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Shoot me before I turn into Andrew Sullivan, but here's a roundup of all your coup d'état related statements and actions from just about everybody in the whole wide world. Or, as the Washington Times put it, everybody "ranging from Venezuela to Cuba," whatever. Know Hope, bitches!

Political Bodies: Far as I can tell, every international organization has called for Zelaya to be reinstated to the presidency, including: the UN General Assembly, OAS, the EU,Caricom and Mercosur. Individual countries have made specific statements calling for his reinstatement too: Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Spain. Latin American countries and all European Union member states have withdrawn their ambassadors.

Lending Groups: Countries and institutions are suspending aid and/or trade with the coup regime, including the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank as well as the Central American countries of Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua, which have indefinitely cut overland trade.

Human Rights Groups: Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have denounced the coup govenrment. Hell even the fake human rights group "The Human Rights Foundation" felt like they'd better get with the program.

Press Organizations: Reports Without Borders, the Committee to Protect Journalists, and the Inter-American Press Association have all condemned the censorship under the coup government.

Trade Unions: These guys have all denounced the coup and called for Zelaya's immediate reinstatment: The AFL-CIO, the International Trade Union Confederation, and Workers Uniting.

Evil Honduran coup empress "Roberto Micheletti" held his first ever press conference yesterday evening and it was a Holy. Disaster. O. My G.

Dude opened the session explaining to the press what their role was going to be: ''You will help me change the opinion of the world." (I know what you're thinking! But the reporters were largely not from the U.S., so they didn't oblige) Here's how it went:

Micheletti said he looked forward to welcoming a team of four or five countries, including Canada, Mexico and Guatemala, that he heard plan to visit Honduras in the coming days.

''But, you just said a couple of minutes ago that trip hasn't been confirmed; it's just a rumor on an Internet page,'' a Salvadoran reporter shot back.

After a brief pause, Micheletti responded: ``That's fine, then I have the hope and faith in God that they will come. Israel and Taiwan have said they support us, and I have faith that other governments will follow.'' The reporters pressed: Had Taiwan and Israel formally expressed their support?

''I don't have an official declaration, but that is the rumor I've heard."

(H/T: IKN)

Alvaro Vargas Llosa is famous for exactly two things: 1) being the son of a brilliant Peruvian novelist, and 2) co-writing a book once about how poor people are stupid.

Naturally this qualifies him a thousand times over to be the authentic voice of the Honduran coup in the U.S. media, and so he is. The New York Times ran some crap piece of his on Tuesday, explaining how exiled president Mel Zelaya actually plotted his own violent overthrow, and in today's Washington Post op-ed, we learn how this particular coup is really just democracy in disguise:

The crisis in Honduras should bring to people's attention this truth about Latin America today: The gravest threat to liberty comes from elected populists who are seeking to subject the institutions of the law to their megalomaniac whims.

• This awesome new Honduran government is just detaining journalists and censoring the press left and right, for freedom.

• It also just passed a fabulous new law indefinitely suspending former constitutional guarantees such as "freedom from unjust detention," "movement" and (swear to god) "individual liberty." (Spanish only, sorry)

• Holy crap the U.S. just cut off all military aid to the coup government.

• Well maybe it's more of a "scaling back."

• Even in the middle of a coup d'état, there's one thing reporters just can't stop talking about: themselves!

So like two weeks ago, cartoonish evildoer Otto Reich was (we're guessing) advising Honduran coup plotters how to do the overthrow thing. Reich, a master of the sinister cold war art-form, "Public Relations," was (most likely) explaining that the key to a well-received putsch is to divert people's attention to something else, and that this relatively easy what with people being complete morons. You know what? It totally works!

In the days leading up to the coup, the military was whispering all kinds of ominous gossip to their friends and neighbors, like "Hugo Chavez is supplying the ballots for this referendum", and "President Zelaya is secretly replacing his security team with VENEZUELANS." These are, of course, exactly the same rumors Reich advised Venezuelan coup plotters to spread in 2002, only then it was about Cuban infiltrators (who actually might made believably efficient security guards, I mean God gave Venezuelans many gifts but "being organized" is not among them. Whatever).

Ok then--and this was the stroke of genius--Reich (probably) advised them to be sure to kidnap/ rough up the Venezuelan ambassador during the scuffle, and actual act of war which would obviously trigger a bellicose response from Hugo Chavez. And voila! Four days into a coup in Central America, the first of its kind in 16 years, and all Simon Romero and the Wall Street Journal want to talk about is Chavez.

Bonus Fun Coup Fact of the Day: The U.S. Ambassador to Honduras RIGHT NOW is Hugo Llorens, a Cuban refugee who served as President Bush's security advisor to the Andean region during the 2002 Venezuelan coup, "just sayin'."

So far everyone in the world has condemned this terrible coup in Honduras, including the United States, the U.N., the OAS, the EU, Amnesty International, The Inter-American Press Association, Human Rights Watch, christ even Reporters Without Borders.

But! Did you know that Hugo Chavez has also opposed this violent overthrow of a democratically-elected government? Does that change your mind? Ha ha of course: now it is your patriotic obligation to get behind this "military impeachment." So it is written, by nutty old Charles Krauthammer on the right, NPR's Mara Liason on the...left?, and Bill Kristol, on the hair. Hitler is evoked.

Deutsche Press reports that the democratically elected leader of Honduras plans to return home Thursday with a "high profile escort," which is a sexist thing to say about Presidenta Vicky Cristina Buenos Aires! OAS president Jose Miguel Insulza will join them too. Who could shoot or otherwise detain such a classy escort service?

Meanwhile the United Nations general assembly just approved a resolution demanding "the immediate and unconditional restoration of [Zelaya's] legitimate and constitutional government," which was co-sponsored by Latin American governments and the Obama administration. As Otto put it, this coup is toast.

Department of awesome priorities...Click 'em to read more.

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• At long last, Honduras is saved from autocracy, by its brand new military dictatorship!

• So far 2 dead, 60 injured in street protests, which is like five hundred in Twitter years.

• "The few local television and radio stations still operating played tropical music, ran soap operas and aired cooking shows on Monday."

• Naturally, this is all Hugo Chavez's fault, according to the WaPo ed board.

• Determined to win our stupid poll, Honduras' pretend "president" calls himself a "right-wing progressive"

• Meanwhile the actual president Manuel Zelaya, plans to return to his homeland, Thursday, to die.

• Oh Christ now John Negroponte, the Butcher of Honduras, is a commentator on Honduras for Fox News the Washington Post.

• Venezuela, Nicaragua, Ecuador & Bolivia have shut down diplomatic relations.

• And the condemnations keep on coming in. So far we got the U.S., the OAS, the E.U. the United Nations, and, um, ALBA.

• Oh it's on now! Fuckin' BELIZE is not going to recognize your ass. WHAT NOW, bitches?

• Or, as the Washington Times puts it, "In criticizing the coup, the U.S. joined with leaders of nations ranging from Venezuela to Cuba."

• Oh and pictures. Awful, awful pictures.

Let freedom ring, bitches! The U.S. has just come out with some whacked policy statement explaining that while the situation in Honduras is like totally a coup d'état, we are technically going to refrain from calling it that. How lame is that? Super lame! But it's really just the latest of all the bizarre ways people have decided to described the violent overthrow of a democratically elected government in the last 24 hours. All this begs the question: Whose description is the most tortured, Orwellian, or otherwise insane?

• Candidate 1: Interim dictator Roberto Micheletti describes how he found himself in this new role: "I did not reach this position because of a coup. I am here because of an absolutely legal transition process."

• Candidate 2: The WSJ's Mary Anastacia O'Grady describes the military overthrow as all part of a country's democratic system of "checks and balances."

• Candidate 3: Ed Morrissey at Hot Air invents an awesome new concept. This was "less of a coup and more of a military impeachment."

• Candidate 4: At the Corner, Ray Walser praised the way "Congress, the courts, and the military joined forces" in a "deliberate, bipartisan manner."

• Candidate 5: Rick Moran at the American Thinker doesn't care if it's a coup, only who it serves: "Does the fact that the coup is in the interests of the United States even matter to our president?"

Your turn starts...now!

It's day two of the Honduran coup, and the brand new military dictatorship is winning the hearts and minds of the people by, let's see... cutting off teevee feeds and electricity throughout the capital and putting an "indefinite" curfew in effect, for freedom! Thousands of Zelaya supporters are apparently dodging bullets in the streets, which is sort of like Twittering, for poor people. But the salient question remains: "WTF?" There was going to be a referendum, sure, but about what? For more insight we turn to the English language press corps, after the jump!

Continue reading "National News Outlets Bring Their Own Special Brand of Clarity to Honduran Coup" »

Geez guys I leave the shop unattended for a few hours and all hell breaks loose. Acknowledging the fact that better bloggers have been doing this all day, here are the lowlights as far as I can tell. Feel free to fill in the blanks in the comments or on the Twitter or wherever it is you people post unconfirmed rumors and speculation these days.

• So this morning Hondurans were all set to vote in a to referendum on whether or not to hold another referendum allowing lefty president Manuel Zelaya to serve more than one term in office. This upset the democracy purists within the Honduran military so much that they just cold stormed the presidential palace, kidnapped Zelaya and shoved him into a plane bound for Costa Rica. As if this wasn't all international incident-y enough, they also went ahead and beat the crap out of the foreign diplomats from Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua.

• Then on to congress, where the coup leaders waved around an insanely fakey "resignation letter" they claim Zelaya signed, and the Honduran congress votes to accept his resignation, because fuck it, right?

• Meanwhile in Costa Rica, Zelaya talks to CNN and is all like, yeah if I'd been planning to resign and move to Costa Rica I would probably have bothered to changed out of my pajamas first, ding dongs. IT WAS A COUP, duh.

• After spending the day hemming and hawing and refining their statements, some unnamed source in the Obama administration finally told the press that the U.S. government "recognizes Zelaya as the duly elected and constitutional president of Honduras. We see no other," even as some phony coup president was being sworn in in Tegucigalpa. The OAS shortly follows up with a powerful statement demanding the immediate return of Zelaya to office. The whole thing was also condemned by the EU but like who cares, right?

Whew. Ok that's um...over? Can I go back to my birthday party now?

Update I: Simon Romero finally files his story. Turns out the universal coup condemnation only underscores the "good left" / "bad left" blah blah blah.

Update II: The Inter-American Dialogue explains the downside of kidnapping a democratic leader and replacing him with a military dictator: "This gives Chávez the high moral ground to go on with his narrative about right-wing oligarchs who don't tolerate leftist governments."

Update III: Noted Wall Street Journal crazy lady Mary Anastasia O'Grady explains how the military coup is actually a defense of democracy, and urges Obama administration to respect Honduras' unique system of "checks and balances."

Update IV: Actual Miami Herald headline--"Hondurans in South Florida express support for shake-up."

Another awesome story has been DESTROYED, by reporting ; (. Late last night the Washington Post published a very exciting piece with this opening line:

"Out of fear that history might repeat itself, the authoritarian regimes of Cuba, China, Burma and Venezuela have been selectively censoring the news this month of Iranian crowds braving government militias on the streets of Tehran to demand government reforms."

In other words the Post started out with this terrific opening thesis, then somebody investigated and found out it wasn't true, but the editor was like, "fuck it, let's run it anyway." Then sometime in the middle of the night somebody else decided it was all a bit much, even for the Post, so they removed the word "Venezuela" from the opening paragraph: voila. Of course, Venezuela still remains in the story as published in WaPo partner sites like the Huffington Post and, um, the Winnipeg Free Press (which helpfully changes "Burma" to "Myanmar," for accuracy).

Fortunately, the Washington Post is laying off most of its foreign correspondents so they won't have these little crises of conscience to contend with any more. Next year at this time every international story will be based 100% on Scott Wilson's imaginings of what life in other countries must be like. There will be many wars.

Colombian news stations are so awesome that regional powerhouse teevee network RCN even has its own English language channel now, so you can watch all the big news of the day, from Colombia! In English! This is especially valuable today, b/c now we here in the United States may truly understand how Colombians are dealing with the tragic death of Michael Jackson (they are sad).

Also! There is this important breaking story about authority and why it should always be respected. The seemingly innocent girl in the video is obviously a FARC terrorist, a fact which will be 100% proven next week when her cold dead body turns up wearing fatigues. Poor president!

As we noted yesterday, the United States and Venezuela have decided to bury the ol' hatchet, engage in a couple of manly bear hugs and restore the diplomatic relations that broke down in the Bush administration lo so many months ago.

The decision was taken after many high-level discussions and negotiations over matters involving mutual state interests and diplomatic norms. Naturally this has sparked much high minded debate and conversation...in the Michelle Malkin comments section! Here's a sample:

"....Syria and Venezuela are just some more Boyz from da Hood doing their Thizzle Thang. But please do not confuse Hussein Obama's Marxism/mohammedism with being stupid. All too many people thought Hitler and Stalin too stupid to be dangerous and paid a horrible price."

Continue reading "U.S.-Venezuela Rapprochement: How's It Playing?" »

So yesterday Chile's president met our president in the White House. Readers will recall that back in the day, Michelle Bachelet and her entire family were detained for many months and tortured repeatedly by Augusto Pinochet and his evil squads of awfulness. Her father, in fact, was tortured to death because he'd been an official in the government of Salvador Allende, who was, of course, overthrown in 1973. And murdered. By the U.S. government. So you can imagine how this whole White House meeting thing had the potential for a little...awkwardness.

But hey, these guys are pros! And Obama and Bachelet never batted an eye even when a Chilean reporter asked if Obama wanted to, like, apologize for all that mess, or when Obama politely declined, "looking to the future" and all, blah blah blah. Whatever.

Not so smooth were English language reporters, who had a heck of a time explaining the whole situation to their ding-dong-dumb readership without rehashing all that unpleasantness or otherwise sounding unpatriotic. Here's how AFP took a stab at it:

"US President Barack Obama on Tuesday declined to apologize for a past CIA interventions (sic) and alleged coup attempts in Latin America, after talks with Chilean leader Michele Bachelet."

"During a photo opportunity in the Oval Office on Tuesday, a reporter asked Obama if he cared to apologize for CIA interference in Chilean elections."

Honestly, it's all such a mindfuck sometimes.

I'm sure it was super fun for Venezuela and the United States to have "suspended" diplomatic relations for the past ten months, but you know how these things go (hope, change, PETROLEUM, etc.) so as of today famous hip hop artist Patrick Duddy is allowed to return to Caracas and Bernardo Alvarez is once again exiled to world-renowned thousand-degree mosquito-laden sweat pit, Washington D.C. Congratulations, fellas!

It's a jungle mystery. A full two and a half weeks after Peruvian cops killed dozens and dozens of "9" protesters in the Amazon, a full sixty of the lucky survivors have not managed to find their way home yet. Maybe they stopped for a beer or got lost??

On the up side, the whole tragic episode has destroyed Alan Garcia's political career forever, which is nice. Also it didn't cost Peru much in the way of money, because the murder tab was largely picked up by U.S. taxpayers. Oh and this charming photo? It's the police beating an "indigenous male nurse who had been in the ambulance," part of a cringe-y photo series the Independent ran over the weekend. Eesh.

• With literally dozens of his top allies under investigation for their work with death squads, Colombian president Alvaro Uribe has this awesome new idea: "parliamentary immunity."

• Venezuelan cops managed to nab one of the most wanted drug lords on earth yesterday. McClatchy reporter Tyler Bridges almost says something nice about it...but succumbs.

• Rafael Correa is many times más macho than the Invisible Hand.

• Perhaps this drop in job approval ratings will cause Peruvian President Alan Garcia to reconsider the wisdom of massacring his own people?

• Sixteen months after the magic laptops were...found?, the Colombians are still leaking random, edited passages to their journalist friends, only now they're sort of scraping the bottom of the barrel.

OMG remember that terrible Air France crash off the coast of Brazil last month? Well some Bolivian teevee station "PAT," found some exclusive photographs from its tragic last minutes. And holy crap it turns out that everything we've been led to believe is a LIE. The crash was all an elaborate HOAX, a terrible ruse set up by zillionaire investor Charles Widmore to cover up the fact that Flight 447 actually landed safely on a small island in the South Pacific, an island with mysterious powers, a creepy smoke monster and...um...sleestacks, maybe? Who can keep up?

Anyway never believe what you see on Bolivian TV news is the point.

Whoa did we just (almost!) manage to make it through an entire weekend without posting anything to this stupid blog? Lucky you! Let's make up for that nonsense by going all two-point-oh interactive with a "MEGA" web survey, hooray! Below are two recent triumphs of the written word, and your task is to vote for the one that's dumber. WHO. WILL. WIN? Let's meet our contenders:

MEGA SHARK: A Miami Herald "Other Views" column by Inter-American Dialogue Vice President Marifeli Perez Stable talking about all those "changes" happening in Central America these days, and how, um, changey they are. Her rhetorical victory opens with the sentence, "Politics is hardly ever boring," and ends with the sentence "Politics is hardly ever boring," and in between she manages to cram in five (Googled?) bullet points, each noting a current event in one of five Central American nations. Inspired! This is literally the most cogent analysis the Dialogue has ever produced, on anything.

GIANT OCTOPUS: Here we've got a Fox Business News piece about Citgo. Apparently the Venezuelan oil subsidiary is doing lots of terrific work for U.S. communities (Heating Oil, United Way, Jerry's Kids etc.) but STAY AWAY because Hugo Chavez is a noted socialist and once called George W. Bush a name. But also: Citgo may be owned by Socialist Venezuela but DON'T STOP SHOPPING THERE because the gas stations are technically franchises so the money you spend doesn't even make it back to Venezuela anyway. Capitalist directive and anti-socialist propaganda collide to cause total cognitive meltdown. Plus: the title is "Put a Terrorist in Your Tank," because socialist, communist, terrorist, homo whatever, right?

It's going to be close I can feel it, but who's the bigger idiot?

Special Rapporteur Philip Alston just wrapped up a 10-day United Nations investigation into the hundreds (thousands?) of innocent Colombians murdered by the military to meet government kill quotas. The report is out, and it's devastating. The Uribe administration naturally still claims that most of the dead were a real live guerilla rebels, but duh they're just lying

:''The evidence that shows victims wearing newly ironed camouflage garments or wearing field boots four sizes bigger than their feet, or left-handed individuals holding a pistol in their right hand . . . negate even more the suggestion that they were guerrillas killed in combat.''

On the up side, they found "no evidence" that Alvaro Uribe ever personally lured some kid out of the slums with the promise of a summer job, then strangled him and dressed him up, so the whole government is off the hook, probably! Trade deals for everybody.

There go Lydia Guevara, just cold goin' commando and leading the naked vegetable revolution for PETA. Grandpa Che would be just thrilled.

• Against all odds, Colombia has managed to beat out Congo, Somalia, even Iraq in the internally displaced population sweepstakes.

• The new State Department Human trafficking report is out, and our allies miraculously have perfect records again, still.

• Hey look we found Alvaro Uribe's "disbanded" paramilitaries. They're murdering sex workers in Venezuela.

• Alan Garcia is apparently killing horses now, in Miami.

• Bill Clinton got a lapdance in Argentina, maybe. He will never go away.

Bolivia. Land of tall mountains, charming Indians, and OMG ISLAMIC JIHAD! Hey everybody, Fox News has a special report on the one one-thousandth of one percent of Bolivians who are open, avowed Muslimz. Turns out the whole country has become, quote, "a hotbed of Islamic extremism in the Western Hemisphere," since that Morales guy took over. Prepare to be SHOCKED.

Did you know that virtually all of Bolivia's Muslims harbor extremist views of the United States, such as not liking when we invaded Iraq? It's true! Others have even pointed out that the U.S. used to fund Osama Bin Laden back when he was fighting the Russians (This belief, while technically "accurate," has known terrorist tendencies). And then there is this shady character:

"Another Muslim leader in Bolivia, Husayn Salgueiro, is a staunch supporter of the Palestinian government and a known critic of Israel."

Well I'll be...let's see how "critical" these bastards are when they are rotting with the Uyghur terrorists, in Bermuda! Freedom is Not Free NEVER FERGIT etc., etc.