Thursday, July 2, 2009

Obama's INMADIDL Tour

It took four days for Obama to respond to the Iranian election protests. And the only reason he did so was because it took that long for the Iranian government to gun down it's own citizens. Yet Obama's response was one of great restraint. He is the President of change, so his response needed to be a complete 180 from what Bush would have said.
"It is not productive, given the history of US and Iranian relations to be seen as meddling in Iranian elections,"
Our President is so engaged and focused on America's problems, he doesn't have the resources to "meddle" in the affairs of other countries. Take that George Bush! America has it's own problems right now.

The good news is that Obama has just finished fixing America and put the country on auto-pilot. Now that America is perfect, Obama has decided to undo the "change" and get back to some good ole Bush meddling. Within HOURS of the Honduran government arresting their president on criminal charges, Obama had this to say.
"I am deeply concerned by reports coming out of Honduras regarding the detention and expulsion of President Mel Zelaya. As the Organization of American States did on Friday, I call on all political and social actors in Honduras to respect democratic norms, the rule of law and the tenets of the Inter-American Democratic Charter. Any existing tensions and disputes must be resolved peacefully through dialogue free from any outside interference."

"President Zelaya was democratically elected, he had not yet completed his term. We believe that the coup was not legal and that President Zelaya remains the President of Honduras, the democratically elected president there."
So when another government attacks it's civilians while protesting election fraud, its their problem and not mine. But when a sovereign nation arrests their own president for breaking the law, Obama made statements faster than Jesse Jackson running to a TV camera.

Obama said that he wanted Honduras to respect democratic norms and the rule of law. What's interesting is that Mr Zelaya was arresting for BREAKING the law. Mr. Zelaya didn't like the idea that he couldn't be President forever, so he decided to have an illegal vote to amend the Constitution by himself. Unfortunately, for Mr. Zelaya, he doesn't have the authority to use white-out on the Honduran Constitution. The courts then ordered a halt to the vote and ordered the military to arrest anyone attempting to carry it out. Mr. Zelaya was arrested while leading a vote parade in the middle of the street.

The Honduran government arrested their own President for breaking the law and attempting the change the constitution on his own. Honduras has "democratic norms" for changing it's Constitution, as well as "rules and laws" to govern it.

Why was President Obama NOT on the side of the Honduran government and it's people to uphold their constitution? Why is he siding with Mr. Zelaya and demanding that Honduras overlook the fact that he tried to bulldoze himself into a dictatorship? Could it be that Obama doesn't want to be seen as a hypocrite when he himself goes after OUR constitution? And so the "Obama: I've Never Met A Dictator I Didn't Like" tour moves on. I wonder where it goes next.

1 comment:

Francesca Watson said...

Excellent post, Steven! Way to go!