“Hope” and hype in Honduras

The electoral farce in Honduras is this Sunday (a few hours from when I wrote this).  Honduras Coup 2009 has the rundown on the spin machine already coming out of Washington, Tegacigalpa and other places.

We are left with the spectacle of a US that declared a multilateral foreign policy in Trinidad and Tobago openly leading a tiny minority of countries of the Americas committed to recognizing the elections, alienating governments that see it putting the “stamp of approval” on the coup.

Which, remember, is taking place under the supervision of the armed forces, who have stockpiled plenty of tear gas for the election…

President Obama — curiously ahistorical for a lawyer and supposed scholar — suggests the military run “election” will let Honduras “start from zero”.   If this is based on advice he is receiving from his State Department, he needs to replace that political hack he put into the job before she costs the United States its last shreds of good will and respect it has in the Americas.

Ginger Thompson, the Times’ woman in Mexico City, has an allusive, non-committal review of the reasons for the declining respect for the United States in the region.

Hermano Juancito (… stay safe, John)… snapped a photo of this home-made poster which expresses the sentiments expressed not just within Honduras, but throughout the hemisphere, about this exercise in futility:

“They all lie.  They don’t fulfill their promises.  Vote for no one.”