Today's
Stories
January 22/24, 2010
Christopher Ketcham
Freedom of Speech for a Fiction
January 21, 2010
Paul Craig Roberts
Security Fools
Alan Farago
Fat Tires in the Everglades
Richard Morse
Earthquake in the Red Zone
Stewart J. Lawrence
The Prospects for Comprehensive Immigration Reform
Harvey Wasserman
The Weimar Democrats
Carl Finamore
Class Clowns
Ramzy Baroud
Iran and Latin America: the Press Stirs the Pot
Marshall Auerback
Obama Still Doesn't Get It
Fawzia Afzal-Khan
Pakistan Love Story
Adam Federman
Did Commercial-ization Kill the Bees?
Website of the Day
How Free Market Theory Destroyed the Free Market
January 20, 2010
Alexander Cockburn
A Richly Deserved Humiliation
James Bovard
How the Patriot Act Perpetuates Official Robberies
Mary Lynn Cramer
Class and Party Differences in Massachusetts
Dean Baker
Making the Banks Pay
Uri Avnery
The Turkish Incident
Kathy Kelly
Tough Minds and Tender Hearts
Jeb Sprague
Haiti's Classquake
Ron Jacobs
Revolution Not a Tea Party
John V. Walsh
Why I Voted for the Republican in Massachusetts
Bouthaina Shaaban
A Wise Strategy for Obama
Gail Dines
The Ideal Partner?
Website of the Day
Water Insecurity in the Colorado Basin
January 19, 2010
Michael Hudson
Wall Street's Power Grab
John Maxwell
No, Mister, You Can't Share My Pain
Stephen Soldz
The Guantánamo Suicides
Richard Morse
Tweets from Port au Prince: "A Hungry Man is an Angry Man..."
Björn Kumm
The Tragedy of Toussaint L'Ouverture
Gary Leupp
Blowback of the Drones
Eric Toussaint /
Sophie Perchellet
Haiti's Odious Debt
Nikolas Kozloff
Chile's New Right
Benjamin Dangl
Profiting From Haiti's Misery: If the Marines Don't Kill You, the Loans Will
Dave Lindorff
The Blackout on Cuban Aid to Haiti
Robert Roth
The Politics of an Earthquake
Website of the Day
Break Up the Big Banks--ASAP
January 18, 2010
Petra Bartosiewicz
The Intelligence Factory: How America Makes Its Enemies Disappear
Nelson P. Valdés
The Rescue Operation's Priorities in Haiti
Bill Quigley
Why the U.S. Owes Haiti Billions
Richard Morse
I See No Evidence of a Government Presence Here: Tweets from Port au Prince
Tolu Olorunda
More Than Aid, Haiti Needs Allies
John Ross
The Silence of the Sub
Manuel Garcia, Jr. The Murder of Masoud Alimohammadi: Assassinating the Iranian H-Bomb
Ralph Nader
Privatizing Everything
Franklin Lamb
How McCain was Greeted in Lebanon
Frederick B. Hudson
Plucking the Chords of Change
Website of the Day
Senator Centerfold
January 15-17, 2010
Alexander Cockburn
Bum Rap for Harry, Not for Bubba Bill
Richard Morse
The Streets are Now Haiti's Living Room, Bedroom and Morgue
Bill Quigley
Ten Things the U.S. Can and Should Do for Haiti
Patrick Cockburn
Crushing Haiti, Now as Always
Jeffrey St. Clair
On the Firing Line
Anthony DiMaggio
Remaking an American Myth:
Haiti, U.S. Aid and Humanitarian Relief
Tom Reeves
Haiti, Where America Never Learns
Daniel Wolff
Haiti's Ongoing Emergency
Alan Nasser
Obama's Latest Ruse: the Bank Tax
Saul Landau /
Nelson P. Valdes
A Coup in Honduras ... So Twentieth Century!
Andrew Oxford
Afghanistan's Soft-Spoken Rebel
Michael Donnelly
Big Greens and Real Greens: Biodiversity in the Age of Big Money Environmentalism
Russell Mokhiber
Democrats Going Down in Flames
Darwin Bond-Graham
The Green Drillers
Missy Beattie
War Dealer
David Ker Thomson
The Attention Economy
Gary Leupp
War on Yemen
Ron Jacobs
The Untold Story of Afghanistan
Clifton Ross
Nicaragua Now: Living the Farce
Jordan Flaherty
Her Crime? Sex Work in New Orleans
Marshall Auerback
Why Placating the Tea Baggers Protects the Status Quo
Marjorie Cohn
Keeping Same Sex Marriage in the Dark
Joe Bageant
Bass Boats and Queer Marriage
Tariq Ali
Remembering Daniel Bensaîd
Jayne Lyn Stahl
Too Soon to Fail?
Charles R. Larson
Iran at the Seams
Kim Nicolini
Vampires in Hard Times
David Yearsley
Histories of Western Music, From Grout to Kleinzahler
Poets' Basement
Garcia and Bryan
Website of the Weekend
Green Tags: Words That Stick
Support Haiti Action
January 14, 2010
Ashley Smith
The Incapacitation of Haiti: Before and After the Quake
Harvey Wasserman
Hard Core Green: How to Kick Corporate Butt
Dean Baker
The Case for Bernanke: a Really Bad Joke
Brian Cloughley
Selective Compassion
Brock L. Bevan
One Night in Sana'a: Parties, French Girls and Security in Yemen
Don Monkerud
The Health Insurance Monopoly
Winslow T. Wheeler
More Pentagon Spending
Gideon Levy
Only Shrinks Can Explain Israel's Behavior
Adam Federman
The Exxon Clause
James McEnteer
This Week in Stupid
Brian Concannon Jr
Working with the Haitian Government
Website of the Day
Protest at Wall Street
January 13, 2010
Patrick Haenni /
Sami Amghar
The Myth of Muslim Conquest
Jonathan Cook
The Iron Dome
Cecil Brown
Knocking on Woods: What Tiger Woods Jokes Tell Us About the American Character
Steven Higgs
Mercury and the "Environmental Soup"
Paul de Rooij
A People's Cartoon History of Gaza
Richard Forno
What Happens When They Change Targets?
Dr. Trudy Bond
Psychologists in an Age of Torture
Daniel Drennan
A Black Panther in Beirut
Martha Rosenberg
The "Good Cancer" Spin
Brenda Baletti, Gilson Rego and Antonio Sena
Battle in Amazonia
Website of the Day
Haiti Aid: Artists for Peace and Justice
January 12, 2010
Bill Salganik
The Myth of "Cadillac" Health Plans
Uri Avnery
The Quiet American Goes to Yemen
Dean Baker
Big Bank Theory
Dan Kovalik
Chiquita Lauded for Human Rights Abuses
Raza Naeem
Yemen's Memories of Revolution and Resistance
George Wuerthner
Up in Smoke: Why Biomass Wood Energy is Not the Answer
Dave Lindorff
Looking for Those Green Shoots
David Macaray
I am Blacker Than Rod Blagojevich
Tolu Olorunda
Bono Bombs, Again
Patrick Bond
Copenhagen Inside-Out
Website of the Day
Unfortunate Checkout Aisle Juxtapositions: Tiger and Abdulmutallab
January 11, 2010
Patrick Cockburn
Only Fools Rush Into Yemen
Gareth Porter
Potemkin Tunnels: Iran Uses Fear of Secret Nuclear Sites to Avert Attacks
John Ross
Mexico Welcomes 2010 With Bombs and Riots
Gregory V. Button
TVA Health Assessment Report on Coal Ash Raises Troubling Questions About the Agency
Ralph Nader
The Last of the Prairie Populists:
Losing Byron Dorgan
Tom Barry
Not Systemic Failure, Failed System
Mikita Brottman
The Healing Powers of Facebook
David Michael Green Lost in the White House
David Swanson
Obama as the Secret Decider
Kevin Zeese
The Baucus 8 Are Free
Website of the Day
Solitary Watch: News From a Nation in Lockdown
January 8 - 10, 2010
Alexander Cockburn
Acting Responsible
Andrew Cockburn
How the Teamsters Beat Goldman Sachs
Jeffrey St. Clair
The Battle to Claim the New West
Alison Weir
Calling Bono: Your Palestinian Gandhis Exist ... in Graves and Prisons
Peter Linebaugh
Some Principles of the Commons
Vijay Prashad
The Long March in Latin America
Saul Landau
Naked Empire
Tim Simons /
Ali Tonak
The Dead End of Climate Justice
Andy Worthington
Putting an Afghan Nobody on Trial
Missy Beattie
Shall We Gather at the CIA?
David Macaray
A Ray of Hope for Labor
Ron Jacobs
A Life Worth Saving
Randall Amster
The Road to Health Care Reform is Paved With Bad Intentions
Winslow T. Wheeler
Is Accountability Expendable?
Brian M. Downing
Pakistan and the Afghan Insurgency
Dan Bacher
Big Ag's Big Lie About Feeding America
Christopher Brauchli The Senate and the Filibuster: a Helpless and Contemptible Body
Carl Finamore
Negotiating Separately, Fighting Together
Walter Brasch
Giving the Homeless the Cold Shoulder
Charles R. Larson
Is Tash Aw the Malaysian Graham Greene?
Kim Nicolini
"The Messenger:"
a Story of Absent Bodies
David Yearsley
So You Want to Play in a Band in the Piazza San Marco?
Phyllis Pollack
Soul Serenade: the Legacy of Willie Mitchell
Lorenzo Wolff
Hoarding William Bell
Poets' Basement
Stevens, Kaung, & Yankevich
Website of the Weekend
Haitian Immigrant's Detention Story Leaves ICE Cold
January 7, 2010
Bruce Patterson
PTSD: Welcome Home, Hold Your Tongue
Alan J. Singer
How I Almost Became a Terrorist
Mark Weisbrot
Bail Out the Poor
William Blum
The American Elite
Joshua Frank
Bombing the Land of the Snow Leopard: the War on Afghanistan's Environment
Ramzy Baroud
The Media Vultures
Suzan Mazur
Turmoil at the NAS
D. K. Wilson
Guns, Race and Sports
Ray McGovern /
Coleen Rowley
CounterTerrorism in Shambles
Website of the Day
Sailing the Great Pacific Garbage Patch
January 6, 2010
Gareth Porter
The Iran Nuclear Trigger Forgeries
Mike Whitney
The Stimulus Killer:
Rubin Rides Again
Dean Baker
The Undignified Death of the Washington Post
Adam Federman
Swimming in Natural Gas: the Greenwashing of an Industry
Tariq Ali
From Reconquista to Recolonization
Bouthaina Shaaban
2009: Some Arabs, Some Jews
Nikolas Kozloff
Converting Tiger Woods: Brit Hume's Slurs on Buddhism
Emily Ratner
Palestine Vivre!
Carl Finamore
The San Francisco Hotel Dispute
Anthony Papa
Panic in Needle Park:
Return of the Fear Mongers
Website of the Day
Paul McCartney: the LSD Interview
January 5, 2010
Joseph Shansky
Killing Organizers in Honduras
Nadia Hijab
When Does It Become Genocide?
Steven Higgs
Evidence of Harm Revisited
Franklin Lamb
Obama Adds 675 Million Muslims to the Ultimate US Terrorism List
Frank Joseph Smecker
Coal's Ruptured Landscape
Paul Craig Roberts
The Law is Lost
Ellen Brown
Escape From Pottersville: the North Dakota Banking Model
Jayne Lyn Stahl
Time for a Peace Budget
Martha Rosenberg
Do You Know Where Your Child Is?
Laura Flanders
Dubai's Tower of Debt
Website of the Day
Guantánamo: the Definitive Prisoner List
January 4, 2010
Uri Avnery
The Iron Wall
Mike Whitney Bernanke in Atlanta
Patrick Cockburn
The Ugly Fortress
Dave Lindorff
Are U.S. Forces Executing Afghan Kids?
Dr. Susan Block
About a Boy: Inside the Two Heads of the Crotch Bomber
Lynda Brayer
Revenge and Retaliation in Gaza
Deepak Tripathi
Rebuff to Karzai or Occupying Powers?
David Michael Green
The Perils of Passivity
Lucinda Marshall
The Handmaid's Tale Comes to Life
K. Webster
A Flash of Anger, Then a Youth's Light Fades
Website of the Day
David Byrne: Art Funding or Arts Funding?
January 1 - 3, 2010
Alexander Cockburn
Goodbye to 2009, Hello to 2010: Year of the Tiger
Afshin Rattansi
Hostage to Fortune
Jeffrey St. Clair
Disquiet on the Western Front
Ralph Nader
The Awful Truth
Andrew J. Bacevich
Obama's Post-Modern War of Attrition
Joanne Mariner
Terror Suspects and U.S. Courts
Judith Blau, M. Rafael Gallegos Lerma and Alfonso Hernandez
In the Face of Immigrant Bashing
John Feffer
Emulating Nixon: Peacemaker as Warmonger
Fatma Elshhati, Miho Seki, and Anthony Löwstedt
The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine: an Interview with Ilan Pappe
Kevin Gallaher / Timothy Wise
Lessons From NAFTA
Dave Lindorff
The Year of Our Discontent
Missy Beattie
Backward, Into Fear
David Macaray
Why Men Really Read Playboy
Natanya Robinowitz
Mexico's Abortion Laws
Franklin Lamb
The Israel Lobby's War on Al Manar TV
Bob Sommer
Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old
Floyd Rudmin
Kant on War
Jim Goodman
Obama's Wallflowers: Dancing With Those Who Brought You
Charles R. Larson
In the Cracks of the City
Gilad Aztmon
Avatar:
a Humanist Call From Mt. Hollywood
Poets' Basement
Adler, Wróblewski and Wink
Website of the Weekend
Dimensions of the Afghan Insurgency
December 31, 2009
Winslow T. Wheeler
Eliminate the Senate
Patrick Cockburn
Touch Yemen, Get Burned
Mike Whitney
Lining Up for the Wall Street Gravy Train
Greg Moses
The Fear Stimulus
Ramzy Baroud
Egypt's Steel Wall
Ron Jacobs
Interventions R Us
Tom Stephens
"The System Worked"
Dave Zirin
The Man Who Would Reclaim Sports
Paul Richards
Tiger Max, Evel Denny, Buffalo Brian and Mini-Max Jon
Nick Egnatz
The Lesser Evil
Website of the Day
Roger Waters Blasts Israel's Siege of Gaza
December 30, 2009
Stephen Green
A Lawless Presidency
Thomas Mountain
What Did Angelina Jolie Pay for Her Baby?
Stewart J. Lawrence
Baluchistan and the Af/Pak War
Ray McGovern
Are Presidents Afraid of the CIA?
Jayne Lyn Stahl
Toys for Tots ... with Green Cards
Paul Craig Roberts
Israel Rules
Jeff Cohen
If It Was Wrong Under Bush, It's Wrong Under Obama
Binoy Kampmark
The Grand Placebo
Brenda Norrell
Hate and Death on the Border
Charles R. Larson
The Affluent Terrorist: Sexual Frustration and the Crotchbomber
Website of the Day
The Year in Coal
December 29, 2009
Gareth Porter
The Iranian Nuke Forgeries
Patrick Cockburn
Yemen Next
Steven Higgs Growing Up Toxic: Defeating Autism, Now
Susan Albulhawa /
Ramzy Baroud
Share the Land
Emily Ratner
Winding Our Way to Gaza
Dave Lindorff
Krugman's Health Care Sell-Out
David Macaray
Who is the Ideal Labor Leader?
Rev. William E. Alberts
Prince of Peace or Evangelistic Predator?
Deepak Tripathi
Compromised Domestic Policy, Militarized Foreign Policy
Walter Brasch / Rosemary Brasch
The Courage of Michael Vick: Dog Hanger as Model Citizen?
Website of the Day
Thinking Forward, Looking Back
December 28, 2009
Uri Avnery
Cast Lead II
Gary Leupp
Eyes on Yemen
Bouthaina Shaaban
Hearing is Not Like Seeing
Jayne Lyn Stahl
Decriminalize Political Speech
Sam Husseini
The Egyptian Puppet State
Greg Moses
Avatar's Jungle of Technology
Sonja Karkar
Gaza in Crisis
Patrick Bond
The Life and Death of Dennis Brutus
Michael Simmons
A Secret Masterpice: The Only Album "Bob Dylan" Ever Produced
David Michael Green
Good Riddance to the Devil's Decade
Alan McConnell
Who Will Organize the Organizers?
Website of the Day
Baucus: Shitfaced on the Senate Floor?
December 25-27, 2009
Alexander Cockburn
Disappointments in Samarra
Mark Rudd
What It Takes to Build a Movement
Ralph Nader
Read, Then Act: the Year's Best Books
Nicola Nasser
Palestinians on the Brink of Explosion
John Ross
Where the Holidays are a Cruel Hoax
Rannie Amiri
Jimmy Carter's Yuletide Apology
Christopher Brauchli
When Prosperity Comes to Bad Men
Shamus Cooke
Who Will Pay For the Economic Collapse?
Ramzy Baroud
Paying the Price for Europe's Identity Crisis
John Blair
My Moral Dilemma on Hydrofracking
Michael D. Yates
Fear and Loathing at St. Vincent College
David Macaray
The Gift Nobody Wanted
Charles R. Larson
Love in an Inhumane Country
David Yearsley
From the Little Ice Age, a Hot Christmas from Purcell
Kim Nicolini
Further on Down the Road
Poets' Basement
Four Poems by Gina Myers
Website of the Weekend
A Xmas Gift From Ray Charles
December 24, 2009
Carl Ginsburg
Cooing with Cash
Franklin C. Spinney For Better or Worse? the Afghan Escalation and Women's Rights
Nadia Hijab
The Jailing of Jamal Juma
Mike Whitney
Obama, Progressives and the Press: an Interview with Cindy Sheehan
Jayne Lyn Stahl
Reform in Name Only: Individual Mandates
William Loren Katz
Christmas Eve Freedom Fighters
Martha Rosenberg
First, Kill No Celebrities: New Year's Resolutions for the Drug Industry
Stephen Fleischman
A Pound of Flesh:
Interest and Profit
Anthony Papa
Chase Bank Says F-You to Students at Holiday Time
Dave Lindorff
An Afghan Christmas:
a Visit From St. Barack
Website of the Day
A Tale of Two Pigs
December 23, 2009
David Price
Hollywood's Human Terrain Avatars
Dean Baker
Bernanke and the Corruption of Washington Culture
Andy Worthington
The Afghan Four
Neve Gordon
Breaking Palestine's Peaceful Protests
Helen Redmond
Beware the Progressive Democrat
Debayni Kar
Can Migrants Save the Global Economy?
Fred Gardner
The Calender Girl Conspiracy: Could Pot Have Saved Marilyn?
Brian Tokar
What Really Happened in Copenhagen?
Dave Zirin
More Than a Sportswriter
Randall Amster
Et Tu, Barack?
Website of the Day
How Einstein Divided America's Jews
December 22, 2009
Paul Craig Roberts
Relocating Guantanamo
Dave Lindorff
A Longer, Deeper Recession Looms
Ralph Nader
Obama in the Shark Tank
David Rosen
Sexual Politics in the Age of Obama
Laurie Kirby
Woodstock's Dirty Secret
Ron Jacobs
The Best Way to Stop a War
Dick J. Reavis
Insurance Reform, in Brief
Manuel Garcia, Jr.
Palestine's Gift of Christmas
Norman Solomon
Flares in the Darkness
Rannie Amiri
The Death of the Grand Ayatollah Montazeri
Website of the Day
Nader: From W. to Obama: a Seamless Transition on the War
December 21, 2009
Alan Farago
Destroying the Everglades at 25 Cents Per Ton
Marjorie Cohn
Why the Af/Pak War is Illegal
Uri Avnery
Bordering on the Ridiculous: "Oybama" in Oslo
Mike Whitney
Bernanke Tightens the Noose
Mary Lynn Cramer
The Medicare Murder Mystery
Mark Scaramella
The Fate of California's Forests
Walter Brasch
Law & Order in Pennsylvania: Corruption, Murder and Race Hate
David Michael Green
Now, I'm Really Getting Pissed Off
Ingmar Lee
Why I Climbed the Flagpole
Farzana Versey
Whose Euthanasia Is It, Anyway?
Binoy Kampmark
The Conservative Dissident
Website of the Day
My Father Was a Freedom Fighter
December 18-20, 2009
Alexander Cockburn
Turning Tricks, Cashing In on Fear
Michael Colby
The Health Care Charade: Bernie the Quitter Fools Us Again
Jeremy Scahill
Stunning Statistics About the War That Everyone Should Know
Stewart J. Lawrence
Pakistan's Refugee Disaster: Symptom of a Deeper Malady
Mike Whitney
Chavez's Venezuela
Andy Worthington
The Case of the Unwilling Yemeni Recruit
James Ridgeway
How Health Reform was Killed by Triangulation
Saul Landau
Almost Year One: an Assessment
John Ross
Tragicomedy in Ixtapalapa
Danny Weil
Race to the Slop
Rannie Amiri
Year 1431: Off to a Rocky Start in the Middle East
Franklin Lamb
Life in Lebanon
Steve Early
Green Mountain Mustering for the War at Home or Abroad?
Liaquat Ali Khan
The Sovereignty of Muslim Nations: a Casualty of U.S. Foreign Policy
Fred Gardner
Pot Specialists Plan to Study New Strains
D. K. Wilson
Tiger Woods: Lessons Not Learned ... Again
Missy Beattie
It Takes a Conscience
Jim Goodman
Hope is Dead: the Ongoing Tragedy of Rural Health Care
George Wuerthner
Turning Montana Into the Nation's Woodbox
Charles R. Larson
Windows Into Non-Western Cultures
Lorenzo Wolff
Recession Punks
David Yearsley
That Nauseating Peace Concert
Ben Sonnenberg Lordura di Napoli: the Best DVDs of the Year
Wajahat Ali
Invading Eden: James Cameron's "Avatar"
Poets' Basement
Taylor, Pommy Vega and Cirino
Website of the Weekend
Rage Against the Machine: Uncensored for Xmas
December 17, 2009
Steven Higgs
Heavy Metal Kids
Barbara Koeppel
How Banks Prey on the Unemployed
Dave Lindorff
Abort the Democratic Health Care Bill
Ramzy Baroud
The Lobby Within
Ron Jacobs
Selling a "Just" War: From Panama to Afghanistan
Shamus Cooke
The Democrats' Faux Fight Against the Banks
Christopher Brauchli
Suffer Little Children
Binoy Kampmark
The "Inevitable" War?
Norm Kent
Death by Baggie
Patrick Bond
Green Market Punks
Website of the Day
Grayson: End the War Now
December 16, 2009
James Bovard
How Bush Redefined American Freedom
Gregory V. Button
The TVA Ash Spill One Year Later
Dan Schiller
It's a Wired World: the Communications Revolution
Gareth Porter
The Taliban's Offer
Farrah Hassen
The Cairo Detour
Nicola Nasser
U.S. Creates Its Antithesis in Iraq
Daniel C. Maguire
Why Obama Flunks the "Just War" Test
Martha Rosenberg
The Sex Scandal No One Wants to Talk About
David Macaray
Education's Dismal Cycle
Ellen Brown
An EU / IMF Revolt
Robert Bryce
The Copenhagen Conundrum
Website of the Day
Double Trouble for Polar Bears
December 15, 2009
Ellen Cantarow
Resistance in Bethlehem's Villages
Chris Floyd
Blair, Obama and the Narcissist's Defense
Anthony DiMaggio
Larry Summers and the Jobless Recovery
Dean Baker
Financial Transaction Tax:
Easy and Fun Money
Andy Worthington
Tortured in the "Dark Prison"
Mike Whitney
Malalai Joya Among Warlords
Jayne Lyn Stahl
How About a War Rebate?
Jeff Ballinger
Advocating Sweatshops: NPR, NYT and Nick Kristof
Raymond Lawrence
Tiger's Fix
David Rovics
Report From Cop-enhagen
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Weekend Edition
January 22 - 24, 2010
From Gun Boat Diplomacy to Smart Power in Honduras
The Preventive Coup
By SAUL LANDAU and NELSON P. VALDÉS
"If the American nation will speak softly, and yet build and keep at a pitch of the highest training a thoroughly efficient navy, the Monroe Doctrine will go far."
--President Theodore Roosevelt, 1903
"I am going to teach the South American republics to elect good men."
--Woodrow Wilson, July 4, 1914
What provoked a dozen families last June to conspire to overthrow Honduran President Manuel (Mel) Zelaya? He did not apparently harbor a secret revolutionary agenda, nor try to impose non-legal changes to bridge the immense gap between the handful of super rich and millions of poor. The oligarchy bogusly accused Zelaya of seeking constitutional changes so he could run again.
Zelaya had authorized oil explorations and planned to convert the U.S.-controlled Palmerola military base for civilian planes - contrary to the oligarchy's wishes. Zelaya also brought Honduras into ALBA - Venezuela's and Cuba's project to integrate Latin American economies without the U.S. He helped mobilize the region against Washington's "isolate Cuba" policy. His biggest sin, however, was proposing, through a non-binding referendum, a Constitutional convention to consider structural change.
In June, Honduran military officials, allegedly following Supreme Court orders, arrested (kidnapped) Zelaya, and flew him to Costa Rica. Since then analysts have forgotten this "incident" and "moved forward." Few have asked questions.
Why would the oligarchy "need" to oust a President who did not intend to remain in power? Zelaya had no substantial military support, or plan to obtain it. Economic power belonged to the oligarchy or foreign capital, along with all government institutions.
Two of three factions in Zelaya's own Liberal Party conspired to remove him. The constitution limited what any President could accomplish on social and economic change. Zelaya had six months remaining in office.
But "the guilty flee when no one pursues." Zelaya's referendum asking the public to vote on whether they wanted basic change could signal serious problems for the filthy rich who no longer counted on White House support. U.S. voters had replaced right wing Republicans with a seemingly law-respecting Obama. Yet, the coup moved forward -- even after U.S. officials, apparently, had advised against it.
U.S. right wing radio crusaders and Members of the House and Senate encouraged the connivers. The NY Times and Wall Street Journal also leaped on the anti-Zelaya campaign.
Those who expected Obama to respect sovereignty (majority interests in Latin America) should have recalled similar hopes by Latin Americans in Woodrow Wilson. As Wilson announced non-interventionist doctrines, he ordered U.S. forces to invade and occupy Haiti, Nicaragua and Cuba.
In 1933, Wilson's Assistant Navy Secretary, Franklin D. Roosevelt, became President. His "Good Neighbor" policy included friendly gestures to Leonidas Trujillo, brutalizer of the Dominican Republic; Anastasio Somoza, who specialized in murder and theft in Nicaragua; and dictator Fulgencio Batista in Havana. All three treated U.S. corporations with great respect.
John F. Kennedy followed his Bay of Pigs fiasco in Cuba with a "New Frontier," a Peace Corps and an Alliance for Progress. Simultaneously, however, he launched counterinsurgency, which aided democracy's prime enemies - the military forces of Latin America.
Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society at home contrasted to his ordering U.S. troops to the Dominican Republic. Reagan attacked Grenada. George Bush had U.S. troops arrest disobedient General Manuel Noriega, killing hundreds of Panamanians in the process.
These post Gun Boat Diplomacy incursions occurred when U.S. trained Latin military forces -- less costly than Marines -- failed. The CIA and 82nd Airborne became insurance policies - for overseas banks and corporations. Post Bolshevik Revolution policy fought communism to justify neighborly interference; after 1991, it became "democracy promotion."
Honduras' "preventive coup" showed the coupsters had calculated correctly: Washington was stuck with the result of their action, no matter how State Department wordsmiths squirmed.
Obama said it was a coup, but maybe not exactly a coup. So, we won't freeze the evildoers' assets. Reality dictates acknowledging the 'de facto' government. Mediation will solve the conflict followed by new elections, Washington's antibiotic combating disobedience and sovereignty infections: elections cure Couping Cough.
The Honduran right wing crowed. Chiquita Banana executives smiled at not having to pay banana pickers higher wages. The naïve who believed law would prevail received a cold reality bath."Radical populism" -- efforts to redefine power relations -- remained an anathema in Washington. If the poor control their own national resources, U.S. banks and corporations have less power at home and abroad.
Last June's events also provoked grassroots activism. The resistance leaders who backed Zelaya's return, sought to unite the poor under a constitutional banner. Ironically, the un-elected "de facto" President also unfurled the sovereignty flag claiming an OAS team looking into the coup would violate the very Honduran rights he had just subverted.
We have watched "Good Neighbor" and "Gun Boat" morph into "Smart Power": combining force and diplomacy, and mobilizing U.S. "civil society" assets abroad. In Honduras, Obama borrowed from Teddy Roosevelt but added a word: "speak softly, 'prevaricate,' and carry a big stick."
Saul Landau is an Institute for Policy Studies Fellow and author of A Bush and Botox World (AK/CounterPunch). Nelson Valdes is Professor Emeritus at the University of New Mexico.
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Spell Albuquerque:
Memoir of a
"Difficult Student"
By Tennessee Reed
"Powerful and shocking ..
see this film"
-- Joseph Stiglitz on American Casino
The Occupation
by Patrick Cockburn
Humanitarian Imperialism
By Jean Bricmont
CITY BEAUTIFUL
By Tennessee Reed
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