Honduras, Afghanistan and the Obama Compromise

Apparently, the US strategy from the beginning, was to play along with the coup plotters' strategy in a case of running with the "we are against the coup" hare and hunting with the "don't let Honduras turn left" hound.. Elections were indeed held -its dubiousness is evident in the way it was conducted, with pro-Zelaya candidates left out, antagonist media blackened out, and financial incentives offered to those who participated in the voting...

A fortnight ago, I attended a meeting at the Jawaharlal Nehru University where representatives of the Communist Party of the USA (CPUSA) and the Communist Party of Cuba (Partido Comunista de Cuba in Spanish - PCC) spoke. Scott Marshall represented the CPUSA and Oscar Cordoves spoke on behalf of the PCC. Marshall, a labour activist working in the steel sector, spoke at length on the financial crisis that had severed affected US labour, while switching on to the interesting question of relation between labour and the new US president Barack Obama. Marshall eloquently talked about the progressive movement that oversaw the enthroning of the Obama presidency and argued how Obama's victory was inasmuch a victory for the labour forces in the country. While agreeing that Obama's political positions were hardly socialist (let alone being communist), and that he was more a "moderate liberal", Marshall claimed that there indeed was a sea change in the attitudes of the US presidency toward welfare and labour, and these were positive signs. Cordoves, while speaking on the challenges faced by Cuba because of the global economic crisis, pointed out that he shared the opinion that the new US president was an intelligent and progressive human being, but he led a system that was terribly loath to change its imperial ways and that it was near to impossible for Obama to unilaterally change the way the US behaves internationally.

Personally, I found the American communist's views very interesting and intriguing especially when he waxed so eloquently about the current American presidency. Instinctively in the question-answer session, I had to pose my doubts about Obama's reign to Marshall - on the Honduran coup affair, the role in Afghanistan, the continuing blockade against Cuba, and even his dithering domestic views about universal health care in the US. Marshall was far more sympathetic to Obama than I imagined and he passionately defended the American president, suggesting that it was incorrect to claim that Obama was a more palatable and African-American face presented by imperialism to the world. The Cuban communist was more direct- he argued that for Obama to overturn entrenched policies favouring the elite of the past, would be to invite personal damage, to the extent of even assassination attempts against him. And therefore, Obama would not risk major substantive change in US policies, even if he milked that rhetoric for electoral gain.

From a cursory look at US foreign policy maneuvers in Afghanistan and Honduras recently, one would have to easily agree with the Cuban communist's viewpoint. In Honduras, a coup d'état removed president Jose Manuel Zelaya from his post, at gunpoint and exiled him. This coup was endorsed by a change resistant Supreme Court and a pliant Congress, as the elites in Honduras were threatened by the leftist turn taken by Zelaya's presidency toward a more inclusive Constitution and a greater cohesion with like-minded progressive regimes across Latin America. The US acted in tandem with other Latin American and international actors to condemn the coup and asked for the reinstatement of Zelaya's presidency initially. Even as Zelaya returned back to Honduras braving the army cordon against his entry, and took refuge in the Brazilian embassy, the incumbent de facto regime mounted a massive repression against protestors in the country, banning and manipulating the media. The incumbent regime brazened out the international criticism by waiting out till a fraudulent elections came out to be held for the presidency with chosen candidates who supported the status quo. The Organisation of American States (OAS), backed by the US tried to broker peace between Zelaya and the coup plotters, and came out with an accord that agreed in principle to reinstate Zelaya, only for the coup plotters to change tack after the signatures, calling for elections to be conducted and preventing an immediate reinstatement. Zelaya backed off from the accord immediately, but the US continued on with the support to the coup plotters' actions and recognised a fraudulent elections that other Latin Americans unequivocally ignored.

Apparently, the US strategy from the beginning, was to play along with the coup plotters' strategy in a case of running with the "we are against the coup" hare and hunting with the "don't let Honduras turn left" hound. Elections were indeed held -its dubiousness is evident in the way it was conducted, with pro-Zelaya candidates left out, antagonist media blackened out, and financial incentives offered to those who participated in the voting- with an air of legitimacy allotted to it, only by the US (and later by other allies of the US - Colombia, Panama and Peru in the recently held Ibero-American summit). The US thus helped the coup plotters in achieving what they set out to achieve - damage the prospects of a break in aristocratic rule that has characterised Honduran politics since its turn to "democracy" in the early 1980s. Jose Zelaya wanted to make democracy more broad-based than the elite controlled setup that has been in place in the impoverished Central American nation and to tie Honduras within the large progressive project attempted by other leftist and left-of-center groups in Latin America - by joining the Bolivarian Alternative for Latin America grouping - the ALBA. This was the last straw for the US trained military and US-supported and tied oligarchy who brought about the coup.
Early US action thus was couched in the paradigm of "change", but substantively, US action in Honduras fitted well within the US' strategic interests in the region, thereby rendering the formalist opposition to the coup toothless. The US acceptance of the dubious and fraudulent elections in Honduras contrasted well with the similar elections in US invaded Afghanistan. President Hamid Karzai, widely recognised as a puppet set up by warlord interests and whose power is buttressed by US and NATO troops in the country, won a similar dubious election. The UN sponsored Electoral Complaints Commission pointed out that 15% of the votes casted were fraudulent in the first round of presidential elections. The US -just as the case in Honduras- made the initial right noises about a more valid second round, only for Karzai to accept it grudgingly, but doing nothing to substantively alter the conditions that resulted in the widespread rigging in the first place - i.e. ensuring a more non-partisan Independent Election Commission (IEC). Ergo, the only viable opposition candidate Abdullah Abdullah withdrew and Karzai won unopposed, much to the delight of the US whose favoured candidate was Karzai all along.
The US intervention in Afghanistan for the past 8 years has been a disaster. The Afghan central government's writ runs only in Kabul and other assorted areas of the north, while the Taliban has returned back with a vengeance. Repeated bombings by the US security forces (and NATO) killing innocent civilians has meant that the people of the country have grown to hate the central authority so much that they no longer resist the Taliban. The Taliban insurgency has thus been helped by this factor and American casualties had been on the rise. The Obama administration's right course of action would have been to do away with the unilaterist US involvement in Afghanistan that has exacerbated the situation to such an extent; but instead, the president has heeded right wing and military suggestions for a "surge"- raising the possibility of further destabilising the militant situation in the war torn nation. That the Hamid Karzai government is seen as the most viable and "modern" bet to bring in order to Afghanistan which is now a narco-state with high quantities of heroin and opium production, is farcical. The Karzai government, from many accounts, hosts warlords who have had a major role in drug production. Hamid Karzai's brother Ahmed Wali Karzai is believed to be a drug production controller himself. Independent reporters have also pointed out to the major corruption that US "rebuilding" efforts in Afghanistan are engaged in.
The parallels between the US handling of the Honduran and Afghanistan situation are uncanny - the coup in Honduras was effected by a US trained military and despite the Obama administration's protestations, the coup plotters got what they wanted ultimately; the Karzai government and his administration are bolstered by US military support and despite the Obama administration's pronouncements of letting the Afghan people decide their rulers and toward bringing peace and stability in the country, the violence, the drug production, the election-rigging all point out to a continuing miasma that has served American interests.
So what essentially did the "change" mean, that the Obama administration promised compared to the George W.Bush led administration's role in world politics. The Obama administration promised a "break" from the past, in terms of reducing the US' "exceptionalism" in world affairs and also to engage more in building peace and understanding, particularly with the "Islamic world". But what has followed in the substantive processes of adding flesh to the speeches that Obama has given, is that they have been followed by compromises. As is evidenced in the Afghanistan situation or in the Honduran situation, the Obama administration has managed to do what the George W. Bush administration would have set out to do.
Which brings us to the exuberant praise for the Obama election by the labour activist in the US. Apparently, Obama has managed to enthuse labour sections by his inclusive rhetoric and has admittedly assuage domestic constituents over a variety of issues such as healthcare reform, job stimuluses and so on. But on issues of foreign policy, there has not been any progressive change and it is incumbent upon representatives of labour, supporters of peace and world harmony in the US to force this administration to change course. That is at a minimum what they could do in solidarity with the many oppressed sections of the people in both Afghanistan and Honduras.