Voting At Gun Point in Zimbabwe

Despite seven years of Bush rhetoric about promoting democracy around the world, the people of Zimbabwe are about to be denied the opportunity for a democratic change to new leadership, with Bush largely silent on this development.

It is really disturbing, to see a country vote narrowly but decisively for Morgan Tsvangirai and his opposition party (the MDC) over the 84-year-old, long-running dictator of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe, in a first round of voting earlier this year, only to see Mr. Tsvangirai forced to abandon his campaign in the run-off election out of fear that innocent voters could be killed by pro-Mugabe thugs.

But it’s even more disappointing to watch the American leadership sit idly by and ignore the descent into violence, all because countries in the region with a vested interest in Mugabe’s regime refusing to uphold democracy and civil rights in that country. Although, frankly, I’m not entirely surprised since Zimbabwe is not a large oil exporter nor does it have Muslim terrorists for us to bomb; without either of those, President Bush simply doesn’t care to waste his limited intellect and time on the issue.

Sigh.