The Truth About Honduras
Brent Tantillo • July 1, 2009 23:13pm • Uncategorized
The truth about what’s happening in Honduras goes far beyond the platitudes being offered by Hugo Chavez, the OAS, and the Obama Administration. The reality is a lot more complex, as Mary Anastasia O’Grady explains in her excellent column, in last Monday’s Wall Street Journal:
Hugo Chávez’s coalition-building efforts suffered a setback yesterday when the Honduran military sent its president packing for abusing the nation’s constitution.
It seems that President Mel Zelaya miscalculated when he tried to emulate the success of his good friend Hugo in reshaping the Honduran Constitution to his liking.
But Honduras is not out of the Venezuelan woods yet. Yesterday the Central American country was being pressured to restore the authoritarian Mr. Zelaya by the likes of Fidel Castro, Daniel Ortega, Hillary Clinton and, of course, Hugo himself. The Organization of American States, having ignored Mr. Zelaya’s abuses, also wants him back in power. It will be a miracle if Honduran patriots can hold their ground.
The truth is that this was no military coup, it was Zelaya that was abusing his authority by failing to execute the orders of the Honduran Supreme Court:
That Mr. Zelaya acted as if he were above the law, there is no doubt. While Honduran law allows for a constitutional rewrite, the power to open that door does not lie with the president. A constituent assembly can only be called through a national referendum approved by its Congress.
But Mr. Zelaya declared the vote on his own and had Mr. Chávez ship him the necessary ballots from Venezuela. The Supreme Court ruled his referendum unconstitutional, and it instructed the military not to carry out the logistics of the vote as it normally would do.
The top military commander, Gen. Romeo Vásquez Velásquez, told the president that he would have to comply. Mr. Zelaya promptly fired him. The Supreme Court ordered him reinstated. Mr. Zelaya refused.
Calculating that some critical mass of Hondurans would take his side, the president decided he would run the referendum himself. So on Thursday he led a mob that broke into the military installation where the ballots from Venezuela were being stored and then had his supporters distribute them in defiance of the Supreme Court’s order.
The attorney general had already made clear that the referendum was illegal, and he further announced that he would prosecute anyone involved in carrying it out. Yesterday, Mr. Zelaya was arrested by the military and is now in exile in Costa Rica.
It should have been a clue to the Obama Administration when Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez stood up for the “democratically elected” Mr. Zelaya, that there was something wrong with him. But rather Secretary Clinton stood on the side of the despots. This is in direct opposition to everyone else in Honduras:
Many Hondurans are going to be celebrating Mr. Zelaya’s foreign excursion. Street protests against his heavy-handed tactics had already begun last week. On Friday a large number of military reservists took their turn. “We won’t go backwards,” one sign said. “We want to live in peace, freedom and development.”
Besides opposition from the Congress, the Supreme Court, the electoral tribunal and the attorney general, the president had also become persona non grata with the Catholic Church and numerous evangelical church leaders. On Thursday evening his own party in Congress sponsored a resolution to investigate whether he is mentally unfit to remain in office.
The irony with Obama is that it takes him so long to be on the right side of the fight against Ahmadinejad and the Iranians protesting the fraudulent election there, and here he takes no time to support the corrupt Mr. Zevala whose people are standing by their own written constitution and rule of law in direct opposition to his desire to turn Honduras into a dictatorship. It’s time for the Obama team to step it up in the foreign policy arena or be called out as an administration that supports despots in the name of realpolitik, especially when such leaders happen to lean Left.
With Republicans Like These…
Brent Tantillo • June 30, 2009 16:43pm • Uncategorized
Barack Obama doesn’t need to worry about the Stupid Party, as with the recent revelations by Sen. John Ensign (R-NV) and Gov. Mark Sanford (R-SC) of affairs and marital infidelities. The reality is that if you run as the party with a moral high ground you better act like it, because when you get caught with your pants down, the public is going to give you a wedgie. And that’s what’s happening to the GOP, and has been consistently since 2006, when the Party lost Congress. The GOP lost Congress because of Mark Foley, Tom Delay, Jack Ambramoff, Duke Cunningham, and other corrupt officials, not because of prisoners at Gitmo or terrorism policies. This was evidenced in recent debates between Cheney and Barack, in which the former Vice President kicked the President’s butt, and the President caved in to many of Cheney’s positions. However, when you lose the public’s trust, you lose power.
There is no button to vote ‘present’ in the Oval Office
Phil Orenstein • June 26, 2009 0:15am • Uncategorized
The protesters are standing up for freedom and being massacred in the streets of Iran by the cold-blooded theocratic rulers of the Islamic Republic but there is a deafening silence coming from the White House. We must stand with our brave brothers and sisters in Iran crying out for democracy and demanding freedom. The best coverage of day by day minute by minute events in Iran can be found on Atlas Shrugs.
There is a letter from an Iranian dissident pleading for technological support from Israeli brothers and sisters to help overcome the media and internet blackout. While the dissidents claim hundreds have been killed by the regime the help of Hezbollah armed thugs there is a unique solidarity fomenting amongst the youth in the streets with the Israelis. ”This is going to be the most massive, impressive revolution of the 21st century,” pro-democracy activist Amil Imani said, “and we’re seeing it live.” There is an informational and technological war going on as well and outside assistance from the Israelis will be playing a big role in overcoming the Iranian regimes attempts to block communications.
Where is our president in the midst of these horrific events in Iran? Pamela Geller asked Lt. Col. Allen West for his thoughts on the situation and here is his response on the Iranian Revolution:
“My message to President Barack Hussein Obama, there is no button to vote ‘present’ in the Oval Office”
I have sat and watched the situation in Iran post the fraudulent elections and just shake my head. When I departed Kandahar Afghanistan in late October 2007 my Interpreter/Translator staff asked of me one thing, “do not forget us”. I looked each of those young Men in the eye and gave them my commitment. The covenant was simple, that in my lifetime I would seek to free Afghanistan from the tyranny of mullahs, clerics, imams, and bloodthirsty terrorists.
I never break a promise.
I will not “bear witness” to this demonic display of inhuman treatment and human rights violations. Heck, where is the UN and the world leaders who waste no time in condemning Israel for defending herself against same theocrats and barbaric thugs.
How many of you recall that just a little over 30 years ago, a previous weak, ineffective, effete Democrat president allowed the Ayatollahs to rise to power. Hence resulting in a fleeing of exceptionally gifted Persians and ushering in of a new era of radical Islamic terrorism.
Now, some 30 years later we have a redux of an effete, ineffective President whose nuanced intellectual elite responses offer no support to those desiring Liberty. Indeed, President Obama’s apologetic Cairo speech just emboldened the Mad Mullahs and Annoying Ayatollah’s, as well as Johnny Jihadi. The theocrats and despotic autocrats who dominate the Islamic world realize they are free to butcher and suppress their own people, young people, who desire one thing…..Freedom.
Choose Sides President Obama!
Phil Orenstein • June 23, 2009 0:24am • Uncategorized
The fires of liberty and democracy continue to blaze brilliantly in Iran as millions of protesters take to the streets to protest the fraudulent election process following Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s announcement that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had won the election. On the election that history may regard as the “June 12 revolution,” Former CIA agent, Reuel Marc Gerecht writes: “the Islamic Republic as we have known it is probably over.”
But Mr. Obama’s soaring oratory somehow misses the point when he makes the statement that “the difference between Ahmadinejad and Mousavi in terms of their actual policies may not be as great as had been advertised” as he justifies his official non-meddling policy. His silence amounts to a sanction for the barbarity of the Islamic regime which has imprisoned 33 journalists and continues to murder dozens of unarmed protesters, and ratchets up threats of deadly force as its stability is being endangered by a populist revolt.
As Charles Krauthammer points out, Obama may be so delusional in his thinking that he needs to preserve the relationship with the murderous mullahs in order to safeguard his diplomatic opportunity for dialogue with the Iranian regime on the nuclear issue. He remains ignorant of the fact that the “Death to America” chants are only coming from the hardliners, while the protesters chant “Death to the dictator” and even “Death to the Ayatollah.” He is also oblivious to recent events in history where we witnessed hardline communists, such as Boris Yeltsin and Gorbachev who become the reformers and leaders of the downfall of communism. Obama’s incompetence is apparent in his failure to envision the notion that Mousavi, a former hardliner, represents the broad consensus of Iranian youth who are hungry for liberty and democracy and yearn for the demise of the 30 year rule of the repressive Islamic mullah regime. As we witness Khamenei ordering the use force on protestors, Obama’s State Department opens the door inviting the Iranian regime to US embassies for a July 4th party. This ineffectual president has been having a non-stop party since taking office.
But the party is over. This is a critical juncture of history to capitalize on the burgeoning global movements for democracy starting with Georgia’s Rose Revolution in 2003, Ukraine’s Orange Revolution, Lebanon’s Cedar Revolution and many others. Now the fledgling representative democracy in Iraq and the recent electoral defeat of Hezbollah in Lebanon demonstrate the beginning of the end of tyranny and the rise of liberty in the world and the people’s yearning for freedom to control their own destinies. The ultimate blow to the death grip of 7th century barbarism and its assault on our values and civilization can come about right now with the fall of the Islamic Republic of Iran. It could happen this week! The leader of the free world needs to step up to the plate with full moral and material support and choose sides in this clear-cut confrontation between good and evil. Blood will be on Obama’s hands if he fails to act and we plunge into a new dark age of Islamic totalitarian war against all in life that we value and hold dear.
Iraqi Democracy Inspires Iran
Brent Tantillo • June 22, 2009 7:25am • Uncategorized
What’s happening in Iran is amazing, and there’s no doubt that a light of liberty has been lit in the Middle East by the formation of a democracy in Iraq. This of course was what President George W. Bush always believed, and although it took time, it’s working. Much has been made of the fact that Iran and Iraq are both majority Shiite, and this is an important fact in relation to what is happening in Iran. As Iranians made their annual pilgrammages to Karbala and Najaf, they saw their fellow Shiites governing themselves. While the democracy in Iraq is imperfect, it’s still a democracy, where the elections aren’t rigged, human rights aren’t violated, and rule of law is established. Iranians are fed-up with their country’s lunatic leadership, as best exemplified by the “re-election” of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the madman who embarrasses a once mighty and great nation with his ridiculous outbursts about the Holocaust, Israel, and threats to America.
A Leader for Challenging Times
Phil Orenstein • June 22, 2009 1:48am • Uncategorized
Dr. Georgy Gounev, contacted me to arrange an interview with Lt. Col. Allen West for his forthcoming book “Will the West Move North?” to be published in late 2009 about the Islamization of Europe and US/Russian relations, aiming to advise and inform US foreign policy. Dr. Gounev is a Bulgarian historian and writer who escaped his native Bulgaria under Soviet occupation in 1988 and now teaches comparative Soviet and Russian history and International Relations at Saddleback College and Irvine Valley College, in California. He also contributes to Serbianna, a website devoted to confronting the assault of radical Islam in the Balkans.
Dr. Gounev has been following the ascent of LTC West and his keen understanding of the current issues facing U.S., Europe and the Middle East. In the following report from the recent interview with LTC West, Dr. Gounev laments the ignorance of US policymakers regarding the history and current problems facing the Balkan region and is heartened by LTC West’s depth of understanding. As an historian with a firsthand appreciation of the perils of totalitarianism, he seeks to bring to the attention of Washington policymakers, the current brutal assault on our values and way of life. He thus seeks to vigorously support the candidacy of LTC West for a prominent leadership role in American and global policymaking. Concerning the global turmoil of events in the current war between civilization and 7th century barbarism, he plans to contribute in any way he can to the advancement of West’s political career. The following are excerpts from the write-up of Dr. Gounev:
A LEADER FOR CHALLENGING TIMES
When I heard the name of Lieutenant Colonel Allen West (West) I never imagined that one day I would know the man well enough in order to write about him. Several years ago there was a TV report about a military officer whose extremely promising military career that lasted for 22 years and had led him through the battlefields of the First Gulf War and Iraq had been interrupted by a rather dramatic incident…
West was kind enough to share his ideas and concepts about the war against the Islamo-Totalitarianism for the needs of the book I am working on devoted to the Islamization of Europe and its impact on the American-Russian relations. What will follow is, a short interview, West gave me especially for Serbianna.
GG: Lt Col West, allow me to express my gratitude for your time. My first question is how do you feel about the current stage of the conflict between the United States and the Islamo-Totalitarian assault on the world?
AW: This is a very painful and somewhat confusing question, because the current administration creates the impression that there is no such conflict whatsoever. In his speech in Cairo, for instance, President Obama didn’t mention such terms as “war” or “terror.”
GG: The fact that those terms are ignored does not mean that they don’t exist, correct?
AW: They not only “exist” but their deliberate neglect aggravates the situation because the demobilization of the public opinion will facilitate the actions of the enemy.
GG: You have a unique fighting experience that lasted almost four years on the territory of three Muslim countries. What is your impression of the attitude of the Muslim community toward the Coalition forces?
AW: There is no simple answer to a complicated question. The people of Kuwait, for instance, were extremely happy when we liberated them from the short but bloody rule of Saddam Hussein. As far the situations in Iraq and Afghanistan are concerned, the things are more complicated but what I can tell you is that for me every Iraqi or Afghan soldier was a brother in arms. As far as the reactions of the civil population are concerned, in Iraq I witnessed many examples of positive gestures toward us, and several of them, saved the lives of our soldiers.
GG: What about Afghanistan?
AW: In Afghanistan we see substantially less contact with the local population. Don’t forget the geographical factor: Afghanistan is a much larger country than Iraq - it has a very harsh mountainous terrain, with an extremely poor road system. Besides, the country is much more clannish, and much more divided by tribal differences than Iraq.
GG: Serbianna is a site devoted primarily, if not exclusively to the Balkan issues. Do you have any opinion on the problems plaguing the area?
AW:. The Balkans are not a focused point of expertise for me but, of course, I have some basic ideas about the most important developments in the area.
GG: Allow me, Sir, to be absolutely honest with you - the people in the Balkan area think that the American policymakers are ignorant about their region and don’t care at all about its problems. Given the fact that I am Bulgarian, and I am contributing to a site devoted primarily with Serbia related problems, it would be logical to ask you a simple question: do you have any idea about the history and the present problems of both countries? Let me be more specific: If you are in position of a Washington based decision maker, what kind of policy would you recommend with regard to Serbia?
AW: The problem involving American - Serbian relations is not as complicated as some of our politicians think. It is true that we were involved in a conflict with Serbia because of the politics of Milosevic, who in my mind was a totalitarian dictator, who had committed a lot of crimes like, for instance, the forceful removal of the Albanian population of Kosovo. Later however, our politicians committed a mistake by not defending the Serbian residents of Kosovo who were forced to abandon their homes. I think that the best solution to the Kosovo problem would have been the granting of the largest possible autonomy to the province within the borders of Serbia under some kind of temporary international control, making sure that the rights of the Albanian and Serbian residents of the area were fully protected. Our Department of State however, demonstrated a lot of ignorance and lack of sensitivity with regard to the creation of an independent state on the territory of Kosovo.
GG: What do you mean?
AW: Kosovo was the battle field where the Serbian Army fought to the last man in 1387, I think, against the Ottoman’s expansion into the Balkans. It is vital to study and understand how history affects international relations in this present time. We can ill afford the sanctioning of a new radical Islamic terrorism sanctuary in the Balkans, where they remember the Battle of Kosovo. Today, I believe Serbia also will resist the assault of Islamo-Totalitarianism on the European civilization and democracy, and with this fact in mind, if I am in the theoretical position of a decision maker mentioned by you, I wouldn’t have spared my efforts in order to improve the American-Serbian relations.
GG: Sir, we are both teachers of history, allow me to make a slight correction-the battle at Kosovo Pole took place in 1389…On the other hand, however, with all due respect to the other candidates for the Congress of the United States, I don’t believe that anyone of them would have been able to match your amount of knowledge of the history and the problems of the Balkan area.
AW: Give me, please the opportunity to make it up for my mistake… The first thing that comes to my mind with the mentioning of Bulgaria, is the fact that your people didn’t allow the transportation of the Bulgarian Jews to Hitler’s extermination camps. It was a unique fact in the war-time history of Europe for which the Bulgarian People deserve a lot of credit.
GG: Lieutenant Colonel West, I am becoming emotional at this point, but allow me as an old teacher of history to add for the sake of the historical truth that the Bulgarian authorities in the occupied territories did send about 11,000 Jews to their death.
On the other hand, however, given the fact that 48,000 Jewish residents of Bulgaria survived the war makes me really proud, and I am grateful to you for mentioning this fact. Please, accept as well my deep gratitude for your time. Let me finish with the statement that from the bottom of my heart, I wish you a victory during the elections for the US Congress, in 2010!
AW: You are welcome, Sir, and thank you for your support.
Intellectual Eco-Terrorism
Brent Tantillo • June 20, 2009 17:33pm • Uncategorized
George Ball, President of W. Atlee Burpee & Co. and former president of the American Horticultural Society wrote in last weekend’s Wall Street Journal, “that a segment of the Green movement presents a fresh challenge to mankind’s place within nature…Humans, the thinking goes, are one species among the many, a life form coexisting with others, our rights commensurate with those of snail darters, mosquitoes and coral reefs….The new environmentalist thinking occupies that treacherous terrain between rationality and romanticism…It’s hightly logical, too, an all-encompassing equation where everything is equivalent to everything else — communism at a cellular level.”
While a student at the University of Texas, I cut my teeth in politics battling just the types that Ball describes above, “self-described ‘evo-lutionaries’ and animal-rights activists” that feel “justified in spiking trees, burning down housing developments, vandalizing laboratories and threatening the lives of researchers and their families. By all means save the Red-Cockaded Woodpecker, but not at the cost of human lives, no matter how few. That way lies madness.”
Frankly, it’s the stuff of the Unabomber Ted Kaczynski who killed four and maimed many others in his acts of brutality against individuals pursuing dangerous technological ideas and worldviews he opposed. And frankly more and more of what is at the heart of environmentalism is this sort of hatred of humanity, as Ball explains:
One activist author posits that the planet can support only one billion people - a number surely including the writer, his friends, and extended family. Another activist advocates saving the world through euthanasia, abortion, suicide, and sodomy. However, the truly repugnant part of this is that these are both tenured professors in wealthy universities.
Tenured radicals rather. (Just an aside: But, why should we be surprised, in another piece in the Journal recently, Peter Berkowitz bemoans the fact that conservatism is not taught in America’s political science department’s, not even Edmund Burke. Why would the Left give up any space on the battlefield for conservatism, especially for a world view that is so empirically heads and shoulders above socialism and communism.)
No the real problem with implementing the beliefs of eco-terrorists and tenured radicals into public policy, which the Obama Administration is attempting to do through its cap and trade policy and other global warming initiatives, is that it places humans at the back of the line. At the root of these initiatives is the systemic belief that humans are equal to animals and plants and that are wants, needs, and desires are equal to them. This inevitably means that our pursuit of happiness, our economic well-being is hampered, especially during a period of immense suffering for millions of Americans. Furthermore, it also makes the natural rights of humans secondary to those of inferior species for which we are naturally at the top of the food chain. As intelligent species we obviously must do everything we can to preserve our habitat and other species for our benefit, but that should be where the criteria stops. When making environmental decisions, the criteria should not be all animals and plants are equal, but rather what steps must we take to protect our environment that will benefit us economically, socially, and morally. However, we must be ever cognizant that this criteria is being used by our counterparts on the Left.
Facebook: Please support GERALD WALPIN
Laurie Morrow • June 19, 2009 22:09pm • Uncategorized
A new Facebook group has been created to support fired IG Gerald Walpin. Walpin is the IG who was fired by the Obama administration without cause and who is being smeared as senile.
This page, set up by Matt Smith of Texas, already has over 600 members.
In one of the most brilliant fusions of news reporting, political commentary, and showmanship, Glenn Beck administered the official government test for senility on the air. Judge for yourself just how ‘confused’ Gerald Walpin is:
If you would like to show support for a man who has served his country so well for so long, please consider joining Matt Smith’s SUPPORT GERALD WALPIN group on Facebook.
An Interesting Observation by Tom Friedman
Brent Tantillo • June 19, 2009 21:15pm • Uncategorized
One of the Middle East’s best reporters is the New York Times’ Thomas Friedman. Long before he got on his “World is Flat” shtick — which has a lot of merit — Friedman wrote From Beirut to Jerusalem, one of the best books on modern Middle East history ever written. In a recent column by Friedman, he writes:
Twenty years ago, I wrote a book about the Middle East, and recently I was thinking of updating it with a new introduction. It was going to be very simple — just one page, indeed just one line: “Nothing has changed.”
It took me two days covering the elections in Beirut to realize that I was dead wrong. No, something is going on in the Middle East today that is very new. Pull up a chair; this is going to be interesting.
What we saw in the Lebanese elections, where the pro-Western March 14 movement won a surprise victory over the pro-Iranian Hezbollah coalition, what we saw in the ferment for change exposed by the election campaign in Iran, and what we saw in the provincial elections in Iraq, where the big pro-Iranian party got trounced, is the product of four historical forces that have come together to crack open this ossified region.
First is the diffusion of technology. The Internet, blogs, YouTube and text messaging via cellphones, particularly among the young — 70 percent of Iranians are under 30 — is giving Middle Easterners cheap tools to communicate horizontally, to mobilize politically and to criticize their leaders acerbically, outside of state control. It is also enabling them to monitor vote-rigging by posting observers with cellphone cameras.
I knew something had changed when I sat down for coffee on Hamra Street in Beirut last week with my 80-year-old friend and mentor, Kemal Salibi, one of Lebanon’s greatest historians, and he told me about his Facebook group!
The evening of Lebanon’s election, I went to the Beirut home of Saad Hariri, the leader of the March 14 coalition, to interview him. In a big living room, he had a gigantic wall-size television broadcasting the results. And alongside the main TV were 16 smaller flat-screen TVs with electronic maps of Lebanon. Hariri’s own election experts were working on laptops and breaking down every vote from every religious community, village by village, and projecting them on the screens.
Second, for real politics to happen you need space. There are a million things to hate about President Bush’s costly and wrenching wars. But the fact is, in ousting Saddam in Iraq in 2003 and mobilizing the U.N. to push Syria out of Lebanon in 2005, he opened space for real democratic politics that had not existed in Iraq or Lebanon for decades. “Bush had a simple idea, that the Arabs could be democratic, and at that particular moment simple ideas were what was needed, even if he was disingenuous,” said Michael Young, the opinion editor of The Beirut Daily Star. “It was bolstered by the presence of a U.S. Army in the center of the Middle East. It created a sense that change was possible, that things did not always have to be as they were.”
It’s amazing these words were written in the New York Times this week, and that I missed them for six days [but I shouldn't be surprised as I don't read the Times]. But it’s an amazing concession indeed by one of the Left’s heroes, that George W. Bush should be credited for bringing democracy to the Middle East. Of course, the usual Leftist gripes are thrown in that he didn’t know what he was doing, or it was disingenuous. Frankly, Bush’s belief in democracy in the Middle East had him and his party ridden out on rails out of the nation’s capital. Nothing was more genuine or cost him more than this belief, and the fact that Friedman had the guts and honesty to credit Bush in some small part for bringing the winds of change to the Middle East shows his intellectual honesty and commitment to accuracy. And with more reporters like that, the New York Times would have fewer financial difficulties.
Metsatoll: Estonian Folk Metal Music
Laurie Morrow • June 19, 2009 18:49pm • Uncategorized
Stick with it till the very end. It’s haunting.
Rock on, Eesti!
