Obama To Macedonian Abassador "Don't Call Us, We'll Call You"

Obama: Can we believe in his change?
by Jason Miko:
The Conservative Voice

Senator Barack Obama prides himself on his theme of 'change we can believe in' and on studying both sides of an issue. As one promising change and a different way of working from Washington's typical business-as-usual approach, Obama could offer a refreshing diversion from the status quo.

But a closer examination of the way he works only goes to prove that he is an old-style politician, catering to the moneyed interests of those who will help finance his campaign.A case in point is the dispute Greece has with Macedonia over the latter's name, the Republic of Macedonia. Without delving too deeply into this issue “ Greece insists that Macedonia change its name and recently vetoed Macedonia's NATO aspirations despite Macedonia having fulfilled all necessary NATO requirements “ it needs only be pointed out that Obama has signed on to Senate Resolution 300 which, among other things, is pro-Greek Government and against the Republic of Macedonia, proffering false claims and spurious arguments. The bill's supporters in the House version have even now begun to back away from its claims, removing their names after examining the facts.

It is worth pointing out that Obama has close personal ties with Democrat Alexi Giannoulias, the state treasurer of the State of Illinois and a prominent Greek-American. Obama campaigned for him when he was a little-known, helping him to beat out his opponents and capture the seat. In return, Giannoulias now heads up Greeks for Obama and is encouraging the well-financed Greek community to pay up. That they expect something in return is obvious and that is coming through even now in the Senate resolution.

Apart from questions about Giannoulias and his family's bank, Broadway Bank, and their ties with reported Chicago mobster Michael 'Jaws' Giorango (convicted bookmaker/prostitution ring promoter), Giannoulias is on record as opposing the Bush Administration's decision to recognize Macedonia by its constitutional name (which he calls 'incorrect') the Republic of Macedonia, and calls for US Senators to use the UN provisional name, 'the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia,' considered a slur by Macedonia and most thinking people. He also calls the Bush Administration's decision to recognize Macedonia by its constitutional name as being in violation of the 1995 UN-brokered Interim Accord, a preposterous notion.

Zoran Jolevski, The Macedonian Ambassador to the United States has attempted to reach out to the Senator only to be offered a meeting with a legislative assistant. Despite other attempts at outreach from Macedonian-Americans, to at least offer him the other side of the story, there has been no interest from the Senator in even listening.These dubious ties to those financing his campaign combined with his lack of interest in the other side of the story raise legitimate questions.

Does Barack Obama really want to be openly supportive of a regime in Athens which has an abysmal human rights record and is perhaps the only country in the world to claim that it does not have ethnic minorities, an impossible notion? Does he want to be slavishly devoted to a cause, Greek objections to Macedonia's constitutional name and right to their own identity, when the ability to self-identify is a given? And does he want to be associated with a government that hypocritically refuses to grant property rights to hundreds of thousands of refugees it expelled while at the same time demanding such rights for Greek Cypriots expelled from northern Cyprus?

The big question is, will Obama, if elected president, reverse US-policy on the name issue of Macedonia? Will he go back to the provisional reference and in doing so, open up Pandora's Box? Will he risk American interests in the region by pandering to a regime that is cozying up, even now, to Russian interests in the energy sector while spending billions of Euros on Russian weapons? If Obama is who he claims to be – one open to both sides of an issue – then he will at least have the decency to sit down with the Macedonians, hear their side of the story, and then make up his own mind independent of those who finance his campaign. If not, we can assume that he is just another old-style politician, going where the money is and continuing in the rich history of Chicago politics. This is the exact opposite of the change he claims to offer.