Great Britain And Israel Are Not The Only Allies Being Bullied By Obama

Honduras is not in the clear and then there is Canada.

Legal Insurrection has been tracking the Obama administration's (mis)treatment of US allies--such as Great Britain, Israel and Honduras.

Of the three, Honduras is the one that seemed to no longer be in the news. However, Legal Insurrection points out an article in The Wall Street Journal that indicates that Honduras is not out of the woods yet:

Last year, the U.S. tried to force the reinstatement of deposed president Manuel Zelaya. When that failed and Team Obama was looking like the Keystone Cops, it sent a delegation to Tegucigalpa to negotiate a compromise.

Participants in those talks say Dan Restrepo, senior director for Western Hemisphere affairs at the National Security Council, let slip that the U.S. interest had to do with American politics. The Republicans, he said, were using the administration's support for Mr. Zelaya, an ally of Venezuelan Hugo Chávez, against the Democrats. It's not going to work, Mr. Restrepo is said to have informed the other negotiators, because "we have the power" and would be keeping it for a long time. [emphasis added]

The Obama administration appears to be making good on its threat

But the Americans had scores to settle. The U.S had already yanked dozens of visas from officials and the business community as punishment for noncompliance with its pro-Zelaya policy. Then, just days before President Porfirio Lobo's inauguration in January, Hondurans estimate it pulled at least 50 more from [interim president Roberto] Micheletti supporters. The visas have not been returned, and locals say Mr. Llorens continues to foster a climate of intimidation with his visa-pulling power.

He hasn't stopped there. In early March he organized a meeting of Liberal Party Zelaya supporters and the party's former presidential candidate, Elvin Santos, at the U.S. Embassy. Some 48 hours later the party's zelayistas and its Santos faction voted to remove Mr. Micheletti as party head. Rigoberto Espinal Irías, a legal adviser to the independent public prosecutor's office, complained that the "meeting generated much bad feeling in Honduran civil society" because it was "perceived to have the purpose of intervening in Honduran national politics."

Now more trouble is brewing: Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes, according to press reports, has said that Mr. Lobo made a promise, in front of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Mr. Funes, that Mr. Zelaya could return "without fear of political persecution." Mr. Lobo subsequently announced that Mr. Zelaya is free to enter the country. In exchange, it is expected that foreign aid flows to Honduras will resume. But the minister of security maintains that if Mr. Zelaya returns he will be arrested.

Read the whole thing.

One way or another, the Obama administration seems intent on getting Zelaya back into Honduras--without having to face any consequences for attempting to illegally extend his term.

Meanwhile, up in Canada, Hillary Clinton is in action.

The ideological extremism of the Obama administration keeps popping up on an almost daily basis, like a game of whack-a-mole. The latest example comes to us courtesy of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who was in Canada, where she was lecturing Canadians on how they should be more pro-abortion.

Secretary Clinton’s comments were made in the context of the Canadian government’s G8 maternal and child health initiative. According to Clinton: “You cannot have maternal health without reproductive health. And reproductive health includes contraception and family planning and access to legal, safe abortion.”

So here’s a question: can you imagine Henry Kissinger or Dean Acheson ever saying such a thing? Hillary Clinton is Secretary of State; she’s not the president of Planned Parenthood. And for an administration that insists it shouldn’t meddle in the internal affairs of other nations — unless it means making life considerably more difficult for our allies like Honduras and Israel — this is quite remarkable.

Mid-term elections are still 7 months away--and a lot can happen between now and then.
Either as a result of legislation or by its cyclical nature, the economy may show solid evidence of turning around--in which case voters may well forgive and forget.
But allies may not be quite so forgiving, or so willing to help out the US when she needs it most.

Technorati Tag: Obama and Honduras and Canada.