August 27, 2009

Meanwhile, Back in the Murmuring Pines and the Hemlocks...

Hatched by Dafydd

Occulted by the momentous national slugfest about TeddyCare, the explosion of Medicare spending (or draconian rationing), the imminent collapse of Social Security, the mind-numbing deficits, the looming tax attax, the energy-production cripple-and-tax bill, the slow American retreat in Afghanistan, and the rapid Obama-decreed rout in Iraq... tucked in away among all this political misdirection, the gnomes of Foggy Bottom still pick-and-shovel away at the foundations of Honduras, trying to engineer the forced reinstallation of fled President José Manuel Zelaya Rosales (a.k.a. "Mel" Zelaya) -- little buddy of Oogo Chavez, tireless crusader for Marxist revolution in Latin America, and putative President-for-Life of that democratic country of Honduras:

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.

Washington has already suspended about $18 million aid to Honduras following the June 28 coup and this would be formally cut if the determination is made because of a U.S. law barring aid "to the government of any country whose duly elected head of government is deposed by military coup or decree."

Note that the gnomes want to oust the current Honduran government for doing to Zelaya pretty much just what the Democrats did to Richard Nixon in 1974: Push him to resign by threatening to prosecute him for his many criminal activities.

Our previous excursions into the dead zone of the Obamacle's (and Hillary's) Honduran policy are legion:

The radical Left's bottom line is clear: Zelaya must be returned to full dictatorial control; no matter how he was trying to subvert the Honduran constitution (which constitutes treason in that country), no matter how in bed he was with Venezuelan fascist dictator Oogo Chavez, and no matter that Zelaya personally led a violent mob to attack the customs building to retrieve the illegal ballots that he got his pal Chavez to print in Venezuela; the ballots -- intended by Zelaya to give him cover for rejecting the clause in the Honduran constitution limiting presidents to a single term -- were confiscated by Customs officials when Zelaya tried to smuggle them into Honduras. As D.C. Circuit nominee Miguel Estrada (denied a confirmation vote by Democrats) recounts the precipitating incident in the Los Angeles Times:

Zelaya had the ballots printed in Venezuela, but these were impounded by customs when they were brought back to Honduras. On June 25 -- three days before he was ousted -- Zelaya personally gathered a group of "supporters" and led it to seize the ballots, restating his intent to conduct the "survey" on June 28. That was the breaking point for the attorney general, who immediately sought a warrant from the Supreme Court for Zelaya's arrest on charges of treason, abuse of authority and other crimes. In response, the court ordered Zelaya's arrest by the country's army, which under Article 272 must enforce compliance with the Constitution, particularly with respect to presidential succession. The military executed the court's order on the morning of the proposed survey.

Yet despite the clear and undeniable fact that Zelaya was removed according to the rule of law in Honduras, and the equally clear fact that it is Zelaya, not his acting successor of the same party (Roberto Micheletti), who is the coup plotter, the Obama/Hillary Statism Department has redoubled its efforts to overthrow the legitimate, democratic, pro-American government of Honduras -- to install in its place an il-legitimate, un-democratic, il-legal, Marxist, anti-American government, instead. The stupidity of this policy can only be explained, though not excused, by leftist ideology run amok, as ably documented by Victor Davis Hansen in the August (and august) webpages of National Review Online.

Attacking the economy of the impoverished nation appears to be a fait accompli:

Diplomats said that the United States had held off making the formal determination to give diplomacy a chance to yield a negotiated compromise that might allow for Zelaya's return to power....

"The recommendation of the building is for her to sign it," said the first U.S. official said of the 'military coup" determination, saying this was a response to the de facto government's refusal to accept a compromise that would allow Zelaya to return to power ahead of November elections.

Attacking, but not necessarily defeating; let us hope that the Hondurans are made of stern enough will and self-determination that they will reject the diktats of Hillary Clinton's politburo and the machinations of the "progressive" nomenklatura that infests virtually every federal and state bureaucracy in the United States. Perhaps the democrats down south will dig in their heels and accept that they must scratch for their own seed if they want to remain sovereign... I hope they do, "pour encourager les autres."

There is hardly anything in foreign policy that would please me more than a bunch of American "client states" telling us to take that foreign aid and shove it, they ain't kow-towing to us no more.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, August 27, 2009, at the time of 7:06 PM

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Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Meanwhile, Back in the Murmuring Pines and the Hemlocks...:

» Meet Manuel Zeloonie-Toons from Big Lizards
Now that erstwhile Honduran President José Manuel "Mel" Zelaya Rosales appears to have mentally collapsed into paranoid ravings and hysterical delusion, and his brain has turned to lime Jell-O, how long before he gets to see the undercarriage of the... [Read More]

Tracked on September 24, 2009 12:56 PM

» Join the Senate and Don't See the World from Big Lizards
From the very day (June 28th, 2009) that José Manuel "Mel" Zelaya Rosales was impeached and removed from office by the Honduran supreme court and arrested by the military -- the organization tasked with removing presidents under the Honduran constituti... [Read More]

Tracked on October 2, 2009 6:30 PM

Comments

The following hissed in response by: Dishman

Obama pushed this one.

It raises serious questions as to whether or not he believes in the power of impeachment or constitutional democracy.

This scares more than anything else he's done.

The above hissed in response by: Dishman [TypeKey Profile Page] at August 28, 2009 8:54 AM

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