military coup in Honduras and how the US will act

Honduran president Manuel Zelaya was ousted by a military coup on June 28, 2009. President Obama has joined many leaders throughout the country condemning the ousting, although Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton held off formally calling the event a coup which would cut off millions in aid to Honduras. The US administration has not called for Zelaya to be reinstated in office. Zelaya is a close ally of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and has made a series of moves in opposition of US foreign policy, mainly highly criticizing the war on drugs. The president has said the US is responsible for drug violence in Central America and has called for legalization. In December he wrote Obama a letter outlining these points. He also raised minimum wage by 60 percent in a country where many foreign companies operate factories.

Generals Romero Vasquez and Luis Suazo who led the coup also received training by the United States at the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), formally known as the School of the Americas. WHINSEC has trained many Latin American soldiers and policemen including generals, dictators, and armies for drug cartels, some of which have been previously involved in CIA sponsored coups.

Democracy Now's Juan Gonzalez related these events to Haiti under the Clinton administration.

[T]his reminds me very much of what happened years ago in Haiti, where you had basically a military coup against a legally elected president, Aristide, and where the—a Democratic administration, President Clinton, condemned the coup leaders, as has President Obama, at least in this in the early days here, but where the US military was playing a different role—in essence, had its own ties with the established coup leaders.

It will be interesting to not only watch what the Obama administration does during this event, but also what goes on behind the scenes.

US interests

I'm going to keep this short, which maybe isn't such a great idea, since it'll lead to some yelling conspiracy, but if you've really read up on your recent US history, and not talking about your standard history books, you'd know that we've done more than our share of toppling of governments. Back in the day (Kennedy and before) we'd just go in full force with the military. But then people started protesting so the CIA got involved. Here is an article I found from two years ago discussing CIA plans to destabilize the Iranian government through economic means.

The sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the subject, say President Bush has signed a "nonlethal presidential finding" that puts into motion a CIA plan that reportedly includes a coordinated campaign of propaganda, disinformation and manipulation of Iran's currency and international financial transactions.

This is in no way proof and let me make a few things clear. What is going on in Iran is in no way something started by the CIA. People don't just hit the street in those numbers unless they have true motive, and as a modern society living under a repressive theocracy Iranians have the motive. At the same time the US has great interest in removing Ahmadinejad and to say something like this is going on without any US involvement is, in my opinion, a naive statement (one of the things I wanna write is a quick history of Iran which clearly shows how it got to where it is in large part due to the US and Great Brittan). Iran has been suffering economically more than the rest of the world. Iran has a large, educated middle class. Mousavi, being a moderate, would be more open to relations with the US than Ahmadinejad, especially with talks of removing the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The US has realized its foreign policy with the Middle East is failing. Obama's Cairo speech shows this, unprecedented in the way it was so honest with the way the US has dealt with the Middle East in the past (I'm talking pre-Bush II here). Therefore the big bad boogy man (Ahmadinejad) is no longer needed. But what Iran now has to offer is a market. And with Mousavi as president, and possibly with Khamenei out of the picture, this will happen.

At the same time something unexpected can happen, and that is if the people don't back down after the election and actually demand accountability from their leader, or worse yet (from the US point of view), the working class takes power of some industry. Another thing against their interest is how the internet, Twitter particularly, has connected the average American with the average Iranian in solidarity. I've seen this even from people who would have agreed with our government bombing Iran a year ago (I'll have more on this aspect in my next post). I have no idea how deep the CIA is, and reason being that it's a very sensitive issue as any showing of this will strengthen the regime. The state department has already intervened by asking Twitter to reschedule their server upgrade to be during the night in Iran. Of course what really matters is what's best for the Iranian people, and that will be determined after the regime is overthrown. Sure you might say that if the US is involved it's trying to bring democracy to Iran, but if you think that, you really need to read up on true US history.


Another site with good info on how the election unfolded. Only gave it a quick glance myself.

And from twitter...

the mobile phone and the computer replaces the gun as the waepon of the revolution #IranElection #IranElections

We have unconfirmed reports that there is dissent among commanders of the Revolutionary Guard Force - #Iranelection

http://bit.ly/1uRaDK - we need more proxys - #Iranelection - do not post on twitter

That last one is particularly important. If you could set up a proxy server it would help greatly.