Free Republic

After visiting Tegucigalpa last week and meeting with a cross section of leaders from Honduras's government, business community, and civil society, I can report there is no chaos there. There is, however, chaos to spare in the Obama administration's policy toward our poor and loyal allies in Honduras. In a day packed with meetings, we met only one person in Honduras who opposed Mr. Zelaya's ouster, who wishes his return, and who mystifyingly rejects the legitimacy of the November elections: U.S. Ambassador Hugo Llorens.

n Honduras the Obama administration seeks the restoration to power of a lawfully deposed Chavista thug. Among other things, in pursuit of this objective, the administration has cut off aid and yanked visas from Honduran officials who supported the thug Manuel Zelaya's removal. These officials (reportedly include) the fifteen justices of the Honduran Supreme Court and Jose Alfredo Saavedra, president of the Honduran Congress. According to (Mary Anastasia O'Grady:) "The lesson, presumably, is that judges in small foreign nations are required to accept America's interpretation of their own laws." O'Grady rightly observed: "The upshot is that the U.S. is trying...

"The last year and a half of the [President Manuel] Zelaya Administration will be, in my view, extraordinarily difficult for our bilateral relationship. His pursuit of immunity from the numerous activities of organized crime carried out in his administration will cause him to threaten the rule of law and institutional stability." —Charles Ford, U.S. ambassador to Honduras, May 15, 2008 Lots of hypotheses have been floated to explain why the Obama administration went to such extremes last year to try to force Honduras to reinstate deposed president Manuel Zelaya. Now the release of two WikiLeaked cables from the U.S. embassy...