Post by AztecWilliam on Aug 15, 2009 9:38:36 GMT -8
I happen to sympathize with the Hondurans in the case of their expulsion of the president who would be Chavez. It's not much of a coup when the legal apparatus of a country removes the president through constitutional means following which the vice president, a member of the ousted chief executive's own party, becomes president.
The only thing that might be criticized is that the ousted prez was forced to leave the country. That is progress; in the old days he would have been forced to stop breathing.
But here's the problem for Obama. Let's assume that Obama brings enough pressure to bear on the Honduran government to force the return of Zelaya. Let's further assume that Zelaya is able to seize control of the country and set up a Hugo Chavez styled dictatorship. What will Obama do then?
If that were to happen, Obama would be crucified for being soft on left-wing oppression. He would never hear the end of it. On the other hand, as the linked Time article declares, he may be in trouble with Latin America if he does nothing.
www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1915866,00.html
This is an interesting case. Throwing Zelaya out may not have been legal, but that action was (as the appropriate Wikipedia article explains) an army mutiny, not a coup.
It's a difficult case, to be sure. Everybody's calling Zelaya's ouster a coup, but they are also forgetting that Zelaya is clearly intent on turning Honduras into Venezuela North. Should the Obama administration help him do that, it would suffer enormously with many parts of the U.S. public.
AzWm
The only thing that might be criticized is that the ousted prez was forced to leave the country. That is progress; in the old days he would have been forced to stop breathing.
But here's the problem for Obama. Let's assume that Obama brings enough pressure to bear on the Honduran government to force the return of Zelaya. Let's further assume that Zelaya is able to seize control of the country and set up a Hugo Chavez styled dictatorship. What will Obama do then?
If that were to happen, Obama would be crucified for being soft on left-wing oppression. He would never hear the end of it. On the other hand, as the linked Time article declares, he may be in trouble with Latin America if he does nothing.
www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1915866,00.html
This is an interesting case. Throwing Zelaya out may not have been legal, but that action was (as the appropriate Wikipedia article explains) an army mutiny, not a coup.
It's a difficult case, to be sure. Everybody's calling Zelaya's ouster a coup, but they are also forgetting that Zelaya is clearly intent on turning Honduras into Venezuela North. Should the Obama administration help him do that, it would suffer enormously with many parts of the U.S. public.
AzWm