Tuesday, August 25, 2009
US To Stop Issuing Honduras Visas Until Zelaya Returned To Power
Yes, the Obama Administration continues to pressure Honduras to take back impeached presidente and Hugo Chavez wanna-be Manuel Zelaya.Just another case of the Obama Administration behaving with obsequiousness to our enemies and with rancor and sheer nastiness to our friends:
The United States will stop issuing most visas on Wednesday at the U.S. Embassy in Honduras because of the current government is standing by its refusal to sign an accord that would bring back overthrown President Manuel Zelaya.
A statement by State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said the United States considers the San Jose Accord, sponsored by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, the best solution to the impasse begun with Zelaya's overthrow and expulsion on June 28.
What impasse? Zelaya, a neo-Marxist with an ideology similar to Chavez, Daniel Ortega, Envio Morales and the Castros was legally tossed out by the Honduran Supreme Court after he attempted to push through an illegal referendum expanding his powers and term of office that violated the Honduran Constitution, and except for Zelaya's hardline supporters the Honduran people appear to be glad he's gone.
We ought to be standing up for them. Instead, Obama has cut millions in US aid and continues to ramp up the pressure.
The sordid spectacle of the Obama Administration attempting to bully one of our few Latin American allies to try and gain favor with a bunch of anti-American Marxist thugs is a despicable one, but hardly unexpected.
Birds of a feather and all that...
Further Discussion: The one and only Faustahas a fine piece examining what the Obama Administration wants the current Honduran government to do, aside from restoring Zelaya to power - and why it violates the Honduran laws and Constitution. Iraqi Shiite Alliance Discards Maliki And Moves Closer To Iran
Iraqi PM Maliki is definitely in some trouble. The major Iranian-backed Shiite parties that propelled him into power three years ago formed a new political alliance and dumped him yesterday as their candidate for re-election for the January 2010 election.
The new bloc, the Iraqi National Alliance, is led by the largest Shiite party, the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council, and a bloc loyal to anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Both have close ties to the mullahs in Iran.
The new bloc replaces the Shiite alliance that won the last election in December 2005, taking most of the places in the in the 275-seat legislature.
Maliki has been juggling their support and the support of the Sunni parties for quite some time, and it was only a matter of time until the tribal brinkmanship toppled.
Al-Maliki now has some interesting choices to make. His own Dawa party is fairly small and doesn't give him much of a loyal political base. He can either try to make a deal with minority Sunni parties or even the Kurds to strengthen his position, but that risks peeling off even more Shiites from his supporters.Or he can try moving more towards a hard line Shiite pro-Iran position in hopes of pulling enough votes to cobble together a coalition.
Maliki was counting on his reputation as a strong leader to win re-election, based on his defeating al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia and keeping order in Baghdad.
That reputation took a major blow from the wave of horrific bombings and violence that occurred once US forces pulled out of Iraq's cities.
If Maliki is tossed out of office in January, the US would be faced with an increasingly hostile pro-Iranian regime in Iraq as we withdraw. The final US withdrawal is scheduled for 2011, but the Iraqis will vote in a referendum before then whether to request an earlier US withdrawal.
On the other hand, if he wins by pandering to the Shiite pro-Iran voters, the result will be pretty much the same. Today's Must Reads, 8/25/09
Here are today's must read links. See something interesting out there? Send me anything you want me to review for this section atRmill2k@msn.com
Wednesday, 26 August 2009
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