Obama’s Honduran mistake

At first it appeared that Barack Obama and his foreign policy team might be having a hard time distinguishing America’s friends from America’s enemies. With their treatment of Israel and Honduras, however, one can safely infer that they have a pretty good bead on the friend/enemy distinction. The problem is that in many cases they choose to undermine America’s friends and side with America’s enemies. They think they’re hitting a reset button or something equally sophisticated.
Today comes word that the Obama administration will cut off all non-humanitarian aid and may not recognize the result of Honduras’s upcoming presidential election, in an attempt to pressure the country’s interim government to accept the return of its deposed president. Honduras’s deposed president is the friend of Hugo Chavez who illegally sought to emulate Chavez’s ascent to permanent one-man rule. Honduras’s Supreme Court and Congress declined to cooperate. They support constitutional government. Like so much of Obama’s foreign policy, Obama’s tack on Honduras is obtuse and misguided.
What is to be done? We can urge the State Department not designate the removal of the former Honduran president from office as a military coup. We can also express support for the constitutional government of Honduras by contacting the Embassy of Honduras in the United States. Its address is 3007 Tilden St. NW, #4M, Washington, DC 20008-3008. You can contact it at (202) 966-7702 (telephone), (202) 966-9751 (fax), and [email protected] (email).
UPDATE: Honduras’s Washington embassy is in the hands of Zelaya supporters. Other ideas for expressing support of the constitutional government of Honduras would be greatly appreciated.
PAUL SUGGESTS: A mass protest in front of the Embassy of Honduras? And one in front of our State Department.