Conn Hallinan: Honduran Coup: The U.S. Connection

[Downwinder]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/conn-hallinan/honduran-coup-the-us-conn_b_252836.html

[Judi Lynn]

1. Excellent article. Hope it will get a large readership through the Huffington Post

and allied sites.

More people need to know the TRUTH about this, instead of the boatload of lies which arrived first.

They should have guessed there was something fetid in the works when they saw Otto Reich's article in the Miami Herald the first Sunday after the kidnapping, claiming he was totally uninvolved in this ####fest. Oh, sure, Otto. Everyone's going to believe you, after your work as Ronald Reagan's propagandist during Iran/Contra, and the Congress investigation determined you were engaged in illegal forms of propaganda.

This article is very well done. Thanks for posting it.

[Peace Patriot]

2. Article says money not military goals behind the coup. I don't agree.

The article, by Conn Hallinan (Foreign Policy in Focus), correctly identifies some--but only some--of the US sources of money to the rightwing coup in Honduras (significantly leaves out Hillary Clinton and the "Millennium Corporation" and only hints at her connection to coup lobbyist Lanny Davis), and it identifies only some of the rancid US and other fascists behind the coup (fails to mention Clinton adviser John "death squad" Negroponte)--but it fails to mention, and indeed pooh-pooh's, the Pentagon connection: doesn't mention Honduras' strategic military location on the Caribbean, Honduras' history as a "lily pad" country for US aggression in the region, President Zelaya's proposal to convert the US military base in Honduras to a commercial airport, and the very significant failure of the US military, which controls that base, to stop the Honduran military from flying the kidnapped president out of the country (the plane landed for refueling at the US military base in Soto Cano), or to escort Zelaya's plane back into the country when he tried to return. Hallinan can be perhaps be forgiven for failing to mention the seven new US military bases going into Colombia (which, combined with Honduras and the US 4th Fleet in the Caribbean, surrounds Venezuela's main oil reserves on the Caribbean coast), the full number of which came to light only recently, but he seems bent on exonerating the Pentagon. Here's his conclusion:

"In the old days, when the United States routinely overthrew governments that displeased it, the Marines would have gone in, as they did in Guatemala and Nicaragua, or the CIA would have engineered a coup by the local elites. No one has accused U.S. intelligence of being involved in the Honduran coup, and American troops in the country are keeping a low profile. But the fingerprints of U.S. institutions like the NED, USAID, and School for the Americas — plus bipartisan lobbyists, powerful corporations, and dedicated Cold War warriors — are all over the June takeover."

I don't know if this writer has an agenda, or is just blind. This coup could not have occurred without the Pentagon's or at least the US "Southern Command"'s complicity, in addition to the "bipartisan" US taxpayer and corporate money that has been shoveled to the coupsters. And it MUST be seen in the larger regional context, especially with the increasing signs of a US oil war plan in South America.

Does the writer not understand what it means that "American troops in the country are keeping a low profile"? Why did the commanders at Soto Cano sit on their hands while the Honduran military refueled the coup plane carrying Zelaya? Why did they not offer the ELECTED president assistance when the Honduran military blockaded the capitol airport, preventing him from landing when he tried to return? And, of course, WHAT are "American troops" DOING in this country anyway?

Honduras is a client state of the US, like Colombia. It is wholly dominated by the Pentagon and US "free trade for the rich." It is one of the poorest countries in Latin America, with a venal, greedy, vicious ruling elite, which could not rule without US support. The US military base is their guarantor! And their lack of activity, which, in effect, permitted this mild reformer, Zelaya, to be violently toppled, is, in my opinion, the key to this whole situation. Who gave the order for them to sit on their hands? The US embassy (staffed with Bushwhacks) admitted knowing of the coup beforehand, and said they "advised against it." That is absurd! Who gave the orders to the US military and the US embassy to wink at this coup? Was it a coup within our own government, that has left Obama twisting in the wind? Or is it worse, is Obama himself the "winker"? And WHY?

US multinational corporate interests work in tandem with US war planners. There are most certainly US multinational corporate interests involved in this. And it could be explainable--and may one day be explained--as a Corporate Ruler political operation, run by corporate shills in our national political establishment, within and outside of the Obama administration. But it is not yet possible to exclude another motive--the Pentagon, or war planners within or associated with the Pentagon--securing a strategic asset for Oil War II-South America. And the longer this coup goes on, the more likely does that motive become. The US could have shut down the coup before, during or at any point afterward including right now. It has not done so. The diplomatic cost of this inaction has been very great. And I think this has to have a "very great" motive, behind all the other motives, considering Honduras' relative insignificance to our Corporate Rulers as a lootable economic engine. It has no oil nor other important resources. It is dependent on US handouts. Its elite has prevented the kind of local development that can create prosperity. It is of interest to John McCain re telecommunications, to Chiquita Banana for slave labor, etc., but I think we need to understand that its chief significance to the US is military. That is its history with us. And that is what becomes very clear when you look at US activity in the region over the last year*, including this latest clue--the seven new US military bases in Colombia.

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

*(The US-instigated failed coup in Bolivia last September (2008); the US/Colombia bombing/raid on Ecuador in March 2008; the US reconstitution of the US 4th Fleet in the Caribbean; the intensifying psyops/disinformation campaign against Chavez and Venezuela, and also against Colombia's other oil neighbor, Ecuador; the Bushwhacks adding FARC guerrillas in Colombia (a "terrorist' element) to "war on drugs" funding last summer; the $6 BILLION in US taxpayer military funding of Colombia--a country with one of the worst human rights records on earth; and the recent announcement of seven more US military bases in Colombia. This is increasingly looking like a war plan, and, indeed, it has all of Latin America in a state of alarm about US intentions.)

[Downwinder]

3. Point of interest.

They could land at the US base with Zelaya on the way out, but he could not land there on the way back.

[Peace Patriot]

4. Right. Why couldn't his plane have landed at Soto Cano--a US military base?

Because someone gave the order that he couldn't.

To my mind, this is a fact that virtually everybody is ignoring. It's rather like the failure of the USAF to protect New York, but more telling still, its failure to protect the Pentagon, on 9/11. A lack of activity. A black of hole of non-action. A screaming black hole.

They landed the plane carrying the kidnapped president of the country at a US-controlled air base, and the US commanders there were doing...what? And when Zelaya's plane was circling the capitol airport, in his attempt to return, and the Honduran military placed vehicles and troops on the runway (and then open-fired with live ammunition at peaceful Zelaya supporters), our commanders at Soto Cano were doing...what?

They were sitting on their hands is what. And someone gave them that order.

[Downwinder]

5. Smoking gun??? n/t