POWIP Piece of Work In Progress

An Unbearable Spectacle of Absolute Diplomatic Incompetence

Via Jim Hoft comes this disgusting story:

The U.S. State Department says Sunday's presidential election in Honduras was a significant, but insufficient step, to end to political crisis that began there in June with the ouster of President Manuel Zelaya. U.S. officials are stopping short of recognizing opposition candidate Porfirio Lobo as the country's next president.

The State Department says the Honduran election met international standards for fairness and transparency and it has commended Porfirio Lobo for what it termed an "ample victory".

But at the same time, it stopped short of formally recognizing Lobo as the country's next president and says Honduras must still take steps toward political reconciliation before it can emerge from the isolation brought by the June 28 ouster of President Zelaya.

The U.S. response to the Honduran vote came Monday from Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Arturo Valenzuela. The Chilean-born U.S. diplomat said the voting was a significant step, yet only a step, in Honduras' return to full democracy after the coup d'etat that drove Mr. Zelaya from office.

He said that given the gravity of the June 28th events - the region's first coup since 1991 and the political polarization of the country - more steps are required.

"For the countries of the Hemisphere and for the United States, to work towards the restoration of Honduras to the Organization of American States [OAS] later on, Honduras must do more than just this election," said Arturo Valenzuela. "It must follow a process of national reconciliation through a government of national unity, and that's what we're urging the Honduran leadership to engage in. The people of Honduras want nothing less."

Valenzuela said the Obama administration seeks implementation of an OAS-backed settlement plan, including the creation of a truth commission on the circumstances of the coup and a congressional vote set for Wednesday on whether Mr. Zelaya will be returned to office to complete his term, which was to end in late-January.

The senior diplomat said the United States wants to see Mr. Zelaya restored to office. But U.S. officials have previously acknowledged that the Honduran National Congress might not support his return. Mr. Zelaya has said he does not want to be voted back into office, arguing that would vindicate a sham election.

Under fair use, I shouldn't reproduce so much of the article. But every time you feel it couldn't possibly get any worse, it does, and thus provides a perfect mise-en-abyme of the Oministration.

Honduras got rid of Zelaya, as I now have to repeat for the millionth time, for repeated constitutional violations. As Scott at Power Line points out:

Subsequent review of the acts in issue by the Law Library of the United States Congress affirmed their legality, with the exception of the expatriation of Zelaya. Zelaya has nevertheless re-entered Honduras and remains holed up in Brazil's Honduran embassy.

Despite John Kerry's attempts to send it back to them for a rewrite opinion that would have been more to his liking. And just who does back Zelaya's claims?

Honduras has withstood the disapproval of such paragons of democracy as Fidel Castro, Daniel Ortega and Hugo Chávez, not to mention Barack Obama. In the last minutes of the crisis, President Obama and Secretary Clinton backed off the ledge onto which they had walked with Castro et al. Good for them.

Honduras has also withstood the disapproval of the likes of Tom Loudon, co-director of the Quixote Center, "a faith-based nongovernmental organization focused on social-justice issues." Loudon was among a group of protesters in San Pedro Sula who were dispersed with tear gas and water cannons yesterday. The Quixote Center celebrated the election of Daniel Ortega to the presidency of Nicaragua with 38 percent of the vote in January 2007, but the doings in Honduras yesterday were not to its liking. Chalk it up as another indication that they are doing it right in Honduras.

The Obama Doctrine is clearly that they will not intervene in the internal affairs of another country, unless that country is small, democratic, and surrounded by socialist states well on their way to fascism. The people of Iran cried out for a sign from Obama that he wouldn't forsake them, even as they were massacred and jailed for peacefully demonstrating against the cynical ballot fraud of the mullahs, and he leapt to congratulate Ahmadinejad. Last week in China, he threw Tibet and Taiwan under the bus, bowing to Chinese imperialism and colonial expansionism. By abrogating our promises to Poland and the Czech Republic, he has exposed the region to danger from the neo-Soviet mafia state that Russia has become, and he seems not at all concerned about Iran's nuclear ambitions and proxy wars.

And as I mentioned yesterday, Ahmadinejad seeks to use the petroleum states in South America, of which Brazil is a prospective member, to threaten US interests in its own hemisphere. No, he's no John Kennedy. He's not even a Carter. He's worse.

This mobbed up vicious dilettante doesn't give a damn about human rights or liberal values; he is the ultimate per se statist, and that is all.

Dan Collins

Dan Collins is a dude who blogs. He used to blog elsewhere. Now he blogs here.

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