Senator supports Honduras coup as US suspends some aid
Published: July 2, 2009
Updated 4 months ago
The United States suspended some aid programs to Honduras on Thursday following last Sunday’s military coup which removed President Jose Manuel Zelaya and sent him into exile. However, one United States senator believes that the US ought to be supporting the coup and applauding Zelaya’s ouster.
The United National General Assembly has condemned the coup, as have most world leaders, and the Organization of American States passed a resolution on Wednesday calling for Zelaya to be reinstated. The Obama administration supports those resolutions, describing the expulsion of Zelaya as “unconstitutional and illegal” and calling for his “unconditional return.”
However, one Republican Senator, Jim DeMint of South Carolina, insists that the coup leaders acted properly and legally and that “Zelaya’s open defiance of democratic norms has set Honduras on a path toward violence, instability, and tyranny.”
DeMint calls Zelaya a “Chavez-style dictator” and an “illegitimate leader” and is demanding that President Obama “turn away from despots” and “give the United States’ full-throated support to the people of any country who are fighting for the same values we cherish and defend in America.”
DeMint may simply be seizing on an opportunity to criticize the Obama administration as being soft on an ally of President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, but there may be more to his support for the Honduran coup.
A diarist at Daily Kos pointed out on Thursday that the conservative religious group known as “the Family,” with which DeMint has been associated, supported the military dictatorship in Honduras in the 1980’s, when the general who dominated that nation’s government was working closely with US Ambassador John Negroponte to turn Honduras into a base for Contra operations.
More recently, Ricardo Maduro, who served as president of Honduras until he lost to Zelaya in 2005, spoke at a Family prayer breakfast during the time of his presidency.
10 comments
Printer Friendly |
Email
| Get breaking news alerts: Email/mobile |
‘DeMint calls Zelaya a “Chavez-style dictator” and an “illegitimate leader” and is demanding that President Obama should “turn away from despots” and “give the United States’ full-throated support to the people of any country who are fighting for the same values we cherish and defend in America.”’
Republicon piece of shit. This bastard and all like him have no concern whatsoever that the military tyrants they support routinely send out death squads that murder innocent civilians on a routine basis.
This republicon piece of shit and all like him care about nobody but the richest 1%. It’s all for them and whatever it takes to keep their slave labor business interests in Central America and elsewhere operating, whether that means murdering striking workers or gang-raping all the women in a village that has given food or shelter to Democracy-seeking rebels.
Demento of course would be for this ollie north drug-arms coup, this was there launch pad during Iran/Contra.
War is Peace
The nazis never lost, they just moved…
I’m betting this coup has the CIA’s fingerprints all over it.
americans can only hope to have as much freedom as “chavez style dictator”
Neocon DeMint from the Mark Sanford State.
Note the misdirection of the lukewarm Obama response ~
Wall Street
Art students
9/11 snow job
Chicken hawks
Moving company
Propaganda media
DNC stealth neocons
Anti-semitism accusers
The chosen the superior
2-3% of the US population
Extortion blackmail bribery
By deception ye shall wage war
AIPAC’s Israel-first dual-nationals
For profit NotFederal NoReserve scam
Words are plentiful deeds are precious!
I can only hope that demint gets caught with his pants down soon
“Defend America”? From what? Wall Street parasites? Outsourcing? The whorehouse politics of selling the rule of law for money and favors?
Look over your shoulder asshole and see the growing despair of millions of Americans because you and your ilk help facilitate the loss of millions of jobs to third-world countries. Who needs death squads when you’ve got the likes of Jim Demint and his neocon warmongers and corporate suckasses that have already wrecked this country. Why don’t you find an Argentine babe like your S.C. soul brother and show her your cherished values.
“DeMint calls Zelaya a “Chavez-style dictator” and an “illegitimate leader”.
No, you asswipe. BUSH was an “illegitimate leader” who came in second to Al Gore. Zelaya WON his election handily over the opposition. I know Republican politicians are none too bright but surely you can understand the difference between coming in first and coming in second, you Palmetto putz.
“turn away from despots”
That’s what most of the world is doing. They are turning away from an illegitimate military takeover and condemning the totalitarians who engineered it. Unless, of course, Demented meant that American values include supporting ruthless (trained in the School of the Americas) dictators. From past evidence, especially in Latin America, I would have to say that that is an American value from the number of times it has happened.
South Carolina: the boil on the ass of the South. DeMint, Sanford, Graham…what a constant cesspool of production that state is. They really believe if you can’t win the vote with the power of your position and argument, hell, just take control by force. South Carolina makes me ashamed to be from the South.