Honduras Is An Opportunity

What a breathtaking piece of imperialist dogma. This is another country you are talking about. What right do you have to meddle? Because you can? Well that philosophy has worked out just fine and dandy over the past eight years hasn't it?
Perhaps if the US worried a bit more about its' own human rights atrocities it would be a better place. What human rights atrocities? Using white phosphorus against civilian targets (Fallujah), supporting regimes that routinely torture and murder opponents (Karzai, Maliki etc).
Anyway you are dishonest in your analysis. Zelaya asked for a vote on extending presidential terms he didn't seek to impose it.
You say that Obama has sided with the hemispheres leftist despots. Who? Name one that hasn't been democratically elected.

Isn't the problem of Zelaya and Chavez in part blowback from the kinds of policies that Reagan pursued in Latin America? I think it's important for America to abandon this kind of paternalistic attitude towards Latin America; not only does it fail to address the cause of radical Leftism in Latin America, which is social and economic exclusion of a majority of the people (the widespread poverty and lack of services), but it exacerbates it in the long term by denying them their democratic rights in favor of corrupt but ineffectual pro-American candidates (or, in the case of Reagan, outright dictators in Chile). In fact, I'd argue, for people like Otto Reich, it seems like capitalism is of higher value than democracy itself. Let's not forget that Zelaya, Chavez, Morales, Correa, and yes, even Ortega, were voted in democratically. Whether or not their economic policies benefit their people in the long term, I'd say it's better to let them mess up and let their people deal with the mess. It's more important, I think, to try to ensure that Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Ecuador remain democratic, so if their economic policies do fail their governments will collapse.

And that's why it's important not to go playing into the caricature of Imperialistic America that Chavez set up by intervening on behalf of a coup, as Bush did (in the 2002 coup for instance, which seems to have only cemented Hugo Chavez and given him boundless legitimacy abroad to bash America). We have better things to do.

I don't see the relationship between Grenada and Hondurus. Is that just me? What purpose would it serve to us to intervene in Hondurus. We are struggling in Iraq and Afghanistan as it is and now Reich wants the Obama administration to engage in another foreign policy nightmare that has little benefit to U.S. interest. Agreed, we have better things to do.

Ronald Reagan definitely had an eye for opportunity. He respected Oscar Arias, current President of Costa Rica and also during the Contra's War against the Sandinistas, when he figured out a way to avoid a larger war. Oscar Arias won the Nobel Prize, and Ronald Reagan listened and agreed.

Unfortunately for Mr. Reich, most people trust Oscar Arias' judgment far beyond his. His affirmation about constitutionality, legality, and legitimacy on the Honduran coup has no credibility out of the neoconservative circle. Obama's predicament is exactly that "fine" point missed by Mr. Reich (more like bluntly erased and leaving holes in the paper) , but obvious to any Central American citizen who actually experiences the reality he talks about but knows so poorly. As Ronald Reagan, I trust Arias, who knows and explains a situation far more complex than the one Mr. Reich describes so simple. I can only agree with him on the fact that Zelaya is a clown, and a very toxic one. As most people, I loath communism, but that doesn't mean that anybody who is not ultra conservative is "socialist", whatever that means.

Actually, anybody with a brain would agree that Zelaya is toxic, his association with Hugo Chaves is unsaintly (to put it mildly), but the damage he could have made in the remaining time of his period was minimal compared to the one done to the institutionality of Honduras, which was already fragile. The military and Micheleti have been sloppy at best, making the very same mistakes that create the small amount of truth existing in Hugo Chaves' words. Think about it, major incompetence is necessary to realize a self-fulfilling prophecy spoken by a man who excels in Orwellian double-speak.

Still, I understand how Micheleti and many well intentioned Hondurans did not know better how to neuter such a toxic president, if giving them the benefit of doubt. But Mr. Reich, even when his neoconservative point of view is uncritical and predictable, at the very least should know better and use more intelligent and credible arguments. If the Obama administration, the Arias administration, and every democratic country in the world agrees on the fact that removing Zelaya, or at least the way he was removed, was a serious blunder, who is Mr. Reich to tell us that everybody is wrong and only he and his neocon buddies are right? Far right; to the far right, for sure, but not correct at all.

What happened in Honduras was that democratically elected president was ousted in military coup. Such event should deserve universal condemnation by democratic countries and international community. Therefore I do not understand how the victim of coup can be called "a clown" and there are calls for "seizing the opportunity" by establishing relations with the new military dictatorship just because it is more pro-US. You are selling all your principles of freedom and democracy for political pragmatism and possible business perspectives. Of course the new establishment of Honduras tries to demonize the previous leader and says that everything was perfectly legal but their account is clearly biased and it is stupid to believe everything. At the moment we can not even exclude the possible US involvment in the coup. They could not have been so stupid to attempt the coup without hoping for support of the only major power in region.

I fail to understand most of you. Venezuela and Honduras have no problem in trading and or accepting aid from the United States. Indeed their economy would be in ruins if it were not for the United States. Yet Chavez continues to verbally attack the United States and Colombia or any other country that does not agree in his agenda.
In the case of Zelaya please why hold a non- binding referendum if you were not planning to lay the seeds for some kind of change in the constitution. This is a Honduras matter and the world including Chaves should wait and see.

Hairysteve20 –I guess if you want to mention US atrocities will you also mention Russian, Chinese, Chilean, Venezuelan, Colombian violations? You did leave them out why?

SAM from California – Please explain the rational of holding a Non-Binding referendum. Why would he do that and risk getting expelled from Honduras. Have you ever lived in Venezuela, Colombia or any Latin American country? Do you know thier history?

RONNIE – Please give all the facts not partial half facts.

Zelaya should be returned to Honduras and he should be allowed to remain in office for the remainder of his term. He should also after his term is over not run for any more office Chaves and every other country should take note this is strictly a Honduras issue. Let Honduras decide its own future. Under their law not the world’s opinion.

This might actually be the worst distortion of history that has appeared on this site. Can we try and tone down the praise for Reagan? Just a little bit please? Like others in the comments section, I fail to see the relationships between Honduras today and Grenada 25 years ago. Also, it seems Otto has no real suggestions for Obama on how to properly handle the opportunity turned crisis. Crisis? I don't hear anyone else calling this a crisis now. Funny how it was a legal removal of the leader, in accordance with the Constitution. Try and play that argument in Venezuela. After all, Chavez is following the Constitution to the T. I don't really have an opinion on Zelaya, but giving Reagan a high five for taking control of Grenada, an island nation of just 90,000 even today, and pushing Obama to do some arbitrary move in support of Honduran sovereignty (with a population over 7 million) just seems completely out of whack and irrelevant. Otto should remember that Reagan and Bush Sr. were buddies with Noriega while he was a major drug dealer (Just Say No) and Reagan surrendered to terrorists just before Grenada. It's like getting sucker punched and then turning around to beat up someone smaller than you to make you feel good.

Actually I'm pretty sure Reagan would have sold weapons to Iran and financed Zelaya's opposition with the proceeds...

This article is pretty ridiculous. In addition to there being little to no link between Grenada and Honduras, the claim that those who do not support the removal of Zelaya are communist sympathizers is absurd. Reich seems to forget that the cold war is over, and only lends credence to the ilk of Chavez by conceiving of any disagreement between the US and the loud mouth ruler of a fairly small latin american country as Cold War 2.0. Ultimately Chavez and ALBA are not especially significant on the world stage, and the US is better off advancing its interests by supporting self determination within Latin America such that (as has previous stated in these posts) when policies fail democratic institutions can function to elect someone who's competent.

We should support the negotiations led by Arias. In my mind the more foreign policy clout Costa Rica has the better off Latin America will be. Arias is probably a better representative of our interests in Latin America right now than we are, in large part because of the sordid affairs that Reagan initiated in the region.

As a correspondent for a major British newspaper in Central America in the 1980s I had the misfortune to run into this turkey on several occasions. I am dumbfounded that FP would give him space to micturate over its readers. Let's recall a few of the fourth Reich's highlights - between '83 and '86 he ran the Office of Public Diplomacy for Latin America and the Caribbean. The government's Comptroller General later concluded that Reich's OPD had been involved in "prohibited, covert propaganda activities, beyond the range of acceptable agency public information activities". It was part and parcel of the same contempt for democracy that gave us the unconstitutional secret government and drug smuggling network known as the Iran/Contra affair. Later, as Ambassador to Venezuela Reich fought for the release of Orlando Bosch. Bosch was then serving a jail sentence for a terrorist atrocity - he blew up a Cuban airliner in 1976 killing 73 people. As Asst. Sec of State for W. Hemisphere Affairs he was one of the US officials who tried to organize support for the anti-Chavez attempted coup in 2002. To cap it all he was on the board of the torture training complex known as the School of the Americas and worked as a stooge for the clothing manufacturers organization WRAP, which tried to fend off efforts to improve conditions in third world sweatshops. In short this turkey is of the school of US officials who sowed the whirlwind of illegal, militarist, arrogant policies whose consequences we are now reaping around the world. Chavezism is a natural consequence of Reich's behavior throughout his life. Why is FP giving him a platform?

A wonderful piece, with the exception that it manages to get several things wrong (or at least seems to overplay their significance) and that the author (or whoever wrote the blurb) manages to amazingly fail to tell the reader much about himself save that he worked for three presidents. Interesting that he forgot that the presidents in question were Reagan, H. W. Bush, and W. Bush, as well as the fact that he served as an advisor to McCain for the last presidential election. Normally the blurbs give more information than this one.
On Honduras now, the United States could have backed the de facto government and we would have gotten essentially nothing good from it. Honduras is not an irreplaceable partner in Latin America, indeed I would be more than happy to trade it for Brazil. Supporting a government that used the military to remove then-president Zelaya from office (and sent him into exile instead of putting him on trial) would simply confirm fears across the Americas about the aims of the United States without providing a single advantage. A democratic ally (on which I have my doubts) is worth little if it doesn't have a useful geographic location or a powerful economy.
On Grenada I will say little as it was a military adventure that the United States could do without creating an impossible situation, but I find it hard to credit that it can be seen as part of a 'defeat over Communism'. Records seem to suggest that economics and political weakness had far more to do with the breakup of the Soviet Union than Grenada.
Allowing the Organization of American States to lead on this allows the United States to influence matters without gaining a bad reputation from any successes or failures, and also allows us to restrain Venezuela's calls for armed intervention to restore Zelaya to power. I will admit that it does not seem likely that Venezuela seriously wanted to do this itself (that would undermine Venezuelan efforts in the region) but that military adventures are not something left to chance.

Here, in Honduras, we do not consider the USA our friend anymore. The USA has done a lot of damage by siding with the communist. As Hugo Lorens, the USA ambassador here said: The USA does not have friends, it only has interests. Well, it has been proven that we can live by ourselves.
At this moment, Nov 10th, we have Zelaya stuck in the Brizilian Embassy and we are heading toward elections. No matter what the USA EU OAS Unasur say. We are on our own....and proud of it!!!!
The civil war already started. Cubans, Venezuelans and Sandinistas have been entering the country. Most of them have already been put into the ground.

For us this is a fight for survival.

¡¡¡¡ Larga vida la Republica!!!!
¡¡¡¡ Viva Honduras !!!!!