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Obama's Deafening Silence on Honduras
Seven weeks after the coup in Honduras, the US is hindering efforts to restore President Manuel Zelaya to power
The strategy of the coup regime is obviously to run out the clock on President Manuel Zelaya's remaining months in office. A presidential election, in which Zelaya is not eligible to run because of Honduras' one-term limit, is scheduled for 29 November.
In response to that strategy, the Union of South American Nations (Unasur) issued a declaration on 10 August that it would not recognise any government elected under the coup regime. It is worth noting that this was a unanimous decision. Even close US allies Colombia and Peru approved the declaration.
Then on 17 August, President Lula da Silva of Brazil, who has grown increasingly impatient with the delaying tactics, issued a joint statement with President Felipe Calderon of Mexico saying the same thing. Calderon is a rightwing president and was one of President George Bush's few allies in the region.
The next step would be for the Organisation of American States, where all countries in the hemisphere except Cuba are represented, to take this position. But it operates mainly by consensus, and the US is reportedly blocking that move. Of course, Washington can't be seen to be the sole opposition, so it has recruited some rightwing governments, according to sources involved in the OAS discussions: Canada and Panama, along with a couple of other small country governments that can be bribed or bullied into joining Washington's rapidly shrinking regional coalition of the willing.
The millions of Americans who gave their votes, contributions or energy to Barack Obama's presidential campaign in the hope that he would change US foreign policy probably didn't expect to see this administration fishing around for rightwing allies to help block Latin America from trying to reverse a military coup. But that appears to be the reality.
In fact, the US state department has still not even determined that a military coup has taken place. It's not clear what else you would call it when the military storms the home of the elected president and forces him at gunpoint, in his pajamas, to board a plane out of the country.
A few days ago, an official of the Zelaya government told the press that this plane actually stopped at the Palmerola airbase in Honduras, home to 600 US troops, on its way out of the country. According to the Associated Press, the official offered this as evidence that the US was involved in the coup. US officials declined immediate comment, but later followed up with a statement that the US "had no knowledge or part in the decisions made for the plane to land, refuel and take off."
This does not seem to be a credible story. To believe this denial, we would have to believe that the US military has such complete confidence in Honduran security that it allows them to monitor and control the airspace over this base where 600 US troops are stationed, as well as takeoffs and landings – without any involvement of US personnel. A tough swallow, especially given the post-9/11 concerns about terrorist attacks against US military personnel stationed abroad.
The one thing we can be pretty sure of is that no major US media outlet will look further into this matter. The general attitude of the press toward US involvement in military coups is: "We don't want to hear about it – or talk about it." This was true of the coup that overthrew Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez in 2002, where there US state department acknowledged that the US government paid people and organisations involved in the coup, and CIA documents showing advance knowledge of the coup combined with White House lying about the coup provided substantial evidence of US involvement.
But no major US newspaper ever gave any credence to that possibility. US involvement in the overthrow of Haiti's democratically elected president, Jean Bertrand Aristide – in both 1991 and a second time in 2004 – has also been almost completely ignored, despite some compelling evidence.
Meanwhile, on Wednesday, Amnesty International issued a report documenting widespread police beatings and brutality against peaceful demonstrations, mass arbitrary arrests and other human rights abuses under the dictatorship. The Obama administration has remained silent about these abuses – as well as the killings of activists and press censorship and intimidation. To date, no major media outlet has bothered to pursue them for an on-the-record comment.
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38 Comments so far
Show AllGood article and a reminder that the healthcare financing uproar is obscuring Obama's other failures.
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Good point.
Yes an excellent point. For any healthcare system other then a capitalist medicine would surely reduce cost, and yet all Obama talks about is "cost... cost... cost..."
Yet another striking example of the syndrome of journalistic ignoring of "inconvenient truths" that were featured in yesterday's article by Glenn Greenwald on press complicity in denying the 2004 intrusion of Bush administration politics on Homeland Security's color coded terrorist alerts. Since it is no longer the "bad" Bush but the "good" Obama whose atrocities are the subject of those truths, look to see the syndrome continued. And of course don't look for our Obama-syncophantic Congress to raise any inconvenient complaints about their leader's inactivity---or subrosa hyperactivity---on the Honduran coup. No resolutions comparable to those condemning Syrian "accountability" for supporting the Iraq insurgency, nor expressions of "support" for protesters as in those protesting Iran's election will be forthcoming. With Obama in office and Congress under his "wing," we won't know, until after he leaves office in 2017 and former administration officials publish their "tell all" books, very much of the truth about our country's shameful record in this Honduran affair.
The (lack of) press coverage on the Honduras coup has been downright scary.
This is even more of an illustration of the Manufacturing Consent thesis than health care.
The news was first distorted, then filtered and now it's entirely omitted.
The Obama administration has not lifted a finger to make life difficult for the coup regime and seems to be doing its all to stonewall.
Yet notice that at about the same time media was nonstop about the "rigged" election in Iran and it's aftermath. Then an actual coup occurs in our backyard and we hear barely anything.
Figure it out - the media is in the neo-cons pocket. Just look at the silly things that gets all the air time:
* Howard Dean's fist in the air after the Iowa primary 2004
* John Kerry getting 'swift boated' bullshit
* Sarah Palin's 'death panel'
* Obama's birth certificate
And that's just what I can think of right off after a few beers.
Why does all this crap get 24/7 mention?
Continue this game at home. Think of things that seemed important that get hushed up real soon. But, like I said - I've been drinking, so I won't. But I'm sure you'll see a pattern emerge.
The gringo government wants an excuse to invade Iran.
They have already invaded Honduras, so could not possibly give a shit who gets disappeared or killed there.
Actually most concerned I would say. For Honduras is to be the Israel of the Americas, complete with nuclear weapons and an absolute top-down dictatorship is needed to make it work.
Nuclear weapons within reach of some of the gringos' most hated leftists on the planet?
I don't think so.
The US is the Israel of the Americas.
That, my friend, is the double truth! I agree with both of native tongues' posts, but this is a response to his/her first post.
The Honduran coup will get little press.
But I am anxiously awaiting the next Anna Nicole special investigation.
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Or some more about a certain pop music artist, may he RIP.
What Honduras coup? Wasn't there kind of a peaceful change in government; like Haiti? Anyway, as Barbara Bush might say, weren't they poor anyway?
"Not a word that he uttered will see print. You have forgotten the editors. They draw their salaries for the policy they maintain. Their policy is to print nothing that is a vital menace to the established. The press of the United States? It is a parasitic growth that battens on the capitalist class. Its function is to serve the established by moulding public opinion, and right well it serves it.”
From IRON HEEL by Jack London.
Hoa binh
We should stay out of this. Its time to take care of business at home.
That would result in our 600 troops and war materals being removed from Honduras and our 200 million a year military aid being spent on healthcare reform.
Sounds good to me.
Works for me. But why stop there. Troops in Germany and Japan? For what?
The terms "rape" and "pillage" come to mind--especially the first one.
I remember the most highly decorated Marine General in US history
General Smedley Butler - 1933 speeches revealing the "true nature of our foreign policy".......
saying "I participated in the RAPE and PILLAGE of a dozen South American countries".......among other "confessions".......
fast forwarded to former CIA John Perkins (book writer "Confessions of a CIA Economic Hitman")
saying:
among many things:
".......we americans are only living our lifestyles because it is merely part of a very, very vicious system of exploitation that Dehumanizes and Enslaves People.....Everywhere".....
"...our foreign policy is designed to make weaker nations permanently Subjugated to our will and our Chamber of Commerce..
"...we are an empire....and we have gotten away with building this empire through torture, manipulation, sanctions, assassinations, fomenting instabilities in uncooperative nations, installing and coddling rightwing dictators, blackmail, covert and overt wars...and plain thievery...i was part of that project of Empire"......
well now we know that "change you can believe in" is restricted to government sponsored coups over democratically elected governments. who knew.
our judas goat obama was supposed to be leading the new and improved america with a fresh retake on foreign policy and meddling in the affairs of other nations.
forget that: afghanistan, pakistan, continuing in iraq, now the full course press beginning - yet again - in south america. the corporations must be happy to finally get back to their business of raping and robbing this continent, which has been our modus operandi for what three hundred years.
haven't we killed enough latinos? haven't we killed enough arabs? Lord, when in enough enough.
let's not forget that under the reagan admin negroponte was running cia assassination teams in honduras. finally they threw us out, to a degree, and tried to set up a new more responsive government - a government to represent the people and we overthrow that government.
the corporations prefer powerless peasants and corrupt stooges to democracy and have since day one. shout out to karzai, spend your shekels wisely mr karzai...
now that the sheeple here at home have lost their jobs, their healthcare and in many cases their homes we are beginning to understand how it feels to be run over by corporations.
this article bemoans the lack of response from obama - i bemoan the lack of response from the people of this country. when are we going to stand up for democracies? when are we going to do the right thing and shut these mad men would be rulers of the world down?
norman conquest posted this link yesterday n the battered president string and i think it is a good read on this dud obama - as webster tarpley said a while ago - obama needs to be attacked by the left and by progressives - anyway here it is and i highly recommend it:
Take a look at this article by David Michael Green on Counterpunch:
http://www.counterpunch.org/green08192009.html
What? In the year 2020 are we still going to be plying for Zelaya's return to power?
Troll alert.
Obama is being at least disingenuous in his recent comments concerning Honduras. His 'you can't have it both ways' comment - that is, his criticism of people who normally criticise US intervention in Latin America (who want some US action against the coup plotters) by saying that his new and better strategy of 'non-intervention' is different from traditional US policy of direct or indirect intervention in Latin American politics and therefore more enlightened and democratic.
I agree, we should not intervene in Latin American politics.
But he picks and chooses. We are after all still intervening in Mexican, Bolivian, Pervian, Panamanian, Salvadoran, and Columbian politics under the guise of the 'drug war'.
However, many of these individuals Obama rejects don't want intervention, but are only calling for the Obama administration to comply with US law that requires the US to suspend aid to the government of those who committed the coup until the matter is resolved.
Excellent comment. I hadn't considered the last paragraph.
truly...and each day that it goes unresolved is one more victory for the coup-schemers. and aren't corporate interests, with the aid of their shills like lannie davis INTERVENING pretty much nonstop so as to mine the 'resources' used to keep myopic shareholders & ceos happy and exempt from responsible corporate citizenship both at home and abroad? i, too, was sickened by that 'you can't have it both ways' comment and obama's audacity to actually use the word 'hypocritical', all the while, fumbling to spin the coup as the corporate bullies no doubt conveyed to him he'd better. talk about hegemonic hubris & living beyond our means..... was the momentum of the reagan-thru-dubya years just so extreme as to utterly destroy every moral compass in d.c.?(okay, that's hyperbole, i know.....there ARE people who haven't ingested the koolaid and who aren't under the shock-doc trance, but still...)...as if we don't have enough DOMESTIC disaster on our plate to deal with??? zelaya may have his faults, but good lord!!!....micheletti posing as legit statesman and obama and clinton too beholden to their taskmasters to even raise an eyebrow.... ugh.
It all depends whose ox gets gored. We got thousands of pictures and commentaries on the "freedom demonstrations" in Iran but none or a pitiful few on demonstrations in Honduras.
The Honduran police avers that they had to be tough on the demonstrators because they had set cars on fire. Fair enough; I think that such acts are counterproductive and vile. I seem to remember that numerous cars were on fire in Tehran during the demonstrations there. Indeed, it all depends whose cars are lit.
Exactly - see my comment above (I hope it makes sense).
"I think that such acts are counterproductive and vile."
Pretty strong languge to descrive the burning of inanimate objects. And have the polite, permitted, police-corralled demonstrations gotten us anywhere up here in the US.
Are you aware that the City of Oakland only got serious about arresting the cop who killed Oscar Grant after a few cars got burned? Previous kubaya-style rallys had been ineffective.
"It" seems to depend a lot more on whose government gets overthrown.
Comes now Obama after his election has been funded by the rich, after his military budget has broken all world records, and after his 12 trillion bailout of high finance, and he to act like Hitler in the deceitful way he is destroying all hope of a national healthcare system.
For Hitler and Obama both got into office pretending to be socialists, and then both did the reverse.
Obama, he say nothin' about Honduras, yet he rant and rave all day long about Iran. I s'ppose he love them Honduran thugs.
Yep, he sure do: they are HIS thugs (actually Clinton's thugs).
What did we expect? Obama is the Emperor and CEO of The Empire Inc.
What a contradiction. The US is supposed to reverse a coup it instigated/encouraged in the first place? I thought Obama made it clear when he told OAS that they cannot have it both ways ie blaming the US for intervening in Latin America and yet clamoring to have the US intervene to reverse the Zelaya coup, what capriciousness and disingenuousness . r, Meanwhile we hear them preaching’s in Africa and to Mugabe about democracy and other nonsense. Indeed the devil finds work
It is important to note that Zelaya attempted to change the Honduran constitution which limits the President to one term. The Honduran legislative branch and the Honduran supreme court both ruled against extending the term limit. Zelaya arranged for a new election that included Hugo Chavez shipping ballots to Honduras--guess who would have won when the votes were counted? Zelaya.
These facts were omitted from the article. Why? President Obama's silence in this matter is welcomed.
Been watching Fox again or are you reading O'Grady in Murdoch's newest rag? If the constitution were changed Zelaya would have been long out of office before it was in effect. Where is your bitch about Uribe wanting to change Colombia's constitution so he can have another term. Perhaps what you term "facts" are not really fact at all, but rather a creation of a Washington lobbiest's imagination.
And the govt. death panels will come and euthanize us all, but not before they come for our guns.