Hillary Clinton admits role in Honduran coup aftermath

[Ichingcarpenter]

The chapter on Latin America, particularly the section on Honduras, a major source of the child migrants currently pouring into the United States, has gone largely unnoticed. In letters to Clinton and her successor, John Kerry, more than 100 members of Congress have repeatedly warned about the deteriorating security situation in Honduras, especially since the 2009 military coup that ousted the country’s democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya. As Honduran scholar Dana Frank points out in Foreign Affairs, the U.S.-backed post-coup government “rewarded coup loyalists with top ministries,” opening the door for further “violence and anarchy.”

The homicide rate in Honduras, already the highest in the world, increased by 50 percent from 2008 to 2011; political repression, the murder of opposition political candidates, peasant organizers and LGBT activists increased and continue to this day. Femicides skyrocketed. The violence and insecurity were exacerbated by a generalized institutional collapse. Drug-related violence has worsened amid allegations of rampant corruption in Honduras’ police and government. While the gangs are responsible for much of the violence, Honduran security forces have engaged in a wave of killings and other human rights crimes with impunity.

Despite this, however, both under Clinton and Kerry, the State Department’s response to the violence and military and police impunity has largely been silence, along with continued U.S. aid to Honduran security forces. In “Hard Choices,” Clinton describes her role in the aftermath of the coup that brought about this dire situation. Her firsthand account is significant both for the confession of an important truth and for a crucial false testimony.

First, the confession: Clinton admits that she used the power of her office to make sure that Zelaya would not return to office. “In the subsequent days [after the coup] I spoke with my counterparts around the hemisphere, including Secretary [Patricia] Espinosa in Mexico,” Clinton writes. “We strategized on a plan to restore order in Honduras and ensure that free and fair elections could be held quickly and legitimately, which would render the question of Zelaya moot.”

This may not come as a surprise to those who followed the post-coup drama closely. (See my commentary from 2009 on Washington’s role in helping the coup succeed here, here and here.) But the official storyline, which was dutifully accepted by most in the media, was that the Obama administration actually opposed the coup and wanted Zelaya to return to office.

The question of Zelaya was anything but moot. Latin American leaders, the United Nations General Assembly and other international bodies vehemently demanded his immediate return to office. Clinton’s defiant and anti-democratic stance spurred a downward slide in U.S. relations with several Latin American countries, which has continued. It eroded the warm welcome and benefit of the doubt that even the leftist governments in region offered to the newly installed Obama administration a few months earlier.
http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/9/hillary-clinton-honduraslatinamericaforeignpolicy.html

[loudsue]

1. And because of the Military/Industrial complex, the choices we'll have in 2016? Clinton vs Bush

At least, those are the two they are going to try to cram down everyone's throats.

[rhett o rick]

39. "those are the two they are going to try to cram down everyone's throats." Of course "they" you

are referring to is the ruling oligarchy that out ranks the President.

[merrily]

2. "the aftermath" Yeah, only "the aftermath." Like always. nt

[Ichingcarpenter]

3. She didn't condemn the military coup whereas Latin America did

same old, same old Kissinger influenced foreign policy.

[merrily]

4. I can't stand Dr. Strangelove incarnate, cringe when I see him.

Even when I see his protege, Geithner.

However, this kind of thing goes back in this land to long before the now decaying Kissinger was a kind (as in kindergarten).

[Ichingcarpenter]

5. Kerry also loves Dr. Strangelove

Kerry is meeting with Kissinger today for advice on Syria

Secretary of State John Kerry will spend much of Wednesday meeting with senior members of the U.S. foreign policy establishment, as he attempts to press the case for U.S. engagement in Syria.

Kerry is scheduled to meet one-on-one with former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger Wednesday afternoon, and address a meeting of the 25-member Foreign Affairs Policy Board Wednesday morning. On Wednesday evening, Kerry will host a dinner for FAPB members at the State Department, according to an official schedule.

Widely considered a godfather of U.S.-Russia relations, Kissinger served as Secretary of State under President Richard Nixon and President Gerald Ford. As the nation's top diplomat, he pioneered the idea of developing a détente, or cooperation based on shared interests, between the leaders of the world's two nuclear superpowers.

As the Obama administration seeks to work with Russia to craft a plan to rid Syria of chemical weapons, Kissinger could prove invaluable as both an adviser and a public ally.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023646267

While in Brazil, Kerry praised Kissinger

and the went to talk about the Saudi Foreign minister in a prepared talk.

I thought now... why isn't he talking about great Brazilians or South americans to his US Brazilian embassy staff? Kissinger is hated in Brazil and South America by almost all Governments and people. His remarks made me cringe.

Then at the Turkish conference in Washington DC he called out Richard Armitage who was in the audience, for his honesty. The one that outed Valerie Plame



Don't believe me?

http://www.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2013/08/index.htm

[merrily]

8. I believe you.

In connection with interviewing Rory Kennedy about her Vietnam Era documentary, Rosie O'Donnell said that, she had only known Armitage in connection with Plame, but, after Kennedy's documentary, she (Rosie, the truther) wanted to build Armitage a "statchoo."

(BTW, Armitage claimed the disclosure was "inadvertent." What a coincidence, huh? That Cheney was out to discredit the Plames around the same time that Armitage inadverted himself into disclosing classified info. How many other secrets has Armitage revealed "inadvertently"e before or since, I wonder?)

He served on a destroyer stationed off the coast of Vietnam during the Vietnam War before volunteering to serve what would eventually become three combat tours with the riverine/advisory forces for the Republic of Vietnam Navy.[4] According to Captain Kiem Do, a Republic of Vietnam Navy officer who served with him in Vietnam, Armitage "seemed drawn like a 'moth to flame' to the hotspots of the naval war: bedding down on the ground with Vietnamese commandos, sharing their rations and hot sauce, telling jokes in flawless Vietnamese".[5] Instead of a uniform, Armitage often dressed in native garb. He adopted a Vietnamese pseudonym, "Tran Phu", based on an arbitrary, but personally relevant translation of his real name.[5]

Several associates who fought alongside Armitage and other politicians (including Ted Shackley)[6] have since claimed that Armitage was associated with the Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) clandestine Phoenix Program.[6] Armitage has denied a role in Phoenix and has stated that—at most—CIA officers would occasionally ask him for intelligence reports.[7]

.......



When Armitage arrived at the designated location he found 30 South Vietnamese Navy ships and dozens of fishing boats and cargo ships with as many as 30,000 Vietnamese refugees.[8][9] With transportation options limited for removing the floating city, Armitage, aboard the destroyer USS Kirk, personally decided that humanity required him to lead the flotilla of ships over 1000 miles to shelter in Subic Bay, Philippines, in 1975. This went against the wishes of both the Philippine and American governments. Nevertheless, Armitage personally arranged for food and water to be delivered by the U.S. Defense Department before negotiating with both governments for permission to dock in Subic Bay.

ublic service career

After the end of the Vietnam War Armitage moved to Washington, D.C., to serve as a consultant for the United States Department of Defense. He was almost immediately sent to serve in Tehran, Iran, until November 1976. Following that posting, he moved to Bangkok and operated an import/export business in the private sector for the next two years. In 1978, he returned to the United States and started working as an aide to Republican Senator Bob Dole.[citation needed]

In late 1980, Armitage became a foreign policy advisor to Republican President-elect Ronald Reagan. Following that role, he was made a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for East Asia and Pacific Affairs, a high-ranking post in the Pentagon. He served in this position from 1981 to 1983.

And heaven knows, New Democrats loves them some Reagan. Numbered among the TEN best US presidents in all of US history by both Hillary and Obama during the 2007-08 primary campaign.

Much more

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Armitage_%28politician%29

[KoKo]

20. Ran an "Import/Export Business for two years...

"Following that posting, he moved to Bangkok and operated an import/export business in the private sector for the next two years. In 1978, he returned to the United States and started working as an aide to Republican Senator Bob Dole.

Wonder what he was privately importing and exporting.

BTW: I didn't read the wiki...just your snip...but, wasn't Bob Dole involved in that Bank Fiasco... Was it Riggs Bank? Or another bank caught working with CIA and money laundering. There was some big whoopie do about Dole's involvement some years back but can't remember if it was Briggs or another bank.

[merrily]

21. "Wonder what he was privately importing and exporting."

Botanicals?



Who knows? Could be anything.

Dunno about the bank deal. That's probably in Dole's wiki.

[merrily]

11. P.S. Novak on just how "inadvertent" Armitage had been about

outing Plame.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/13/AR2006091301572.html

[jwirr]

28. Just more disaster capitalism. Just what we need.

[malaise]

6. Moving along

Hasn't this been par for the course in our hemisphere?

My way or the highway - democracy be damned.

[woo me with science]

7. Corporate empire.

A timeline of CIA atrocities
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014905682#post22
http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/CIAtimeline.html

[malaise]

10. Yep

and the narrative no longer works

[merrily]

12. Pay no attention to the exceptionalism behind the curtain.

[malaise]

15. Ha

Exceptional self interest

[merrily]

16. Isn't American Self Interest the very definition

that the very definition of American Exceptionalism? Well, "perceived short-term self-interest may be more accurate.

Though, I guess some might add American Hubris (and perhaps a few other choice terms).

[malaise]

18. Except that they usually shroud it in terms like

national interest - which are the interests of the exceptionally greedy and thoughtless 1%

[woo me with science]

37. A nation of sheep.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=4866723

[font size=2]The shepherd always tries to persuade the sheep that their interests and his own are the same.(Stendahl)[/font size]

Why is it so easy to cow us into war?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025559056

[Vattel]

9. It's hard to believe how bad the current slate of likely Democratic primary candidates are.

At least Obama was someone who seemed like he would be an improvement even though he turned out to be another tool.

[merrily]

19. Slate? So far, I've heard HILLARY, HILLARY, HILLARY, HILLARY, HILLARY,

Last edited Tue Mar 20, 2018, 06:15 PM - Edit history (1)

HILLARY, HILLARY, HILARY, HILLARY, HILLARY, HILLARY, maybe O'Malley, Sanders as a long shot, definitely not Warren and HILLARY, HILLARY, HILLARY, HILLARY.

As compared with the slate 2008, which Democrats then referred to again and again as "an embarrassment of riches."

[merrily]

13. Why people continue to accept everything from DC as gospel

never ceases to amaze me.

But the official storyline, which was dutifully accepted by most in the media, was that the Obama administration actually opposed the coup and wanted Zelaya to return to office.

In other news from the OP article, actions have consequences:

Clinton’s defiant and anti-democratic stance spurred a downward slide in U.S. relations with several Latin American countries, which has continued. It eroded the warm welcome and benefit of the doubt that even the leftist governments in region offered to the newly installed Obama administration a few months earlier.

Press the "reset button"?

[KoKo]

23. It's hard to know if the comment about Obama and Zelaya

was "cover" to keep his "Change You Can Believe In" going....or was the truth that he and Hillary and the rest of Dem Establishment were always on the same page with foreign policy but pretending differences. It was a shift on Social Issues important to Dems that was the "Change" but the Foreign Policy/Wall Street Business view is pretty much the same for both Dems and Republicans. And, it's now finally being revealed that we will be living through "endless war" as the 1% grow wealthier and the rest live with "endless austerity." The next President inherits both. Great Timing...isn't it. Start a new war at the end of your second term and let someone else sort it out.

We don't have a slate of candidates ready to take the till of the ship because when they get to DC they are captured. I had high hopes for Sherrod Brown, & Sheldon Whitehouse, But, I could see the light go out of them in frustration watching them on C-Span after both of them were newly elected where they tried to ask the important questions and push bills to help move forward issues that Dems used to care about but they never could get the visibility from the "Old Guard" who kept tight reign on them. Even Al Franken has become subdued and we no longer have Dennis Kucinich who tried to be a conscience for the House and was a thorn in sides of the hypocrites.

[merrily]

26. I don't know, Koko. Sometimes, I think I see green shoots;

sometimes I don't.

I like Brown. Then again, I liked Feingold, sooooo..........

Franken may be one of those who seem further left in the rear view mirror than during a Democratic administration.

[Scuba]

14. K&R

[Ichingcarpenter]

22. Don't anyone fool themselves..This is President Obama' policy

as far as the 'buck goes these days.

[woo me with science]

29. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss,

with many more bosses lined up.

[merrily]

31. Maybe.

Back in 2008, after Hillary had fought Obama well after she had any mathematical possibility of beating him, Obama and Hillary had a secret meeting, remember? We were told after that meeting that the outcome of that meeting was that he would help her raise money to pay off her campaign debts. Maybe there was more to it than that.

Never make total sense to me that a very rich couple with very rich contacts kept fighting that primary--exhausting themselves and running the campaign debts up even more--only because they were that desperate for Obama to email his donors for money and attend a couple of fundraisers to help her pay off her campaign debt.

[Octafish]

17. Easy Choice

Money vs The Poor?

http://www.progressive.org/wx030510.html

[woo me with science]

24. Easy when actions are guided by the sociopathy of corporate ethics

The attacks included the murder of trade unionist Julio Benitez, whose wife “said he had received numerous threatening phone calls warning him to abandon his participation in opposition groups,” Vivanco’s letter says.

Another trade unionist, Vanesa Yanez, was killed and her body, which had “signs of torture,” was dumped by the side of the road, Vivanco noted.

Claudia Larissa Brizuela was murdered in her home on February 24, in front of her two children. Her father is a prominent leader of the resistance and a high-profile radio host.

Five other members of the resistance front were abducted on February 10 and reportedly tortured, and the two women among them were reportedly raped, Vivanco wrote. “According to victims’ testimony,” Vivanco continued, “when they were set free, one of their captors said, ‘Pepe says hi,’ using the nickname of President Porfirio Lobo.”

[woo me with science]

25. Amazing propaganda state this country has, that we know more about her granddaughter than this:

“I am writing to express my concern regarding recent attacks on members of the National Popular Resistance Front (Frente Nacional de Resistencia Popular), including killings, rape, torture, kidnapping, and assault,” said José Miguel Vivanco,
 Americas director
 of Human Rights Watch, in his March 3 letter http://www.hrw.org/node/88902 to the Honduran attorney general. ”The fact that these attacks targeted members of this political group, which opposed the 2009 coup and advocated for the reinstatement of ousted president Manuel Zelaya -- as well as previous threats received by victims or comments allegedly made by the assailants -- raise the possibility that these abuses may have been politically motivated.”
....
Here’s Hillary Clinton on Pepe: “We believe that President Lobo and his administration have taken the steps necessary to restore democracy,” she said.

That’s not how Human Rights Watch sees it. “Without a thorough investigation to identify who committed the crimes, to establish motive, and to hold those responsible to account, these events could generate a chilling effect that would limit the exercise of basic political rights in Honduras, including the rights of freedom of association and freedom of expression,” Vivanco wrote.

Hillary Clinton’s embrace of Pepe Lobo is a disgrace, and it undermines President Obama’s rhetoric about establishing “a new chapter” in U.S.-Latin American relations.

[KoKo]

27. Recommend read from HRW....

Thanks..

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

30. K & R nt

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

32. More smelly baggage on the unstoppable Hillary Express.

[leftstreet]

33. DURec

[reddread]

34. sweatshops are people too

think of her as an overseas job creator.
a true blessing to those who need opportunities we would only fritter and waste.
we dont want to do that sort of work, protected by labor regs and so forth.
Think of the children who can now more reliably support their families while being molested/raped
and fed speed and birth control.
its what is best.

[woo me with science]

35. K&R

[woo me with science]

36. kick for CORRUPTION

[roguevalley]

38. I am glad that I'm not twenty and have to live under the corporate

shit-ocracy that Hillary is just another smirking face on the rotating wheel to oblivion. I am sorry, young ones. Truly I am.

[WillyT]

40. K & R !!!