Latin America

Judi Lynn

(160,630 posts) Fri Jun 12, 2015, 05:57 PM Jun 2015

With White House Bid Underway, Clinton Role in Honduras Coup Raises Key Concerns

Published on Tuesday, June 09, 2015
by Common Dreams

With White House Bid Underway, Clinton Role in Honduras Coup Raises Key Concerns

State Department's role in 2009 Honduras coup makes Clinton's "campaign-season progressive rhetoric seem hollow"

by Deirdre Fulton, staff writer

[font size=1]

Then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrives at Armando Escalon Airbase in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, on June 1, 2009—just weeks before the military coup. (Photo: US Department of State/flickr/cc)
[/font]
During her time as Secretary of State, presidential candidate and former first lady Hillary Clinton engaged in the "engineering of regional politics in the service of the economic elite," according to a Salon exclusive, Hillary Clinton Sold Out Honduras, published Monday.

"Though it’s less sexy than Benghazi, the crisis following a coup in Honduras in 2009 has Hillary Clinton’s fingerprints all over it, and her alleged cooperation with oligarchic elites during the affair does much to expose Clinton’s newfound, campaign-season progressive rhetoric as hollow," writes journalist Matthew Pulver. "Moreover, the Honduran coup is something of a radioactive issue with fallout that touches many on Team Clinton, including husband Bill, once put into a full context."

In June 2009, as Pulver describes it, "more than two hundred armed, masked soldiers stormed the house of Honduran president Manuel Zelaya. Within minutes, Zelaya, still in his pajamas, was thrown into a van and taken to a military base used by the U.S., where he was flown out of the country."

The UN General Assembly, European Union, and the Organization of American States condemned the events as a military coup.

More:
http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/06/09/white-house-bid-underway-clinton-role-honduras-coup-raises-key-concerns

5 replies

= new reply since forum marked as read

Highlight:

With White House Bid Underway, Clinton Role in Honduras Coup Raises Key Concerns (Original Post) Judi Lynn Jun 2015 OP

any association of Hillary to the removal of Zelaya, real or imagined, will be utterly Bacchus4.0 Jun 2015 #1

Once again, I must concur with my friend Bacchus. forest444 Jun 2015 #2

if you talk to the wrong people it's the Embassy that's still making the lists MisterP Jun 2015 #4

Yes, Iraq will be a thorn throughout the campaign. She voted freely for the war. Bacchus4.0 Jun 2015 #5

It will have no impact on the election hack89 Jun 2015 #3

Bacchus4.0

(6,837 posts)

1. any association of Hillary to the removal of Zelaya, real or imagined, will be utterly

Reply to Judi Lynn (Original post)

Fri Jun 12, 2015, 06:15 PM

Jun 2015

Insigficant to her White House bid.

forest444

(5,902 posts)

2. Once again, I must concur with my friend Bacchus.

Reply to Judi Lynn (Original post)

Fri Jun 12, 2015, 07:49 PM

Jun 2015

For the second time in the same day, no less.

While I don't doubt that this chapter in her tenure as Secretary of State will come up in the Democratic primary debates, the sad truth is that her role in the coup against Zelaya will only hurt her standing with Democrats who'd be unlikely to vote for her in any case (i.e. Bernie Sanders voters).

Besides, whatever her role in the Honduras' present troubles surely it pales in comparison with that of John Negroponte, who as Ambassador to Honduras during the Raygun years was in charge of directing the flow of (illegal) aid to the Contras, and of course, for fostering the massive cocaine trade that developed in Honduras at the time in order to finance it.

The same military base created by Negroponte for the Contras and their Honduran military support structure, El Aguacate Air Base, also became the epicenter for the Honduran Dirty War as a secret detention and torture center - triggering the conflict which in some ways persists to this day. Battalion 316, the death squad created at his behest, used many of the same tortures committed 20 years later in Abu Ghraib during the Iraq War.

If Hillary's nomination will be derailed by any of her past foreign policy decisions, that's the one she's worried about - even if, as in Honduras, her role amounted to little more than a footnote.

MisterP

(23,730 posts)

4. if you talk to the wrong people it's the Embassy that's still making the lists

Reply to forest444 (Reply #2)

Fri Jun 12, 2015, 10:19 PM

Jun 2015

Bacchus4.0

(6,837 posts)

5. Yes, Iraq will be a thorn throughout the campaign. She voted freely for the war.

Reply to forest444 (Reply #2)

Sat Jun 13, 2015, 09:02 AM

Jun 2015

Many who did thought voting against it was the poor political choice, and thats all they considered, the politics over the human cost. Supporting another election in Honduras, that was supposed to happen anyway, seems only important to Mark Weisbrot supporters. Like I said, insignificant.

hack89

(39,171 posts)

3. It will have no impact on the election

Reply to Judi Lynn (Original post)

Fri Jun 12, 2015, 08:07 PM

Jun 2015

People have more pressing concerns.

Reply to this discussion