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the guns they carry, and the tanks and other weapons they have in reserve, their uniforms, their food, their barracks, their salaries, and paying for their officers' "training" at the infamous School of the Americas. WE are paying for them to take orders from a junta and deny the rightful president's entrance to the country. WE are paying for the brutal and repressive acts they have already committed against the people of Honduras and for those they are committing and will commit. The Honduran military would not be able to support a junta if we were not supporting them and the junta. This is what the US "war on drugs" is for, in my opinion--to have US controlled controlled military forces in place to crush social justice movements when it suits the strategies and profiteering of our global corporate predators. This is happening in Colombia, in Peru, it is in preliminary stages in Mexico, and is now nakedly manifest in Honduras. Those leaders and peoples who have evicted the US "war on drugs" from their countries not only benefit in better law enforcement (their own) against dangerous drugs and crime networks, they know full well what US military aid, US military bases and troops, and DEA spying and other activities are for. They are for toppling democratic governments.
I read that Obama/ Clinton have cut the military funding to Honduras by about 10%. This may be a token and cosmetic cut, in furtherance of a two-faced policy (public support for democracy, covert coup-making), or, alternatively, a strategy of incremental pain against the junta, demonstrating that the funding can be stopped and using it as pressure and leverage, in a dicey situation in which the junta controls the country. If the latter is true--and I have less and less hope every day that it is-- then it may be a symptom that Obama and Clinton do not have full control of our own military and State and other departments, and are possibly dealing with their own internal junta, with Bushwhack moles and rightwing tools like John McCain, John Negroponte and Otto Reich actively attempting to sabotage Obama's stated policy of improving US relations with Latin America. Obama has all along had the power to shut down the Honduran junta--withdraw our ambassador, cut off all funding, freeze the coupsters' bank accounts, and deny them visas to the US, so they can't come here, on our dollar, and lobby Congress and our ever-so-willing corpo/fascist media, and send the head of the Honduran military to Miami to give speeches! Why didn't Obama do it immediately? Why doesn't he do it now? The EU didn't hesitate. The OAS didn't hesitate. The UN didn't hesitate. There is not a country in Latin America--aside from the narco-fascists running Colombia--who have expressed the slightest sympathy for this junta. All have cut them off.
Possibly Obama/Clinton's reason is that a full cutoff of US aid would harm the poor, and could result in much more serious civil conflict and destabilization. In fact, human rights groups, while fully supporting Zelaya's return, have said that humanitarian aid should not be cut off. But what about, say, ordinary soldiers' salaries? Many poor people depend on those salaries, I'm sure. The National Police--according to a report I read yesterday--is on strike (and has said it will not obey orders to arrest Zelaya) mostly because they haven't been paid (a sign that the economic sanctions are working). But there could be a downside. There are probably large numbers of armed soldiers and armed police on the verge of rebellion, with unknown--and possibly bad--consequences. This could be an argument for incremental pressure--however, virtually all other entities (international organizations and countries) didn't buy it. They have withdrawn ambassadors and shut down all aid and trade.
In any case, we should never forget that Honduras is a client state of the US, with a long history of being used as a "stepping stone" for US aggression in Latin America. That is my greatest fear--that the Bushwhacks are setting up another oil war, and may try to trap Obama into it (a la JFK and the Bay of Pigs). I also feel considerable dismay at the continuum of Democratic-Republican war. Bill Clinton, for instance, pummels Iraq with perimeter bombings in the "no-fly zone," destroying Iraq's air force, cripples the country with economic sanctions that harm mostly millions of innocent children, strips the country of most of its defenses, turns it into an economic basketcase, and then Bush bombs the crap out of this mostly helpless country, slaughtering another 100,000 innocent people, invades and occupies them, smashes their society to pieces, and imposes US-friendly oil contracts on them. Is Hillary Clinton doing the same in Latin America--setting up a war (to grab Venezuela's oil--and probably also Ecuador's and Cuba's) for a future Bushwhack, Diebolded into office, to complete? She's on board--apparently--for the Bushwhack plan of building five US military bases in Colombia (adjacent to Venezuela).
These are not good signs and omens. And the people in our own country, with artificially shortened memories (through media brainwashing) might forget (or be portrayed as having forgotten) that we just did this very thing to Iraq. Is this not the purpose of the relentless lying and propaganda we see everywhere in our media, and from the government, about "Chavez the dictator"? So ironical--that the triumph of democracy in Venezuela is portrayed as tyranny, while the tyrants of Honduras are permitted to run around "the Beltway" (and in Miami) claiming that, by destroying their Constitution, they are saving it. ("We have to destroy this village to save it" deja vu all over again.) There are, without question, evil forces and great evildoers in our country. Is Obama helpless in the face of their power, tied down with deals he had to make to gain the White House, fighting them as well as he can, or what? I don't know. And, as a citizen of the US, and a payer of some of those taxes being used to oppress others, I should know. I have a right to know.
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