If you're a tyrant, the US government's got your back. At least that's the message President Obama continues to send to authoritarian regimes around the world. His latest fist bump with dictators? Revoking the visas of the Honduran president and 14 supreme court justices who legally ruled to remove Jose Manuel Zelaya from power after he tried to circumvent the constitution. Zelaya, in case you missed it because the media ignores it, is the former Honduran president who tried to pass an illegal referendum to abolish term limits before his expired.
If that scenario sounds familiar, it is the same tactic that Hugo Chavez used to become lifetime presidente of Venezuela. It's the tactic that all tyrants use once they gain power. When the rules prevent you from staying in power forever, simply change the rules. Sadly, our president has sided with Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro in this case, who clearly have a vested interest in adding another Marxist dictator to their barrio and want Zelaya returned to power even if the people of Honduras do not.
While the US has a precedent of cutting off ties with democratic countries that are overthrown by power-hungry generals in military coups, that's not what happened in Honduras. The current president was placed into power by Honduran law and is only holding the position temporarily until the next president can be elected. In fact, democratic elections are planned this year with candidates currently campaigning. Unfortunately, President Obama has put the United States in the unfamiliar position of not recognizing the government of Honduras as legitimate unless the wannabe-tyrant Zelaya is reinstated. And here's the kicker, that's even with democratic elections scheduled to take place.
Is this the policy of the same president who went around the world apologizing for America's past involvement in other nation's affairs? What's so different about Honduras that Obama feels the need to meddle, especially when they're planning to elect a new president democratically? Maybe Obama did read that book Chavez gave him at the Summit of the Americas after all. Heck, it might make more sense than the complete works of Van Jones.
President Obama has also cut $11 million in aid to the country, which given the billions of Obamabucks he has handed out to cronies in the stimulus, sounds like mere pesos and hardly worth fighting over. Except Chavez is funneling millions of his own to Marxist rebels and "community organizers" to gain a foothold in Central America. Withholding aid as "punishment" is a dangerous position to put one of our democratic allies in.
Meanwhile, we continue to provide aid money to Palestinian terrorists in the Middle East, and Obama refuses to get involved in Iran's stolen election, even though protesters there have been imprisoned, murdered, and raped. Of course, I wrote all about this in my previous posts, Wiener Diplomacy and I'll Take Mock Execution Any Day.
Whether it's relocating Gitmo detainees to Bermuda, planning Independence Day cookouts with Holocaust deniers, allowing the United Kingdom to release a convicted bomber to a hero's welcome, or punishing our democratic allies, Barack Obama isn't sending mixed signals to tyrants. His administration is practically advertising, "Please go about your business as normal."
Question: If President Obama is willing to side against the people of Honduras, against the rule of law, and against a democratically elected government that used the proper channels of their judicial and legislative branches to enforce their Constitution, what's to stop him from doing the same thing here? Isn't that in essence what state-controlled health care is all about, a power grab of 1/6 of the American economy from the people?
Think back to eight years ago on September 11, 2001. Did you think it was even remotely possible that we could be taking the foreign policy stances we are taking now, ignoring threats and hostilities by our enemies, going out of our way to protect the rights of terrorists and the feelings of dictators, all while chastising our allies?
What a wonderful time to be a tyrant. Hollywood directors are making movies about you and you even get the red carpet treatment at film festivals. No wonder our celebrity-worshipped president has Hugo Chavez's back. Little democratic countries like Honduras barely make the B list.
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