Posted on 11/15/2009 1:27:25 AM PST by ErnstStavroBlofeld
Sen. Jim DeMint, a South Carolina Republican known for his efforts to block influence domestic immigration and health-care issues, has scored a foreign-policy coup by helping to compel the Obama administration to shift its stance on strife-ridden Honduras.
After demanding for months that deposed Honduran President Mel Zelaya be restored to power, senior State Department officials now say they'll accept the outcome of Nov. 29 elections in the Central American country even if Zelaya doesn't reclaim his post.
"We support the elections process there," State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said Thursday. "We have provided technical assistance. ... These elections will be important to restoring Democratic and constitutional order in Honduras."
That position is a marked change from the tough stance President Barack Obama took in the days following the June 28 removal of Zelaya, when Honduran soldiers launched a dawn raid and whisked him away in his pajamas.
"We believe that the coup was not legal and that President Zelaya remains the democratically elected president there," Obama said the day after Zelaya's ouster.
DeMint, by contrast, cited a Honduran Supreme Court ruling, later approved by the Honduran Congress, that the military had followed constitutional provisions in removing Zelaya and installing Roberto Micheletti as interim president.
While the U.S. government froze aid and took other punitive steps, DeMint held up two State Department nominations all summer and into the fall.
Christopher Sabatini, policy director at the Council of Americas, a New York-based organization of international businesses, said DeMint has had a major impact on the Obama administration's evolving response to the Honduran strife.
(Excerpt) Read more at mcclatchydc.com ...
There must be a ‘reason’ that they caved and it isn’t Jim DeMint.
Good for him and for Honduras. At least, to his small credit, Obama recognizes the will of the Hondurans and seemingly will take the opportunity to declare victory (ahem) and get out of this embarrasing episode in American history.
DeMint taught Obama a lesson.
This is heroic.
Hooray for Jim DeMint. It is sad that he is almost the only congress willing to stand against 0ba-Mao and for Honduras.
I totally agree.
The reason they caved is that they didn’t have one single fact on their side and their lies were falling apart. Even the UN published a position paper siding with Honduras.
Oops! congress=congrescritter
Yep, and the technical assistance will be contracted out to ACORN.
Exactly so.
De Mint certainly kept the heat on Obama and the Boyz, but Honduras gets the credit for sticking it out. However, when even the UN came out and said that Honduras was acting properly, I think that really made the Obama regime look as nutty and radical as it is and I think Obama didn’t want to be that obvious about it. After all, he was going to end up with his only supporter being Hugo Chavez, who has his own troubles right now.
Also, I wonder if Hillary changed her mind. She was initially (for about 5 minutes) much more positive towards the legitimate actions of Honduras in getting rid of Zelaya, but then she obviously had to toe Bambi’s Marxist line. In recent weeks, she has been pretty quiet about it, however, so maybe she realized that the whole thing was just making the US look ridiculous.
The third option, of course, is that the Administration plans to support Hugo Chavez in his desire to make incursions into Colombia and expects to be busy soon. Or possibly they think Hugo will deal with Honduras. I don’t trust them.
More than 240 professors and Latin America scholars from around the country Wednesday sent Obama a letter denouncing “the innumerable and grave human rights abuses committed by the coup government in Honduras.”....From an informed American who winters down there, Chavez and US State Dpartment hired agitaters have done the rioting, abuses and other mayhem to make the recently seated Constitutional government look bad. He’s disgusted with Obama, Clinton and Sabatino.
Yes and no. They boxed themselves into a stupid corner, the Honduran legislature wasn't going to let Zelaya share power, and Zelaya was acting like the deranged idiot that he is. DeMint helped give the DOS cover to climb down.
And then there's this piece of work:
Rep. Jan Schakowsky, an Illinois Democrat, called for Zelaya's return to power Thursday after a three-day visit to Honduras.
Schakowsky said she'd seen widespread evidence of human-rights abuses under Micheletti, including the violent dispersal of peaceful protesters and a clampdown on Honduran journalists.
"I myself was filmed as I left the Brazilian embassy by a uniformed soldier in a ski mask," Schakowsky told reporters in a conference call from Miami International Airport.
Schakowsky said she'd met with Zelaya, who "was very calm and upbeat and did not seem agitated or tense in any way despite the number of weeks he's been inside the Brazilian Embassy."
OMG -- she, a privileged U.S. Congressperson, was filmed! By someone in a ski mask! How dare they! Human rights abuse!
YEAH! One man with courage will defeat 100 feckless cowards.
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