The United States has agreed to recognize the results of this month’s election. Ousted President Zelaya will be allowed to return to Honduras, and the legislature will vote on whether to allow him to serve out the remaining three months of his term, albeit without control over the military.
Meanwhile, it seems some members of the U.S. Senate objected to a Law Library of Congress report that largely supported the legality of Zelaya’s ouster. According to this report, Senator John Kerry (D-MA) and Representative Howard Berman (D-CA) asked the Library of Congress to retract the report because it ““contains factual errors and is based on a flawed legal analysis that has been refuted by experts from the United States, the Organization of American States and Honduras” and “has contributed to the political crisis” in Honduras. The Library of Congress stands by the report, however, and is preparing a response to Senator Kerry and Representative Berman.
If the two lawmakers belive the Law Library of Congress report is flawed, there are better responses than seeking a retraction. For one, they could demonstrate the report’s failings, perhaps by pointing to alternative analyses that are more persuasive. Perhaps, they could even encourage the State Department to release the memorandum written by Harold Koh supporting the U.S. government’s position that the removal of President Zelaya constituted an illegal coup.
pmorem says:
... and, feeling secure in the knowledge that the US had their backs against the evils of “term limits”, the Sandinistas have struck their own blow.
Don’t worry about Nicaragua, though. Jimmy Carter will be there to sign off on a clean election.
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November 1, 2009, 11:55 amMark Field says:
I’m not entirely sure what you mean here. Didn’t this part of their statement do exactly what you suggest: “is based on a flawed legal analysis that has been refuted by experts from the United States, the Organization of American States and Honduras”.
If you mean they should have specified the other report(s), I agree, but the post doesn’t give enough detail to know if they did or not.
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November 1, 2009, 11:57 amOAS rulz! says:
Mark, I’m poking around the OAS website, can you point me to the link where the OAS experts performed that refutation?
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November 1, 2009, 12:08 pmAllan Leedy says:
I don’t get it. What could possibly be wrong with the military deposing an elected president and running him/her out of the country?
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November 1, 2009, 12:21 pmA. Zarkov says:
I think he wants to know what asserted facts are in error and what’s flawed about the analysis. He could also name the experts. Nevertheless I see no reason to censor the Library’s report in any case. If they’re wrong, then that will come out, won’t it? You seem to supporting censorship here.
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November 1, 2009, 12:24 pmShelbyC says:
Simply saying “You should retract your report because it’s wrong” smacks of authoritian meddling.” Saying, “Here’s why your report is wrong” doesn’t.
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November 1, 2009, 12:24 pmHans Bader says:
Many lawyers have said that Honduras’s removal from office of its ex-president was legal and constitutional, including former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, Dan Miller, Miguel Estrada, and Octavio Sanchez. (His subsequent exile by the military may have been illegal, but his removal from office was perfectly lawful and constitutional).
Law professors like William Jacobson, Glenn Reynolds, and others (including some who post at this blog) have criticized the Administration’s position on Honduras.
Since Honduras’s removal of its ex-president was legal, and supported by Honduras’s supreme court and Congress (and much of Honduran society), it was by definition not a coup, since a coup is the “unconstitutional deposition of a legitimate government by a small group.”
Of course, Honduras’s government wasn’t deposed: its democratically-elected Congress still sits, as does its supreme court.
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November 1, 2009, 12:31 pmHans Bader says:
The small country of Honduras did not promise to return its authoritarian ex-president to power after all. Some press reports said it did, but the Wall Street Journal says it merely agreed to submit a request for his return to Honduras’s Congress and Supreme Court, which previously backed the ex-president’s removal, in exchange for an end to U.S. sanctions and U.S. recognition of upcoming election results. Under continuing U.S. pressure, they may soon allow his return to office, but it hasn’t happened yet.
The Washington Post admits that the ex-president, Manuel Zelaya, was trying to make himself into a dictator, like his mentor, Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez. But the Post demands that he be returned to power anyway because he was “illegally deported” by the military after being removed from office. (Never mind that many legal scholars have said that his removal from office — unlike his subsequent exile — was perfectly constitutional and legal). The Wall Street Journal says that Honduras’s current interim president did not agree to reinstate his predecessor, but merely agreed to a process that leaves the decision about whether to reinstate the ex-president to Honduras’s Congress and Supreme Court.
But the ex-president is busy spinning the agreement as an unqualified recognition of his right to rule, which it isn’t. And Obama Administration officials, like the State Department’s Thomas Shannon, are busy threatening Honduran legislators with sanctions if they vote against reinstating Zelaya, in a manner at odds with the agreement itself.
Earlier, the press had reported that under U.S. pressure, Honduras’s leader had agreed to return to power its authoritarian ex-president, Manuel Zelaya, in exchange for an end to U.S. sanctions and U.S. recognition of its upcoming election results, and Zelaya’s agreement to turn over control of the military to a tribunal. (The Post incorrectly reports that the military would be turned over to the Supreme Court, but actually it would report to the supreme electoral tribunal).
Honduras removed ex-president Zelaya after he systematically abused his powers: he sought to circumvent constitutional term limits, used mobs to intimidate his critics, threatened public employees with termination if they refused to help him violate the Constitution, engaged in massive corruption, illegally cut off public funds to local governments whose leaders refused to back his quest for more power, denied basic government services to his critics, refused to enforce dozens of laws passed by Congress, and spent the country into virtual bankruptcy, refusing to submit a budget so that he could illegally spend public funds on his cronies.
By levying sanctions on Honduras, and refusing to recognize its current government, the Obama Administration has destabilized the country, one of the poorest in Latin America, resulting in mass layoffs leading to 65% unemployment among workers at small and medium-size enterprises in Honduras. Vulnerable social groups in Honduras, like orphans, have suffered especially acutely, and malnutrition has risen.
Even before the current crisis, the World Food Program noted that “One out of four Honduran children under 5 years old falls to chronic malnutrition. In some rural communities to the west of the country, chronic malnutrition can reach 48.5 percent.” Since the crisis, things have gotten much worse: “A woman caring for six grandchildren can no longer afford milk. A bricklayer who used to work six days a week now is lucky to get two. A shop manager has seen his earnings evaporate.”
The Obama Administration insisted that Zelaya’s removal was illegal, although many legal commentators said that Honduras’s removal of ex-president Manuel Zelaya was legal — and thus, not a coup. The ex-president’s removal was perfectly constitutional, say many lawyers and foreign policy experts, including attorneys Octavio Sanchez, Miguel Estrada, and Dan Miller, former Assistant Secretary of State Kim Holmes, Stanford’s William Ratliff, and the Wall Street Journal’s Mary Anastasia O’Grady. Former Secretary of State James Baker, a lawyer, says that Honduras’s removal of Zelaya from office was legal, although its exiling of him was not.
While attacking Honduras’ democratically-elected Congress and Supreme Court for their role in removing and replacing the country’s ex-president and would-be dictator, the Obama Administration has paid little attention to human-rights abuses in countries ruled by dictatorships. Those countries include Guinea, where troops recently committed mass rapes against women in broad daylight; Niger, where the president recently turned himself into a dictator; Iran, where vast numbers of pro-democracy demonstrators have been tortured or killed; and Nicaragua, right next door to Honduras, where the unpopular president, who routinely engages in vote fraud, is busy trampling on constitutional term limits in order to turn himself into a president-for-life.
Honduras’s erratic ex-president, Zelaya, recently claimed that he was being “subjected to high-frequency radiation” by “Israeli mercenaries.” One of Zelaya’s most vocal supporters is a vicious antisemite, who recently said, “Sometimes I ask myself if Hitler wasn’t right when he wanted to finish with that race, through the famous holocaust, because if there are people that are harmful to this country, they are the Jews, the Israelites.”
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November 1, 2009, 12:32 pmHans Bader says:
The impoverished Latin American nation of Honduras did not promise to return its authoritarian ex-president to power after all. Some press reports claimed it did, but the Wall Street Journal yesterday said it merely agreed to submit that request to Honduras’s Congress and Supreme Court, which previously backed the ex-president’s removal, in exchange for an end to U.S. sanctions and recognition of its upcoming elections.
However, under continuing U.S. pressure that appears to violate the recent agreement, they may soon allow his return to office, under duress, but it hasn’t happened yet.
In an editorial yesterday, the Washington Post admitted that the ex-president, Manuel Zelaya, was trying to make himself into a dictator, like his mentor, Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez. But the Post demands that he be returned to power anyway because he was “illegally deported” by the military after being removed from office. (Never mind that many legal scholars have said that his removal from office — unlike his subsequent exile — was perfectly constitutional and legal).
The Wall Street Journal notes that Honduras’s current interim president did not agree to reinstate his predecessor, but merely agreed to a process that leaves the decision about whether to reinstate the ex-president to Honduras’s Congress and Supreme Court .
But the ex-president is busy spinning the agreement as an unqualified recognition of his right to rule, which it isn’t. And Obama Administration officials, like the State Department’s Thomas Shannon, are busy threatening Honduran legislators with sanctions if they vote against reinstating Zelaya, in a manner at odds with the agreement itself, as La Gringa’s Blogicito and other commentators noted on October 30.
Earlier, the press had reported that under U.S. pressure, Honduras’s leader had agreed to return to power its authoritarian ex-president, Manuel Zelaya, in exchange for an end to U.S. sanctions and U.S. recognition of its upcoming election results, and Zelaya’s agreement to turn over control of the military to a tribunal. (The Washington Post incorrectly reports that control over the military would be turned over to the Supreme Court when in fact it would be turned over the supreme electoral tribunal).
Honduras removed ex-president Zelaya after he systematically abused his powers: he sought to circumvent constitutional term limits, used mobs to intimidate his critics, threatened public employees with termination if they refused to help him violate the Constitution, engaged in massive corruption, illegally cut off public funds to local governments whose leaders refused to back his quest for more power, denied basic government services to his critics, refused to enforce dozens of laws passed by Congress, and spent the country into virtual bankruptcy, refusing to submit a budget so that he could illegally spend public funds on his cronies.
By levying sanctions on Honduras, and refusing to recognize its current government (and imposing travel restrictions on Hondurans, and the Embassy’s making false claims that Honduras as a whole is not safe — when in fact the island tourist resorts are peaceful and safe), the Obama Administration has destabilized the country, one of the poorest in Latin America, resulting in mass layoffs leading to 65% unemployment among workers at small and medium-size enterprises in Honduras. Vulnerable social groups in Honduras, like orphans, have suffered especially acutely, and malnutrition has risen.
Even before the current crisis, the World Food Program noted that “One out of four Honduran children under 5 years old falls to chronic malnutrition. In some rural communities to the west of the country, chronic malnutrition can reach 48.5 percent.” Since the crisis, things have gotten much worse: “A woman caring for six grandchildren can no longer afford milk. A bricklayer who used to work six days a week now is lucky to get two. A shop manager has seen his earnings evaporate.”
The Obama Administration insisted that Zelaya’s removal was illegal, although many legal commentators said that Honduras’s removal of ex-president Manuel Zelaya was legal — and thus, not a coup. The ex-president’s removal was perfectly constitutional, say many lawyers and foreign policy experts, including attorneys Octavio Sanchez (in the Christian Science Monitor), Miguel Estrada (in the Los Angeles Times), and Dan Miller, former Assistant Secretary of State Kim Holmes (in the Washington Times), Stanford’s William Ratliff (in the Los Angeles Times), and the Wall Street Journal’s Mary Anastasia O’Grady. Former Secretary of State James Baker, a lawyer, wrote in the Washington Post that Honduras’s removal of Zelaya from office was legal, although its exiling of him was not.
While attacking Honduras’ democratically-elected Congress and Supreme Court for their role in removing and replacing the country’s ex-president and would-be dictator, the Obama Administration has paid little attention to human-rights abuses in countries ruled by dictatorships. Those countries include Guinea, where troops recently committed mass rapes against women in broad daylight; Niger, where the president recently turned himself into a dictator; Iran, where vast numbers of pro-democracy demonstrators have been tortured or killed; and Nicaragua, right next door to Honduras, where the unpopular president, who routinely engages in vote fraud, is busy trampling on constitutional term limits in order to turn himself into a president-for-life.
Honduras’s erratic ex-president, Zelaya, recently claimed that he was being “subjected to high-frequency radiation” by “Israeli mercenaries.” One of Zelaya’s most vocal supporters is a vicious antisemite, who recently said, “Sometimes I ask myself if Hitler wasn’t right when he wanted to finish with that race, through the famous holocaust, because if there are people that are harmful to this country, they are the Jews, the Israelites.”
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November 1, 2009, 12:44 pmMartyA says:
I am confident that brave President Zelaya will be returned to his proper post and convert it to a lifetime assignment with the help of community organizers from ACORN and armed troops from Venezuela.
Is there a more pompous and arrogant man on earth (with so little to be pompous and arrogant about) than John Kerry?
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November 1, 2009, 12:59 pmMark Field says:
I think this misses my point.
Authoritarian meddling? Authoritarians “meddle”? I though they were more inclined to give orders than suggestions.
On the substance, I guess I’d be inclined to withdraw a report I wrote if it had significant errors of fact in it, and probably one which had significant errors of law (e.g., one which missed a statute or misquoted an authority).
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November 1, 2009, 1:01 pmwm13 says:
Or better yet, that noted intellectual and law school graduate John Kerry could write a legal analysis explaining why the Library of Congress report is wrong. I mean the kind of analysis I would expect from a mid-level associate, i.e., one that identifies and quotes the relevant legal authorities, distills the appropriate ratio decidendi, applies it to the relevant facts, and reaches a defensible conclusion.
Of course, we all know that John Kerry is not, in fact, intellectually capable of such a feat. He had lower grades that George Bush and couldn’t have gotten a job as a biglaw associate.
From my rather casual acquaintanceship with the issue of Honduras, I infer that there is no coherent legal defense of the Obama Administration’s position, because nobody can cite it or link to it. All we have is secret State Department memos.
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November 1, 2009, 1:01 pmJohn Moore says:
John Kerry never misses an opportunity to hurt US allies in favor of kissing the rumps of communists and other leftist autocrats. His first act when elected Senator was a trip to Nicaragua to kiss the rump of Ortega. I’m sure he’ll be back there again to re-implant that osculation. Even before he became a senator, while still an officer in the US Navy, he was kissing up to our enemy, communing with the Viet Cong in Paris before returning to the US to condemn his own country.
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November 1, 2009, 1:02 pmD.R.M. says:
How dare anyone remove an elected president from office just because the country’s constitution says he isn’t president anymore! George W. Bush must be restored in place of coup figurehead Barack Obama!
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November 1, 2009, 1:07 pmShelbyC says:
It’s going to take alot more that that to convince people that you just fell off the turnip truck. :-)
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November 1, 2009, 1:09 pmCato The Elder says:
What I don’t understand is who is driving the pressure to make these liberal Congressmen speak as they do. Is it college professors who interpret Latin American foreign policy with a lens tinged by Marxist-colonialist theory? Or perhaps its the denizens of leftist NGOs with interests in the region who are interpreting things similarly? I don’t understand why so many are so invested in a position that is quite precarious, at least legally. Is the sort of battle that would truly vindicate their interpretation of Reagan and the contras?
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November 1, 2009, 1:17 pmfrankcross says:
I’m sympathetic to the Honduran government here, though they bungled the removal of Zelaya (with exile and free speech restrictions). But I don’t understand the criticism of Obama. He’s been the greatest international force against Zelaya. Certainly when compared with OAS states. Uribe was tougher on Michiletti (withdrawing Columbia’s ambassador) than Obama has been. And Obama may have negotiated an answer that pretty much marginalizes Zelaya but still has the support of the international community. Conservatives seem so knee jerk that they attack Obama even when he was basically on their side (or at least more so than anybody else in power).
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November 1, 2009, 1:46 pmA. Zarkov says:
I think he might have also had lower SAT scores too, but all that would not matter if he had not advertised himself as some kind of intellectual (at least with respect to Bush).
Searching through his website, I can’t find any material to elaborate on his statements about the Library report. It seems to me that if he had a good case against the report he should give us the details on this website.
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November 1, 2009, 1:52 pmLance Cahill says:
Someone has been reading the National Review’s “The Week”, haven’t they?
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November 1, 2009, 1:58 pmcubanbob says:
“““contains factual errors and is based on a flawed legal analysis that has been refuted by experts from the United States, the Organization of American States and Honduras” and “has contributed to the political crisis” in Honduras.”
Does it not seem fatuous that experts from the OAS and the US are better qualified and more expert in Honduran law than it’s own Supreme Court? Why don’t these ‘experts’ rule on the little bit of trickery that just happened in Nicaragua where Ortega and three members of the six member Supreme Court ruled that he can run for president again despite the Nicaraguan Constitution’s term limits. Cute trick, waited for the three other justices who were not communists to be away to pull this stunt and after they pulled it off Ortega ruled by decree that the decision could not be revisited. Where is that worthless communist gigolo Kerry and his stand on this blatant coup in Nicaragua? Or that other worthless communist Berman? Democrat-New Communist Party members Kerry and Berman are saying, law and facts are irrelevant when those pesky details get in the way of a fellow communist (Zelaya) and not be mentioned when those pesky facts may interfere with a brother communist (Ortega).
Regarding Honduras again,imagine its late 2016 and Obama decide to hold a referendum that would allow him to run again the 2016 election despite the constitution (to be amended after winning the referendum and the subsequent election) and against the wishes of the democratic party, the Congress and in contravention of a ruling by the US Supreme Court. Would we not expect the Army to act to defend and protect the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic and kick him out of the White House? And would we tolerate the OAS and others interfering in our internal affairs?
That Hilary Clinton as Secretary Of State is pushing this position on Honduras is not only despicable but demonstrates she either has no grasp of law or no principles or she is irrelevant to formulating policy and is just a figurehead in which case it demonstrates how foolish she is by accepting the post of Secretary of State when she could of been a real player by staying in the senate. Either way she has done the country a favor in one sense, she has demonstrated her complete lack of fitness to be a cabinet officer never mind president. Incidentally it’s been five years since Lurch promised to release his military discharge information. The people of Massachusetts should be ashamed of themselves for voting in to office a dishonorably discharged officer who committed treason while in uniform and who openly and blatantly lied to Congress.
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November 1, 2009, 2:00 pmA. Zarkov says:
First they have to please their constituents. I’m sure Kerry’s positions and actions play well with the people who vote for him. Of course the larger question is why liberals act they way they do; this is worth several threads in itself. When I asked my daughter why liberals hate Starbucks so much, she said, “They hate success.” She’s my window on the young generation of liberals. Being much older, I can tell her what is was like to grow up around New York City Jewish Communists. Alas while they were Communists and evil, at least they did their homework and would engage in a real debate. Today everything is different, pretty much all you get is either insults, or “I don’t want to talk about that?”
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November 1, 2009, 2:03 pmpmorem says:
cubanbob...
Looking at the transformation Dr. Rice underwent moving to State...
I’d say it’s more institutional than personal.
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November 1, 2009, 2:05 pmBrian Garst says:
I can’t imagine a statement farther removed from reality than what you just said. The Obama administration has taken significant steps to attack the Honduran government and see Zelaya restored. They have insisted from day one, ignoring all facts, that there was a “coup,” cut off aid, threatened not to recognize the November elections, and revoked the visas of every member of Honduran Supreme Court for not kowtowing to Washington’s demands that they violate their constitution. They have taken Zelaya’s side and pushed incessantly to have him restored. I cannot speak for other conservatives, but my objection to Obama on this is most certainly not knee-jerk. It is based on the facts at hand. That’s more than can be said about your defense.
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November 1, 2009, 2:06 pmA. Zarkov says:
I vote for no grasp of law as well as no principles. Let’s remember she failed the DC bar exam. We all know that the DC bar exam is extremely easy, although not as easy as the Arkansas bar which she did pass. According to my daughter, even the supposedly difficult California bar (which she took a few years ago) is “easy.”
It’s true that Hillary went to Yale, but I guess in those days it had affirmative action for women.
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November 1, 2009, 2:16 pmChrisIowa says:
Political crisis? What political crisis? The Hondurans followed their own legal and political procedures and peacefully deposed a would-be dictator.
This is a foreign policy crisis, not a political crisis.
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November 1, 2009, 2:36 pmArthurKirkland says:
That is not, as America’s record illustrates, the only possibility. We could train and fund death squads to hack nuns to death with machetes, or to spray machine-gun bullets from Jeeps into any village in which someone tries to organize workers against the thugs with whom we have collaborated. We could concoct a phony basis for an invasion, then engage in silly chest-thumping after routing a tiny island. We could support a no-pretense coup to install a right-wing murderer as head of government. We could arrange intense misery for the citizens on behalf of American business interests, deposing democratically elected leaders if necessary. We could even sell arms for hostages.
Each of those choices, alas, is probably on hold until the next Republican administration takes office.
With respect to President Obama, I am inclined to provide the benefit of the doubt until he (1) attacks the wrong country, (2) botches an invasion or (3) leaves Afghanistan to a deadly drift for seven years.
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November 1, 2009, 2:37 pmTweets that mention The Volokh Conspiracy » Blog Archive » Is the Honduran Political Crisis Over? -- Topsy.com says:
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Sagar says:
Allan, you are correct that you don’t get it. However, after correctly realizing that you don’t get it, you went on to make a dumb comment about “military deposing an elected president”. Shouldn’t you first read some background material so you can “get it”?
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November 1, 2009, 3:10 pmSagar says:
ArthurKirkland,
You must be feeling miserable to be an American (if you are one). I am sorry for your pain!
Expand upon that paragraph (into a novel perhaps) and you might ‘win’ a Nobel.
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November 1, 2009, 3:11 pmfrankcross says:
Brian, you ignored what I said. It was not a defense of Obama’s statements but our actions. We were to the right of Uribe on what we actually did. His actions were moderate, and to the right of other nations. Including those of Uribe. Revoking visas is pretty trivial. And we seem to have negotiated a result that marginalized Zelaya.
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November 1, 2009, 3:25 pmArthurKirkland says:
I am proud to be an American. Our national trajectory, over time, is toward more reason, more liberty, more transparency, better allocation of opportunity, better treatment of the powerless, and away from bigotry, zenophobia, inherited power, inherited opportunity, bullying, superstition and secrecy. We drift backward periodically — into bigotry, superstition, torture, xenophobia and the like — but we regain our footing and abandon arrangement of foreign brutality, abuse of powerless minorities, appeasement of religious zealots at the expense of science and morality, and reliance on discredited ideology.
We will succeed so long as we have more people looking forward than pining for a return to “good old days” that never existed (unless one was white, was rich, and didn’t give a damn about anyone else).
Which are you most proud of, Sagar — death squads hacking nuns to death and terrorizing villages, the glorious military adventure in Grenada, the arms-for-hostages deal, or the arrangement of brutal dictators in support of authoritarian ideology and American business interests?
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November 1, 2009, 3:34 pmJohn Moore says:
ArthurKirkland erupts with:
What an odd view of history. Taken one at a time...
1) The us did not encourage the atrocities cited. To attribute them to us is abhorrent.
2) Which phony basis was that? That the Cubans were setting up a military airfield on Grenada and that Grenada was getting involved in exporting Communism? The first is proven by the military resistance to the invasion put up by Cuban troops in Grenada. The seond is proven by Grenadian government documents, published later by that bastion of conservatism, the US State Department.
3) Err, can’t dispute what didn’t happen.
4) Err, FDR did a lot of that “misery” stuff on behalf of American business in Latin America. Is that what AK is talking about?
5) The trading had a useful side effect: weakening Iraq (which we were also supporting to weaken Iran).
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November 1, 2009, 3:40 pmDr. Weevil says:
ArthurKirkland:
I’m also glad that we’re getting away from ‘zenophobia’. There’s nothing more contemptible than an irrational loathing for long-dead Greek philosophers, whether it is Zeno of Citium (founder of Stoicism) one loathes, or Zeno of Elea (who devised the paradox now known as Achilles and the Tortoise to prove that motion is impossible), or both.
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November 1, 2009, 4:09 pmArthurKirkland says:
My mistake, Dr. Weevil. Sometimes, thinking about the majestic, progressive trajectory of the United States of America affects me to a degree that causes my left pinky to become unreliable.
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November 1, 2009, 4:58 pmanynonyno says:
I second everything Arthur Kirkland has said here, and thank him for saying it.
I also think the Kerry/Berman letter did a perfectly adequate job of indicating whose analysis they think refutes the Library of Congress’s report. It’s a letter, not a frickin’ legal memo. I don’t think Jonathan Adler has anything real to complain about here.
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November 1, 2009, 5:00 pmMark Field says:
I could tell ‘em I was born in Iowa...
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November 1, 2009, 5:11 pmRowerinVA says:
I think “invested” isn’t correct, and perhaps even gives Kerry too much credit. The drive comes from living in an echo chamber of friends and associates who all believe the same thing. When a senator moves among hundreds of people, all of whom are outraged by the “coup” and none of who does anything more than dismiss the arguments in favor of the Honduran government’s action as bad-faith lies, the temptation to essentially take credit for the conventional wisdom, and run one’s mouth, becomes great.
Let’s not forget that so-called American conservative senators make the same mistake, not infrequently. The mistake of underestimating your opponent’s position is made in direct proportion to the degree to which you insulate yourself from your opponents and refuse to engage them intellectually. Former Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and any of a number of brilliant conservative failures did the same thing, and like Kerry, repeatedly. This isn’t a problem solely suffered by the left.
To the extent that conservative law professors make the mistake less often than leftists, that may be only a function of the fact that conservative law professors are so much a minority that they can’t help but engage with left wing professors.
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November 1, 2009, 5:16 pmpmorem says:
ArthurKirkland
It sppears we have .. very different notions of how the world works.
I don’t even know how to communicate with you effectively.
All I can say is, “Over my dead body”.
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November 1, 2009, 5:19 pmRowerinVA says:
I’m curious ... why are you including Grenada on this list? Aspects of that military action were bungled, and the timing was a bit convenient for a president being criticized for the situation in Lebanon, but I wasn’t aware that any serious person thought it was morally wrong for the U.S. to have liberated Grenada from the armed takeover by (or at least assisted by and puppet mastered by) Cuba. I admit that I haven’t seriously studied this matter. What would cause you to list Grenada in the same sentence as “death squads?”
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November 1, 2009, 5:24 pmwm13 says:
Huh? I don’t see a citation to an actual piece of legal analysis at all. Mind you, I don’t think John Kerry would recognize actual legal analysis if it bit him in the butt, but I was hoping, so far still in vain, for someone else to point us, with a link or a cite, to a piece analyzing the issues involved in a way that supported the Obama Administration’s position. (Other than the secret analysis of the State Department, which is too good for ordinary citizens, I guess.)
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November 1, 2009, 5:26 pmTweets that mention The Volokh Conspiracy » Blog Archive » Is the Honduran Political Crisis Over? -- Topsy.com says:
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ArthurKirkland says:
Perhaps we have in mind different invasions of Grenada. I was referring to the invasion labeled a rescue mission for a few dozen Americans attending medical school in Grenada.
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November 1, 2009, 6:00 pmpmorem says:
AK
That’d be the one.
I don’t see any way to reconcile our world views.
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November 1, 2009, 6:15 pmDr. Weevil says:
As I recall, the “Cuban construction workers” on Grenada managed to shoot down 17 American helicopters. I don’t doubt that they were construction workers, but they seem to have been soldiers as well, like U.S. Army Engineers or the Navy’s SeaBees. Even back then, calling them “construction workers” with no further addition seemed to me just as dishonest as calling the 82nd Airborne Division “skydivers”: technically true, but extremely misleading.
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November 1, 2009, 6:22 pmA. Zarkov says:
No one should be surprised that Obama backs the communist Zelaya in concert with Castro and Chávez. Look at some of the people in his administration. For example, Ron Bloom, Obama’s manufacturing czar. I grew up with Jewish communists like Bloom. It’s all there in has background. According to the Jewish Times Bloom’s early life “... revolved around Habonim (now known as Habonim Dror), a progressive Labor Zionist youth movement that emphasizes cultural Judaism, socialism and social justice. He attended their summer camps like all good Jewish red diaper babies. Ex-communists like Ronald Radosh, and David Horowitz, have written about their youthful communism. See here and here. Only Bloom never grew up. Listen to him in his own words, “the free market is nonsense,” and “we kinda agree with Mao that political power comes largely from the barrel of a gun.” Now the first remark might be out of context and refer to the narrow issue of investment banker behavior, but I don’t see how one can spin the second statement. Poor Bloom, he’s so uninformed in his Marxism that he doesn’t realize that Mao’s “Little Red Book” assertions directly contradict Marxian theory. That’s one of the problems with modern leftists– they are poorly educated in their own revolutionary theory. Things have changed since I was a kid. In those days the communists actually knew something.
I’m surprised that Bloom would talk about political power and guns. He might regret that one day.
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November 1, 2009, 7:15 pmDavid Nieporent says:
Anti-Americanism.
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November 1, 2009, 7:21 pmJohn Moore says:
It was also that. However, it is blatantly obvious, as it was at the time, that the important part of that invasion was to stop Cuba’s aid to the subversive goals of our deadly enemy, the USSR.
Do you object to that goal?
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November 1, 2009, 7:34 pmArthurKirkland says:
A fan of death squads, or of the record of certain U.S. administrations’ record with respect to death squads in the Americas? Care to elaborate?
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November 1, 2009, 7:52 pmfrankcross says:
Zarkov, you think Jewish communists are a unique breed? Are they worse than non-Jewish communists?
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November 1, 2009, 7:57 pmDavid Nieporent says:
Why do you keep mentioning death squads in a discussion of Grenada?
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November 1, 2009, 8:10 pmThe Volokh Conspiracy » Blog Archive » Is the Honduran Political … | Honduras today says:
[...] Excerpt from: The Volokh Conspiracy » Blog Archive » Is the Honduran Political … [...]
ArthurKirkland says:
Death squads and Grenada were introduced to this discussion simultaneously, examples of foreign policies in action that would be worse than what has occurred recently with respect to Honduras, and worse than anything Jimmy Carter might do with respect to Honduras.
Death squads and attacking Grenada are not glorious chapters of American history, but they are part of America’s record nonetheless. I hope we learn from them and refrain from repeating them.
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November 1, 2009, 8:40 pmOren says:
Much easier to subtly tweak our memory. While we are at it, let’s say we served them punch and pie.
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November 1, 2009, 8:56 pmSFBurke says:
@FrankCross: What you are saying makes no sense. Maybe Obama was marginally to the right of Uribe (I really have no idea), but basically he was highly supportive of Zelaya. All of his criticism has been focused on Michelliti and there has not been a hint of a thought that Zelaya did anything wrong. Given the facts on the ground, the return of Zelaya to is tremendous victory for Zelaya (and Chavez and Castro etc.) and it would not have happened but for Obama’s steadfast support. If Obama had really wanted to support democracy, he could have supported the actions of the Honduran Supreme Court and Congress while also pressuring the Honduran government to give Zelaya amnesty and allow him to return to the country (but not to power). Also Obama could have also worked to support the upcoming elections and ensure that they were free and fair. Insteady, he pre-emptively said that he would not recognize the elections unless Zelaya was returned to power. The idea that some how conservatives should be supportive of Obama’s slavish support of Chavez ally who was seeking dictatorial powers is just bizarre.
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November 1, 2009, 9:05 pmDavid Nieporent says:
Why exactly was liberating Grenada not a glorious (though rather small) chapter of American history?
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November 1, 2009, 9:16 pmJohn Moore says:
Kirkland, the fact that our allies may have had some members involved in death squad operations (as did their opponents, btw), does not mean we approved of it.
You just don’t like it when America fights for our interests, and for what’s right.
The Honduran situation, SO FAR, is not as major as the Russian/Cuban supported wars of “liberation” that we were fighting in the Reagan years. That doesn’t mean we should make light of the Obama Administration’s disdain for Honduran democracy and their constant favoring our enemies over our allies.
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November 1, 2009, 9:23 pmfrankcross says:
What I am saying does make sense. And I’m personally surprised Obama was so good on the issue. The reality is that in diplomacy we have to consider the positions of other states. Obama worked within the OAS, though it was much more pro-Zelaya. He got a good outcome without pissing off the other nations of the region and the world. When you say “slavish support” you are oblivious to the global context. Here we have a case where Obama performed better and with less slavish support of Zelaya than the leader of every other nation state in the entire world (of which I am aware). If that’s not good enough, you’re not realistic. Had Obama taken your position, he would have lost the rest of the nations, who might have taken more forceful action to restore Zelaya or not recognize the election.
It’s not over yet, but this resolution looks like about the best possible case for Honduras and for the US in the world.
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November 1, 2009, 9:37 pmCecil Moon says:
Well the waterfront has been searched in vain for the
dispicable actions of the U.S. in Honduras. For a radical view of what I truly believe is the real power behind this effort; check the link to my blog. I’ll give you a hint: George Soros. Read the post for my convaluted logic.
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November 1, 2009, 9:43 pmCecil Moon says:
Well the waterfront has been searched in vain for the
despicable actions of the U.S. in Honduras. For a radical view of what I truly believe is the real power behind this effort; check the link to my blog. I’ll give you a hint: George Soros. Read the post for my convoluted logic.
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November 1, 2009, 9:44 pmOren says:
I think their opposition is quite correct factually (actually, I was convinced of that here) so long as they stick to the facts and refrain from conspiracy theories.
I would hope for the future that we refrain from allying ourselves with these folks. Given our support for, e.g. Abdul Rashid Dostum, I will concede that you have won this particular talking point.
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November 1, 2009, 10:38 pmJaimeInTexas says:
Search previous discussions in this site on the Honduran crisis.
I read the Honduran Constitution in its original language (Spanish is my first language) and translated some of the relevant passages. It was NOT a coup. The Honduran legislature and the Honduran judiciary followed Honduran Constitutional law and requirements.
The exiling of Zelaya is the only action taken that is dubious. But the Honduran Constitution pretty much declared Zelaya a non-citizen once Zelaya began active promulgation and attempted to change the inviolability of the Honduran presidential single term of office.
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November 1, 2009, 10:41 pmgda says:
ArthurKirkland, perhaps if you were aware of what the vast majority of Grenadians and inhabitants of the other islands in close proximity to Grenada thought about the American liberation of their country you might have picked another example, instead of showing both your apparent lack of knowledge and your knee-jerk anti-Americanism.
I was living in Barbados at the time, and visited Grenada after the liberation (and let me assure you that it was indeed considered a liberation and a godsend by everyone but a few far-left sympathizers).
A glorious chapter in American history, at least in the eyes of the Grenadians and their neighbours!
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November 1, 2009, 10:44 pmSteve Johnson says:
I still want to know who in our government put Zelaya in that shuttered boxcar and sent him back to St. Petersb......I mean, Tegucigalpa.
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November 1, 2009, 11:19 pmMlR says:
Cato The Elder says:
What I don’t understand is who is driving the pressure to make these liberal Congressmen speak as they do. Is it college professors who interpret Latin American foreign policy with a lens tinged by Marxist-colonialist theory? Or perhaps its the denizens of leftist NGOs with interests in the region who are interpreting things similarly?”
This is what happens when you invest your entire foreign policy in what the rest of the world thinks. When the rest of the world, in this case Latin America, is wrong (for a host of historical and political reasons), you have to pretend they aren’t and back them by putting back in Zelaya. If you approach it honestly you’ll find yourself at odds with a host of Latin American governments that are afraid of their own militaries and constitutions, or allergic to anything resembling U.S. intervention (good or bad) in the region. So we act dumb.
Well — that’s the charitable explanation, which applies to some of them. Some of them are also just plain dupes who read too much Chomsky in college.
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November 1, 2009, 11:51 pmA. Zarkov says:
No of course Jewish communists are not worse than non-Jewish communists. I only call attention to Jewish communists because (as I said) I grew up with them, and I know that world. I understand a Ron Bloom type better than a John Reed. The “unique breed” aspect of your question does merit some thought. Off hand I would say “yes,” but I need to think a little on this one.
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November 2, 2009, 12:08 amSteve Johnson says:
MIR:
They all grew up suckling on Marxist Liberation Theology. South and Central America have been afflicted by this strain of socialism and leftists everywhere still adhere to its basic tenets in spite of the ample evidence of the retarding damage it has caused to the politics and economics of our southern neighbors for at least the last forty years.
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November 2, 2009, 12:14 amJames N. Gibson says:
I Thank Mark for saying that. So much better to withdraw it if it has significant errors in law and or Statute. However, in this age, people call for the withdraw of a report or study if they find a few spelling errors or a couple of pieces of poor grammar. Again, it would be nice if Kerry stated what was in error.
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November 2, 2009, 1:35 amJames N. Gibson says:
Double clicked again. Anyway, when it comes to a report written by the Library of Congress I’ll tend to back the Library. Since Heller I have found quite a number of people misquote documents, laws and Statutes in the Congressional record. Sentences edited out, key words changed. But when you go back to the source document in the Library the world becomes clear. Again, it will be interesting to see what the “errors” are and what the original source documents say. And many are on line now.
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November 2, 2009, 1:35 amRicardo says:
Who — aside from you — has ever suggested Bloom subscribes to Marxist theory? He is a Harvard Business School graduate whose resume includes a stint as an investment banker — not exactly a typical Marxist resume.
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November 2, 2009, 3:50 amA. Zarkov says:
I infer his Marxism from the information in the Baltimore Jewish Times article, his own statements, and my personal knowledge of the milieu he grew up in. As for his being an investment banker for a time, so what? Lots of Marxists were and are in business. For example, Friedrich Engels himself (co-author with Marx of the Communist Manifesto) was a factory owner. Many Eastern European Jews with a Marxist persuasion migrated to New York City early in the 20th Century, and ultimately became small factory owners. They came out of the Polish and Russian Jewish Labour Bund, which was a socialist organization close to the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party. RSDLP later split into the Bolshevik and Menshevik factions. One my friends told me that his factory-owner father would come home every day and read Marxist books after a hard day’s work exploiting the proletariat. He passed his philosophy on to his son who became an engineer.
I doubt that Ron Bloom will ever stand up and announce “I am a Marxist,” although quoting from Mao in the way he did comes close. I know what you are trying to do: (1) Define Marxism so narrowly that even Lenin would fail to qualify as a Marxist, if not Marx himself; (2) Demand a standard of proof so rigorous, it’s hardly ever met in practice.
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November 2, 2009, 8:17 amRicardo says:
Not at all. What you are doing is to say that exactly the same statement simultaneously accomplishes two things: a) Bloom is a Marxist because he quotes Mao and b) this shows he is an uneducated Marxist for failing to realize that Mao contradicts Marx. This is simply bad logic. Aside from his quotation of Mao your other evidence seems to be that Bloom shares a similar background to that of David Horowitz or perhaps Irving Kristol. Pretty thin gruel.
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November 2, 2009, 8:30 amPeterRice says:
Other than that they did not do that. Rather, the Honduran Supreme Court declared that Zelaya had violated the Honduran Constitution and therefore was no longer president. The Honduran Congress affirmed this decision and action.
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November 2, 2009, 8:39 amFausta’s Blog » Blog Archive » The international reaction to Honduras agreement: 15 Minutes on Latin America says:
[...] Trumps Honduran Law Spain’s El Pais editorial: La derrota de Zelaya Jonathan Adler: Is the Honduran Political Crisis Over? Honduras News: Manuel Zelaya Regretting [...]
Oren says:
And then the military inexplicably decided to shuttle him out of the country instead of complying with the detention order.
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November 2, 2009, 9:30 amREN says:
Whoops, you forgot (intentionally?) to add, as many others have pointed out ~> It was the Supreme Court’s doing, backed by the Legislature, only carried out by the military, because Zelaya violated the Constitution of Honduras. I am sure he could have stayed, but would likely have been put on trial for his conduct. This was not a military coup, although Zelaya probably should have remained in country *and* been tried.
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November 2, 2009, 9:56 amDotar Sojat says:
Hugo wins.
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November 2, 2009, 9:59 amStrict says:
“It’s true that Hillary went to Yale, but I guess in those days it had affirmative action for women.”
Lol.
Sounds like you “hate success.” Are you jealous that Hillary has had a more successful career than you?
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November 2, 2009, 10:34 amAmos says:
Deposing him was mandated by their Constitution. It was designed as a poison pill for the sort of Strong Man so common in Latin American politics. As I recall, if you pushed for a removal of term limits while you were an elected official, you were disqualified from the office you were holding. The Supreme Court made the order to remove him, with all branches of government in agreement. He was run out of the country because, obviously, he can do less damage out of the country than in it. Keeping him in-country puts real lives at stake (least of all his own); lives (other than his own) that deserve more than sophomoric jabs about the validity of ousting a would-be tyrant. Had this kind of challenge happened in a Progressive country so beloved on college campuses and American newsrooms (or the White House, these days), rest assured the man probably would not have been deported. But his limbs would have found homes all over the countryside.
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November 2, 2009, 10:48 amAmos says:
Not to make an ugly comparison, or to be unfair, but technically, that depends on what you’re aiming at. Jeffrey Dahmer had a more successful career than I have. Barack Obama has had a wildly successful career. But is that good?
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November 2, 2009, 10:51 amStrict says:
Rather, the Honduran Supreme Court declared that Zelaya had violated the Honduran Constitution and therefore was no longer president. The Honduran Congress affirmed this decision and action.”
Libertarians hate an activist judiciary, and mock the ineptitude of Congress and the “Congresscritters.” Except in Honduras...
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November 2, 2009, 10:52 amgk1 says:
Seeing the mischief Zalaya propagated while squating at the Brazilian consulate, calling strikes, asking for riots etc, I am coming to understand why the army put him on a plane and kicked him out of the country. Now Zalay is complaining about Israeli brain waves and covering the consulate’s windows with aluminum foil. Why are you lefties so invested in seeing this nutjob back in power? Its obvious the guys nutso.
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November 2, 2009, 10:54 amBill says:
How is what they did activist? The constitution was very very very very very clear on the criterial for his removal from office (though not the ceremonial mechanism, i.e., impeachment). Try to enact an additional term, not only are you effectively resigning from the current office, you are retiring from politics for a significant amount of time. He actively moved to that goal, the constitution was strictly interpreted (Libertarians dig that sort of thing, don’t they?). While the military screwed up and gave him a one-way ticket out of the country (some argue that that was at Mel’s request, but whatever... if they were to detain him they should have detained him no matter what he asked, I mean really! “Dude, help me flee the country.”), the legislature and court were acting properly.
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November 2, 2009, 11:05 amgeokstr says:
So, Oren, are you saying that because the military removed him from the country instead of just arresting him, that the entire process that led to his removal from office was somehow a military coup? That process included the Supreme Court and his own Attorney General ruling he had violated the specific article of their constituion that automatically, without trial, fired him as president, the military acting (except for the deportation) in accord with their constitution to execute a valid warrant authorized by a unanimous Supreme Court, a legislature voting nearly unanimously (including his own party), that his removal was justified, etc, etc.
Seems more like you came to your conclusion first, i.e., leftist good, generals bad, must be a coup, and then looked for the one thing you could find, his deportation, to justify your conclusion, and so now he should be reinstated because of this one exception you’ve latched onto.
I’d be very interest to hear if, and why, you believe Noriega was constitutionally justified in what he just pulled, essentially rewriting their constitution by trickery so he could be the next Hugo, but I suspect it would just be more of the same — leftist good, right wing bad, must be constitutional.
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November 2, 2009, 11:08 amJohn says:
I dunno. What could be wrong with a president attempting to hijack the constitution and seek additional terms in office in direct violation of said constitution? What could be wrong in seeking the assistance of outsider strongman / dictator Hugo Chavez in doing so?
Liberals frighten me. They truly have no respect for the rule of law and desire power attained by any and all means necessary.
Three cheers for the people of Honduras for saving their country.
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November 2, 2009, 11:29 amKS says:
Blah!Blah!Blah!
Whether you believe the removal of Zeleya to be legal or illegal is irrelevant, that will be sorted out. The fact is that the
congress and the supreme court of Honduras had the balls to do what
was necessary to remove this guy. There is no doubt, he was taking the
country of Honduras down the same path as Chavez did to his country.
The big difference is, that rather than sit around the coffee shops complaining, they actually did something about it. God help us if the
world pushed Honduras into reinstating Zeleya and it turns into civil war. The bum is out, why not leave him out!!
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November 2, 2009, 1:41 pmTheBadness says:
How is what they did activist? The constitution was very very very very very clear on the criterial for his removal from office (though not the ceremonial mechanism, i.e., impeachment)
Therein lies the problem: the Constitution of Honduras did not provide for a “ceremonial mechanism.” Unless this is their Marbury moment, what they did was ultra vires. Powers not enumerated generally are not implied, at least as far as I learned civil law.
However, I welcome an expert in Honduran Constitutional law to explain why I’m wrong; some civil law jurisdictions are more flexible than others in that regard.
Hopefully, this ‘resolution’ really should end up making good and sure the elections go forward and the winner is recognized by all the neighbors. And if Zelaya insists on ignoring the vox populi, screw him.
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November 2, 2009, 3:05 pmAssistant Village Idiot says:
gda — the opinion of those people would be irrelevant to ArthurKirkland. He is, by his own description, consumed by grand visions of everyone being made to act properly, so that we will all be happy. (I think he puts it a little better, but that’s the sense of it.) People who have been in the way of such visions have historically not done well. Usually, they are described only by their own faults, real and imagined, with no mention of any mistreatment, persecution, or oppression they have received. This is called “balance,” because if you don’t agree with their accusers, you must obviously have heard only one side.
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November 2, 2009, 3:40 pmOren says:
In that case, he would at least have the chance to confront ths accusation in some sort of process. You cannot condemn an officeholder for violation of the constitution in such an ex parte fashion — it makes no sense. He’s entitled to make a case for the legality of his actions, by denying him that chance, the military transformed a legitimate operation of law into an illegitimate exercise of force.
They made a decision to detain him, not to remove him from the country. The military is not entitled to arbitrarily chose random courses of actions because they feel it’s best.
Because he is the nutjob elected by the People of Honduras to serve as President. When they go to the polls later this month, they may yet elect another nutjob, as is their absolutely inalienable right.
Except for his right to remain in the country and answer the charges against him, sure. You seem to confuse two issues that are entirely separate questions:
(1) Did he engage in $CONDUCT.
(2) If he engaged in $CONDUCT, what are the consequences.
Zelaya claims that he did not engage in any conduct violating the Constitution of Honduras. Whatever the merit of that claim, he has the right to contest in some sort of process. You and I know that he certainly engaged in conduct that removes him from office, I don’t dispute that. I would hope that removal of the executive from his office would require more than mere accusation.
If the police arrest me on a valid indictment and then summarily throw me in jail, does that detract from the validity of the warrant? No. Does it transform a valid arrest into an illegal detention? Absolutely.
The military’s action do not retroactively delegitimize what came before that but they certainly cast a pall on everything that came after — especially when the Congress did not object to the fact.
Can we infer what part of the process was absent here? Hint, it dates back to before the birth of Christ.
The part that you seem to miss is that, according to you, the Supreme Court and the AG can remove the President for any reason, true or false, that they agree on. This is obviously counter to the intent of the drafters of the Honduran Constitution, who were perfectly capable of writing a clause giving the Court the power to remove the President at any time and for any reason.
Zelaya was a terrible President and I have every reason to believe that the military was acting in good faith. No matter how pure their intentions and how wicked he is, the voters of Honduras vested in him (and not them) the powers of the Executive. We all have different ideas on what is best for our countries, the important thing is not to imagine that those that disagree about the best policy are really seeking to destroy us instead of expounding a contrary view.
In May 1989, the People of Panama voted him out of office (by a 3:1 margin no less). Since they are sovereign, any power he exercised after that point was not by the consent of the People and hence tyrannical.
Moreover, if this was their Marbury Moment, they could have made it far more convincing by dragging him before the Court (or before the Congress) and actually acting like a deliberative body instead of a declarative one.
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November 2, 2009, 3:53 pmOren says:
Whoops, I misremembered when the Panamanians first repudiated Noriega at the ballot box, it was in 1984, not 1989. Any power exercised after that time was without the consent of the governed and hence illegitimate.
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November 2, 2009, 4:16 pmDr. Weevil says:
When geokstr wrote ‘Noriega’, I’m pretty sure he meant ‘Ortega’. The silence of so many in the U.S. on his recent blatant power grab is deafening. Was he encouraged by Obama’s support for Zelaya? It can’t have discouraged him.
As for why the Honduran military cut a few corners and deported Zelaya instead of arresting him for trial, I think the reason is obvious. Some Hondurans (10%? 20%? 30%?) support Zelaya and some of those would be willing to do violence to help him keep power forever. Putting him on trial would have been the legally correct thing to do, but would likely have led to bloodshed, with Zelayists rioting in the streets, as indeed they have done, especially since he sneaked into the Brazilian embassy. It looks to me like whoever (military, Supreme Court, Congress, some combination of them) decided to put Zelaya on a plane was trying to do both sides a favor by letting Zelaya go free and unpunished for his crimes, while avoiding bloodshed in Honduras. Too bad it didn’t work.
Finally, I will not be entirely surprised if Zelaya is still ‘president’ after his term expires in January, and even less surprised if dozens or hundreds are killed and thousands more imprisoned or exiled between now and then. Chances of that happening are probably less than even, but I have a very bad feeling about the situation in Honduras, and nothing but contempt for the way Obama has handled it.
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November 2, 2009, 4:37 pmSteve Johnson says:
When the Hondurans vested Mel with the powers of the executive as delineated in the Constitution, they also vested him with the constraints therein. Mel accepted both. He then abused the powers and tried to break the constraints. He was warned by the Constitutionally appointed party that if he continued in his folly he would be Constitutionally removed. Knowing the consequences, he deliberately provoked his removal. Now, because of the ceremony of his removal was not to their liking, the “kings of the world” have decided that the Honduran government should have acted differently to appease their delicate palates.
In uncharted waters, the Honduran government proceeded to protect and defend their Constitutional Republic. They didn’t dissolve their government and replace it with a military dictatorship. They didn’t install a cabal to run the country until a new group could depose them. Instead, they installed a temporary President of the same party as a care taker until the soon to be held regularly scheduled elections.
Would that our “kings of the world” had been around in 1866 to advise President Lincoln on his temporary suspension of habeus corpus.
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November 2, 2009, 4:41 pmMark Buehner says:
Ah, that statement must be delineated in the Honduran constitution in the missing section where the method for impeachment lies. Care to site?
For that matter, care to point me to the clause in the US constitution guaranteeing the president the right to face his accusers in an impeachment trial? This isn’t a criminal case, its a removal from office.
True. The officers who decided to expel him from that country should be tried under appropriate provisions of law. That has nothing to do with his removal from office, and says even less about his return to power.
That isn’t clear to me at all, considering the document creates a paradox of demanding the removal of a president while providing no mechanism for doing so. If the AG, the courts, and the legislature are all in agreement, what more could you possibly ask for? One could argue if the writers had intended an impeachment trial in the legislature US style they would have said so. Their silence is troubling (and the cause of this crisis), but I think its dangerous ground to assume what their assumptions were given that failure.
Is the military bound to executive direction no matter the provocation? They had already been ordered to commit what the Court declared unconstitutional acts, at some point isn’t the army bound to obey the highest law in the land? Its a rather dangerous precedent (especially in the region) to expect the military to back the executive against both the courts and the legislatures in overtly illegal acts. Are they required to fulfill an order to assassinate the courts?
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November 2, 2009, 5:34 pmgeokstr says:
Dr Weevil is correct, I was misquoted when I said Noriega instead of Ortega. :o)
Oren, please give us your opinion on whether the BS Ortega just pulled was “constitutional”. I would be so interested in hearing why you feel that he was justified in what he did and why Obama and Clinton should fully support his actions.
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November 2, 2009, 7:09 pmOren says:
Indeed, doing the wrong thing is often expedient. That does not absolve us of doing the right thing, even when it is difficult.
Neither does good motive absolve us of doing the right thing.
Even more ridiculous, of course, is the notion that you can do someone “a favor” against his will. Zelaya wanted to confront the accusation and plead his case. The military did him no favor by denying him that eminently reasonable right.
[ By the way, I have no complaint about keeping him detained and stripped of his power in the interim between arrest and disposition. ]
At that point, I will have no qualms if the military exiles him into a shallow grave.
Again, good motives do not rescue an action quite clearly contrary to law (as most have already agreed). Zelaya should stand for the charges of violating the Constitution and the military should stand for the charges of unlawfully deporting a citizen without process.
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November 2, 2009, 7:48 pmOren says:
Right next to the part that gives the Supreme Court the power to impeach by ex parte summary judgment.
Precedent is that an impeached official has all the rights normally attaching at trial, including counsel and the right to make a statement.
Look, this is a civil process, there is no reason not to let the man make a speech before the Congress before they vote. Leave him in irons, if you insist that he is so dangerous that he can’t be trusted not to bolt into the jungle.
Moreover, the Congress should withdraw their motion to remove him from office until he has had a chance to justify his actions.
In the absence of a specified mechanism, any reasonable one would suffice. One in which the official being removed has no right to even speak in his own defense, even informally, is not reasonable.
Absolutely not. They should have carried out the detention order as specified by the competent legal authority.
Since expulsion from the country is not specified in any law of the land, high or otherwise, that is most certainly something they should not do.
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November 2, 2009, 8:03 pmOren says:
You mean to say you misquoted yourself, right?
Ortega already has the fraud during the 2008 municipal elections going against him (although by all accounts, he did win legitimately in 2006). As for the recent amendment of their constitution to allow him a second term, I imagine that does not conform with the procedure for amendment. That said, I’m going to hedge against my own ignorance because I have not read the Nicaraguan Constitution.
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November 2, 2009, 8:15 pmToby says:
Why when I read Oren (and the high officials and senators of the US) am I reminded of Dreyfus and the secret papers,that could never bo shown, that revealed they were right...
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November 2, 2009, 10:52 pmMark Field says:
This seems like a peculiar analogy. The obvious comparison would be Dreyfus = Zelaya.
I’m not, btw, claiming that Zelaya is innocent (as Dreyfus was); I’m just noting that the similarities in what occurred make that the more obvious comparison.
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November 2, 2009, 11:30 pmSteve Johnson says:
Zelaya’s reinsertion with the connivance of our State Department employees makes the comparison with Lenin and the Germans more apt.
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November 2, 2009, 11:37 pmOren says:
Prediction: The election in a few weeks will go off without a hitch, Zelaya will step down and the winner of the election will be inaugurated. Mild bloodshed, a few raucous protests maybe. No serious incidents.
We should have a system whereby a thread like this can be set to revive itself to the top of the front page on a set date (like, say, the inaugaration of Zelaya’s successor). If I’m wrong, I’d like to be reminded that I was wrong so I can reread my comments and reconstruct why I thought what I did.
Of course, I wouldn’t mind being reminded in 3 months that I was totally right either. ;-)
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November 3, 2009, 1:27 amgeokstr says:
Of course. I do, believe it or not, have a sense of humor, often self-deprecating. That little collection of symbols after my comment is called a smiley face.
Then you obviously have not even the faintest idea what happened there, if you think you need to read their constitution. Please get back to us with further analysis when you at least have some idea of the most criminally cartoonish attempt at “constitutional amendment” I’ve ever heard of. Ortega makes Hugo look like an originalist.
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November 3, 2009, 8:46 amJaimeInTexas says:
I keep reading about the procedure for removal.
Once the Honduran Legislature and the Court found that Zelaya violated Article 239, the only procedure to follow is one of sucession.
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November 3, 2009, 11:21 amOren says:
The National Assembly wouldn’t amend the Constitution for him so he got his crony judges to do it. I said I thought it was illegitimate, what more do you want me to do, insult his momma? By the way, he already had zero credibility with me when he rigged the ’08 municipal elections. Once a fraud, always a fraud (iow, this is more of the same, not a precipitous drop in his otherwise credible work).
In the course of finding this, do you feel like he ought to be allocated, I don’t know, maybe 15 minutes for rebuttal? Do you feel it’s normal for a deliberative body to make findings of fact without allowing the relevant parties a chance to speak in their own defense?
Anyone want to take odds on my prediction by the way?
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November 3, 2009, 12:49 pmJaimeInTexas says:
Are you asking me to explain what the process is in Honduras or do you just want to argue based on how it is done here in an impeachment and removal proceedings?
Zelayas actions and statements were done in the open. The Honduran Legislature and Court went through their respective Consitutionally assigned duties.
Zelaya was measured and found wanting through a Consitutional process, not a coup.
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November 3, 2009, 7:49 pmJ Ricardo Planas says:
Explanatory Note: In the aftermath of Zelaya’s removal from office, two U.S. Government documents were published analyzing the event. The Law Library of Congress issued its report, “Honduras: Constitutional Law Issues,” in August 2009, while the Congressional Research Service (CRS) published its own version, “Honduran-U.S. Relations,” on October 6, 2009.
The CRS report is uniquely detached and objective and it does not arrive to any conclusion regarding the constitutionality of Zelaya’s removal. Instead, it allows the reader to interpret the chronology of events as they occurred.
The report by the Law Library was published in reply to a request by U.S. Congressman Rep. Aaron Schock, R-Ill., who had inquired whether the Honduran Government had proceeded in accordance with the law in removing President Zelaya from power. This report was criticized by those who opposed the incident for “over-reading” of the Honduran Constitution while those who supported Zelaya’s removal used the document to criticize the Obama administration’s stand on the issue and to side with anti-Chavez forces inside and outside of Honduras.
The point I sought to make in the above article is that, despite having the necessary constitutional powers to bring Zelaya to trial and likely to remove him from office, the National Congress chose not to rely on the “impeachment-like” procedures at its disposal. Note: The Law Report correctly states that while specific impeachment legislation no longer exists, the constitution does enumerate various powers residing in the hands of the Congress and the Supreme Court that may accomplish the same objective. I cite several of these powers in the article.
Three important points, however, need to be made. First, conflictive inquiries issued at the request of members of Congress need to be read between the lines. For example, the Law Report states, “Available sources indicate that the judicial and legislative branches applied constitutional and statutory law in the case against President Zelaya in a manner that was judged by the Honduran authorities from both branches of the government to be in accordance with the Honduran legal system” (emphasis added). The statement suggests that the analyst did not have all pertinent information at hand; only what the Honduran Government had released. A correct interpretation of this statement might be that the Honduran authorities responsible for removing Zelaya from office were of the opinion that their actions were in conformity with constitutional and statutory law.
This apparent partiality initially appears in the report’s Executive Summary as it adds that, “The Constitution … gives Congress the power to interpret the Constitution.” While nothing in politics is impossible, it is dubious that a republican constitution would allow those who write the law to interpret it, too. If so, this may be one reason why so much chaos has been created by those who removed Zelaya from power.
Further ambiguity expressed by the Law Report analyst attests to the uncertainty of the constitutional question. The analyst states, “The Constitution does not contain an express provision giving the National Congress the authority to remove a President from office. Nonetheless, the National Congress apparently used several other constitutional powers to remove President Zelaya from office” (emphasis added). In the end, the analyst, in a show of proper research and analysis techniques, concludes, “The question of which Constitutional provision gives the National Congress the power to remove the President still remains.” In addition, as if to further qualify the constitutionality of Zelaya’s forceful exile in Costa Rica, the Executive Summary concludes quite tersely, “The Constitution prohibits the expatriation of Honduran citizens.”
The second point pertains to the question the Law Report asks regarding the constitutionality of Zelaya’s removal: “Did the Honduran Supreme Court have the authority under the Honduran Constitution to request that the military remove the President because the National Congress, the Supreme Court, the Human Rights Ombudsman, and the Attorney General found an action of the President unconstitutional?” (Emphasis added).
The question incorrectly indicates “findings” by the National Congress and the Human Rights Ombudsman. Only the Attorney General had brought charges against Zelaya prior to his removal from office, which the Supreme Court agreed with. The National Congress, as well as other social and political institutions had expressed political opposition to Zelaya’s actions but there had been no formal “findings” other than the decisions by Attorney General and the Supreme Court.
Perhaps, the most egregious unconstitutional action throughout the entire Honduran affair, which went unnoticed by the Law Report, is the timing of the judgment the National Congress issued against President Zelaya. The CRS Report states—and the Law Report agrees—that, “Following Zelaya’s removal …, the Congress then passed a decree that disapproved of Zelaya’s conduct for ‘repeated violations against the Constitution and laws of the Republic and nonobservance of the resolutions and rulings of the judicial organs,’ removed Zelaya from office, and named Roberto Micheletti—the Head of Congress and the next in line constitutionally—the president of Honduras for the remainder of Zelaya’s term…”
Such disapproval was precisely the charge that the National Congress was constitutionally mandated to issue prior to Zelaya’s removal from office as a means to request the Supreme Court to review the charges and take action. However, as the CRS Report indicates, the action by the National Congress was taken retroactively. Indeed, Zelaya had been charged and found guilty after he had been removed and sent to Costa Rica. He never underwent a trial as mandated by the constitution. News of the so-called “extensive investigation” that the National Congress relied on “to disapprove of the conduct of the President,” as stated in the Law Report’s Executive Summary, was made public after Zelaya’s removal.
Other errors in the Law Report are worth mentioning. The report states that, “Two days later, on June 28, 2009, Zelaya was arrested. Nonetheless, Zelaya was never arrested. The Supreme Court had issued a warrant for his arrest; however, someone undercut this decision and instead the Army took Zelaya by force to a foreign State in violation of Article 102 of the constitution. Note: In reference to my statement that the Supreme Court does not have the power to order the military to depose the president, it is correct that the Supreme Court is empowered to rely on the Armed Forces to adjudicate its decisions. In this case, however, it was the National Police that was empowered to have Zelaya arrested, according to documentation presented by the Attorney General. Someone made the decision to circumvent this procedure.
Further, the Law Report did not give much value to other constitutional violations by the National Congress, the Supreme Court and/or the Armed Forces, despite its veiled acknowledgement. The report states, “The Chief Prosecutor filed a complaint (requerimiento fiscal) against President Zelaya before the Supreme Court on June 26, 2009. The complaint: (1) accused the President of acting against the established form of government, treason against the country, abuse of authority, and usurpation of functions; (2) requested that the Court order the arrest of the President; (3) requested that the Court notify the President of the facts alleged against him; (4) requested that the President’s testimony be heard; and (5) requested that the President be suspended from office. However, again, someone decided to shortcut the Attorney General’s requests, as only the first two requests were implemented.
Inasmuch as it seems that President Zelaya had violated the constitution, and probably would have been found guilty if properly judged, in lieu of the above, it is constitutionally challenging at best to argue if his removal was legal. In the end, the democratic process became the unintended victim.
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December 6, 2009, 6:53 pm