powder keg ready to explode, with an ill-equipped Iraqi military left to try to hold things together. In fact, we’ve already seen violence ramp up in Iraq, as surge troops have left and others began their pull back from cities.

    So, Soltz’ solution is a Vietnam-style withdrawal from Iraq – as violence increases, the pace of withdrawal should increase as well.

    So President Obama needs to make it clear—if they won’t settle their differences, we won’t be around to save them, because we’ll speed up our departure. Most importantly, he must make good on the promise if it comes to that.

    Failure at any price. We promised the South Vietnamese that we’d defend them if the North invaded, then we stood by with our hands in our pockets and watched T55 tanks roll into Saigon. Soltz would love nothing more than to hang a picture of the last chopper leaving the Green Zone behind his desk in his MSNBC broom closet.

    Although, it would seem on the surface that the surge may be proven a failure if violence increases, I submit that it’s the Democrat policy of the last five years that’s failed. President Bush warned that setting an arbitrary withdrawal date would result in increased violence – that seems more likely the cause than the surge, doesn’t it?

    In fact, the reason the surge worked to bring peace to Iraq is because when the insurgents expected Democrats to force a withdrawal from Iraq in 2006/7, President Bush instead increased the US presence there, proving that he was dedicated to seeing the war through during his term.

    Threatening to increase the pace of withdrawal isn’t the way to quell violence. Showing resolve is what wins in the Middle East, not showing our collective ass. But Soltz and MoveOn and the Democrats are more enamored with the idea of calling Iraq a failure than making the world a better place.

    As long as Democrats are frightened of dealing with the real enemy in the region, and instead prefer to pick on pockets of democracy, we won’t have any progress in the terror war or in the advancement of liberty and freedom.

    One question I’d ask Soltz; Why are you so sure the Iraqis will fail? Because they’re brown people?

  • 100% wrong

    The current administration seems to be making their decisions by asking themselves what George Bush would do and then doing the complete opposite. They coddle dictators and thugs from the Middle East to Central America despite the fact that it can do nothing to further the cause of peace or democracy. Gateway Pundit has a video of Charles Krauthammer saying the same thing.

    While Obama is stroking Ahmadinejad over the election dispute in Iran, Secretary of Defense Gates reminds us that Iran has ratcheted up their support of Shi’ite militias in Iraq. From the Wall Street Journal;

    Some of the Iraqi Shiite extremist groups that the U.S. claims are backed by Iran say they are ratcheting up attacks in Iraq in tandem with Tehran’s post-election crackdown on protesters.

    Shiite militia leaders say a toughening resolve among hard-liners in Iran is translating into direct orders from Iran-based leaders to increase attacks, as well as inspiring militants next door in Iraq to demonstrate their influence.

    So, what is probably the worst thing that Obama could do to disrupt the successes in Iraq? How about putting the one man in charge of resolving political and tribal differences in Iraq who is universally despised by all of the groups in Iraq – Joe Biden;

    As the U.S. military met its deadline to withdraw from Iraqi cities, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said President Obama asked his No. 2 to work with Gen. Ray Odierno, the top commander in Iraq, and Ambassador Christopher Hill on mending fences in Iraq.

    Biden would be “working with the Iraqis toward overcoming their political differences and achieving the type of reconciliation that we all understand has yet to fully take place, but needs to take place,” Gibbs said.

    So why is Joe Biden a bad choice? Remember how his plan for Iraq was to partition the place along ethnic divisions? Why would anyone consider him the guy to “mend fences” when his plan was to build walls? A flashback from the archives of the Wall Street Journal;

    Despite deep resistance from the Iraqi government, Mr. Biden tried to turn his plan into U.S. policy, introducing a nonbinding Senate resolution that called for its implementation. But his effort completely backfired in Baghdad. The proposal ended up unifying all the disparate Iraqi factions in opposition.

    Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who called on the Iraqi parliament to meet and formally reject the Biden plan, immediately went on Iraqi television with a blistering statement: “[Biden] should stand by Iraq to solidify its unity and its sovereignty . . . [He] shouldn’t be proposing its division. That could be a disaster not just for Iraq but for the region.”

    So you tell me…is the Obama Administration trying to sabotage peace in Iraq? It sure looks that way to me.

    And then, they side with Chavez, Castro, Ortega, Evo Morales and Rafael Correa against the legal government of Honduras. The Obama Administration continues to call it a coup (just like his new communist friends in the region), even though, it reality wasn’t. Again, lets read the Wall Street Journal;

    As military “coups” go, the one this weekend in Honduras was strangely, well, democratic. The military didn’t oust President Manuel Zelaya on its own but instead followed an order of the Supreme Court. It also quickly turned power over to the president of the Honduran Congress, a man from the same party as Mr. Zelaya. The legislature and legal authorities all remain intact.

    We mention these not so small details because they are being overlooked as the world, including the U.S. President, denounces tiny Honduras in a way that it never has, say, Iran. President Obama is joining the U.N., Fidel Castro, Hugo Chávez and other model democrats in demanding that Mr. Zelaya be allowed to return from exile and restored to power. Maybe it’s time to sort the real from the phony Latin American democrats.

    I wonder how quickly all of those clowns would have rode to the defense of Colombia’s Uribe if he’d been shipped out in the early morning hours. And honestly, as coups go, Zelaya got off easy this time. The OAS is calling for his reinstatement to his office in two days – I’m pretty sure the next time Zelaya leaves Honduras, it’ll be feet first to preclude meddling by the thug huggers.

    But all of this contrary behavior by our own presidential administration is not in the interests of our own security, not a bit. It seems to me that Obama is now trying to deliberately destroy our economy while destroying our standing in the world making us insecure and poor just to not be Bush.