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Edited on Sat Oct-31-09 04:07 AM by Peace Patriot
Magbana cites these paragraphs (below) from an article by Barry Grey, “US Seeks Deal between Honduran Coup Leaders and Deposed President” of July 2, 2009. I am highlighting the iffiness of Grey's interpretation of anonymous leaks in the New York Times--a newspaper that promoted the WMD lies about Iraq day after day in the leadup to that genocidal war, that withheld information it had on Bush Junta domestic spying for one year "so as not to influence the 2004 election," and regularly publishes extremely distorted--sometimes laughably distorted--so-called 'news' articles about the left in Latin America and especially about Hugo Chavez. So I don't trust the source or its leaker to be up to anything that benefits the poor majority in Latin America or its leftist leaders.
Also, I think there is a danger of not seeing some hidden aspects of this situation--but I will get into that in a moment.
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There is ample evidence that the Obama administration was deeply involved in plans by Zelaya’s opponents within the Honduran ruling elite—sections of business, the military, the political establishment and the Church—to destabilize or topple his government. The New York Times on Tuesday cited an unnamed US official as saying that US Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Thomas Shannon and US Ambassador to Honduras Hugo Llorens spoke to “military officials and opposition leaders” in the days before the coup. He said, “There was talk of how they might remove the president from office, how he could be arrested, on whose authority they could do that.”
Both Shannon and Llorens served under the Bush administration as top advisers on Andean affairs—covering Venezuela, Colombia, Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador. Their stints on the National Security Council and at the State Department coincided with the US-backed coup that briefly toppled Venezuela’s Chávez in 2002.
It appears that the Obama administration was seeking to effect a de facto coup, but without a direct use of the military and under the cover of constitutional legality. That would, it hoped, reverse Washington’s declining influence in Latin America and pave the way for an offensive against Chávez and his left nationalist allies in Nicaragua, Bolivia, Ecuador and other countries aligned with Venezuela in the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas.”
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"Ample evidence" of Obama administration deep involvement in the coup from the beginning? I don't think so. Evidence, suspicions, yes; "ample evidence," no. That's just what we don't have--ample evidence. A leak in the NYT is not evidence. I don't trust those shitfaced liars for one minute. Some heavy breather calls up and says, "Hey, this is Obama's coup. Shannon talked to them! They knew about it."
Right. Just consider this for a moment: Say it's true that Shannon talked to the coup leaders in the days before the coup, and even discussed how they were going to depose him and what they were going to do with him. How do we know he wasn't fact-finding in a situation that was out-of-control?
We don't know. If the above account is true, all we know is that they knew. Does that mean they did it? No. We don't have "ample evidence" of that. And, frankly, this may be why Zelaya himself has never said anything against the Obama administration in this situation and has maintained friendly relations with them. That's evidence to the contrary--that they didn't do it.
Here's the theory I'm considering. This coup was planned before Obama ever took office. It was part of series of coups/destablizations and black ops that started with the treachery of drawing Chavez into hostage negotiations with the FARC guerrillas in Dec 07-Feb 08, simultaneously with Donald Rumsfeld's op-ed in the Washington Post, "The Smart Way to Defeat Tyrants Like Chavez" (12/1/07)--a compelling coincidence, to say the least. In that op-ed, Rumseld urges "swift action" by the US in support of "friends and allies" in Latin America. This pre-war planning series of actions included the US/Colombia bombing/raid on Ecuador a short time later, in March 08 (killing the FARC commander that Chavez had been enticed by Uribe into negotiating with), Colombia's production of the "miracle laptop" (later laptopS) from that incident, supposedly containing evidence that Chavez and Correa were helping the FARC get a "dirty bomb," etc.--and the Bushwhack-supported white separatist coup attempt (secession of the gas/oil rich provinces) in Bolivia in Sept 08. The Bushwhacks also meanwhile reconstituted the US 4th Fleet in the Caribbean to spy on and harass Venezuela's oil coast. Unknown to anyone (except the parties involved), they were also planning seven news US military bases in Colombia.
All of these items were part of a Rumsfeld war plan that was proceeding even after Rumsfeld was ousted because, though the military brass balked at nuking Iran (and that is among the reasons Rumsfeld was ousted), they DO need to find the oil to run their huge war machine, and Venezuela's and Ecuador's oil (adjacent to Colombia) would be easier to seize--say, in the course of fascist insurrections in the oil regions (the Bolivia scenario) than Iran's well-defended oil backed up by nuclear powers China and Russia. The Ecuador incident very nearly started a war between the US/Colombia and Ecuador/Venezuela, but, perhaps more importantly, it put an end to the hostage negotiations and all talk of peace in Colombia's 40+ year civil war. The FARC and the fake "war on drugs" are extremely important to getting these war assets in place, at the cost of multi-billions of US taxpayer dollars.
"Preventing communism from Venezuela reaching the United States," as one Honduran coup general put it--that is, stopping the leftist democracy movement that had won elections in Nicaragua, Guatemala and El Salvador--and securing the US military base in Honduras, were next on the war planning list (for placing and securing war assets around Venezuela's oil coast). When Zelaya started promoting serious reform (Bushwhacks still in power), the coup planning began. John Negroponte visited Honduras before the coup to feel out President Zelaya on the US base, probably on the Pentagon's behalf (Ecuador was just evicting the US military from Ecuador), and found out that Zelaya wanted to convert the US base to a commercial airport. That sealed the coup plan, from the Pentagon's point of view.
Into this on-going war planning comes Barack Obama, the new president of the United States--probably truly elected but also elected by permission of Diebold and brethren, and after making some deals with the "powers that be." After an initial PR skirmish with Chavez in the very week of his inauguration (an incident that I am still suspicious of, re Obama's advisers that week), Obama eventually articulates a policy of peace, respect and cooperation in Latin America, and shakes hands with Chavez at a Latin American meeting in March. Personally, I think Obama is sincere in that policy (a guess), but he is quite hampered by the deals he made--among them, with Clinton (including restoring Bill's neoliberal corporatism in Latin America). His first priorities were the Financial 9/11 he was handed, and two disastrous wars (and all the war profiteers sucking off of them). He was not paying attention to Latin America, where Rumsfeld's war plan had taken on a life of its own. And in June 2009, when the Honduran coup occurred, he was NOT in full control of the Pentagon, the CIA, or the State Department. Latin America was still riddled with Bushwhack diplomatic appointees. The Pentagon was still planning Oil War II. And the CIA was pulling shit like the absurd "suitcase full of money" caper out of Miami (to try to sully and demean Chavez, and also Fernandez in Argentina), and doctoring laptops for Uribe, to accuse Chavez and Correa (two of the most peaceful leaders on the face of this earth) of war crimes!
I don't know that Obama is yet in full control of our government, or will ever be. But what may have been occurring in the Honduran situation is increasing Obama control--from an out of control situation, set up by the Bushwhacks as part of a war plan, in cahoots with fascist operatives like Jim DeMint, John McCain and James Baker, and utterly sabotaging Obama's stated policy of peace, respect and cooperation--to more and more accord with Brazil's Lula da Silva (adamant against the coup from the beginning), the OAS, virtually the entirety of Latin America, the EU and all others opposed to the coup. In the effort of Obama to gain control of the situation (fight off DeMint in Congress, and all the collusive corpo-fascist players here), there has been some treachery--whether by Clinton, or Shannon, or war planners at the Pentagon--people who should have been implementing Obama policy and weren't--I don't know. I don't have a full sense of this yet--where the problems were coming from. There is this Bushwhack ambassador to Honduras, who moved, just before the coup, to the "Southern Command" as an advisor. Just read about him. Can't recall his name. Possibly he did the initial set-up of the coup, and is tight with the Pentagon war planners (including those involved in securing the US base in Honduras).
The many rumors about Colombian death squads in Honduras also make me think that they may have been intending to assassinate Zelay, not just depose him--and blame it on anonymous parties (who would slip back into obscurity in Colombia). It's possible that what Shannon was doing, on the phone to the coupsters, just before the coup, was saving Zelaya's life--not colluding on the coup. (Or possibly doing so, not on his own volition, but on Obama's--loyalty that may account for Obama appointing him as ambassador to Brazil (very important, corporate-deal-wise)**, and may also account for the genuine smile that Zelaya is giving Shannon in photos of today. I don't see any suspicion of Shannon in Zelaya's look.)
And maybe I'm all wrong. My problem is that I'm not sure. I see a lot of...oh, black holes...in our Byzantine, secretive government that are not easy to penetrate. The overriding reality is that our government is run by global corporate predators and war profiteers. But within that reality are a lot of human beings, with mixed motives, with different loyalties, with varying degrees of bad and good. It's easy to dismiss the whole thing as a cauldron of corruption. But I don't think that results in good strategy toward better democracy and reform--and a peaceful world, and social justice. It's important to understand all that we are able to understand, about what our government is doing and what it might do, even as fogs of disinformation are washed over us, by arrogant, lying bastards like the NYT. Was their little leak an act of sabotage? What was the source? Why did they publish it? To inform the public? To do their job? I don't think so. And to pin this coup on Obama, on the basis on that "evidence" (an anonymous leaker) combined with Obama's seeming ambivalence or inattention, is too much of a stretch for me. I think his faults in this situation could also be explained by Bushwhack treachery.
I'm not saying that anybody should "trust Obama," most especially not the people of Honduras and Latin America. He is the president of a lethal war machine, and one that thinks nothing of slaughtering a million people to get their oil. But we do need to understand him and his motives, and his deals, and the complexity of his situation, and what he does or what he might do--as well as understanding and anticipating all the powers around him. The Bush Junta was simple by comparison--evil incarnate, to be opposed at every turn. But with Obama you have the possibility--as to Honduras, for instance--that he was set up by the Bushwhacks, to destroy his policy of peace and further their plans for war, and the NYT played right along with it.
Is it not a possibility that Obama did not declare this a military coup because that would have triggered the need for Congressional approval, and Jim DeMint (and the NYT et al) were laying in wait for him--to hand him his ass on his very first Latin American crisis?
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**(Edit: Shannon is the former Ass't Sec of State for the Western Hemisphere, under the Bush Junta. In my initial post, I said Obama was appointing him to that position. My mistake. Obama is appointing him as ambassador to Brazil--but that is also a very important position.)
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