WikiLeaks Honduras: State Dept. Busted on Support of Coup

[Derechos]

(edited for copyright purposes-proud patriot Moderator Democratic Underground)

By Robert Naiman

By July 24, 2009, the U.S. government was totally clear about the basic facts of what took place in Honduras on June 28, 2009. The U.S. embassy in Tegucigalpa sent a cable to Washington with subject: "Open and Shut: The Case of the Honduran Coup," asserting that "there is no doubt" that the events of June 28 "constituted an illegal and unconstitutional coup." The Embassy listed arguments being made by supporters of the coup to claim its legality, and dismissed them thus: "none... has any substantive validity under the Honduran constitution." The Honduran military clearly had no legal authority to remove President Zelaya from office or from Honduras, the Embassy said, and their action -- the Embassy described it as an "abduction" and "kidnapping" -- was clearly unconstitutional.

It is inconceivable that any top U.S. official responsible for U.S. policy in Honduras was not familiar with the contents of the July 24 cable, which summarized the assessment of the U.S. Embassy in Honduras on key facts that were politically disputed by supporters of the coup regime. The cable was addressed to Tom Shannon, then Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs; Harold Koh, the State Department's Legal Adviser; and Dan Restrepo, Senior Director for Western Hemisphere Affairs at the National Security Council. The cable was sent to the White House and to Secretary of State Clinton.

But despite the fact that the U.S. government was crystal clear on what had transpired, the U.S. did not immediately cut off all aid to Honduras except "democracy assistance," as required by U.S. law.

Instead, a month after this cable was sent, the State Department, in its public pronouncements, pretended that the events of June 28 -- in particular, "who did what to whom" and the constitutionality of these actions -- were murky and needed further study by State Department lawyers, despite the fact that the State Department's top lawyer, Harold Koh, knew exactly "who did what to whom" and that these actions were unconstitutional at least one month earlier. The State Department, to justify its delay in carrying out U.S. law, invented a legal distinction between a "coup" and a "military coup," claiming that the State Department's lawyers had to determine whether a "military coup" took place, because only that determination would meet the legal threshold for the aid cutoff.

(snip)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/wikileaks-honduras-state_b_789282.html

[bemildred]

1. Dang, you could knock me over with a feather. nt

[Peace Patriot]

2. The plane carrying Zelaya out of the country at gunpoint stopped at the U.S. base in Honduras for

refueling. So, if the writer of this cable, Ambassador Hugo Llorens, was so clear on its illegality (as the cable seems to be), why didn't he call up the U.S. commanders at the Soto Cano air base and TELL THEM TO STOP THE PLANE? He later said that he knew about the coup ahead of time. Why didn't he DO SOMETHING? And what were the commanders at the U.S. air base doing, as the government was overthrown right in their airport? Their JOB was to interdict suspicious flights (for the, ahem, "war on drugs"). Playing video games or what?

This cable was not marked secret or top secret. It was merely marked "confidential." So the writer of the cable must have known how easily it could be made public. I think we have to be concerned about ass-covering in this cable.

Honduras is a U.S. client state. No way this coup could have occurred without U.S. consent. And, unless we are looking at the Pentagon running its own foreign policy, against the wishes of the President--an insurrection--then I think the U.S. signaled an okay before the plane ever took off. And who would that signal have been given by, except the U.S. ambassador?

I'm not buying it, that Llorens was in disagreement with the State Department--or I would have to have more proof. His just writing a cable on the real situation doesn't tell us what he was DOING.

This coup and the U.S. response to it--effectively supporting it--has caused a HUGE ruckus in Latin America. Maybe Llorens could not have imagined how huge, but he certainly must have had some idea. So this looks to me like a "positioning" cable--to make him come out smelling like a rose.

As for those on the receiving end, they would know exactly what they were looking at--Llorens covering his ass.

I don't want to slander somebody who was trying to do the right thing--IF Llorens was. I am not at all convinced that he was. He was National Security Advisor to Bush Jr. on Venezuela and other Andean countries during the 2002 rightwing coup attempt in Venezuela. He is a Bushwhack. Also, he was saying the opposite of this cable in public.

I followed these events closely. I've toyed with the idea that it was a Bush Junta-designed coup that unfolded six months into the Obama administration either because it wasn't yet ripe the year before, or because part of the Bushwhack design was to foreclose a more cooperative, democracy-supporting, peaceful Obama foreign policy in Latin America.

At first I thought that the Bushwhack plan went like this: 'Hit 'em with a coup right off the bat and make 'em go up against Chiquita and U.S. retailers like Gap (running sweatshops in Honduras), and John McCain's telecommunications interests and other corporate and war profiteer interests, and the Pentagon!' (Zelaya wanted to convert that air base to a commercial airport--badly needed in Honduras. The Pentagon was being kicked out of Ecuador and wanted to secure and increase its "footprint" especially in its arc of war assets around Venezuela, including in Colombia.) 'Hit Obama/Clinton with all of this, right away and watch 'em squirm and get blasted by the Left, and all the countries like Brazil they want to be "friends with," trying to "balance" these interests. They can't win!'

I did think at first that Obama/Clinton were taken by surprise. And I know that Jim DeMint (Diebold-SC) was blackmailing them on Honduras, by holding up all of their appointments in Latin America. And he was triumphant when they caved and when Clinton only required democracy cosmetics (an election held under martial law, with anti-coup activists still getting murdered by rightwing death squads). I even thought she might have saved Zelaya's life--that shooting up his house, dragging him out of bed, terrifying his family and spiriting him out of the country at gunpoint was the least they wanted to do to him.

And while that may be true, that Clinton didn't want an assassination, that's as much "benefit of the doubt" as I have left for her. I don't think there was any surprise or any confusion. I think Clinton supported the coup. I later found out that she was being advised by none other than John "death squad" Negroponte. And her SUBSEQUENT actions--the phony election (with John McCain's U.S. taxpayer funded "International Republican Institute" among the election monitors--because no reputable election monitoring group in the world would touch that election), the complete lack of response to the on-going murder of leftists in Honduras and her continuing to push for recognition of this coup regime, tell me that she is wholly in accord with this bullshit and has been all along. Who can tell about Obama? But Clinton is as duplicitous as she can be. She may not have devised the plot but she's been perfectly willing to RIDE the results of the plot for the greater power and glory of Our Corporate Masters. Which brings me back to Llorens--a Bush Junta lackey.

I DO think that there is an "embarrass/coerce" Obama/Clinton aspect to this plot and that Llorens' cable may be part of that aspect--that is, it was intended to be disclosed. It's too new to me to make firm conclusions about it. I would just say this, on these Wikileak cable disclosures: Pay attention to WHO is writing the cable and WHY. Do NOT presume that, just because it's marked "secret" or "confidential," that it isn't meant for publication at some point. Be alert to possible political or personal motives and to skulduggery in memo-writing.

I just read the whole Naiman article and I'm surprised that he doesn't mention who wrote this cable--Llorens, the Bush Junta's CHIEF advisor during the Venezuelan coup attempt. He mentions the rightwing coup attempt in Venezuela as a typical example of two-faced U.S. behavior on rightwing coups, but fails to note--in his argument that Clinton and others had been notified of the illegality of the coup by the U.S. ambassador--WHO the ambassador was. This point is no exoneration of Clinton, et al. And his main argument is correct, in my opinion. But Clinton DIDN'T NEED this cable to know that the coup was bullshit. Criminy, the coupsters were using a Clinton PR firm to propagate their damned lies. I'm making a subtler argument but one that I think is important to understanding the whole situation. I don't think it's the case that Clinton and the others (Shannon, Restrepo) were ignoring a good and correct advisory. I think it's more likely the case that Llorens was IN on the coup, and Clinton and the others CAME in, once it was underway. Thus, this cable is either intended to warn them of the anti-coup arguments that they will have to counter, or it is a treacherous memo, to exonerate Llorens and make the Obama administration look bad and lose yet more credibility in Latin America and elsewhere. It may be, specifically, an anti-Clinton memo.

The Bushwhacks want war in Latin America. They just had a big meeting in Washington, in anticipation of the Puke Congress, with a bunch of fascist and racists--rightwingers from Latin America--Miami mafia pols and Reagan-Bush players (Roger Noriega, et al) who basically declared war on Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua. I think that this is a top agenda item for the Pukes in 2012--gaining control of Venezuela's oil and smashing the leftist democracy movement in Latin America. I think Clinton thinks that she can accomplish the same goals, serving the same interests, without massive military aggression (although she is not averse to the slaughter of trade unionists, human rights workers, peasant farmers and other inconvenient persons, by U.S. proxies, as in Honduras and Colombia). Between them, the State Department and Pentagon now have a BILLION DOLLAR propaganda budget for Latin America--that means influencing and fixing elections, electoral psy-ops and dirty tricks, creation of phony NGOs (fronts for rightwing causes and candidates), USAID-style sabotage of democracy and so on.

This is a different approach than the Bushwhacks and could be more successful. The Bushwhacks simply want to invade and conquer, as in Iraq. They are nuts. And they have the corpo-fascist media, the war profiteers and ES&S-Diebold on their side. Discrediting Obama, Clinton and the Democratic leadership is part of this narrative. And this cable fits that purpose. So there is the motive for someone like Llorens to write it. You have to kind of think like an imperialist to get what's going on. It's not a matter of exonerating Clinton or vilifying Clinton, or being for her or against her. It's a matter of Big Players who are very remote from "We the People" playing games that we can barely see. The memo itself is true, accurate--a good analysis--but it is irrelevant, except as a game piece. Truth, accuracy, doing the right thing--all irrelevant on that remote Imperial board.

[naaman fletcher]

7. Easy answer to your question

The U.S. does not run that airfield or do air traffic control there. This has been shown many times in this forum but I guess "he stopped at a US base" sounds better than the reality so it keeps getting repeated even though it is not true.

[social_critic]

3. By July 1st I knew it was a coup

So what? It was done. Cutting off Honduras was going to make a bigger mess, and elections were coming. US policy everywhere supports whatever it has to support when it suits the US, and in this case it suited the US to see things move forward to elections, rather than put pressure on to bring Zelaya back, when Zelaya had also shown autocratic tendencies. I can see doing more if Zelaya had not evolved into a reckless autocrat, but he just wasn't worth the effort.

[EFerrari]

4. Zelaya wasn't a reckless autocrat but the oligarchy and the corporate vultures

thank you for repeating their bs.

[social_critic]

5. I think he was reckless, and he was an autocrat

Zelaya failed to submit the budget to Congress, as required by Congress, and failed to follow the Supreme Court rulings. I believe both Congress and Supreme Court were stacked against him, but he recklessly challenged them anyway. It is increasingly clear to me that some "socialists" believe in an imperial presidency, rather than the separation of powers which balances things out. In this they are similar to US neocons and other right wingers - both extremes are keen on their "caudillos" having as much centralized power as possible.

This of course leads to autocracy, then to tyranny, and the eventual destruction of society. It happened in Stalin's USSR, in Hitler's Germany, in Pol Pot's Cambodia, and in Pinochet's Chile. Everywhere we see the same issues arise, and it doesn't matter if it's a leftist or a rightist "caudillo", they amass power, they become corrupted by the power they have gathered unto themselves, and they ruin everybody's life. In this Zelaya was no different, other than he was cut off at the pass.

This is why I don't think it matters if he was kicked out or not, as they say in so many places, it's "borron y cuenta nueva". The Hondurans have had a set back, and they'll have to start all over again. And it is better if Zelaya is as far from the process as possible, he's a spoiled rich kid who lacked the brains to play the great game.

[EFerrari]

6. It was his role to challenge their anti-democratic positions.

And apparently you know little and care less about what the people of Honduras when through and are still going through as a result of that coup.

[Bacchus39]

8. yep, funny how they scream about how the military illegally kicked out Zelaya

but simply ignore Zelaya illegally and in defiance of the Supreme Court attempting to hold a referendum.

[EFerrari]

9. There is no inconsistency whatsoever.

The coup ousting Zelaya was a blow against democracy in Honduras. The referendum was needed and is still needed to further democratize political participation in Honduras.

[Judi Lynn]

10. Former Honduran President Zelaya says U.S. knew about 2009 coup

Former Honduran President Zelaya says U.S. knew about 2009 coup

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC : Former Honduran President Manuel Zelaya on Monday said that one document released by Wikileaks demonstrates that the United States knew in advance of the coup attempt against him on June 28, 2009, local media reported. "The complicity of the United States is demonstrated as it knew in advance about the plans and execution of the coup d'etat and remained silent," Zelaya said in a statement from the Dominican Republic where he lives since being overthrown.

Zelaya referred to a report dated July 24, 2009 from Hugo Llorens, the U.S. Ambassador to Honduras. In the document, Zelaya said, Llorens reported that there were no doubts that the Honduran Army, the Supreme Court and the Congress were conspiring against Zelaya's government in an unconstitutional and illegal move.

Llorens allegedly remarked that despite the allegations against Zelaya, the rise to power of Roberto Micheletti, who took the helm of the Latin American country, was illegal. Zelaya was overthrown as he attempted to hold a national poll to extend his mandate.

However, the report from the U.S. Ambassador - as cited by Zelaya - indicates that there were no arguments to justify the coup against Zelaya as they lacked of substantial validity according to the Honduran constitution. The former President said that the report showed that the U.S. was aware of the coup but did not act against it.

http://www.newkerala.com/news/world/fullnews-95064.html