Leader Ousted, Honduras Hires U.S. Lobbyists

[Judi Lynn]

Leader Ousted, Honduras Hires U.S. Lobbyists
By GINGER THOMPSON and RON NIXON
Published: October 7, 2009

WASHINGTON — First, depose a president. Second, hire a lobbyist.

In the months since soldiers ousted the Honduran president, Manuel Zelaya, the de facto government and its supporters have resisted demands from the United States that he be restored to power. Arguing that the left-leaning Mr. Zelaya posed a threat to their country’s fragile democracy by trying to extend his time in office illegally, they have made their case in Washington in the customary way: by starting a high-profile lobbying campaign.

The campaign has had the effect of forcing the administration to send mixed signals about its position to the de facto government, which reads them as signs of encouragement. It also has delayed two key State Department appointments in the region.

Costing at least $400,000 so far, according to lobbying registration records, the campaign has involved law firms and public relations agencies with close ties to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Senator John McCain, a leading Republican voice on foreign affairs.

It has also drawn support from several former high-ranking officials who were responsible for setting United States policy in Central America in the 1980s and ’90s, when the region was struggling to break with the military dictatorships and guerrilla insurgencies that defined the cold war. Two decades later, those former officials — including Otto Reich, Roger Noriega and Daniel W. Fisk — view Honduras as the principal battleground in a proxy fight with Cuba and Venezuela, which they characterize as threats to stability in the region in language similar to that once used to describe the designs of the Soviet Union.

More:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/08/world/americas/08honduras.html?_r=1&ref=global-home

[EFerrari]

1. This disgusting mierda is still fighting their proxy war

in Latin America.

[Peace Patriot]

2. Well, I would say: always read between the lines of the New York Slimes.

And never, ever forget Judith Miller and the WMDs that weren't in Iraq, and the Slimes withholding information on the Bushwhacks' massive domestic spying for a year (2003-2004), to help keep Bush Jr. in power.

Then there is Simon Romero--the Slimes' "Judith Miller" for Latin America--who produces article after article of lies, spin and propaganda against the Latin American Left, and President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela (big oil reserves) in particular.

Whatever they are up to, here, with this article supposedly exposing the Washington lobbyists, we can be sure that it is not good for the people of Latin America, and not good for Obama's stated policy of peace, respect and cooperation. The Slimes is a warmongering newspaper, and a tool of our Corpo/Fascist Rulers. It is as bad as the Associated Pukes, Rotters, the Washington Past and the Miami Hairball--in its purposes--but it can be subtler in its propaganda techniques, as here.

Why would the Slimes suddenly get its panties in a twist over Washington coup lobbyists, four months into the Honduran Junta?

One reason could be the awesome leftist democracy movement that has arisen in Honduras in opposition to the coup--one of two reasons why the Junta is failing, the other being the remarkable solidarity among the overwhelmingly leftist leadership of South America as to turning this coup back.

The Slimes attributes confusion and slowness to action, by Obama/Clinton, to fascist CongressPukes and the Junta's lobbyists--but I think something else is going on: 1) The coup was obviously planned by the Bush Junta, and executed by Bushwhack moles in the State Dept. (including diplomatic corps), the Pentagon and the CIA; 2) While Clinton sympathizes with their goals (corpo/fascist rule in Honduras), she does not agree with their methods (esp. if they planned to assassinate Zelaya, which there is now evidence for), and she and Obama also have control issues (they are trying to gain control of our Bushwhack-polluted government); and 3) The US waffling on this matter is threatening the US Corporate Agenda in Latin America--and to implement that Agenda, Obama/Clinton need to be distanced from the coup plotters here, so that they are not seen as typical US bullies and dominationists by Latin Americans.

Thus, this article, placing the blame for US dallying and confusion on Pukes and rightwing lobbyists.

At the top of the US Corporate Agenda is defeating Latin American politicians like Mel Zelaya, who, for instance, raised the minimum wage in poverty-stricken Honduras (i.e., making sweatshop labor less profitable), or who don't like the US military in their countries (Zelaya proposed that the US military at Soto Cano, Honduras, be converted to a commercial airport), and who are allied with OTHER leftist leaders on social justice and regional independence issues. Our corpo/fascists cannot win elections in most of Latin America--no matter how many billions of our tax dollars are poured into that effort, through USAID, CIA and other budgets--except by fraud. Latin Americans have put great effort into clean elections. And so, pretty much the only way to hold a dirty (pro-Corporate) election is by means of a fascist military coup, as has unfolded in Honduras, whereby fascist thugs shoot up the president's house, kidnap him at gunpoint and exile him from the country, kill, torture, imprison and silence leftist organizers, and suspend all Constitutional rights--then hold the election.

The Junta itself cannot last. There is too much opposition to it within Honduras, and among the leftist leaders of the hemisphere--including not just socialists like Hugo Chavez, but also "centrists" or "left-centrists" like Lula da Silva of Brazil (and even some rightists--almost no one in Latin America wants to see any kind of coup). In fact, Brazil has been in the forefront of opposition to the Junta--and that is what has our Corporate Rulers worried. Brazil is key to them recovering much lost ground (lost because of their own thuggery and looting). And the other thing that has them worried is the people of Latin America, who are fed up with US bullying and--unlike us--insist on transparent vote counting.

The trick that our Corporate Rulers are trying to pull off in Honduras is to delay the end of the fascist Junta as long as possible, and with the Juntaists in control of election machinery (and having suspended civil rights, and created an atmosphere of bullying and intimidation, these last four months), hold the "election" and install a "new face" on the backgrounded Junta. This "new face" will roll back any leftist gains (such as the raise in the minimum wage) and cut off Honduras' alliance with Venezuela (in the ALBA trade group), diminish its alliances with its leftist neighbors (leftists elected on every border--in Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua), and calm things down with Brazil and Chile in particular (who hate coups).

This, our Corporate Rulers will begin to "stem the leftist tide" that one of the Honduran Junta military generals was referring to, in a quote reported by the Zelaya government-in-exile: He said that, by this coup, they were "preventing communism from Venezuela reaching the United States."

Communism! Read: clean elections; universal free medical care; universal free education through college; the country's resources being used to benefit the people; strong government regulation of the banksters ("organized money," as FDR called it); maximum citizen participation in government and politics; curtailment of corporate 'news' monopolies, more public to the public airwaves; in short, government that is responsive to the people.

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Now let me re-read and comment on this section of the New York Slimes article on this situation... I'm adding a few notes in parenthesis...

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In addition to the support of such cold war veterans — and partly because of it — the de facto government (the Junta in Honduras) has mobilized the support of a determined group of Republican (fascist) legislators, led by Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina. They are holding up two State Department appointments as a way of pressing the Obama administration to lift sanctions against the country (the Junta).

“We have made a wrong call here,” Mr. DeMint said in an interview with Fox News after returning from a trip to Honduras last Friday. Referring to the de facto government, he said, “This is probably our best friend in the hemisphere, the most pro-American (pro-Corporate, pro-war profiteer) country, but we are trying to strangle them.”

Chris Sabatini, editor of Americas Quarterly, a policy journal focusing on Latin America, said the lobbying had muddled Washington’s position on the coup (See **Note). The administration has said publicly that it sees the coup in Honduras as a dangerous development in a region that not too long ago was plagued by them, he said.

But, he added, to placate its opponents in Congress, and have its nominations approved, the State Department has sometimes sent back-channel messages to legislators expressing its support for Mr. Zelaya in more equivocal terms. (See ****Note.)

“There’s been a leadership vacuum on Honduras in the administration, and these are the people who’ve filled it,” he said of the Micheletti government’s backers (i.e., the congresspukes and lobbyists). “They haven’t gotten a lot of support, but enough to hold the administration’s policy hostage for now.”

After the June 28 coup, President Obama joined the region in condemning the action and calling for President Zelaya to be returned to power, even though the Honduran president is an ally of Mr. Chávez, America’s biggest adversary in the region. (Notice how "America" = the US--and the presumption that Chavez is "our" adversary.)

But Congressional aides said that less than 10 days after Mr. Zelaya was ousted, Mr. Noriega and Lanny J. Davis, a confidant of Mrs. Clinton and a lobbyist for a Honduran business council, organized a meeting for supporters of the de facto government with members of the Senate.

Mr. Fisk, who attended the meeting, said he was stunned by the turnout. “I had never seen eight senators in one room to talk about Latin America in my entire career,” he said.

As President Obama imposed increasingly tougher sanctions on Honduras, the lobbying intensified. The Cormac Group, run by a former aide to Senator McCain, John Timmons, signed on, records show, as did Chlopak, Leonard, Schechter & Associates, a public relations firm.

For his part, Mr. Reich (Mr. Otto "death squad" Reich) sent his thoughts to members of Congress by e-mail. “We should rejoice,” he wrote to one member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, “that one of the self-proclaimed 21st Century socialist allies of Chávez has been legally deposed by his own countrymen.”

--New York Slimes (from the OP)
(the items in parentheses are mine; so is the underlining)

---------------------------------

**This is my main point. The Slimes is saying that "the lobbying had muddled Washington’s position on the coup." First of all, who knew that Washington's position on the coup was "muddled"? The Resistance in Honduras knew this. DU's best Latin American Forum posters knew it. But you certainly couldn't have known this from New York Slimes or any other corpo/fascist 'news' monopoly reporting. They are admitting it now because it suits the hidden agenda of the article, which could be to deflect suspicion of Obama/Clinton (by Latin Americans) and help restore their ability to pursue "America's" (i.e., US Corporate Rulers' and war profiteers') interests in Latin America. Indeed, there is something else "on the table" here, and it is the US plan to establish seven new US military bases in Colombia (a country with one of the worst human rights records on earth), to replace those that the US military and/or "war on drugs" has been kicked out of, recently (for instance, Ecuador, Bolivia and Paraguay), and possibly to further a Rumsfeld-era war plan in South America. This may be part of what the Slimes actually mean by the congresspukes "holding the administration's policy hostage." The Pukes don't want the "doves" in the Obama administration to win the "hawks vs doves" internal argument over the war plan. I don't know how sincere Obama is on his stated policy of peace, respect and cooperation in Latin America--I really don't--and Clinton has certainly been pro-war and pro-Corporate most of her career. But the events in Honduras and the US's slow response to them could have been the result, not of Obama/Clinton's collusion in the coup, but their efforts to stop the coup. (There are some strong arguments on both sides of this question.) Thus, the appearance of "muddled" could be masking either their hypocrisy (saying they are against the coup, but not really being against it), or their internal fight with Bushwhack moles in the government (Pentagon, CIA, State), over war policy as well as over the Honduras coup (which would be part of the war policy--securing that base; targeting Venezuela's northern oil region on its Caribbean coast). This NY Slimes article itself is "muddled," I think. It is a veil over something--and I think it's the war plan--the real issue.)

****(This Chris Sabatini, editor of Americas Quarterly--the Slimes' expert-of-the-day--further muddles the story by throwing in this "back-channel" gossip. WHO is carrying messages from the State Dept to Congress "expressing its support for Mr. Zelaya in more equivocal terms"? And what on earth does that mean? "More equivocal"? (They don't like leftists? Well, yeah...) And IF the Administration's policy has been "muddled" (already equivocal) why does anyone at State have to do this? It doesn't make much sense. Again, I think that Obama/Clinton are dealing with much more than minority congresspukes, and getting their Latin American desk nominees approved. And I think this is what the Slimes are trying to cover up, muffle, muddle and disguise. The real story is not just about lobbyists and congresspukes. It is about whether the Corporate Agenda is going to be pursued by peaceful, respectful and cooperative means, or by war.

General note: Lobbyists and congresspukes are just the front people for war profiteering and corporate looting. (And I include congressbluedogs as pukes.) To say that this is all about them, and to ignore who is benefiting--the suppliers of arms to Honduras (and Colombia), the corporate sweatshop owners, Exxon Mobil (as to war policy against Venezuela)--not to mention who is being fleeced by the war profiteers (us), and who is being oppressed both by their militaries and by the various global corporate predators who operate from our shores--and then, in addition, to describe Obama policy as "muddled" and NOT to mention our recent 8 years of a fascist junta here, and all that that means as to Bushwhack moles in the government--is to really muddle the issues. This is a very superficial "expose." And, as such, I think it's wise to ask: what are they hiding? I'm not sure if I've nailed it. But I do urge people to think this way--to seriously question what they read in the corpo/fascist press--which is NEVER trying to adequately inform us, but is ALWAYS trying to bend our minds in some way, or simply demoralize and disempower us. WE are the "enemy" just like the people of Honduras are, and the people of Venezuela are. One of the generals running this coup in Honduras said that, by their coup, they were "preventing communism from Venezuela reaching the United States." Think about that.