Wednesday, August 12, 2009
A lesson on hypocrisy from Barack Obama
"We have been very clear in our belief that President Zelaya was removed from office illegally, that it was a coup, and that he should return. We have cooperated with all the international bodies in sending that message. Now, if these critics think that it's appropriate for us to suddenly act in ways that in every other context they consider inappropriate, then I think what that indicates is, is that maybe there's some hypocrisy involved in their approach to U.S.-Latin America relations that certainly is not going to guide my administration policies."
My Prime Minister's boss - his real boss, is starting to get on my nerves. In the domestic sphere, no particular business of mine, Barack Obama still seems like someone genuinely interested in taking a stab at change and good luck to him with that. In the international arena there is a marked contrast that shows once again that the flow of global affairs should not be held hostage to several big powers, democratic or otherwise. The citizens of America's backyard know this all too well.
While in Mexico, where he was busy reversing his campaign pledge to renegotiate NAFTA, Obama found the time to make some ill-tempered and suspiciously defensive remarks relating to the pathetic reaction his administration has given to the anti-democratic coup in Honduras launched by that country's business and political elites. Those remarks will follow this cursory introduction...
Just over a month ago the elected president, Manuel Zelaya was abducted at gunpoint, kicked out and prevented from returning to Honduras by the army with the flimsy pretext that he had broken the law by trying to open a nationwide discussion on a constitution that has kept the military in pre-eminent position ever since democratic rule was restored in 1982. The United Nations, Organisation of American States, World Bank and world governments of almost every political stance imaginable have declared that it was an illegal coup and suspensions of aid, trade and diplomatic relations have come thick and fast. The US, which currently accounts for 70 percent of the foreign trade of Honduras, should be a key player in pressuring this illegal regime. Yet despite some initial strong remarks from Obama and Hillary Clinton this administration took three weeks to catch up and impose sanctions, has kept the ambassador in place, has continued military aid and has increasingly eased the pressure on this occupying regime with statements that imply that the usurpers and the democratically elected President Zelaya have equal cases to make and that Zelaya had been acting provocatively before he went and got himself overthrown.
When questioned about such a lacklustre, no, counterproductive performance Obama got all tetchy:
"The same critics who say that the United States has not intervened enough in Honduras are the same people who say that we're always intervening, and the Yankees need to get out of Latin America. You can't have it both ways."
"We have been very clear in our belief that President Zelaya was removed from office illegally, that it was a coup, and that he should return. We have cooperated with all the international bodies in sending that message. Now, if these critics think that it's appropriate for us to suddenly act in ways that in every other context they consider inappropriate, then I think what that indicates is, is that maybe there's some hypocrisy involved in their approach to U.S.-Latin America relations that certainly is not going to guide my administration policies."
Hypocrisy, eh? Such straw man arguments and logical mutilations would make even the likes of Ann Coulter blush, and are certainly beneath the intellect someone who seems to have read more books than they have written. Nobody is asking Obama to send the marines in, sponsor counter-revolutionary bandits or to generally interfere more, just to stop toying with the idea of recognising a regime that is crushing pro-democracy protests and to follow the lead taken by the rest of the world and withdraw the ambassador and halt trade. In fact this proposal is the opposite of intervention - it is the extrication of the US government from a situation where it is feeding an embryonic autocracy. The current state of affairs is exacerbating a problem that Latin Americans would be more than happy to resolve among themselves. Here is a simple opportunity to support, if not stand to one side and permit, a focused, multilateral effort with a clear vision that is directed by the neighbouring countries around Honduras and he is completely ballsing it up for the entire region. Is muddling through without a plan really necessary here too?
Anyway, the idea of US non-intervention is a moot point, given that among the abusers are several graduates from WHINSEC, formerly the School of the Americas, a training camp for Latin American military personnel at Fort Benning, Georgia that somehow managed to unleash dictators like Panama's Noriega and Bolivia's Banzer, plus out and out terrorists such as Luis Posada Carriles, onto the hemisphere after training them in commando tactics and counter-insurgency methods. The Honduran coup was led by one such graduate, General Romeo Vásquez Velásquez, and the ties of some of the plotters and apologists to WHINSEC have led some to claim this was Obama's first Latin American coup, virtually a rite of passage for occupants of the White House. Even for those of us who are dubious about this viewpoint should acknowledge that it's a little late for Obama to start scoffing at the idea of US military intervention when several of its graduates are already working on consolidating their putsch.
To be fair to Obama, a formidable lobby, composed of some rather rhetorically-gifted mudslingers has set up shop to try and preserve this elitist power grab. Lanny Davis, a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign is proving to be one of the more vocal members of a horde that Obama would need to face down. And here is where the flow of international affairs is being held hostage. It is the voices of the Honduran people that Obama should be heeding, not business elites. Although it isn't the most conclusive polling data you'll ever see, a Gallup poll after the coup showed a clear preference among Hondurans for Zelaya over his succesor Roberto Micheletti and opposed his forcible removal. Curfews are repeatedly being imposed as mass demonstrations keep taking place against the coup in the largest cities.
All this seems so pitifully predictable. Before the election Obama talked about a tougher stance on unionist killings in Colombia, a rethinking of NAFTA, a greater sense of respect towards Latin America - it's not like these were easy things to say out loud and indeed he took considerable flack for them. But political office can enforce realism on any idealist, and long ago it seems to have been decreed that 'realism' should be the accelerated process of preserving strategic gains and expanding profits at all costs, even at the cost of filling up Third World cemeteries. Perhaps Obama really is an Emperor Hadrian to Bush junior's Emperor Nero, but that still makes him the latest Roman Emperor of our age, the most powerful leader on Earth with all the pressures, vices and violence the job entails. He should give what passes for 'idealism' these days a shot and stop bloody interfering.
.jpg)
