U.S. calls Honduran coup a coup, cuts aid, might not recognize November election results

[Henrichek]

@BrainGlutton

Don’t they know Marx was a Jew?

Trotsky too.

[Qin_Shi_Huangdi]

@GIGObuster

I mentioned before that in reality when repression comes into Latin American nations it is the catholic upbringing and prejudice among the extreme right and left that comes up when unrest happens.

Otherwise it would be tough to explain why Jews also got it bad under right wing dictatorships:

Argentina's Dirty War excerpted from the book State Terrorism and the United States From Counterinsurgency to the War on Terrorism by Frederick H. Gareau

More recently in Colombia I noticed many Jews left when the civil war got worse. It seems that the military and paramilitary forces could not guarantee their safety, but I have seen reports that not all Jews are right wingers, and in the end they fear more the catholic right wing military thugs than the left ones.

Playing the ‘Anti-Semitism’ Card Against Venezuela | Venezuelanalysis.com

And Venezuelan Jews are leaving Venezuela currently.

[GIGObuster]

@Curtis LeMay

And Venezuelan Jews are leaving Venezuela currently.

You did not read the last link did you?

[Qin_Shi_Huangdi]

@GIGObuster

You did not read the last link did you?

I did now and it’s from an incredibly pro-Venezuelan site so I tend to take things with a grain of salt.

[GIGObuster]

@Curtis LeMay

I did now and it’s from an incredibly pro-Venezuelan site so I tend to take things with a grain of salt.

Of course, I do also, but even though it has no links, it is sourced. Just looking at one of them:

http://jta.org/news/article/2009/05/26/1005439/jewish-congressmen-block-house-resolution-supporting-venezuelan-jews

“All of our institutions are protected by the [Venezuelan] police – we cannot complain about that,” said Pressner, noting that “the government reacted well” to the earlier attacks. He added that the Jewish community has recently had some “informal communications with some top level officials of the government.”

Shows me that Venezuelan Analysis is more accurate that the opinion pieces many right wingers get their news from. Although in favor of Chavez they also reported ahead of time that Chavez was going to lose a previous referendum while other more leftist sources were denying it and other reports critical of some actions made by the Venezuelan government.

Just because it is pro-venezuelan it does not mean it is lying; far from it, during the coup in Venezuela against Chaves, the right wing media and the right wing opposition managed to pass all their lies (the coup was a democratic action!) to the media in the USA. Very few corrections appeared in the USA media after it was over, meaning that many Americans to this day still think that reactionary groups in Latin America are “fighters for democracy”

http://www.narconews.com/threedays.html

[Alessan]

@BrainGlutton

If there are such things as Israeli mercenaries, they do not work for the Israeli government (except, perhaps sometimes, on an independent-contractor basis, like Blackwater/Xe for the U.S. government). Mercenaries are freelancers by definition.

Israeli “security consultants” have been active in various Third World countries for decades, often in conjunction with Israeli arm dealers, and with various degrees of Israeli government oversight. Colombia in particular has made extensive useof Israeli mercenaries - that may be where Zelaya got his ideas from.

[BrainGlutton]

@Alessan

Israeli “security consultants” have been active in various Third World countries for decades, often in conjunction with Israeli arm dealers, and with various degrees of Israeli government oversight. Colombia in particular has made extensive useof Israeli mercenaries - that may be where Zelaya got his ideas from.

So, if they were offered a contract to kill Zelaya, would they take it? And would they bother to consult with the Israeli government before deciding?

[Alessan]

@BrainGlutton

So, if they were offered a contract to kill Zelaya, would they take it? And would they bother to consult with the Israeli government before deciding?

They prop ably wouldn’t take it - the Israeli firms generally like to keep a low profile, focusing on training and consulting. If they did decide to take it, they almost certainly wouldn’t do it without the approval of the Israeli government.

In general, Israeli mercenaries only work for countries or regions the Israeli government allows them to work for, as a matter of foreign policy. These guys are all active-duty reservists; they wouldn’t act in a manner contrary to their nation’s interests, and they certainly wouldn’t like to lose their official licenses and their government contacts. If some Latin-American factors offered one of them money to kill Zelaya, their first phone call would be to the Israeli Ministry of Defense, just to keep their asses covered.

[Alessan]

The body in charge of regulating and supervising Israeli security activity abroad is the Defense Exports Controls Directorate(warning- PDF).

[BrainGlutton]

Senator Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) goes to Honduras, meets with Micheletti.

Hey, what about the Logan Act?

[BrainGlutton]

FWIW, Zelaya was asked about “antisemitism” charges in a recent interview from the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa:

ANJALI KAMAT: President Zelaya, I want to turn to some of the news reports that came out when you first came into the Brazilian embassy. The Miami Herald on September 24th quoted you as talking about the presence of Israeli mercenaries. And I wanted to ask you about this, because this has now become a big issue, with the Anti-Defamation League and the Wall Street Journal accusing you of being anti-Semitic. Can you respond to these allegations?
PRESIDENT MANUEL ZELAYA: [translated] I believe that that is a campaign that is just trying to smear my image as a politician. In my government, I was criticized for including important leaders from the Honduran civil society who practice the Jewish religion. Mr. Jaime Rosenthal and Yani Rosenthal were some of my principal economic advisers and are, in fact, fluent in Hebrew.
I don’t believe in racial or religious discrimination at all. I’ve always shown solidarity with the Jewish diaspora and always taken a stand against the crimes against humanity that were committed during the Holocaust. I believe that tolerance has always characterized my time here on earth in the last fifty-seven years, and I think that speaks eloquently and certainly rebuffs any of those accusations.

[BrainGlutton]

Update/analysis from The Nation:

Micheletti seems increasingly isolated, facing criticism from his own supporters due to his heavy-handed response. Just a few days ago, a poll revealed that a large majority of Hondurans oppose the coup and Micheletti while favoring Zelaya’s restoration. Prominent conservative businessmen, religious and military leaders, and politicians are now offering their services as mediators between Micheletti and Zelaya, an indication that support for the coup may be evaporating, though their proposals so far seem more like stalling tactics than serious attempts to open negotiation. Industrialist Adolfo Facussé, for instance, proposed making Micheletti a senator for life–similar to the honor bestowed on Pinochet when he exited the Chilean presidency–while returning Zelaya to office under conditions greatly more restricted than those laid out by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, who had previously been tapped by the US State Department to arbitrate the crisis.

<snip>

With his coup coalition apparently unraveling, Micheletti has doubled down on his bid to present himself as a backstop against Hugo Chávez-style populism. He told an Argentine reporter that he led the overthrow of Zelaya because the Honduran president “turned left.” “He became friends,” Micheletti said, “with Daniel Ortega, Chávez, Correa, Evo Morales”–that is, with the internationally recognized leaders of Nicaragua, Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia. And the day after Zelaya’s return, perhaps fancying himself a latter-day Garibaldi, Micheletti went on TV and called on Venezuelans to rise up against the “dictator” Chávez.

Whatever the outcome of Zelaya’s current situation–and let’s hope it won’t last as long as Haya de la Torre’s nearly six-year asylum–those who carried out the coup have managed to achieve what they accuse Zelaya of trying to do: they have polarized society, delegitimized political institutions, bankrupted the treasury and empowered social movements. The coalition of workers, peasants, progressive religious folk, environmentalists, students, feminists and gay and lesbian activists that has emerged to demand the restoration of democracy has so far not been able to return Zelaya to the presidency, yet it has prevented the consolidation of the coup regime.

In retrospect, it is hard to understand what Micheletti and his allies had hoped to achieve with Zelaya’s overthrow, which took place just five months before regularly scheduled presidential elections, still set for November 29. Before the coup, it was expected that a candidate from either the Liberal or National Party–both conservative–would win the vote, dousing whatever popular restlessness was unleashed by Zelaya’s turn left.

But the coup–along with Zelaya’s surprise return–has created a lose-lose situation for Honduran elites. If they yield to international pressure and negotiate Zelaya’s symbolic restoration, it would legitimize the November elections but would also embolden the left and discredit the coup plotters–that is, nearly all of Honduras’ governing class. If they force Zelaya back into exile, arrest him or keep him holed up in the Brazilian Embassy, then the popular movement that has gained momentum over the past three months will demand a constitutional convention as the only solution to re-establish legitimacy. In other words, the very issue that served as the spark of the crisis–Zelaya’s attempt to build support for a constituent assembly to reform Honduras’ notoriously undemocratic charter–may be the only way to settle it.

<snip>

Micheletti’s crackdown reveals more than his own desperation. It suggests the larger dilemma of Latin American conservatives. Over the past few years, those opposed to the region’s left turn, like Peru’s Mario Vargas Llosa and his son Alvaro Vargas Llosa, have tried to represent themselves as democratic modernizers who have rejected the authoritarianism of the region’s old cold war right. This is exactly the image Micheletti’s coup hoped to project to the rest of the world–even hiring US lobbyists and public relations firms to do so.

But in Honduras, as in most of Latin America, there is no social base to create something along the lines of, say, Europe’s new conservatism. Clinging to a discredited free-market economic model, their political program is based nearly exclusively on “anti-Chavismo.” And in a country as poor and economically stratified as Honduras, that means a reliance on increasing doses of violence to maintain order and a resurrection of the same revanchist sectors of the military, the Catholic and evangelical churches, and the oligarchy that powered anticommunist authoritarianism. Micheletti’s government, after all, included Enrique Ortez as foreign minister, who was barely installed in his new office when he called Barack Obama a “negrito” who didn’t “even know where Tegucigalpa was”–a sentiment that wouldn’t be out of place on some of the placards on display at our own tea-party demonstrations. Given a chance to defend himself–negrito in Spanish is not necessarily a derogatory term–Ortez, who has since resigned, dug deeper: “I’ve negotiated with fags, prostitutes, commies, blacks and whites… I’m not racially prejudiced; I like the plantation negro who is running the United States.”

Honduras may very well be the “first reversal in the drive to spread ‘21st Century Socialism’ in the region,” as Iran/Contra veteran Otto Reich, a prominent US backer of the coup, recently wrote. Yet that reversal–if it holds–comes at the cost of revealing the lie behind the idea that there is a progressive alternative to the contemporary Latin American left.

[lalenin]

@BrainGlutton

FWIW, Zelaya was asked about “antisemitism” charges in a recent interview from the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa:

That certainly sounds like a ‘Im not a racist, I have many black friends!’ defense.

[Algher]

@BrainGlutton

Senator Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) goes to Honduras, meets with Micheletti.

Hey, what about the Logan Act?

Dunno about Logan Act, but DeMint wrote a column for the Wall Street Journal editorial page:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB0001424052748703298004574459762462353766.html

[GIGObuster]

@Algher

Dunno about Logan Act, but DeMint wrote a column for the Wall Street Journal editorial page:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB0001424052748703298004574459762462353766.html

Al Giordano already dealt with that clown.

http://narcosphere.narconews.com/thefield/3491/jim-demint-crybaby-us-senate

This is the same DeMint that invoked Senate rules that allow a single Senator to “block” a vote on confirming various of President Obama’s diplomatic nominees, including those for US Ambassador to the Organization of American States, US Ambassador to Brazil and Undersecretary of State for the Western Hemisphere, because he doesn’t like the White House position against the Honduras coup.

It’s the time-worn tale of a schoolyard bully who, when he gets punched in the nose himself, sobs and and accuses his bester of unfair play.

During the years when Republicans were in power in the United States, they would frequently accuse the Democratic opposition of playing as “victims.” And they were sometimes right about that. Politics is hardball, baby, and nobody who enters it should whine when hit cleanly and fairly. Now that they’re in the minority and unpopular with voters they’re whiners, too (which suggests that tantrums aren’t a partisan trait but rather a societal one).

DeMint then reported Kerry to the principal’s office Twitter: “@JohnKerry (Foreign Rel. chair) trying to hide truth to protect Zelaya, blocking our fact-finding trip to Honduras at last minute.”

Everybody say, “awwwwwwww.”

What a big fucking crybaby. If you don’t want to get hit, Jimmy, don’t go out on the playing field throwing punches. Good for Kerry for knocking DeMint on his ass with such a timely, karma-packed punch.

Friday update: Well, DeMint and three lower house congress critters from the far right of the Republican Party did go to Tegucigalpa today, met with Micheletti and other golpistas, and left. In doing so, DeMint succeeded in uniting the entire Democratic majority in the House and Senate against the Honduras coup, including those who hadn’t paid it any attention at all. Ha ha. Typical Lanny Davis screw up. Meanwhile, South Carolina’s other GOP Senator Lindsay Graham chose today to distance himself from the “crazy” faction of his party, in particular the “birthers” and Glenn Beck. He didn’t mention his junior senator by name, but with DeMint prancing around with coup dictators, Graham didn’t really have to say a word to draw the distinction. In sum: Now the coup supporters have guaranteed their permanent rejection by the Democratic majority House and Senate. Nice work, Lanny! Mil gracias.

AFAIK DeMint does not run afoul of the Logan act because in the end he paid for his trip and did not use any government money.

What is clear to me is that DeMint never saw an abuse of power from a right winger that would be a deal breaker. He will support them even if they do what dictator do.

http://narcosphere.narconews.com/thefield/3517/surveillance-camera-footage-honduras-coup-invasion-channel-36

[BrainGlutton]

@Algher

Dunno about Logan Act, but DeMint wrote a column for the Wall Street Journal editorial page:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB0001424052748703298004574459762462353766.html

Linky no worky.

Not that it matters. I mean, come on, the WSJ editorial page? :dubious: You could expect more sanity from a Lyndon LaRouche site!

[GIGObuster]

@GIGObuster

What is clear to me is that DeMint never saw an abuse of power from a right winger that would be a deal breaker. He will support them even if Michiletti and company are doing what dictators do when taking power.

http://narcosphere.narconews.com/thefield/3517/surveillance-camera-footage-honduras-coup-invasion-channel-36

I had to correct my quote and add this one from the narco news piece:

Here, the masked men of the coup regime rifle through the equipment in another studio from the same Channel 36. At points you can see the National Police video cameraman in view of the surveillance camera. And then you can see them carrying it all down the stairs and out the door, an hour and 40 minutes later, at 6:58 a.m.

There’s your Honduran “civilian coup” regime’s version of “democracy” and “freedom” at work.

It should be added that this kind of jackbooted censorship is endorsed and defended by the US public relations firm of “Chlopak, Leonard, Schechter & Associates on behalf of the Office of the President of the Republic of Honduras,” and Washington DC lobbyist Lanny Davis, enemies of press freedom, all. So next time any of those goons in suits and ties try to spin a story angle on you, kind journalists, remember to ask them about the invasion and censorship of Channel 36, in which they, too, are complicit.

[Algher]

@BrainGlutton

Linky no worky.

Not that it matters. I mean, come on, the WSJ editorial page? :dubious: You could expect more sanity from a Lyndon LaRouche site!

Jim DeMint: What I Heard in Honduras

Weird - not sure what is happening to my link posts - damned airport wireless.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703298004574459762462353766.html

While in Honduras, I spoke to dozens of Hondurans, from nonpartisan members of civil society to former Zelaya political allies, from Supreme Court judges to presidential candidates and even personal friends of Mr. Zelaya. Each relayed stories of a man changed and corrupted by power. The evidence of Mr. Zelaya’s abuses of presidential power—and his illegal attempts to rewrite the Honduran Constitution, a la Hugo Chávez—is not only overwhelming but uncontroverted.

As all strong democracies do after cleansing themselves of usurpers, Honduras has moved on.

The presidential election is on schedule for Nov. 29. Under Honduras’s one-term-limit, Mr. Zelaya could not have sought re-election anyway. Current President Roberto Micheletti—who was installed after Mr. Zelaya’s removal, per the Honduran Constitution—is not on the ballot either. The presidential candidates were nominated in primary elections almost a year ago, and all of them—including Mr. Zelaya’s former vice president—expect the elections to be free, fair and transparent, as has every Honduran election for a generation.

Indeed, the desire to move beyond the Zelaya era was almost universal in our meetings. Almost.

In a day packed with meetings, we met only one person in Honduras who opposed Mr. Zelaya’s ouster, who wishes his return, and who mystifyingly rejects the legitimacy of the November elections: U.S. Ambassador Hugo Llorens.

For what it is worth.

[GIGObuster]

@Algher

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703298004574459762462353766.html

Weird - not sure what is happening to my link posts - damned airport wireless.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703298004574459762462353766.html

While in Honduras, I spoke to dozens of Hondurans, from nonpartisan members of civil society to former Zelaya political allies, from Supreme Court judges to presidential candidates and even personal friends of Mr. Zelaya. Each relayed stories of a man changed and corrupted by power. The evidence of Mr. Zelaya’s abuses of presidential power—and his illegal attempts to rewrite the Honduran Constitution, a la Hugo Chávez—is not only overwhelming but uncontroverted.

As all strong democracies do after cleansing themselves of usurpers, Honduras has moved on.

The presidential election is on schedule for Nov. 29. Under Honduras’s one-term-limit, Mr. Zelaya could not have sought re-election anyway. Current President Roberto Micheletti—who was installed after Mr. Zelaya’s removal, per the Honduran Constitution—is not on the ballot either. The presidential candidates were nominated in primary elections almost a year ago, and all of them—including Mr. Zelaya’s former vice president—expect the elections to be free, fair and transparent, as has every Honduran election for a generation.

Indeed, the desire to move beyond the Zelaya era was almost universal in our meetings. Almost.

In a day packed with meetings, we met only one person in Honduras who opposed Mr. Zelaya’s ouster, who wishes his return, and who mystifyingly rejects the legitimacy of the November elections: U.S. Ambassador Hugo Llorens.

For what it is worth.

I think that senator is worthless. Not to mention a liar:

http://ellibertador.hn/Nacional/3302.html
(In Spanish) Not all expect the elections to be free. Several liberal candidates will boycott the election if Zelaya is not the president when they take place.

http://narcosphere.narconews.com/thefield/3511/poll-wide-majority-hondurans-oppose-coup-d’etat-want-zelaya-back

If the coup supporters think that just having the elections (with all opposition media muzzled out, and ongoing repression) they have another thing coming. It is normal to find in Central America extremely right wing people in all branches of government, ready to make a mockery of the actual will of the people.

So when Republican US Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen yesterday issued a “Twitter communiqué” claiming that “nobody wants Zelaya back,” she was blowing smoke out of the wrong air hole. All those - from the regime, to the oligarch diaspora to Lanny Davis and the US political consultants they hire, to the spoiled brat class of some (but not all) gringo expats in Honduras that repeated unsupported claims that a majority of Hondurans favor the coup, or support Micheletti, or oppose Zelaya’s return, now end with egg on their faces, their credibility shot. They just made it up and thought you would be gullible enough to believe them. But here we’ve given you, finally, the hard numbers, now available in full public view.

What’s more is that these results explain why the coup regime and its chambers of commerce and other big business organizations – the forces in the country that can afford to hire pollsters - have not released any of their own internal polling data to the public: Because they, too, know that a majority of Hondurans oppose them, and they are less popular even than the national nonviolent civil resistance movement that they treat with such disdain.

[BrainGlutton]

Update: Honduran business leaders want Zelaya back to finish his term, but only after the 11/29 elections.