Blogs Sep 25, 2009 at 9:38 am

Comments

1
The Bush administration conspicuously did not raise the same sorts of objections when Chavez, a democratically elected leader, was ousted in a military coup. This ended up biting them on the ass when, three days later, Chavez was reinstated. Chavez has pointed to this fact ever since as evidence that the CIA was complicit in the coup, and thanks in large part to his tireless repetition of this point, anti-U.S. sentiment has reached unprecedented heights in Venezuela and throughout the region.

So the Obama administration is, to all appearances, behaving appropriately. It damages our country's credibility when we support democracy in some instances (when it produces results we like) and not in others (when democratically elected leaders nationalize their countries' oil production, for instance.)

Ahmadinejad was not democratically elected, so in the event of his ouster there would be no similar onus on the U.S. to protest his removal in a coup.
3
This might be the Obama administration trying to change the international community's opinion on the US foreign policy, which you know *ahem* everybody outside the US hates (except for Israel).

And what better way to do that than taking sides with everyone else on some small country's affairs, relatively irrelevant for the world order?

The last thing non-americans want to see is the US backing up another military coup, like it used to happen in the not-so-old days.
4
If the Iranian military turned its guns on Ahmadi and installed Mousavi, it could quite plausibly spin that as a counter coup and a restoration of democracy. If they returned to the barracks and there was a pretty show trial, we could even look at easing sanctions, and the whole world would applaud.
5
Uh, since the DoD is well into the era of nonlethal weapon technology, say,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_Deni…

And the Israeli equivalent of Blackwater/Xe guys have already been spotted in LatAm training police/military types since, oh, decades ago, maybe he's not that nuts?

Or maybe they're putting smelly French cheese in the A/C vents.

And even if he does get a li'l burning feeling on his skin when he steps out on the balcony, isn't that better than having New Kids on the Block blasted at you with loudspeakers all night long, like we did to Noriega?

Of course, there's no way anybody in the DoD is helping the Honduran military on this one. Or any ex-W administration folks. Nosiree Bob. That would be wrong. Same goes for the intel agencies. None of these folks have any opinions on this matter, have never operated in Honduras before, and didn't spend a full decade there setting up shop to conduct a war in two neighboring countries, and didn't make any friends there in that decade they weren't there. Oh no. Besides, they've always hated military dictators in Latin America! Dictators don't bring The Freedom.

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