Saturday, June 20, 2009

The Missing Two Words

After a week of inexplicable silence on the subject of Iran, President Obama finally issues a statement. Note that the tone of the statement is rather tepid, and that neither the words FREEDOM or DEMOCRACY appear once. Not even once.

The situation in Iran is all about freedom and democracy! The Leader of the Free World, after waiting a week, makes a flaccid statement that doesn't even include the words that define us, as Americans, and that represent the concept for which the Iranian people are risking their lives?

The excusion is disgraceful.

His remarks of today:


The Iranian government must understand that the world is watching. We mourn each and every innocent life that is lost. We call on the Iranian government to stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people. The universal rights to assembly and free speech must be respected, and the United States stands with all who seek to exercise those rights.

As I said in Cairo, suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away. The Iranian people will ultimately judge the actions of their own government. If the Iranian government seeks the respect of the international community, it mustrespect the dignity of its own people and govern through consent, not coercion.

Martin Luther King once said - “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” I believe that. The international community believes that. And right now, we are bearing witness to the Iranian peoples’ belief in that truth, and we will continue to bear witness.

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