From Alternet:
The June 28 military coup d’etat that overthrew Honduras’ democratically elected president provided President Obama with “a golden opportunity...to make a clear break with the past and show that he is unequivocally siding with democracy,” as Costa Rica’s former vice president put it. However, the U.S.’s recognition of the sham election Honduras’ de facto regime is staging on Sunday makes it quite clear that Obama is choosing instead to side with the far-right Republicans who support the coup.
And here’s a little background, from The Nation.
A remarkable thing in this first decade of the new century has been the outbreak of democracy in Latin America, despite the best efforts of George W. Bush. And in the early days of his term, President Obama seemed to welcome this — seemed actually to believe in Roosevelt’s Good Neighbor policy.
True, he did little to climb out of bed with Colombia’s repulsive rulers. But tiny, hopeful clues began to emerge that we might be abandoning our absurd paranoia about Honduras and Venezuela. Even Cuba, it seemed, was no longer viewed as the greatest peril to American democracy since the War of 1812.
How, then, to explain Obama’s present about-face when it comes to Honduras? Does he hope to make friends with Senator Jim DeMint, South Carolina’s gift to good government? Lots of luck with that.
Does he imagine that the rule of law somehow demands that we conform our foreign policy to the dictates of a Honduran supreme court controlled by the hard right? How did that work out here, in the tawdry aftermath of the 2000 election?
Or is Obama desperate to preserve Soto Cano, the U.S. Air Force Base in Honduras? It is, after all, the only thing protecting us from invasion by Nicaragua. Well, except for Guatemala, Belize and Mexico.
