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Hillary Clinton Testifies to Congress on Benghazi Consulate Attack by YouTube
These reasons alone cry out for Hillary Clinton to be contested in Democratic primaries if she announces her candidacy for the Presidency. She will probably hold her announcement off for as long a time as possible, so as to give her prospective Democratic opponents as little time to fundraise and organize as possible; the truth must therefore get out about her starting right now -- it can wait no longer. A quinnipiac poll on March 7th was headlined "Clinton, Christie Lead The Pack In Early Look At 2016," and reported that, "Former First Lady, and Secretary of State Clinton wins easily against any" opponent, from either Party; and so, she will almost certainly be the Democratic nominee if she can hold her announcement off long enough to prevent primaries; but the argument here will be that that would be good for neither the Democratic Party nor the United States.
Many commentators have mention
The disaster that the U.S. has caused in the small Central American nation of Honduras has been widely reported outside the United States, but most U.S. citizens know next to nothing about it; and therefore, here will be the first comprehensive account of it, in the U.S.:
On 28 June 2009, the Honduran military grabbed their nation's popular democratically elected progressive President, Manuel Zelaya, and flew him into exile.
The AP headlined from Tegucigalpa the next day, "World Leaders Pressure Honduras to Reverse Coup," and reported: "Leaders from Hugo Chavez to Barack Obama called for reinstatement of Manuel Zelaya, who was arrested in his pajamas Sunday morning by soldiers who stormed his residence and flew him into exile."
Secretary Clinton, in the press conference the day after the coup, "Remarks at the Top of the Daily Press Briefing" , refused to commit the United States to restoration of the democratically elected President of Honduras. She refused even to commit the U.S. to using the enormous leverage it had over the Honduran Government to bring that about. Here was the relevant Q&A:
Mary Beth Sheridan. QUESTION: Madam Secretary, sorry, if I could just return for a second to Honduras, just to clarify Arshad's point -- so, I mean, the U.S. provides aid both under the Foreign Assistance Act and the Millennium challenge. So even though there are triggers in those; that countries have to behave -- not have coups, you're not going to cut off that aid?
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, Mary Beth, we're assessing what the final outcome of these actions will be. This has been a fast-moving set of circumstances over the last several days, and we're looking at that question now. Much of our assistance is conditioned on the integrity of the democratic system. But if we were able to get to a status quo that returned to the rule of law and constitutional order within a relatively short period of time, I think that would be a good outcome. So we're looking at all of this. We're considering the implications of it. But our priority is to try to work with our partners in restoring the constitutional order in Honduras.
QUESTION: And does that mean returning Zelaya himself? You would insist on that in order to --
SECRETARY CLINTON: We are working with our partners.
She refused to answer the question, even though Zelaya had been an ally of the U.S., a progressive democrat. (Though Republicans decried Zelaya for pushing land-reform, the fact is that Honduras is virtually owned by two dozen families , and drastically needs to drag itself out of its feudal system. Doing that isn't anti-American; it's pro-American. It's what Zelaya was trying to do, peacefully and democratically. Our nation's Founders fought a Revolution to overthrow feudalism -- British -- in our own country. Hillary was thus being anti-American, not just anti-democratic, here.) This is stunning. The U.S had even been outright bombed by fascists, on the "day that will live in infamy," December 7, 1941; and, then, we spilled lots of blood to beat those fascists in WWII. What was that war all about, if not about opposing fascism and fascists, and standing up for democracy and democrats? A peaceful democratic U.S. ally had now been overthrown by a fascist coup in Honduras, and yet Hillary Clinton's response was -- noncommittal?
The coup government made no bones about its being anti-democratic. On July 4th of 2009, Al Giordano at Narcosphere Narconews bannered "Honduras Coup Chooses Path of Rogue Narco-State," and he reported that, "Last night, around 10 p.m. Tegucigalpa time, CNN Español interrupted its sports news programming for a live press conference announcement ("no questions, please') by coup "president' Micheletti. There, he announced that his coup "government' of Honduras is withdrawing from the Democratic Charter of the Organization of American States. ... The Honduras coup's behavior virtually assures that come Monday, the US government will define it as a "military coup,' triggering a cut-off of US aid, joining the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, PetroCaribe, the UN and the rest of the world in withdrawing economic support for the coup regime." But that didn't happen. The U.S. just remained silent. Why was our Secretary of State silent, even now?
It certainly couldn't have been so on account of her agent on the ground in Honduras, the U.S. Ambassador to that country: he was anything but noncommittal. He was fully American, not at all neutral or pro-fascist.
Here was his cable from the U.S. Embassy, reviewing the situation, for Washington, after almost a month's silence from the Administration:
