How the Obama Admin Turned its Back on Democracy in Honduras

[Judi Lynn]

By Mark Engler
How the Obama Admin Turned its Back on Democracy in Honduras (and Missed a Chance for a Real "Change" in Foreign Policy)
Why Obama has not taken a much stronger stand against the Honduras coup is a lingering mystery.
July 28, 2010


We’ve recently passed the one-year mark since the coup in Honduras against democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya. Over the past year, the White House’s handling of the coup has become seriously embarrassing. It has needlessly strained U.S. relations with the rest of the hemisphere and has placed a serious blotch on the Obama administration’s human rights record.

Back in January, I gave the White House a “D“ for its response to the coup. Even though it totally botched its approach to the elections in the country last November—reversing its demand that Zelaya be reinstated and allowed to serve the end of his term before legitimate elections for a new Honduran president could take place—I credited the White House for its early condemnations:

One day after Zelaya’s ouster, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced that Zelaya’s removal “should be condemned by all.” The following day, President Obama declared, “We believe that the coup was not legal and that President Zelaya remains the president of Honduras.“

While things grew steadily worse after those statements, I argued against giving the White House an “F” for its response. My rationale at the time was that the Obama administration’s approach was distinctly better than what we might have expected from the Bush cabal:

Some progressives, disgusted by the White House response, may be tempted to contend that it reflects a Latin American foreign policy that is even worse than that of President George W. Bush’s. This would be an error. The stances of Bush appointees such as former Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Otto Reich—who lauded the coup as a necessary measure against the “expansion of Chavist authoritarianism“—shows that the position of the last administration would likely have been far worse than that of the present one. But the prospect that things could be even grimmer than they are now does not mean that the White House deserves passing marks for its efforts.

These days, I’m reconsidering my position and wondering if their initial statements against the coup only gave undeserved credibility to Hillary Clinton and company in later promoting an unacceptable state of affairs. Had White House officials, like Otto Reich, supported the military from the start, the United States would have no legitimacy in arguing that we now need to forgive and forget.

More:
http://www.alternet.org/world/147665/how_the_obama_admin_turned_its_back_on_democracy_in_honduras_%28and_missed_a_chance_for_a_real_%22change%22_in_foreign_policy%29/

[dipsydoodle]

1. On the upside

it could lead to the USA being voted off as member of the OAS.

[Judi Lynn]

3. They are all pretty sick of OAS by now, considering the U.S. has controlled it for ages.

Looks as if they are going to do their best to work with a new organization which will assume the same responsibilities only being composed of actual REGIONAL countries from Latin America.

Best luck to those guys. It's time they went ahead and conducted their OWN business the way their citizens want it.

[Triana]

2. It's pretty well turned its back on Democracy here too....

...speaking of missing chances for real change. This administration seems to do so in the U.S. on a daily basis. Why would it do anything different in the Honduras?

[Peace Patriot]

4. My reaction to the Honduran coup followed a curve similar to Engler's, as to Obama and H. Clinton,

although mine rose to skepticism, condemnation and a deja vu feeling of horror, sooner than Engler's. (Reagan era deja vu, horror.)

At first, the situation seem to be confused. Obama had just announced his new policy of "peace, cooperation and respect" in Latin America. Yet, it was clear from the beginning that SOME elements in the Pentagon and our corpo-fascist war establishment were actively complicit in the Honduran coup. For instance, the plane carrying the kidnapped president out of the country at gunpoint stopped at the U.S. air base in Honduras for re-fueling. (That surfaced in the 'news' and was quickly buried.) So, what were those U.S. commanders DOING, while Honduran democracy was destroyed--playing anti-Venezuela video games?!

My first read on it was that these corpo-fascist/war profiteers were sabotaging Obama's policy, that the plot was no doubt designed during the Bush Junta and was now being triggered for several reasons, among them to put Obama in his place. During this period, Chavez said, of Obama, that he is "the prisoner of the Pentagon." That may be a charitable assessment, if Obama actually approved the coup, and it would be our tragedy if he did not--that is, that Obama is, indeed, the "prisoner of the Pentagon." Anyway, at first, I was inclined to attribute this destruction of democracy in Honduras to Bushwhack moles in the Pentagon, the State Dept. and the diplomatic corps. Jim DeMint (Diebold-SC) was holding Obama's appointments in Latin America hostage to Obama/Clinton policy on Honduras. DeMint seemed to be running U.S. foreign policy, not Obama.

My view of Clinton in this affair began to turn negative pretty fast--because, you know, I read, I study, I research. She was funneling money to the fascist coupsters in Honduras, through the Millennium Corp., throughout the whole thing. Her claim to be withholding funds from these murderous bastards was a lie. And what she wanted from them was the COSMETICS of democracy--which we then saw unfold in the farcical, U.S.-funded, martial law (s)election, even while the geared up rightwing death squads were murdering union leaders and other leftist activists (and still are). Furthermore, the Clinton's own P.R. firm in Washington was fronting for the junta. I never had faith in Clinton, on Latin American issues--particularly since I learned that Mark Penn, a paid agent of the Colombian government, was running her campaign. But I did NOT expect her to so blatantly undermine Obama's stated policy, if that's what she was doing.

I still don't know if Obama is the "prisoner" of corpo-fascists and war profiteers, or the slickest political operator of all time, who willingly does their bidding while cynically manipulating the hopes and dreams of the American people for peace and justice. He is a hard man to read. And he may be something in between--a man with good intentions who got lured into the worst job on earth and is now trapped by the deals he had to make to get there. Maybe call-center slaves have more freedom than he does.

But I do know this. U.S. policy in Latin America is WORSE THAN IT HAS EVER BEEN, and includes, 1) a huge but sneaky U.S. military buildup in Colombia and the Central America/Caribbean region that looks hauntingly like the sneaky U.S. military buidup in Vietnam; 2) U.S. economic/war policy in Latin America supports and massively funds the WORST governments in the region--mass murderers in Colombia, rightwing coupsters in Honduras, extremely corrupt "free traders" in Peru, and is actively seeking the overthrow of the BEST governments that Latin America has ever had--the leftist democracies in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, Guatemala, El Salvador--and is no doubt using millions of USAID funds against Lulu's workers' party in Brazil (and probably did so to help get rid of Chile's leftist government).

But the worst of it is the MILITARISM--the cynical use of the U.S. "war on drugs" for WAR PROFITEERING, for KILLING OFF trade unionists and other leftists, for creating bloody mayhem particularly in Colombia and Mexico, and possibly for another Oil War.

Reagan didn't have this--billions and billions of "war on drugs" funding, SEVEN U.S. military bases in Colombia, U.S. military bases all over the region (in effect surrounding Venezuela's northern oil provinces and Caribbean oil coast), with a wholly complicit Diebold Congress which will surely hop to, when the "Gulf of Tonkin" -type incident is created, on the Venezuela/Colombia border, to trigger the next oil war. Reagan had to serve the corporate interest in killing leftists with a covert operation. This war will be sneaky but it will not be covert. It will use the Colombian government and military as the U.S. proxies--just as in Vietnam--with fewer U.S. troops and more high tech military support, all orchestrated from Washington, with the long-standing, "Big Lie,' psyops campaign against "Chavez the dictator" as the cover for dropping 500 lb "smart bombs" on Venezuelans, or sending "drones" to do so. I do think there is lots of evidence that this is an active Pentagon war plan. We, the people, will be the last to know about it, if and when it is implemented.

I don't know if Obama is on board for this war, or if they're just going to yank him, in 2012, and put somebody in the White House who is on board. But I do greatly fear what this U.S. military buildup in Latin America portends.

Latin America is just beginning to recover from the U.S. installation of bloody dictators during the Reagan era and the economic devastation of Clinton's "free trade for the rich" that followed it. Latin American democracy is now thriving and its economic prospects are improving, as the result of LEFTIST government and also the new spirit of cooperation among countries, due to the leftist leadership. U.S. policy is WHOLLY DEVOTED TO destroying all of this--to destroying Latin American democracy and enslaving its people and stealing their resources once again. "Peace, cooperation, respect" from the U.S? Right. Insults, bullying, coups, proxy murder and warmongering are what the U.S. is actually doing, with plans "on the Big Board" for yet worse. Did Obama mean what he said, and has he been sabotaged or blackmailed? Don't know. Our tragedy is that it may not matter what he thinks.

[sabrina 1]

5. I hope Latin America has made enough strides

towards becoming independent that any power the U.S. might have had will be neutered by the commitment of so many countries to move forward and to take control of their own destiny.

The military build-up by the U.S. is not a good sign, but I don't think we are in a position to start more wars. Using Colombia as a proxy won't fool anyone either.

Latin America is just beginning to recover from the U.S. installation of bloody dictators during the Reagan era and the economic devastation of Clinton's "free trade for the rich" that followed it. Latin American democracy is now thriving and its economic prospects are improving, as the result of LEFTIST government and also the new spirit of cooperation among countries, due to the leftist leadership. U.S. policy is WHOLLY DEVOTED TO destroying all of this--to destroying Latin American democracy and enslaving its people and stealing their resources once again. "Peace, cooperation, respect" from the U.S? Right. Insults, bullying, coups, proxy murder and warmongering are what the U.S. is actually doing, with plans "on the Big Board" for yet worse. Did Obama mean what he said, and has he been sabotaged or blackmailed? Don't know. Our tragedy is that it may not matter what he thinks.

I am hoping that this may be the beginning of the end of sixty years of brutal policies engaged in by this country. I think the world is getting a little sick of the U.S. Empire's warring ways.

[Peace Patriot]

6. "Using Colombia as a proxy won't fool anyone either."

My point is that it doesn't matter who it fools. Nearly 60% of the American people opposed the war on Iraq (Feb '03, all polls). Half of that nearly 60% were opposed to it outright. The other half didn't trust what Bush was saying. They would only agree to military action if it was a UN peacekeeping mission (i.e., international consensus that something had to be done). UN consent never came. In fact, major allies opposed it.

Did lack of UN backing or majority opposition to the war stop the Bush Junta from slaughtering a million innocent people, to steal their oil?

The very same corpo-fascist media machine is still in place, which ignored those polls and instead created a false impression of support for the Iraq War. And they would do the same thing about Oil War II: Venezuela. They are already cooperating with a very intense psyops campaign to demonize Chavez! (WMDs in Iraq = "Chavez the dictator." Same phenomenon. ) The aim of this campaign is less to fool people than to put them to sleep; to make them not care.

Remember how Vietnam happened--slow buildup, following the wearying stalemate of the long Korean War, then, bang, Americans fired upon (a lie) by the North Vietnamese, and off we were, into that dreadful escalation. If we are dragged into this next oil war, it won't be like Iraq. Our war profiteers are smarter than that. It will begin by just what we are seeing in Colombia and the Caribbean--a slow, sneaky U.S. military buildup, which the corpo-fascist press is completely ignoring, and then one day, one of those 1500 or so U.S. troops embedded with the Colombian military on Venezuela's border gets shot at and killed. Bang, we're in a war, which will probably be characterized by U.S. high tech surveillance and bombing in support of Colombian troops. 'Our' military is ALREADY practicing for this off Venezuela's coast, and did so in an incident in Ecuador in 2008, and now has 7 US military bases in Colombia and more on the Dutch islands right off Venezuela's oil coast, and elsewhere in the vicinity, including the newly reconstituted US 4th Fleet in the Caribbean, from which to conduct such operations. This might be followed--as in Vietnam--with the failure of Colombian troops to "achieve their objectives" and the "need" for more U.S. troops on the ground.

The recent Colombian accusation that Venezuela is harboring FARC guerillas is just the sort of bullshit around which a phony "Gulf of Tonkin"-type incident would be designed. And every day increases the probability that U.S. service members will be involved. We are staffing, equipping, funding and installing surveillance and weapons systems at SEVEN military bases in Colombia, and beefing up military systems all over the region. One shot by the Venezuelan military or border patrol at the "wrong" soldier, and we are in a war.

We can't take that, can we? Americans getting shot at?

Or no shot at all. An invented shot. Phony pix. Phony video. (This is something else that our military is teaching their military, as evidenced in the "miracle laptop" incident--supposed FARC guerrilla laptop (later, laptopS) that supposedly survived the U.S/Colombia dropping of ten 500 lb "smart bombs" on a guerilla camp just inside Ecuador's border, and that Colombia claimed contained "evidence" that the governments of Venezuela and Ecuador are supporting "terrorists"--and other events pointing to Colombian use of high tech equipment and doctored intelligence.)

And no matter how many protestors yell, "No more warS for oil!" and no matter if one or two "pundits" ask, "What were we doing there in the first place?", the war machine goes into high gear, with a "patriotism" meme and an "anti-communist" meme (though Chavez is no communist) ('kill little brown people' meme?), and the objections are all buried and ignored. They've got plenty of cannon fodder now, what with this induced Great Depression. And there is always, always, ALWAYS plenty of money for war. And, to top it all off, they now have ES&S (Diebold) with which to shove the next war down our throats, whether we are fooled or not, and whether we agree or not.

I think you are underestimating what the U.S. war machine is capable of, and perhaps misreading what it is for. This massive war machine that the Bush Junta created is not, and never was, about "terrorism." It is about resources--most especially oil, a vital need of the war machine itself. Also gas, lithium, potable water, forests and other natural resources, and man-made resources such as our tax dollars, our communally created public services and our labor. This war machine was created to gobble up whatever there is that is potentially profitable, that can be taken by force or threat of force. It operates completely outside of the control of the American people. So it doesn't matter how many people are not fooled by its lies.

[sabrina 1]

7. You are right of course. When I said 'no one will be fooled'

I was not speaking about the American people though, just reading this progressive board proves that they will indeed be fooled and outraged etc. if the scenario you describe were to happen.

However, you are correct, the huge MIC will not give up on the resources in Latin America, but my point was that things are different now in that part of the world. I am sure that, unlike here in the U.S., people there would not fall so easily for the deceptions of this government.

Which is why I said I hoped that Latin America had had enough time to build its coalitions and strengthen its resolve to remain Independent before the U.S. tries to start any wars there. Maybe the countries should warn the U.S. to stay out of their affairs or they will face a united front from those countries.

I understand your concerns though and I share them ... I hope we are wrong.