By Grant Martin, Kansas City Star Midwest Voices Columnist, 2009
Suffice it to say that I was not too surprised that Honduras didn't get as many blog postings as Michael Jackson or Governor Sanford. I was, however, surprised it didn't even get one!
Just in case you've turned your TV News off because you were tired of MJ stories- Honduras' president supposedly wanted to change the Constitution and serve for more years than allowed, the Supreme Court and Congress ruled that as illegal, he tried to hold a referendum, the Army refused, he fired the Army chief, the Supreme Court told him to reinstate the chief, he refused and had some group raid the warehouse that stored the referendum ballots, and so the Supreme Court ordered the military to arrest him and send him packing.
This seems like a Constitutional crisis to many. Tough to pick a good guy/bad guy. With his popularity at 30% maybe the Congress should have let him have his referendum- and then impeached him at the same time.
Instead, responding with Army troops- although making sense in many countries in that area of the world (Army is more trusted than other organizations), it sounded a lot like the embarrasing past. Leaders from many countries including Venezuela's Chavez (interestingly, since he himself once thought military action against his own country was justified) declared the act a coup and declared it unnacceptable (wonder if it would have been so unnacceptable if it would have been a conservative attempting to change the constitution...)
Regardless, the U.S. finds itself in a tough situation. On the one hand, trying to make nice with Venezuela and the rest of Latin America means we can't be seen as supporting the so-called coup (is it a coup if the Supreme Court and Congress order it?). On the other hand, we have to be careful of seeming to object to a Supreme Court and Congress attempting to defend their constitution.
In the past, attempting to deal rationally with some actors in this area of the world has bitten us. We seem to think that all people act reasonably as perceived from our viewpoint, and are suprised when we get stabbed in the back. If the motivations of some leaders in Latin America are just to stay in power- their actions will not be consistent and will cause us to be embarraseed at best, ineffective at worst.
Here's to hoping this crisis rights itself quickly without forcing us to take some potentially bad-in-the-long-term actions.
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Great points, Uncle R
Great points- there are a growing number in this country who recognize we can't offer any better solutions to problems overseas than the locals can- if for no other reason than we don't understand the dynamics involved.
I hope our hubris has been taken down a notch or two recently.
Thanks for the education- and I agree: many don't care- but I would say that we should. It wasn't too long ago that we were doing something similar in Honduras to what we did awhile back in Afghanistan... And we still have Soto Cano there.
You know what I can't help but to find amusing?
On a post which starts out by pointing out that the situation here has been subsumed by Michael Jackson and Governor Sanford, by the third comment left, the topic had veered completely away from Honduras and on to Iran (albeit with a nod to Honduras in the post immediately before this.) Actually, that's not even fair, it changed to vilifying or deifying the US reaction to Iran.
I use a program which returns to me every English language news story which contains the word "Honduras", and even until Saturday, when everyone here knew something major was going to happen on Sunday (Though I suspect few suspected the scope.) Only about half the stories which came to me were actually related to the politics in Honduras, the other half were either related to Football (Ahem, Soccer), or some local rag recognising a local person for Missionary work.
So here's what I propose, since it is eminently clear that the English speaking world doesn't care about Honduras, Just leave us alone. We can sort this out by ourselves, and I suspect do a much better job of it, at that.
Oh, and for the record, The Congress actually couldn't "let him have his referendum- and then impeached him at the same time.", for two reasons. First, while Mel will swear up and down that he never meant to remove his term limit (Which is, in my opinion a complete lie, but one I suspect can't be proven.), by the constitution, the only people who are to produce or procure election materials (Ballots etc) is the Electoral Tribunal, a task Mel took upon himself (since they refused, it being an illegal vote and all.), and according to the constitution, any person (a member of the government or otherwise), has a duty to "collaborate to restore order" when someone violates the constitution. The second reason is actually the much bigger problem, namely that there is no codified method for the impeachment of a President. If there were, this whole thing would have gone much more smoothly. Not that Chavez and his cronies wouldn't have still kicked up a fuss, but that then the media would be denied the attention grabbing, and in my opinion incorrect, phrase "Military Coup".
That's just my...oh, 34 cents.
Another View on Honduras...
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NTBmMTUxMTk5NmY0MGVhYzhlNTk1MGIwODBlODI2YTg=
ah
no respect for reality or truth, guys?
Hillary
I wonder how long she is going to put up with the big 0, the messiah? Watching Iran kill its people over their protesting and having the big 0 do nothing must have galled her.
Now, the big 0 quickly criticizes the removal of a leftist who views himself as I guess a minnture Chavez.
Keep the faith Hillary, less the 17 months until sanity returns....
Yes, Interface - he finally did
but he waited too long.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jul/01/clinton-urged-obama-to-talk-tougher-on-iran/
curiously misguided criticism
Obama roundly and unambiguously condemned the violence and electoral irregularities in Iran. I don't understand what the right-wingers would have him do, particularly given our own troubled history with the country. Any vocal support we might give the opposition candidate (who is no fan of the U.S. either) simply strengthens the "U.S. is the Great Satan" crowd over there.
Your criticism seems curiously misguided, chazzy.
Curiously misguided leadership?
The Obama chose initially to sit on the sidelines - as the people of Iran cried out for help - preferring to ambivalently see which guy wins. A true leader, however, would know that it’s not the leaders who matter, but the people caught in the middle.
Curiously, The Obama’s recent response to the Honduran mess is even more bizarre. Immediately after the coup – Obama raced to condemn it.
So our President develops a spine over an abducted politician in pajamas – but not about widespread bloodshed of innocent folks in Iran? Where the heck are his priorities, or his sense of proportion?