Another Day, Another Colossal Obama Foreign Policy Disaster
By Russ Cote
I’m sure by now you’ve all heard of Honduran ex-President Manuel Zelaya’s bold attempt at a coup d’état in Honduras. In talking with a friend of mine recently, I was literally shocked to hear that he supported Zelaya’s version of events and not the people of Honduras. Now, my friend being an intelligent, rational Capitalist, I was particularly intrigued by how he could have come to such a demonstrably erroneous conclusion on this issue; the conclusion in fact reached by the White House, which, for my fellow craps players out there, should have immediately triggered the “bet the DON’T PASS line!” synapse in the brain. A mystery was afoot.
Even accepting for the sake of argument that Zelaya’s expulsion from the country may have exceeded the constraints of Honduran law, how on Earth could any rational person side against the overwhelming majority of Hondurans, their entire elected legislature and their Supreme Court, and with a Chavez-stooge bent on illegally re-writing the Honduran Constitution to effectively pull a Hugo and make himself “President for Life”? I must admit here that I occasionally become so bogged down in the facts and reality of a given issue that I forget there’s an entire industry out there called the “mainstream media” which operates on a business model consisting of embarrassing dead-celebrity worship and lie-peddling of a magnitude that would make a fake Rolex hustler blush.
I think the reason is a combination of the “mainstream media’s” slavish infatuation with Obama and their lust for overweight South American strongmen. How else could an ideology that professes an unyielding love of democracy side with one man over an entire country’s desires? A third, more obvious element to this mystery is that liberals in general have no conception of actual history prior to 1967.
Apparently this “mainstream media” I’ve been hearing so much about either hasn’t noticed the checkered Marxist history of South American countries over the past century, or has noticed but thinks socialist coup d’état’s resulting in tragic consequences for millions of people is the way to go. Again, I think it’s a little bit of both, depending on how fully any given liberal believes.
The ultimate point, for our purposes here, is that our Commander-in-Chief botched yet another foreign policy issue so completely as to make some of us wonder whether he thinks socialist coup d’état’s are the way to go. Hmmm. Recognizing that I’m a bit behind the news cycle on this one, I have to point out that Obama’s recent Russian footsie party makes his Honduran blunder seem downright quaint by comparison.
The rather flip tone of this post is not intentional. I’m just honestly having trouble believing that the President of the United States can be so utterly clueless when it comes to making official U.S. foreign policy pronouncements. Iran, Israel, Honduras, Russia... what’s next? A champagne soiree with Kim Jong-Il? More distressingly, if it in fact is not cluelessness but something more sinister, such as that Obama really believes that he’s making the right call, well then we have truly entered a parallel universe where up is down, left is right and where Keith Olbermann is charming and funny.
I can now safely say, after watching this Administration operate for the past seven months, that you can set your clock just as precisely by drawing the exact opposite conclusion as does Obama on any given issue as you can set a metronome by counting the number of Nancy Pelosi’s blinks per minute.
Just 1284 more days to go...
Russ
U.S. Backs off threats to impose sanctions on and cut aid to Honduras.
I don't really care what the official reason is for this reversal. I'm just happy that democracy has won a major battle in Honduras and the people there can breathe a little easier knowing that the U.S. President won't slap them for removing a would-be dictator from power.
Email Article | Print Article | tagged Barack Obama, Honduras, Hugo Chavez, Manuel Zelaya, Marxism/Marxists | in Foreign Policy
Reader Comments (8)
Hi Russ. I have you on the list at SGP blogger club now. Thanks for joining.
If you put up a Google friend connect gadget, I can follow your blog through my dashboard. It will be easier to see new posts then. Not sure if that will work for your blog. I look forward to seeing more of your stuff.
http://mainfo.blogspot.com/
how about this. i don't think that at any point in time, in any circumstance, should an american president support the ouster of a man that was democratically elected in an election that was deamed both fair and free by an international body. we preach democracy to the world, we cannot support the upheaval of a president just because we don't like him.
case in point. two years ago, the US population would have broadly supported the ouster of one george w bush from office. in an overwhelming landslide i may add. however, the country had elected him president and therefore he finished out his term.
Welcome Back.
Well, we'll have to agree to disagree. I of course have to question what your definition of "democratically elected" is, (Iraq, Iran, Venezuela) as well as what "international body" deemed said hypothetical election to be "fair and free" (the UN, Jimmy Carter, etc.). And, because you refuse to accept the facts of this case, I'll remind you that it is not the US that doesn't like him, (our own present COC has sided with Zelaya and against the Honduran people), it is the people of Honduras, their elected representatives and their Supreme Court that don't like him. And it's not so much that they don't like him, it's that they have been witness to a hundred years of Marxist revolutions resulting in bloodshed and tyranny and didn't want it to happen in their country. They threw him out, not us. Moreover, nobody has suggested anything even remotely resembling hard action in this area. The fact remains however that Obama's show of support for a Hugo-inspired would be dictator is absolutely despicable.
I await your reasoned response with bells on. Hope all is well.
Russ
just because carter was a shitty president doesn't mean that he can't start a successful system to monitor international elections. the election was given its blessing by the UN, the carter center, the european union, the US government then ran by george w bush...need i go on. shall we not deem the election free or fair because russ cote has done more detailed research into the topic and has somehow concluded that the election was not in fact free or fair? if so, please release the data that you have compiled and we will make a new judgement.
the people of the US, the congress of the US, nobody liked george w bush. does that mean that we overthrow him? answer the damn question! zelaya was never and still has never been charged with a crime.
i'm not saying he has done well for honduras. damn i'm not even saying that i think the people of honduras were wrong to boot the asshole out. but i am saying that the government of the US, while pushing for democracy across the world, should not approve of these sorts of actions. that doesn't mean that these actions are wrong nor that you work very hard to reverse the actions, which he has not. sometimes what you say and feel are two separate things.
Mike,
If you don't know about Jimmy Carter and his election certifying history, start reading. http://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/155/25979.html Jimmy Carter is a disgrace to this country and to the idea of "free and fair" elections. Herein lies much of the problem you seem to be having with the Honduran episode.
George Bush never attempted to blatantly violate the Constitution by proposing to make himself President-for-life. And it's a bold statement to say that Congress and the People of this Country didn't like George Bush. Bold, but incorrect. For you to equate the history of peaceful transfers of power in this country over two centuries with the banana republics and Marxist revolutionary takeovers in South America is downright ridiculous. It's not even comparing apples to oranges; it's more like comparing apples to grenades.
What the people, legislature and supreme court of Honduras did WAS democracy. What Zelaya wanted to do was anything but. America should always stand with people's self-determination. Supporting a would-be revolutionary reviled by the people of his country is disgraceful and the President should be ashamed of himself.
My question to you is: If Barack Obama, nearing the end of his second and final term, proposes to illegally alter the United States Constitution to allow himself to be President for an indefinite period of time, would the people of this country be within their rights to remove him from office by any means necessary? My answer is an unequivocal yes. And, not only would it be within our rights, it is our duty to our country. Our foreign policy should adhere to this standard wherever it occurs.
Russ
http://www.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=11657
Here's another one, from a different perspective. Any way you look at it, Carter has an agenda and it doesn't involve certifying "free and fair" elections.
And another.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2005/02/carter_up_to_no_good_in_venezu.html
And another.
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=7314
http://www.rasmusen.org/x/archives/c/archives/000241.html
http://northernva.typepad.com/rubicon3/2008/04/jimmy-carter-en.html
If the Carter Center is your benchmark for legitimate election certification, then I guess we have little to talk about.
Would you like me to start on the UN and the EU?