Honduras

This article in the Washington Post was sort of amazing to me this morning.

It’s about how Honduras is very poor. And how poor Hondurans support Zelaya because Zelaya is such an advocate of the poor. And now the middle class and rich who support the ouster of Zelaya are just being mean.

There is not one mention of how President Micheletti is of the same exact party as Zelaya.

Here is a quote from the sister of the woman who was shot at the airport while awaiting Zelaya’s return.

“Mel Zelaya wanted to improve things. He asked us what we wanted and what we did not want,” she said. “What divides us here is money, and we saw Zelaya as the guy who could take us out of our misery.”

Mel Zelaya was in office for 3.5 years. The constitution of Honduras requires that he not return after 4 years. Just how was he going to “take us out of our misery” in the next 6 months is not clear. Perhaps they run on hope there too.

Adolfo Facussé, an investor long tied to government officials, said that although Zelaya’s rhetoric resonated with the poor, his policies did little to help lift them out of poverty. Facussé said that raising the minimum monthly wage by 60 percent led to the firings of 170,000 people and that increasing the pay of teachers hit the treasury hard.

Facussé said he and other Hondurans also became alarmed as Zelaya built an alliance with Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez that they thought was more ideological than economic. Facussé said the last straw came when Zelaya moved ahead with plans to hold a referendum that could have paved the way for his reelection, a move the Supreme Court and the National Congress opposed.

The bold is mine.

The Washington Post is suggesting the Supreme court and National Congress opposed a Zelaya reelection. Vs the Supreme Court and National Congress opposed the illegality of even freaking holding a reelection for Zelaya!!!

Sheesh – would someone with a title of “reporter” please report the actual news!!

Life without Guantanamo

In Afghanistan (you know – the place with a different culture/values etc) back in 2001 there was a war going on sponsored by us, held by them against the Taliban.

The Taliban were basically immediately routed leaving behind a country without a solid government or infrastructure or nice safe prisons with 3 squares and outdoor time along with cool gentle ocean breezes.

What would you do? Apparently, the Afghans killed a bunch of those prisoners.

Bush said…..alright – let’s get in there and straighten things out, build some prisons, move folks to gitmo, try to help these folks get their country together.
Obama is saying…..let’s investigate. Who’s responsible!!!?? Heads must roll!! Maybe we should change tactics now because of this incident.

Now lets decide which is the route that shows more respect for a different culture, a different country, a different life than that of the middle class American?

Having spent a bit of time as an Embedded Trainer (kind of like being an 18B, master logistician, finance guru, operations specialist and contract specialist all rolled into a big warrior/diplomat tortilla), I can tell you that we had one really big picture tactical and strategic rule by which my partner Capt. Jack and I lived by:

– Afghanistan is their country and as such we are here to train them how to be an Army and not to get into how they conduct their business unless it will interfere with our mission objectives or place us in danger (because their were only two of us vs. their entire company).

I am going to make an educated guess and say that this was probably one of the things that affected how the SOF assigned to that area conducted their business. My job was to teach them to be an effective fighting force, and part of that was to be how they treated their enemy.

Go read Blackfive. Obama’s a……well – I don’t like him one bit.

The President’s Op-Ed Today

Keith Hennessey responds so I don’t have to.

(Ok – fine, he would have responded anyway, but since he did such a good job and has an improved website, I’m going to forward you on to him.)

Here’s my favorite bit:

[President Obama] We must let [the stimulus] work the way it’s supposed to, with the understanding that in any recession, unemployment tends to recover more slowly than other measures of economic activity. … There are some who say we must wait to meet our greatest challenges. They favor an incremental approach or believe that doing nothing is somehow an answer.

[Keith] So the President says we must wait for the stimulus to work, then attacks others who say we must wait “to meet our greatest challenges.”

Honduras and the Newest Narrative

Hey there all you Hondurans out there……the Media is starting to get a clue. (the link is to an LA Times story out today calling the Honduran changes a “new kind of coup”. They kind of sort of suggest that maybe it was legalish after all. Though of course only because the greedy rich are in charge of the government)

Sadly, it’s going to come with a brand new “fact”.

Obama and his administration are sooooo brilliant that they backed the wrong horse from the start so that they could cool Chavez’s jets.

Sometimes you have to give political leaders credit.

President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are on the verge of achieving their own coup in Honduras and advancing American interests with a deftness not seen from Washington in many years.

The president’s reference to Honduras during his trip to Moscow reflects how the small Central American country is but a pawn as the administration pushes the reset button globally and in the hemisphere.

Justice may not be totally served in Honduras, but the country is likely to end up better off anyway.

“America cannot and should not seek to impose any system of government on any other country,” Obama said in Russia, “nor would we presume to choose which party or individual should run a country. . . . Even as we meet here today, America supports now the restoration of the democratically elected president of Honduras, even though he has strongly opposed American policies. We do so not because we agree with him. We do so because we respect the universal principle that people should choose their own leaders.”

The immediate lesson was to teach Russia to stay out of Georgia and Ukraine. The message, however, also resonated throughout Latin America, undercutting the polarization efforts of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.
……….

That the administration has joined with the Organization of American States in condemning the ouster of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya has left Chávez puffing a lot of hot air with no one to fight against.
………………….
There is now genuine movement toward a peaceful resolution of the crisis.

The United States, long seen as a bully in the region, is suddenly being seen as respectful and wise..
…………….

The Honduran Supreme Court, as it is empowered to do under the constitution, ordered the army to arrest Zelaya after he began to carry out a referendum for a constitutional convention that the court, Congress and his own attorney general said was illegal. Yet, many Latin American and European governments still call it a “military coup” or, as the Associated Press called it several days afterward, a “military power grab.” Clinton and Obama dropped calling it a coup.

There are gray areas having to do with presidential powers and the fact that the Honduran constitution prohibits extradition of citizens.

Did you get that folks?
1) Obama backing Zelaya was Obama telling Putin to back off of Georgia
2) Obama backing Zelaya was Obama being “cool” about lefty dictatorships in the south and forcing Chavez to just sputter something about American interference
3) Obama backing Zelaya and suggesting the Costa Rican strategy makes them wise
4) Obama is NOW ahead of the curve in his wise way by putting aside the term “coup”.
Isn’t he something else??

Don’t worry – you start to get used to the “change” with the “hope” that no one notices. See how the economic narrative in the US changed under Obama.

Like I said the other day, Micheletti going to Costa Rica was a smart move on his part because it gave him and outside honest broker to the real events. NOW the narrative can change.

If in the end, the economy improves, world peace is achieved, al-Qaeda drops to it’s knees, we are all “saved from hell” and I have more money in my pocket and it all happens because of circumstances not connected to Obama, but the newspapers choose to write it all up as if he did it……..
do I have to be happy about it?

Honduras Talks

They’ve apparently stalled.

Delegates for Roberto Micheletti, the military-backed interim president, and Manuel Zelaya, the deposed elected president, failed to reach a breakthrough in talks mediated by Oscar Arias, Costa Rica’s president.

Micheletti’s team of advisers left the Costa Rican capital San Jose on Friday evening and headed back to Honduras, bringing an end to the negotiations for the time being.

Men

Come on guys…….

We know you’re going to look, we’re fine with you looking but must the photographer be taking photographs and putting them up all over the freaking world??!!

And this particular photograph…..really. Was it necessary? Can you show just a little bit of respect?

Let’s just do a calf blog today

Here’s Kenny.

The BIG Story that Isn’t.

This story about counties who voted for Obama receiving twice as much Federal Stimulus money as counties who voted for McCain is silly.

I’m a county and I voted for McCain. Chances are I’m Republican or Libertarian and believe we should take care of our own and that the government’s job is defense, policing, and for me, the keeping of our Public Natural National Resources.
Am I going to spend my time filling out paper work to get my pot holes filled?

No.

I’m a county and I voted for Obama. Chances are I’m Democrat and believe it’s the government’s job to fix all that ails everyone. By taking someone else’s money and paying for it.
Am I going to apply for government stimulus money to ……..whatever. Upgrade my park, add in a bicycle path, finance an ice rink?

Yes.

no story.

Health and America

For book club I’m currently reading Animal Vegetable Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver.

It had the potential to be a decent book. The family took a year and lived off only local foods that they knew where it came from.

But the whole book so far is preachy, sanctimonious, irritating, and making me crabby. She’s concerned with the government not doing enough including teaching kids about food vs algebra and the government doing too much by favoring corporations over local farms etc.

So far it’s not occurred to her that what she’s doing, freely, independently is what a lot of people do anymore. We make our food choices based on food.
My staunch Republican step dad has grown his own food forever.
My rich Republican sister has shopped farmers markets forever.

These are choices. In the meantime how can the government be “not be doing enough” yet, “doing too much”? You get the government involved and yes, they do too much because that’s how they get funding. We’re a capitalist country with a capitalist mindset which means “grow”! Next year get more money. That’s the object and it’s part of our government too.

So here you have the new health care bill offering money for parks, playgrounds, farmers markets etc in order to increase healthy lifestyles of people. And here you have the farm bill passed last year by a Democratic congress, subsidizing corn/soy and what amounts to the fast food culture and agribusiness.

Keep the dang government out of things and some people will continue to live on bad food and others will choose a healthier lifestyle. Why can’t we decide for ourselves?? And spend our food dollars where we want to vs spending them on taxes for your food dollars?? What is so wrong with that??

G8 and Global Warming

I just get a warm fuzzy feeling inside when I read:

the G-8 members — the United States, Canada, Japan, Germany, Britain, Italy, France and Russia — agreed to try to limit the rise in global temperatures to just two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), compared to the beginning of the industrial age. “The two degrees are now our common basis,” said German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Wednesday evening.

Isn’t that nice how well they control the climate?

Are they going to do it naturally since lately the temperatures have been dropping?
Or are they going to do it by magic?
Or …….?

Who the hell knows. Just they’re going to do it.

How about this bit:

Meanwhile environmentalists and scientists are desperately urging politicians to hurry. Many researchers consider that the two-degree goal can only be met if huge efforts are made — if it can be achieved at all. Some experts fear catastrophic consequences if the Earth warms by more than two degrees. But a recent study came to the conclusion that it is no longer even possible to stay within the magic limit.

So by decree, what are the huge efforts that are going to occur?

Cap and Trade won’t work according to the EPA.

What exactly is G8 going to do….they don’t say. Which means, they’re going back to their offices, continue to hope that temperatures drop while they continue to power grab and then take credit for the temperature drop.