Al Girodano Gets it Wrong: "Hounduras and the Three-Ring Circus"

[magbana]

Al really does need to work himself out of his community organizer mode a bit. After all, what's going on in Honduras is not about trying to clean up a polluted stream in the community or, for that matter, a workers strike for more pay. In the following article, Giordano condemns Zelaya along with Micheletti and Clinton -- hence, the three-ring circus reference, for not having gone far enough by walking further into Honduran territory yesterday. First, I resent Giordano lumping Zelaya in with the other two thugs and second, I'm beginning to think that Giordano is not quite clear about what has taken place in Honduras.

If Zelaya had proceeded he would have been jailed or possibly killed. And then the real repression would have gone into effect. And, I promise you, Clinton would swing into action to do something that she has wanted to do for a while, boot Micheletti and replace him with a "reunification" prez. Anyone who doubts that the US would proceed in this direction or worse has not been paying attention to the high stakes associated with the telecommunications industry and virtually every other monied interest in the country and the rolling golpe de estado scenario across central and south america. With a "reunification" prez installed, slowly, the international community begins to see no other option with Zelaya out of the picture and the headlines shift from Zelaya to some other shit the US is into in another part of the world.

Zelaya should get nice and comfortable at the border to run out the clock. Why? So that he can re-group with the ALBA folks and figure out the best way to get arms into the hands of the people. Also, by staying put,it draws the people to converge in one small area of Honduras and prevents the necessity of fighting individual battles throughout the country. All resources, human and otherwise, are consolidated this way.

As long as Zelaya remains just across the border in Nicaragua he is still a strong rallying force for the people. Zelaya, in jail, gives Clinton the carte blanche to re-arrange the pieces on the chess board and you know that will not go in the people's favor. Because the cameras are following Zelaya and, as much as Giordano would like the headline to be about people's resistance, the best headliner now is Zelaya, especially if you want worldwide media to cover this travesty because none of the media outlets are barred from operating in Nicaragua.

I'm sure Giorano doesn't like Zelaya, but it is pretty sick of him to make him a part of a three-ring circus for which there are far more qualified candidates.

magbana



"Honduras and the Three-Ring Circus
Posted by Al Giordano - July 24, 2009 at 10:12 pm

By Al Giordano

I got in from a very long, hot and humid day on the highways of a country called América – within tens of hours, health willing, I hope to be reporting from a very interesting place - and I’ve just spent the last while catching up on what happened on the border of Honduras today.

Here’s the short version:

There is a three-ring circus distracting the global media from the authentic struggle – the one waged by the Honduran people, from below – and today none of the ringmasters dressed themselves in glory.

In ring one, we had Coup “president” Roberto Micheletti, who blinked when his troops did not arrest President Manuel Zelaya, who set foot on his country’s soil today at the border crossing– Los Manos – where we suggested he would yesterday.

In ring two, we had Zelaya, who himself blinked – inexplicably, from this community organizer’s lens, objectively viewed, a setback for his cause and his people – by not continuing his walk toward Tegucigalpa after the coup regime blinked. A few more steps forward and he would have either called the regime’s bluff, and continued marching, or he would have ended up in prison, inspiring the people to go the extra yardage necessary to topple the coup.

And in ring three, we had US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who claimed that Zelaya’s actions today were “reckless.” Today Clinton proved, once and for all, that she is not competent to do the job of foreign minister. What an asshole. It is Clinton who demonstrated that she is reckless about democracy. The actions she called “reckless” were those of a Honduran citizen and elected president doing no more than trying to rejoin his own feet with his own land. What makes her behavior today so obviously inept and deserving of eternal contempt is that she used such strong words to criticize a guy who, when push came to shove, did exactly what she had recommended, when Zelaya backed down. The only reckless thing he did was shrink from putting the next foot in front of the other.

Obscured from view by the circus: the mobilizations of an increasingly organized Honduran people. Today’s saga underscores that, in the end, the outcome is up to them, and from this pen we will redouble our efforts to make sure that their courage and sacrifice do not go unseen or unheard.

In my twelve years as a resident of Latin America, as close as I walk to the social movements, I have never told them what to do. I don’t believe it is the proper role of any US citizen to presume to give such advice. But I would like to highlight the remarks of Maryknoll priest and President of the United Nations General Assembly, Miguel D’Escoto, who prior to all of today’s blinking said, “Zelaya’s return is heroic and correct.”

Or it might have been, had he actually returned.

Notimex reported that coup “president” Micheletti told reporters that Zelaya, during his brief moments in Honduran territory today, was not arrested because “we would have provoked an international quarrel.” As if he and his Simian Council have not provoked sufficient crisis already.

And although my much bandied-about and different opinions than those of colleague Eva Golinger about how we got to this point in history continue, today’s events certainly put me on the same page when that colleague wrote:

“Personally, I think he needs to just continue inside Honduras, despite all risks, and fight to reunite with his family and his people, who have been risking their lives now for almost one month, struggling to defeat the coup regime.”

Yes, and finally: It’s not about Zelaya. This has never been about Zelaya, whether he's good or bad or somewhere in between. It’s about the people, who continue to reject the coup regime and withdraw the consent of the governed from it through exemplary civil resistance.

May Manuel Zelaya divert his gaze from the circus up above – may we all do that - and place it where the only authentic action will now happen: the struggle from below. The rest is just a pretext for cotton candy, Cracker Jacks and clown shoes.

Saturday Morning Update: About to get on the road again. Will check in this afternoon with all necessary updates..."
http://narcosphere.narconews.com/thefield/honduras-and-three-ring-circus

[Peace Patriot]

1. You both have good points to make--as does Eva Golinger--and I greatly appreciate

having access to all three views, and am further eternally grateful to you for your many posts here at DU, keeping us well-informed on the latest news, as well as on background.

I don't think that anyone who is not there on the scene--i.e., willing to take a bullet in Honduras--should criticize Zelaya for not continuing yesterday--as Giordano does. Zelaya very much does not want bloodshed. And he likely believes--probably rightly--that that is exactly what the Negroponte cabal is spoiling for. In a hot war, they win. They have all the guns. They have the US military behind them and the US-funded Colombian military as well, and all their death squads. They've been trying to draw Ecuador, Venezuela and Bolivia into a hot war for a year and a half now. Cooperative action among the new leftist leadership throughout Latin America foiled those efforts--stopped those wars and coups. And I strongly believe that that was very wise and very smart. Remember that, to Donald Rumsfeld (whom I believe is involved in this war planning), chaos = opportunity. Once the shooting begins, the fascists have already won, because they not only have a bottomless pit of money to keep pouring more and more arms into the conflict, but they also thrive and profit in an atmosphere of civil chaos, death and fear.

Look at the fate of the FARC, and what the FARC has been an excuse for! $6 BILLION in US military funding, and five new US military bases in Colombia! And this is why Castro, Chavez and others have told the FARC that armed resistance is a thing of the past. It won't work in this era; it is counterproductive, and it leads to wrongful actions, like kidnapping of innocent parties, and association with criminal drug networks (if that is true).

This is not the 1980s (although sometimes I feel deja vu). Honduras is now surrounded by leftist democratic governments, on every border, as well as having most of South America on the side of democracy. This is a very changed circumstance from the US-sponsored coups and slaughters of the Reagan "reign of terror." There is good reason to hope that the cooperation and pressures of these many other governments will eventually work. It has worked before, recently--as recently as last September, when Brazil and Argentina (Bolivia's main gas customers) told the white separatist coupsters in Bolivia that they would not recognize them or trade with them, and Michele Batchelet convened the first meeting of UNASUR which took unanimous action in support of Evo Morales, just after he had thrown the US ambassador out of Bolivia (who was funding/organizing those rioters and murderers right out of the US embassy). This is not the same situation--the Pentagon did not have a military base in Bolivia, for one thing, and this coup has gotten much further--but it is similar. Collective action is what is needed, is possible, has been successful recently, and is by far the best course of action for the future. Arming Hondurans for what could only be a difficult guerilla war against a vastly superior force is a last option--a desperate option, the option for when all other options have been exhausted. And even then it is probably unwise, in this era of extremely lethal force in the hands of the bad guys, as well as highly sophisticated forms of surveillance and control. (They got Raul Reyes, the FARC's peace negotiator, through his use of a satellite phone, or so they say--and blew him and 24 other people away with ten US "smart bombs.")

Giordano makes a contradictory argument. He says this is "the peoples' fight" but then says that Zeyala's entry into Honduras is critically important. If it's solely "the peoples' fight," then they can and will do it without him. But, really, that's the wrong framing of the matter. This is "the peoples' fight," for sure, but not just the Honduran people. It is also the fight of the people of Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala and other countries, all of whose security is threatened by this coup. They and the leaders they have elected, and the people of Honduras, and Zelaya, need to solve it together. The chances for success are hugely increased by collective action. And this is the future of Latin America--sovereign governments with strong democratic institutions banding together for their common economic and political security.

I think you are absolutely right, Magbana, that Clinton has the long term goal of preventing reform in Honduras by installing another US puppet government--one with a better face to put forward. Zelaya in jail would serve this purpose well. In jail, he could be usurped. He should remain free, and president--a living 'monkey wrench' in that plan, who keeps trying to return to Honduras, unarmed and in peace. As long as he is alive and president, wherever he is, she can't do it--or can't do it yet. This won't be as easy as Haiti. The political climate in Latin America has utterly changed.

I really don't like gainsaying Zelaya, though. He is a man with a lot on his mind. It's likely difficult for him to get good information, with which to make decisions like this--momentous decisions, with many peoples' lives at risk. I think he is a very courageous man, and that doesn't change because he pulled back across the border. It's fine with me if he keeps poking at the border, and lets the vast leftist movement that has swept Latin America help create the conditions for a peaceful return. In fact, it's fine with me if he resigns himself to exile and entirely retreats. That would be very understandable. One man cannot change a nation. It has never happened that way. In that sense, Giordano is right. Zelaya is, in any case, termed out. Others have to take up the cause of reform. He can only inspire at this point. And how he does that only he can decide.

If he remains in exile--actively at the border, or in retreat--the other countries can do a lot to try to insure honest elections in Honduras. They can boycott and refuse to recognize dishonest elections. They can demand certain conditions for elections to be recognized--timing of the elections, end of martial law, freedom of speech, assembly and press for an adequate period of time, etc. They can send in teams of OAS election monitors and can perhaps even demand UN peacekeepers to protect their monitors, and to foreclose intimidation of voters and election fraud. They have great moral power to exercise in this circumstance--and lots of precedent. Then they have the Carter Center, the EU election monitors, and other potential help. This has worked--produced honest elections--in Venezuela, in Bolivia and other places. Maybe it's best if Zelaya yield leadership to someone else, or to several others--while of course maintaining his right to finish his term. And let the collective leadership of this new democratic era in Latin America sort things out in Honduras in the best way possible, through honest elections.

Other actions: The OAS (and also UNASUR, Mercosur, the Rio Group) could go further than they have, and ask the US to remove its military base from Honduras, and cease funding the military altogether. They have not outright said these things--to put the onus on the US. They have concentrated solely on the coup itself, demanding that it step down. But why is it NOT stepping down? Because it has covert support here. Latin American leaders could get very pointed and very difficult with the US, and hamper all Clinton's neo-liberal and "war on drugs" (war profiteer) plans. They have collective clout. The best outcome is that they take this on together, with even stronger actions than they have taken so far--and not have the burden fall on one man, whose life is very much at risk.

One other thing: I think we should beware of Bushwhack operatives in the US, within the government, and outside of it, seeking to embarrass Obama and sabotage his stated policy. I am not prepared to call Obama "a thug." Dissing Obama, and in-fighting on the left--could very well be among the goals of the US operatives behind this coup. We should also be alert to division not just within our government--Bushwhack moles at work--but within the Obama administration. We need to bolster those who may have good intentions, and save our venom for those we are certain have bad intentions, and be aware, also, of what may be severe limitations on Obama's power, whatever his intentions are. Disorder, chaos, "divide and conquer," thy name is fascism. This is just a caution. I understand strong feelings on this matter. I have them myself. But the US is a very Byzantine empire--and also an "Alice in Wonderland." Things are often upside down and backwards. There are all kinds of false flag things going on, and mazes of secret activities and dire plans. And those dire planners don't ever want to see the left here achieve the unity and organization that the left has achieved in South America.

[magbana]

2. Thanks for your comments, Peace Patriot n/t