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Are the Keystone Cops Running U.S. Foreign Policy?

by

Having appreciated the spirited campaign Hillary Clinton waged in the late spring of 2008 for the Democratic presidential nomination, I wondered last January if she could become a great Secretary of State.  But, yet, in the nearly eight months since she has taken office as the nation’s top diplomat, she has faded into the background, becoming, in the words of a liberal-leaning writer, “invisible.”

Mrs. Clinton doesn’t seem to be wielding much influence in U.S. foreign policy, perhaps the first time a president has used his most important appointment to silence one of his rivals.  You just don’t see him turning to her for advice as past presidents have turned to their secretaries of state.

And I wonder if it was she or the President who ordered the State Department to deny visas to the interim President of Honduras as well as 17 other top officials of his government, all chosen in the manner stipulated by the nation’s constitution:

Washington has revoked the visas of Honduras’ interim president and 17 other top officials to pressure the Central American nation to reinstate ousted leader Manuel Zelaya, Honduras’ government said Saturday.

The interim government expects the United States to revoke the visas of at least 1,000 more public officials “in the coming days,” Information Minister Rene Zepeda told The Associated Press.

(H/t:  Rick Richman.)

Refusing to grant visas to those who exercise just and lawful authority in an allied nature while calling a man, who won a second term as President of a nation openly hostile to the U.S. by clearly fraudulent means (as his government puts down a popular protest with an iron fist), “the elected leader” of Iran.

This is not smart diplomacy, this is diplomacy by the Keystone Cops.

N.B. Read Nick’s recent post for background on the situation in Honduras.

UDPATE: Abe Greenwald finds that the Obama foreign policy has helped distance the U.S. from our Eastern European allies.  Wonder if that’s the leaders of those nation’s have a particular affinity with the United States because of their recent experience with Communism, you know, that notion of shared ideals.

Comments

  2. I think Hillary is going to gather all the centrist Democrats (like me) and wage a campaign to recapture the Democrats from their leftist takeover. There was a time when being a Democrat didn’t mean being a leftist. It meant being on the side of the worker, helping the poor and old and all those nice things. I liked it when politics was simple–Democrats, the workers; Republicans, the managers; Democrats, the poor; Republicans, the rich. We knew who we were in those days. Now, it’s a fight between religious nuts on the right and communists on the left. I want Hillary to lead us back to normality.

  3. It was a military coup under the pretension of “democracy protection” (as are most coups)
    Even though some don’t like the guy supporting these types of coups is exactly what has gotten us into such trouble over the last 50 years.

    Of course asking conservatives to learn from historical errors is just as useful as trying to get my dog to stop peeing in my flower garden.

  4. Wow gillie, I guess you can’t read either. Read the post and the comments here.

    Again whack-a-mole, no matter how many times your emulate your idol Goebbles and repeat a big lie, it will never extinguish the truth.

  5. Oh wait, I forgot whack-a-mole doesn’t know how to make links, maybe he doesn’t know how to read them either.

    Relevant part:
    “The constitution expressly states in Article 239 that any president who seeks to amend the constitution and extend his term is automatically disqualified and is no longer president. There is no express provision for an impeachment process in the Honduran constitution. But the Supreme Court’s unanimous decision affirmed that Mr. Zelaya was attempting to extend his term with his illegal referendum. Thus, at the time of his arrest he was no longer—as a matter of law, as far as the Supreme Court was concerned—president of Honduras.”

     ”I succeeded Mr. Zelaya under the Honduran constitution’s order of succession (our vice president had resigned before all of this began so that he could run for president). This is and has always been an entirely civilian government. The military was ordered by an entirely civilian Supreme Court to arrest Mr. Zelaya. His removal was ordered by an entirely civilian and elected Congress. To suggest that Mr. Zelaya was ousted by means of a military coup is demonstrably false.”

  6. Hillary’s smarter move would have been to remain in the Senate and maintain her centrist role by challenging many of these far left policies that are going to swing through the Senate. She could have maintained a balance and possibly attracted moderate Republican voters as well as not set herself to go down in flames with Obama.

  9. And she’s probably fuming over the idiotic tire tariff. Based on the Clintons affinity for all things China, plus they, as far as I can tell, not big fans of tariffs, twenty to one says she was cut out of the loop on this.

    Why do I find myself pondering more and more that, if a Democrat was going to inevitably win the last election, the wrong one won..

  11. Being from another country, I have always admired the determination of US Presidents and governments in protecting, defending and promoting the principles of freedom of this great nation.
    It is incredible how the current government does not seem to be aligned to the principles in which the American constitution is based.
    Honduras Legislative and Judicial powers followed every single step in order to warn the now Ex President Zelaya of the illegality of his actions in wanting to make a new constitution like his friend Chavez and others in Latin America did.
    Mrs Clinton seems to forget how Zelaya, Chavez and company has treated and insulted Americans in the past.
    This is not a question about being Democrat or Republican, this is a question of dignity and of defending the founding principles of the United States.
    It is outraging that the Secretary of State decided even to cut millions of dollars for the development of this country, that at the end it will affect the poorest of this nation.

  12. ‘You just don’t see him turning to her for advice as past presidents have turned to their secretaries of state.”

    Huh? Pray tell, how do you have the slightest clue as to what the dynamic between Obama and Clinton is? How often they speak? To what extent he turns to her for advice? You just makin’ stuff up.

    “I wonder if it was she or the President who ordered the State Department to deny visas to the interim President of Honduras”

    Oh, you wonder! What does that mean? Do you have a single slight shred of evidence that there is any difference between their opinions on the matter? Or are you just makin’ stuff up?

    “Refusing to grant visas to those who exercise just and lawful authority”

    But that is only YOUR opinon as to their authority, one shared only by the radical rightwing in Honduras and in the US. No one else believes that – including the conservative governments in Canada, Mexico, Columbia, and the governments of every other nation in the hemisphere.

  14. Tano to English = “Well I can’t argue with what the constitution says, and I can’t provide any information to the contrary. So, like the Obama Administration, I’ll continue to support the policy of attacking democracies and coddling tyrants regardless of the facts.”

  15. So LW,
    Please explain to me why it is that every government in the hemisphere, probably in the world, agrees with Obama on this. Including all the right-wing governments that you probably find favor with.

  16. So Tano is an expert on the “right wingers” in Honduras, too. I am impressed.

    Tano – aren’t we trying to meddle in Honduras politics in the same way that gets us into so much trouble?

  17. SoCal,

    Well, yeah, I guess it is meddling. But we do have a history of that. At least this time we are meddling to establish a very important principle. Changes of power should come about by legal and constitutional means, not by the military abducting the president and ferrying him out of the country, illegally.

    And for blind ideologs around here who don’t quite get it, THAT is precisely why every other country in the hemisphere agrees with the US position on this. They all feel (especially given the histories that so many of them have) that taking a stand against military interference in politics is of vital importance, trumping even the problematical issues having to do with Zelaya’s conduct.

  18. It was a military coup under the pretension of “democracy protection” (as are most coups)

    And:

    Please explain to me why it is that every government in the hemisphere, probably in the world, agrees with Obama on this.

    Liberal douchebags supporting dictators. Who knew?

    Say, Tano, can you provide EVIDENCE of “every government in the hemisphere, probably the world”, or are you just makin’ stuff up? Please leave out the other dictators in the hemisphere.

  20. Naturally Tano LEAPS to the defense of dictators!

    First, the text of Article 239 of the Honduran Constitution, which blows away Tano’s ridiculous apologist arguments:

    Article 239 — No citizen that has already served as head of the Executive Branch can be President or Vice-President.

    Whoever violates this law or proposes its reform, as well as those that support such violation directly or indirectly, will immediately cease in their functions and will be unable to hold any public office for a period of 10 years.

    Hondurans dont want leftist Tyrants. They wrote it into their constitution, and the Supreme Court followed and upheld the law. The Honduran Congress backed the Supreme Court overwhelmingly:

    The Court determined that the president had violated Article 239 of the Constitution, which forbids a president from seeking to serve more than to one term in office and provides that any president seeking to amend or alter this constitutional limitation is to be removed from office. The validity of the court’s ruling has been challenged.[18] Some have complained that the court is partisan. Larry Birns, director off the Washington-based Council on Hemispheric Affairs, has described the Honduran Supreme Court as “one of the most corrupt institutions in Latin America.”[19] The national Congress claims to have affirmed the Supreme Court’s ruling by a vote of 125 to 3.

    So the Supreme Court, the Congress, and even his own Attorney General followed the Constitution to the letter of the law, and Tano and Obama agree with Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez and other leftist tyrants in contradiction of ALL the evidence that another leftist tyrant trying to seize power was somehow doing so legally.

    Tano and Obama, disgusting apologists and supporters of tyranny.

    That Mr. Zelaya acted as if he were above the law, there is no doubt. While Honduran law allows for a constitutional rewrite, the power to open that door does not lie with the president. A constituent assembly can only be called through a national referendum approved by its Congress.

    But Mr. Zelaya declared the vote on his own and had Mr. Chávez ship him the necessary ballots from Venezuela. The Supreme Court ruled his referendum unconstitutional, and it instructed the military not to carry out the logistics of the vote as it normally would do.

    The top military commander, Gen. Romeo Vásquez Velásquez, told the president that he would have to comply. Mr. Zelaya promptly fired him. The Supreme Court ordered him reinstated. Mr. Zelaya refused.
    The Americas in the News

    Get the latest information in Spanish from The Wall Street Journal’s Americas page.

    Calculating that some critical mass of Hondurans would take his side, the president decided he would run the referendum himself. So on Thursday he led a mob that broke into the military installation where the ballots from Venezuela were being stored and then had his supporters distribute them in defiance of the Supreme Court’s order.

    The attorney general had already made clear that the referendum was illegal, and he further announced that he would prosecute anyone involved in carrying it out. Yesterday, Mr. Zelaya was arrested by the military and is now in exile in Costa Rica.

    It remains to be seen what Mr. Zelaya’s next move will be. It’s not surprising that chavistas throughout the region are claiming that he was victim of a military coup. They want to hide the fact that the military was acting on a court order to defend the rule of law and the constitution, and that the Congress asserted itself for that purpose, too.

  21. Only problem is that Zelaya did NOT call a referendum on allowing himself another term. He called a referendum of a constitutional convention, agenda unspecified. If the referendum had taken place and the call for a convention had won, there is no way the convention delegates could have been chosen, met, and rewrote the constitution in time to influence the next election – which is happening in a couple months.
    At the time of the coup, the candidates for the election were already out campaigning. Zelaya was not one of them.
    So it simply would not be the case, in any eventuality, that he would have remained in office past his first term. Maybe if there was a convention, it could allow him to run again in 4 years.

    “Tano and Obama agree with Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez and other leftist tyrants in contradiction of ALL the evidence”

    Utter dishonesty. You fail to address the fact that Tano and Obama agree with Harper, Uribe, and Calderon, all the rightwing leaders in the hemisphere as well.

  22. excuse me, dumtano, Zelaya was attempting to call a referendum. He was told that the referendum was illegal and he intended going ahead with it anyway. That is why the Supreme Court acted and requested the removal of Zelaya.

    If Zelaya had not been removed from the country, then he would have been imprisoned.

  24. Tardo, Tardo, Tardo…

    Only problem is that Zelaya did NOT call a referendum on allowing himself another term. He called a referendum of a constitutional convention, agenda unspecified.

    He’s NOT ALLOWED to call ANY referendum for ANY purpose. That power is reserved for the Honduran congress:

    A constituent assembly can only be called through a national referendum approved by its Congress.

    Utter dishonesty. You fail to address the fact that Tano and Obama agree with Harper, Uribe, and Calderon, all the rightwing leaders in the hemisphere as well.

    Yes, I agree, you are utterly dishonest. What do you expect when the Thug in Chief is cutting United States aid to anyone who opposes his position:

    Elsewhere in the region there are reports that U.S. officials have been calling Latin governments to demand that they support the U.S. position. When I asked State whether that was true, a spokeswoman would not answer the question. She would only say that the U.S. is “cooperating with the [Organization of American States] and [Costa Rican President] Oscar Arias to support the San José accord.”

    In other words, though it won’t admit to coercion, it is fully engaged in arm-twisting at the OAS in order to advance its agenda.~WSJ

    Thats how Chicago thugs roll.

    The fact remains that the entire Congress of Honduras, the entire Supreme Court and Zelaya’s OWN Attorney General ALL say he was in violation of the constitution. Indeed, the plain language of their constitution makes it clear he was. And he was lawfully removed as the Honduran Constitution declares he must by the military acting on a lawful court order and supported by the almost unanimous peoples representatives.

    But thank you for continuing to illustrate that the left is the home of tyranny and dictatorship. How disgusting.

  25. the entire Supreme Court and Zelaya’s OWN Attorney General ALL say he was in violation of the constitution.

    Not to mention the entire congress and many other officials.

    And what is it with liberals always pissing themselves over what everybody else thinks? Even if Calderon, Uribe etc. agree, so the hell what? It’s not their country. Does Honduras submit to John F.You Kerry’s “Global Test” now?

  26. Note how Tano’s gone from “Every government” to “Every Government in the Hemisphere.’ Even though it’s been shown that no, that’s not the case.

    As for ‘the world’ I notice how Tano avoided CP’s article here. The IBD article he linked to has more details.

    So Tano can’t or won’t read the constitution and wants to ‘go it alone’ Well, go it with Castro and Chavez. Why am I not surprised.

  27. “And what is it with liberals always pissing themselves over what everybody else thinks? Even if Calderon, Uribe etc. agree…”

    No pissing. Simply that the point about listing all the conservative support for US policy was to counter the incessant, and intentionally misleading mantra from the right that the US was agreeing with Castro and Chavez.

    All countries agree with the US, because all countries, ESPECIALLY DEMOCRACIES have a huge motivation to delegitamize power changes pulled off by illegal military actions.

    I’m not surprised that radical rightwingers dont appreciate this concern, given how often they have supported military coups against democracy in the past, especially in Latin America.

  30. illegal military actions

    Stop lying Tardo! Once again, Tardo shows the predilection of leftists toward tyranny.

    Pop quiz, comrade!
    Guess who determines what is legal and constitutional in Honduras?

    1) The Honduran Constitution
    2) The Honduran Supreme Court
    3) The duly elected Representatives of the people in the Honduran Congress
    4) The top law enforcement official in Honduras, the Honduran Attorney General
    5) A tyrant trying to seize power in direct violation of the clear language of the Honduran Constitution.
    6)power hungry greedy leftist thugs and thieves outside the country (yes that includes you and Obama)

    If you answered 5 or 6 you may be a supporter of dictators and tyranny!

    but we already knew that didnt we!

  31. Are you guys high saying Hillary is a centrist? Does anyone remember hillarycare? Does no one remember the lefty idiocy of the Clinton administration, the only president in the last 40 years to poll lower than BHO? Thank god Newt stopped the idiocy then. Hopefully someone will stop the idiocy of BHO.