[Peace-discuss] A short Micheal Parenti article

[LAURIE SOLOMON]

It states the outlines of the case against Obama - and if not him, his
administration.  It is obvious on the surface that they either knew and did
not oppose the coup or they are incompetent and unable to control their
underlings and their underling's actions in the foreign service, military,
and intelligence bureaucracies.  I strongly doubt that Obama and the Obama
administration is incompetent or unable to control their underlings; that
leaves the alternative that they were complicit and their non-actions were
deliberate.  However, if it should be the case that that some operatives
were uncontrollable and did go off on their own either helping with t he
planning of the coup or keeping information away from their superiors in
Washington, then why aren't these uncontrollable operatives going unpunished
and why do they still have their jobs?

 

The Honduras Coup: Is Obama Innocent?
by Michael Parenti

Is President Obama innocent of the events occurring in Honduras,
specifically the coup launched by the Honduran military resulting in the
abduction and forced deportation of democratically elected President Manuel
Zelaya? Obama has denounced the coup and demanded that the rules of
democracy be honored. Still, several troubling questions remain.

First, almost all the senior Honduran military officers active in the coup
are graduates of the Pentagon's School of the Americas (known to many of us
as "School of the Assassins"). The Honduran military is trained, advised,
equipped, indoctrinated, and financed by the United States national security
state. The generals would never have dared to move without tacit consent
from the White House or the Pentagon and CIA.

Second, if Obama was not directly involved, then he should be faulted for
having no firm command over those US operatives who were. The US military
must have known about the plot and US military intelligence must have known
and must have reported it back to Washington. Why did Obama's people who had
communicated with the coup leaders fail to blow the whistle on them? Why did
they not expose and denounce the plot, thereby possibly foiling the entire
venture? Instead the US kept quiet about it, a silence that in effect, even
if not in intent, served as an act of complicity.

Third, immediately after the coup, Obama stated that he was against using
violence to effect change and that it was up to the various parties in
Honduras to resolve their differences. His remarks were a rather tepid and
muted response to a gangster putsch.

Fourth, Obama never expected there would be an enormous uproar over the
Honduras coup. He hastily joined the outcry against the perpetrators only
when it became evident that opposition to the putschists was nearly
universal throughout Latin America and elsewhere in the world.

Fifth, Obama still has had nothing to say about the many other acts of
repression attendant with the coup perpetrated by Honduran military and
police: kidnappings, beatings, disappearances, attacks on demonstrators,
shutting down the internet and suppressing the few small critical media
outlets that exist in Honduras.

Sixth, as James Petras reminded me, Obama has refused to meet with President
Zelaya. He dislikes Zelaya mostly for his close and unexpected affiliation
with Venezuela's Hugo Chavez. And because of his egalitarian reformist
efforts Zelaya is hated by the Honduran oligarchs, the same oligarchs who
for many years have been close to and splendidly served by the US empire
builders.

Seventh, under a law passed by the US Congress, any democratic government
that is the victim of a military takeover is to be denied US military and
economic aid. Obama still has not cut off the economic and military aid to
Honduras as he is required to do under this law. This is perhaps the most
telling datum regarding whose side he is on. (His Secretary of State,
Hillary Clinton, is even worse. She refuses to call it a coup and states
that there are two sides to this story.)

As president, Obama has considerable influence and immense resources that
might well have thwarted the perpetrators and perhaps could still be applied
against them with real effect. As of now he seems more inclined to take the
insider track rather than an actively democratic stance. On Honduras he is
doing too little too late--as is the case with many other things he does.




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