I did a post on July 1, 2009 about the situation in Honduras. Then President Zelaya was making his Hugo Chavez-backed move to become President-for-Life and join the Latin American leftist thugocracy headed by Chavez. The Honduran Supreme Court ordered him out and directed the military to escort him out of the country, which it did. Inexplicably, we lined up with Castro, Chavez, and other tinhorns and called it a "coup" demanding that Zelaya be returned to power.
A recent report on developments in Honduras by Senator Demint (R.- SC) shows that most of the country is united behind the interim government and does not want Zelaya back. Demint is mystified at the U.S. position and has tried to get an explanation from the Obama Administration but to no avail.
online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703298004574459762462353766.html
Particularly telling is the fact that the Obama Administration won't release the legal basis for its position supposedly drafted by the State Department's top lawyer, even to a U.S. Senator. A lengthy legal analysis of the Honduran situation has been performed, however, by the Library of Congress and it found that the Honduran government had followed its Constitution in removing Zelaya. The New Republic's (a center/left journal) James Kirchick has reviewed the Library of Congress analysis and made the following observations:
" The events of the past several months reveal a lack of consistency in Obama’s approach to various foreign conflicts. How does this administration justify its recognition of results of elections in Pakistan, Iraq, and other countries mired in constitutional disputes, but now refuse to recognize an election in Honduras, even if it is conducted in a free and fair manner? And why give greater diplomatic dignity to the representatives of Iran--who have no legitimacy whatsoever--and not those of democratic Honduras? Even after blatantly stealing the presidential election, the White House referred to Ahmadinejad as the "the elected leader" of Iran (which White House spokesman Robert Gibbs later had to retract).
In the immediate wake of Honduras’s constitutional crisis, it was understandable that the administration, caught by surprise, might jump the gun in its denunciation of the military action as a "coup." Now, three months later and with legal repudiation from within its own government, U.S. policy has become a mistake in search of a rationale. "
The real question is whether it really was a mistake or an example of a new American policy. If Honduras was an isolated example, I would be more charitable, but it appears to fit into a larger, if still hazy, policy of betraying our friends and rewarding our enemies. The weasel has landed.
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