Honduras and Chile

I want to start with a good intoduction to my topic from Taranto. Taranto has a strong albeit subtle (dare I say Jewish?) sense of humor so, although I love his closing line, it is not the point of what I want to say:
"The Central American nation of Honduras continues its defense of the rule of law in the face of an assault by the Organization of American states, the Associated Press reports from the capital, Tegucigalpa:
Honduras' interim government closed its main airport to all flights on Monday after blocking the runway to prevent the return of ousted President Manuel Zelaya. Clashes with his supporters caused the first death in a week of protests. . . . Honduras' new government has vowed to arrest Zelaya for 18 alleged criminal acts including treason and failing to implement more than 80 laws approved by Congress since he took office in 2006. Zelaya also refused to comply with a Supreme Court ruling against his planned referendum on whether to hold an assembly to consider changing the constitution.

Bizarrely, President Obama has sided with the OAS and the scofflaw ex-president. A Bloomberg report from last week quotes a Honduran Supreme Court justice, Rosalinda Cruz, explaining the situation:
"The only thing the armed forces did was carry out an arrest order," Cruz, 55, said in a telephone interview from the capital, Tegucigalpa. "There's no doubt he was preparing his own coup by conspiring to shut down the congress and courts."

Why won't Obama listen? Does he have something against wise Latina women?

What I want to point out is that the situation in Honduras is a very close re-run of what happened in Chile in 1973. A far-Leftist President was defying the law of the land and the military responded to a plea from the Parliament to remove him. The outcome of that was in the end very good for Chile -- which is now a prosperous and stable democracy -- so I have some hopes that Honduras will benefit similarly. Honduras would be lucky to have a military leader as wise and as principled as Augusto Pinochet, however. Incidentally, Pinochet was an appointee of the man he deposed, Salvador Allende. Allende appointed him because Pinochet was known as non-political. He responded when his country called, however. You will read none of that in the press, of course.

Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don't forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me (John Ray) here

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