Spinning the Honduras Coup

[Downwinder]

http://aconstantineblacklist.blogspot.com/2009/08/spinning-honduras-coup.html

[Judi Lynn]

1. Glad this author pointed out a painful fact more people should realize:

Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Spinning the Honduras Coup
By JOHN GRANT
www.philly.com
Jul. 29, 2009

IN THE SUMMER of 1984, under the oversight of U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte, I was deported from Honduras with five other Americans for meeting with union representatives who wanted to tell us about the murders and disappearances of their leaders.

At the time, the poor nation was known as "the aircraft carrier USS Honduras" due to the attacks launched from it into neighboring Nicaragua by the Contras, the proxy force created by the U.S.

The current Honduran constitution was written in 1982 when Negroponte worked closely with Gen. Gustavo Alvarez Martinez, an Argentine-trained proponent of the death squads then killing leftist leaders. From 1981 to 1985, U.S. aid to the Honduran military went from $4 million to $77.4 million a year.

Such behavior was hardly new. Marine Gen. Smedley Butler described his service there in the 1920s: "I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long."

The leftward trend across Latin America that runs from Chile's European-style left to Hugo Chavez's strongman style is in large part a response to this legacy.

~snip~
The Clinton State Department is thick with right-wingers left over from the Bush administration who funneled millions in "pro-democracy" funds to elements involved in both the 2002 coup in Venezuela and the one in Honduras.

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President Obama OWES the people who voted him into office the right to have a Democratic government. He should leave the right-wingers the hell out of our national policy. We owe them nothing but a swift kick in the rear for their incredible lowness of character.