Honduras: Who Cares About a Constitution?

U.S. Camp built in 1983 to train Honduran military

As a young soldier in the 101st Airborne Division in the Early 1980′s, I was one of those who rotated through Honduras helping to train the Honduran military.  We were assigned to a newly built camp along the “Carreterra Pavimentada Principal”, the main highway from Puerta Castilla inland to Puerto Escondito and beyond.  This was at a time when the Honduran Constitution had been revised for the 16th time and Honduras was fighting an internal battle against communist guerillas.  The United States, at that time, was also helping the Contras fight against the Sandinistas in Nicaragua.

Our days were spent teaching kids, some as young as 13, to be “cannon crewmembers”; artillery men who could help to defend a fledgling democratic republic against agressive attempts to undermine it from without and within.  That initial exercise to train the Hondurans (which elicited threats against us from Cuba’s Fidel Castro) led to a permanent stationing of U.S. military personnel which continues to this day.  The U.S. and Honduras have conducted joint military operations and training exercises regularly since that time and it’s quite possible that if not for the presence of U.S. troops, Honduras may not have survived as a nation. 

The U.S. has considered Honduras to be an ally (hearkening back to WWII) and has always stood by the tiny nation helping to defend it against it’s enemies.  That relationship is threatened now with the recent events surrounding the ouster of former president Manuel Zelaya and the subsequent interim presidency of Roberto Micheletti.  The United States, in the person of President Obama, has made it clear that (Warning: Extreme Liberal Lunacy) Manuel Zelaya is the recognized president and Micheletti must step down immediately.  This position by Obama is shortsighted at best and incompetent at worst.  After all the years spent helping the Hondurans protect their tiny republic from destruction, to demand the re-instatement of Zelaya is tantamount to betrayal.

Manuel Zelaya’s attempt to circumnavigate the Constitution by using populist tactics to achieve his goals, would have placed mob rule above the “rule of law” and  leave the country open to anarchy and/or radical revolution.  When Zelaya attempted to illegally change to constitution to allow him to remain in office beyond the allowable limit, the Honduran Supreme Court and the elected legislative body, with the support of the people, stepped in to defend the constitution and rid the country of a would be dictator.  By doing so, they drew the threats of those who would benefit from Zelaya remaining in power; people like Hugo Chavez, Raul Castro, Daniel Ortega and…Barack Obama?

The mere fact that our President is on the same side as the likes of Chavez, Castro and Ortega is enough to make me pause and question what is going on.  Does Barack Obama believe Constitutions and “rule of law” are trivialities to be ignored in the quest for power?