Obama's State Dept. reverses itself AGAIN on Honduras

On August 17th, I published a blog entitled "Earth to Obama", in which I wrote:

For a man whose intelligence has been praised as being “off the charts”,
Obama appears to be absolutely clueless. It is astonishing that the US President
missed a phenomenal opportunity to pressure the despotic regime in Iran, then
leapt blindly into Honduran politics, had to reverse himself, and has yet to
formulate any stated policy at all regarding Hugo Chavez, who is notorious for
his nefarious interference into the affairs of weaker nations throughout the
hemisphere...Under President Obama, American foreign policy is a rudderless ship, perilously adrift amid the bergs.

The point of that article was that the Obama foreign policy seems to drift dangerously, illogically, and unpredictably. While Obama had first stated that the removal of Zelaya had been an "illegal coup", they then appeared to rethink that decision, and in an article published in McClatchy, the Obama administration wrote a letter to Republican Senator Lugar, which was reported to mark a change in the policy. According to McClatchy, "the Obama administration has backed away from its call to restore ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya to power and instead put the onus on him for taking "provocative actions" that polarized his country and led to his overthrow on June 28. "

And now, Reuters reports "U.S. State Department staff have recommended that the ouster of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya be declared a "military coup," a U.S. official said on Thursday, a step that could cut off as much as $150 million in U.S. funding to the impoverished Central American nation...The official, who spoke on condition he not be named, said State Department staff had made such a recommendation to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who has yet to make a decision on the matter although one was likely soon."

What in the name of God is going on in this Obama administration?

“Earth to Obama…”

Venezuelan caudillo Hugo Chavez criticized President Obama recently, and although it pains me personally to ever agree with Chavez, I have to admit he is right: “"President Obama is lost in the Andromeda Nebula, he has lost his bearings; he doesn't get it."

While Chavez’s comment could be applied generally to nearly every Obama policy, from a public option in his Health Care reform to his attempt to have citizens report each other via the infamous White House website, he was specifically criticizing Obama's position on the democratic crisis in Honduras.

Even Bill Maher has piled on, stating that “Obama needs to get a little George Bush in him, personality-wise.” Maher seemed to think that Obama was just being “too nice”, and needs to get tough in order to get his policies through. The silly thing about this is that, while Bush managed to get his way even during the last two years of his presidency when he had a Democrat-controlled House and Senate, Obama can’t seem to get anything right despite the fact that his own party controls both houses and the presidency.

Could it be that executive experience does trump "coummunity organizing"?

The reason has nothing to do with Obama being “too bi-partisan”. No, it’s because he truly has lost his bearings, if he ever had any to start with.

The Honduran and Iranian cases prove the point.

When the presidential elections in Iran were allegedly stolen by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s government, resulting in massive protests and extremely violent oppression of protestors, Obama wobbled on his feet indecisively. By the time Obama finally got his bearings and was convinced that a grave injustice was being perpetrated, it was too late. He looked like good-guy Bob Barber from the 1985 satirical film “Rustler’s Rhapsody”, bellying up to the tough-guy bar to order a warm-milk—except that Obama wasn’t even tough enough to threaten to shoot the guns out of the bad-guys’ hands.

Shortly after, when Honduran President Manuel Zelaya (who just happens to be one of Chavez’s great buddies) was ousted by the Honduran Supreme Court, congress and the attorney general for violating the constitution, the Obama administration didn’t hesitate to step knee deep in caca, by immediately condemning “the coup”.

This only helped the Latin American leaders who were eager to restore the leftist Zelaya, and put Obama squarely within the ranks of such esteemed leaders as Raul Castro, Hugo Chavez, Evo Morales, and Daniel Ortega. As usual, the Democrats proved that they were so busy looking like “good guys”, they had lost all moral compass.

A few weeks later, we get a new headline: “US drops call to restore ousted Honduran leader”. Not only have they stopped calling for his return, they “instead put the onus on him for taking ‘provocative actions’ that polarized his country and led to his overthrow on June 28.”

My experience with lobbying Washington regarding the dangerous influences of Hugo Chavez’s regime convinced me that the Republicans were far more pragmatic about the new crop of leftist leaders in Latin America led by Hugo Chavez than were the Democrats. All it took to pull the proverbial wool over the Dem’s heads was for a Latin president to claim that he was determined to help the poor and promote “social justice”. Our Democrat “leaders” gobbled up that populist swill without hesitation, and it was nearly impossible to get them to see past the socialist window-dressing.

The Republicans, meanwhile, were quick to notice those same leader’s attempts to overthrow their nations’ constitutions, create civilian paramilitary organizations, undermine elections, bribe the poor with promises of free money, free land, increased minimum wages, etc. It was as if the Republicans still remembered the horrific events in Panama under Noriega, while the Democrats had somehow forgotten them.

In keeping with this historical context, Republican Senator Richard Lugar R-Ind. and other Republicans protested the Obama position by threatening to hold up nomination of a number of key positions (Arturo Valenzuela for Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere affairs and other ambassador positions). Facing tough challenges, and probably more informed about the details of the events, the Obama administration has changed its position 180º. They wrote a letter to Lugar that detailed the change in policy, and “also rejected calls by some of Zelaya's backers to impose harsh economic sanctions against Honduras… While condemning the coup, the letter pointedly failed to call for Zelaya's return.”

More importantly, the Obama administration has finally verbalized a criticism of President Zelaya’s actions: “We also recognize that President Zelaya's insistence on undertaking provocative actions contributed to the polarization of Honduran society and led to a confrontation that unleashed the events that led to his removal.”

How could Obama take any other position? Since his removal, Zelaya has threatened the interim government with violence, and Chavez threatened to take military action in Honduras, either through direct military conflict or by arming an insurrection. Zelaya supporters shut down the schools and a number of hospitals in protests that turned violent, forcing the Honduran police to seize school after 2nd day of violence. These protestors attacked local businesses such as Popeye’s Chicken, Dunkin Donuts, Burger King, and other local shops, smashing windows and even throwing firebombs at the offices of a local news station. All of these actions directly mirror the actions of Hugo Chavez’s “Bolivarian Circles”, and considering his threats, should generate suspicion that perhaps Chavez himself is helping to organize and fund the violence.

For a man whose intelligence has been praised as being “off the charts”, Obama appears to be absolutely clueless. It is astonishing that the US President missed a phenomenal opportunity to pressure the despotic regime in Iran, then leapt blindly into Honduran politics, had to reverse himself, and has yet to formulate any stated policy at all regarding Hugo Chavez, who is notorious for his nefarious interference into the affairs of weaker nations throughout the hemisphere.

Under President Obama, American foreign policy is a rudderless ship, perilously adrift amid the bergs.

Deposing a President is not the same as a "coup"

I would like to take just a moment to reflect upon the events in Honduras, and the media’s obtuse use of the term “coup” (as in: “coup d’etat”) to describe it.

I have read commentators describe the ouster of President Zelaya as an “illegal coup”. President Obama (who in the first six months of his Presidency has shown an uncanny knack for being on the wrong side of History) has also stated that the “coup” was unconstitutional and illegal. They argue that President Zelaya should have been “impeached” rather than overthrown in a “coup”, a statement that is silly on multiple levels (I’ll explain shortly). Even commentators who support the Honduran government’s actions—some of whom I respect greatly, such as Charles Krauthammer—also refer to the events as a “coup”.

Even though I am not a legal scholar, I am confident that a cursory examination of the terminology and events will reveal that the term “coup” has been bandied about irresponsibly. “Irresponsibly”, I say, because it erroneously lends credence to the notion that the President was unjustly removed from office and should be returned to power by the organizations of the international community.

The term “coup d’etat”, or “coup” for short, “is the sudden, unconstitutional deposition of a legitimate government, by a small group of the State Establishment — usually the military — to replace the deposed government with another, either civil or military.”

Note that the removal of the official is “sudden” and “unconstitutional”.

Without getting into the minutia of the events, please recall that former President Zelaya violated the Honduran constitution by unilaterally calling for a referendum that would ask the people if the constitution should be re-written in order to give the President multiple terms (currently they are limited to one four-year term, in order to prevent future dictatorships). The constitution makes this very action illegal and the official who requests it loses his mandate immediately. Only the congress has this authority, and refused to do what Zelaya asked, so he did it unilaterally. He violated a number of other laws as well when he called for an insurrection, illegally fired his chief of staff who refused to obey the illegal orders he’d been given, raided the military compound where the ballots were stored in order to go forward with the referendum in spite of the orders to desist by the Supreme Court. The Congress, Supreme Court, and Federal Attorney General all agreed that Zelaya had violated the constitution and the constitution stated the outcome: loss of his authority.

The subsequent action to depose the President was therefore neither “sudden”, nor “unconstitutional”. It was deliberative, involving multiple branches of government, and spelled out in the nation's Magna Carta.

There are a number of terms that would be preferable, and more accurate, to employ in this instance. The President was “deposed”, “unseated”, “overthrown”, or even “dethroned” (if you will allow that he was acting like a tyrannical monarch, rather than a President).

I have also noted criticism that Zelaya should have been “impeached”. The very term “impeach” means “to accuse of a crime, especially to accuse a person who works for the government of a crime against the State.” Clearly, when the opposition appealed to the courts regarding the illegality of the President’s actions, they did “impeach” the President. And the court did what courts do: it judged the merits of the accusation and decided against the President. This was not an issue where there could be a prolonged trial by jury: by the time this occurred, the constitutional order would have been in disarray, and the national security already would have been adversely affected. What's more, the critics presume that the "impeachment process" in Honduras should look exactly like the one that we have in the USA. Without having read their constitution, they (and I include Mr. Obama in this) have decided that if the process doesn't look like ours, it must not have been legal.

My point is that the events in Honduras did not constitute a “coup”, and that term is being detrimentally applied. It would be preferable to use the term “removal” or “deposition” instead. Every time anyone—including those of us who support the removal of Zelaya—use “coup” to describe the legal and just sacking of the President, it simply adds credence to the arguments of people like Chavez and Castro—and the newest member of the gang of leftist nuts—Barack Hussein Obama.

***UPDATE***
I have learned new information which reaffirms my conviction that it was NOT a coup, and the Obama administration's position is wrong.
1) The interim president, Roberto Micheletti, is a member of Zelaya's Liberal Party. So control of the government was NOT transferred to an opposition party, nor maintained by the military.
2) The reason the VP was not put in that position was that he had resigned as VP in order to run for President next November. Micheletti was the next one in line per constitutional order of power.
3) The Liberal Party--Zelaya's and Micheletti's party--controlled and still controls the majority of the Parliament. No transfer of power or restructuring occured there.
4) the Parliament voted and found that Micheletti is the legitimate President.

If you speak Spanish you can read about it HERE.

Obama, let Honduras sort out its own problems

President Obama has yet again erred in his policies; this time however, his ignorance of international events threatens to impose a possible dictatorship on Honduras.

On June 30th, President Obama declared “that the United States still considers Manuel Zelaya to be the president of Honduras and assailed the coup that forced him into exile as ‘not legal’.”
"It would be a terrible precedent if we start moving backwards into the era in which we are seeing military coups as a means of political transition rather than democratic elections," Obama continued. "The region has made enormous progress over the last 20 years in establishing democratic traditions in Central America and Latin America. We don't want to go back to a dark past."

This sounds very good, but it appears that Obama, who hesitated for over a week to make any comments following the electoral crisis in Iran, has decided to impetuously plunge into Honduran internal affairs without analyzing the situation first. I believe that his rash involvement is a way of differentiating himself from President Bush who, after the 2002 overthrow of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, remained conspicuously silent and was accused of “winking his approval” to the Venezuelan military that overthrew Chavez.

Recent Latin American history is rich with coups. The 2002 coup in Venezuela was a direct result of Chavez’s abuse of power over weeks leading up to a massive protest march on April 11th. Chavez declared that he would organize a “counter march” that he would address at the Presidential Palace. When the opposition asked for permission to march to the palace, Chavez declared that only his supporters had a right to go there. The unarmed masses deviated from the original course and headed toward the Palace. At that moment, Chavez ordered a “cadena” (a mandatory broadcast of his discourse on all radio and television channels), effectively blocking coverage of the march. He also ordered his generals to declare “Plan Avila”, a military defense of the Palace designed to protect the President from an armed attack. The generals explained that the unarmed masses would be slaughtered, that the march was legal and peaceful, and that it would be illegal to enact Plan Avila. Chavez reiterated the order, which was refused. So Chavez then went on television calling on his supporters to “defend the Revolution with blood, if necessary”, an invocation of violence that again violated Venezuelan law. When his supporters began firing into the unarmed crowd (killing 20), the generals rebelled and arrested Chavez. Chavez eventually was freed and was returned to power by other generals supportive of his revolution. The international community at the time ignored Chavez’s crimes and his invocation of violence upon unarmed citizens.

In 2005, Ecuadorian President Lucio Gutierrez had managed to isolate himself from his own party and grew increasingly abusive of his powers. He had initially run as a leftist, but slowly began to moderate and ally himself with the United States. He responded violently to the civil unrest, increasing popular dissent. The socialists within the National Assembly, who were friendly to Chavez’s Bolivarian Revolution, declared that Gutierrez should be stripped of the presidency for “abandonment of his post”. The military declared that they did not support Gutierrez, who was forced to flee the country. The international community was remarkably silent about these events. No one questioned the legality of the process, even when Gutierrez later complained to the OAS and UN that he was the victim of an illegal coup.

So now we must look into the events leading up to the Honduran coup.

Zelaya, who is another socialist ally of Hugo Chavez, was limited by the Honduran constitution to just one term, chose to follow the example of Chavez, who changed the constitution once to allow himself two terms, and now wants to modify it to give himself possibility of “indefinite reelection.” Zelaya wanted to form a “constituyente”, an assembly to rewrite the constitution. The Honduran Constitution allows for modification by constituyente, but Zelaya didn’t have the supported needed to do it the legal way. So instead, he decided he would do it himself, via popular referendum, and ordered ballots made by Chavez’s government.

The Honduran Supreme Court declared the process a violation of the constitution and therefore illegal. Zelaya mocked the court, and publicly called for insurrection, to which a mob of his supporters responded.

Zelaya then ordered his friend and Military Chief, Romeo Vásquez Velásquez, to help him proceed with the referendum. But the Supreme Court had been very specific: the planned referendum was illegal, and anyone who continued with it violated the law. Vásquez Velásquez was later quoted as saying: “Friendship ends where duty begins…Sadly, we could not disobey the order of the court.” He refused the order.

Infuriated by Vásquez Velásquez’s refusal to obey his (illegal) order, Zelaya relieved him of duty.

The Attorney General, Luis Rubí, declared that firing Vásquez Velásquez was also illegal. “You cannot fire an officer for refusing to obey an illegal order. No one can be punished for obeying the law…The President cannot be above the law, and his actions expose him to be subject to what the law demands.”

The Supreme Court ordered that Vásquez Velásquez be reinstated. Zelaya refused. And three more military generals, of various branches of service, resigned in protest.

Attorney General Rubí declared on Channel 5 television: “No one can capriciously destabilize the country. He cannot just do what he wants. We won’t permit (Zelaya) to continue undermining Democracy.”

But Zelaya miscalculated the depth of his support, and declared that he would personally carry on with the referendum. The Supreme Court declaration was clear: to do so was illegal and a violation of the constitution. The military assessed the situation and decided that Zelaya had to be removed from his position.

How Zelaya ended up leaving the country is still unclear. The military say he resigned, Zelaya denies this. (The exact same thing happened with Chavez; the military said he resigned under pressure, Chavez said he never signed anything.)

The Supreme Court issued a formal statement on June 29th, explaining that the action by the Honduran military was in accordance with Honduran law and was in defense of the constitution.
The Spanish legal-ease is a fairly difficult to translate to English, but in essence it says: “The Supreme Court issued an order to the Armed Forces last Friday, June 26, so that, because of the disobedience of the Executive Branch, the military take control of all of the poll {my note: or “referendum”} materials that would be used for that activity which had been declared illegal previously. This decision gave the Armed Forces the authorization so that, with the intervention of the attorneys of the Public Ministry, they proceed to prevent the illegal poll promoted by the Executive Power, who never responded to the orders emanated by the Constitution and Law.

The Judicial Power considers that their actions were realized within the legal margins. The Court also believes that the Armed Forces, as defenders of the Constitution, have acted in defense of the Will of Law, and forced those who previously publicly disobeyed the law and Constitution to submit to the law.”

Now, whether or not the Honduran Supreme Court interpreted the Honduran Constitution correctly should and will be a subject of intense study and heated debate—within Honduras. But it is astonishing that President Obama, in a matter of a couple of days, somehow has already and unilaterally determined that the steps taken were “illegal”. What’s more, despite the fact that just last week Obama repeatedly declared that the United States would not meddle in the internal affairs of Iran, he suddenly decided that the United States is perfectly capable of interfering in the internal affairs of Honduras.

Obama is wrong to rush in and support Zelaya, who had clearly, publicly and repeatedly violated Honduran laws and disobeyed orders by the Supreme Court to rectify his actions. Zelaya's beligerence, his calls to his supporters to form an insurrection, threatened the peace and stability of the nation. And if the military restore order, and if the interrim President Michelleti keeps his promise to allow elections to go forward in seven months, as scheduled, then Honduras will have resolved its own problems without outside interference.

Obama should instead focus his attention on the threats by Hugo Chavez to invade the country or support an armed insurrection there.