Who do we support in Honduras?

Honduras Coup Poses Challenges, Questions for Obama, Congress

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton offered a reasonably muscular condemnation of the military coup in Honduras, where elected President Manuel (Mel) Zelaya was kidnapped and flown out of the country by soldiers bent on blocking an advisory vote on constitutional reform in the country.
President Obama's statement was softer and in tone

Why not more forceful?

Zelaya's left-leaning economic and social policies earned praise from labor unions and civil society groups, and he had forged regional alliances with the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas, which Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and other elected leaders in Latin America established as a counter to the neoliberal trade and security policies pushed by the U.S. under Bush. That made relations with the U.S. somewhat more tense, especially as Zelaya wrangled with conservative forces over media, presidential succession and constitional issues.
Chavez has suggested that U.S. meddling -- and a Central Intelligence Agency tie -- enabled the coup.

Ooops! Our latest fiend (Chavez) is (in a round about way) tied in. No wonder the fence straddling. Can't let independent leaders rule a country in our hemisphere - hell in the world!

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Ron Paul - right on this one

Meddling in Iran

As the violence on the streets of Tehran took a turn for the worse today, President Barack Obama publicly condemned the Iranian government for its “violent and unjust actions against its own people.” The protesters have clashed with police on and off for a week, but today’s crackdown appears to be more vigorous.

Yesterday, the House of Representatives also passed a resolution condemning the Iranian government and expressing official support for the protesters. The vote passed 405-1, with only Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX) dissenting, insisting the US should avoid meddling in the internal affairs of foreign nations.

Sure our hearts go out to the injured and murdered, but the real issue is what gives us the right to interfere. Ask for peace and non-violence only - don't ask for a "winner." Otherwise the situation is a no-win one for us. If and when the protests are put down - the power regime will remember what we called for. If the protest does continue and lead to a new regime - how can we be sure it will lead to an equal society?

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A Plan for Peace?

What if Osama Calls Obama’s Bluff?

As is the custom of American interventionists, President Obama spoke in Cairo as if our Islamist enemies have no vote in how their conflict with the United States will henceforth proceed. The adolescent geniuses who wrote Obama’s speech apparently spent no time at all perusing what Osama bin Laden and other Islamists have said or written over the past 13 years, and especially since 2001. At repeated points in that corpus of material, for example, bin Laden has offered a truce to the United States and its allies on terms eerily similar to those Obama described in Cairo as the intentions of his administration.
* Complete U.S. withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan.
* No residual U.S. military bases in either Iraq or Afghanistan.
* Self-determination for Muslim peoples now ruled by tyrants.
* Termination of Israel’s gradual but unending thievery of Palestinian territory.
* U.S. and Western recognition that all Muslims belong to one nation, or ummah, and that the post-World War I subdivision of the ummah into nation-states is a Western-imposed contrivance for subjugating Muslims.

The article goes on to opine about Osama. Instead I wish it focused on the Cairo speech and ask: When will complete withdrawal occur? and When will the last base close?

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Pentagon Admits ‘Problems’ in Farah Air Strike

‘Problems?’ That's what we are calling it. Children dead because of "tactics, techniques and procedures"? More than a "problem" in my eyes.

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