Top banana?David Seaton's News Links
The Honduran coup d'état is more important than many might think, as absorbed as we all are in mourning the passing of Michael Jackson.
The United States is in immediate danger of being seen as either helpless or hypocritical or both.
In fact, from a point of view of American credibility the situation in Honduras is more relevant than even Iran or Afghanistan, because the situation in those countries is obviously quite intractable, but Honduras is a client state of the USA, practically an American colony.
Honduras, the classic "banana republic" is seen by the world as America's creature.
If Zelaya is returned to office because of US pressure to respect the democratic process, then the USA will gain a tremendous amount of credibility all over the world very cheaply.
If this doesn't happen then Obama and the USA will lose credibility accordingly. No one anywhere will ever believe that the USA couldn't turn this thing around if it wanted to.
In fact no one, anywhere will ever believe that the USA was not behind any final resolution of this question.
In fact that cynicism would be the last shred of dignity left to American power.
If the world ever thought for even a moment that the USA was impotent to influence the events in Honduras either as a paladin of democracy or as imperialist brute then that could be the beginning of the end. Things would begin to unravel very quickly for the United States of America.
The skinny:
This little coup could be more important for US credibility than Iran, Iraq or Afghanistan... If the USA can't control the situation in Honduras, how can anyone expect the USA to control anything in the Middle East or Southwest Asia... or the dollar for that matter? DS
4 comments:
Interesting post, part of which points to the Monroe Doctrine. We're supposed to be able to control our own hemisphere and make sure we're the bully on the block.
But what about Mexico? We haven't even been able to contain our neighbors and death tolls that exceed Iraq.
Mexico is huge, Honduras is tiny... quite manageable.
Unfortunately, the Honduran Supreme Court & National Assembly were fully behind the removal of Pres. Mel. I covered the region when he was elected, and his status as a dim bulb was widely recognized -- too bad he took advice from Hugo & Danny. Will be interesting how it plays out, since legislative supremacy is a hallmark (unobserved, of course) of both US & Latin governance.
The US had a dim bulb for eight years and never deposed him.
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