I also think that the so-called Bush Doctrine, which only lasted from 2001-2004, was nothing more than an ideological cover for US attempts to impose its strategic domination in the Middle East, using Iraq as a land-based carrier for the projection of military force in the region (hoping to cower Syria, Iran and to move quickly against Islamicists in the Horn of Africa and Mahgreb as well as Central Asia). That strategy backfired simply because it was over-ambitious and poorly thought out.

I am a realist on such matters, and the Bush Doctrine was as pie-in-the-sky (of a neocon sort) as was Woodrow Wilson’s hopes for the Treaty of Versailles.

Please report back on Romania. And BTW, thanks to certain events back in Auckland I am no longer teaching and in fact have zero prospects of ever doing so again in NZ. My “dense” prose just reflects my training and ongoing research interests, not my current (un) employment status.

Lew: Thanks for the cite/link.

Pablo addressed this sort of question a while back in a post on direct action praxis and the threshold of toleration.

L

Pablo at Kiwipolitico writes an insightful piece on the Honduras coup. Read the comments as well – they are well worth the time….

If (as you say) Hondurans don’t see their armed forces as Constitutional bailiffs, then why did it not occur to the Congress and the Courts to use someone else (anyone else) in that role?

Without the connection to the security apparatus of Honduras that you have, I can only go on what I see, and what I see is that the Honduras Supreme Court, and the Honduras Congress do see the armed forces as Constitutional bailiffs because the Supreme Court and Congress used them as Constitutional bailiffs, and (according to the evidence we have at hand) did not think of using anyone else.

I can assure you that the standard for democratic civil-military relations I have outlined above is not parochial, and that in fact the Honduran military had no constitutional obligation to serve as the Court or Congressional bailiff in this matter. It simply choose to get involved for the reasons I have detailed in the post and thread, and will now have to pay the price for that unwise decision.

Sorry for the brief bio–I outline it to disabuse you of the notion that I am naive or ignorant about this subject.

You are speaking from the perspective of a New Zealander. The same point of view on the role of the military is shared throughout the English-speaking world (so far as I have observed). Do Hondurans see the role of their armed forces in the same way?

Murder and assault are fundamentally different crimes.

No, it doesn’t.

Yes it does. Can you tell me the difference between a small breach and a large one?

I’m not arguing that the authorities’ advice (to overthrow Zelaya in response to his breach) was illegal or false (is)- I’m arguing it was wrong (ought).

His breach wasn’t the only reason the Courts ordered his overthrow. His response to repeated warnings/judgements that his actions were unconstitutional formed part of the reason. I will remind you: Zelaya’s response to repeated warnings that his actions were unconstitutional was totally contemptuous. He didn’t merely make a technical breach of the Honduras Constitution, he actively held it, and the institutions charged with defending and preserving it, in contempt.

When a President regards a constitution as a mere scrap of paper, standing between him and his political ambitions, then the only proper thing is for him to be removed from office.

Why not? Your example of murder vs. assault is a false analogy.

We disagree. Nevertheless: proportionality in crime and punishment is how things are. If you want to scrap it, argue your case. I don’t need to justify existing norms.

What you say also begs the question of what is a “small technical breach” of the constitution?

No, it doesn’t. I’m not so much arguing Zelaya’s actions were a technical breach as arguing that, by your logic, even the smallest such breach would warrant a coup. It’s reductio ad absurdum to illustrate the fallacy of your absolutist argument.

Differences in response are warranted (in the case of governments violating the constitution) not by differences in the breach, but by differences in the government’s response to being advised by the relevant authorities (whether these authorities be the legislature, the government’s own legal advisors, or the judiciary) that its actions are unconstitutional.

I’m not arguing that the authorities’ advice (to overthrow Zelaya in response to his breach) was illegal or false (is)- I’m arguing it was wrong (ought).

L

Why not? Your example of murder vs. assault is a false analogy.

What you say also begs the question of what is a “small technical breach” of the constitution? It also begs the question of whether or not Zelaya’s actions can be considered a “small technical breach”. Differences in response are warranted (in the case of governments violating the constitution) not by differences in the breach, but by differences in the government’s response to being advised by the relevant authorities (whether these authorities be the legislature, the government’s own legal advisors, or the judiciary) that its actions are unconstitutional.

Zelaya took the attitude that the law was whatever he decided it was, and that anyone who opposed him had to be pushed out of the way. Both the courts and the Congress tried to stop him before it reached this stage, but he went on regardless

Not so much conceding there’s only a difference of degree as pointing out that it doesn’t matter. The quotation marks indicate that it was your word. You suggested that differences of degree are fake. They’re not. No amount of sophistry about ‘all the constitution’ changes that.

It doesn’t follow that the smallest technical breach of any part of the constitution merits the most extreme response of a military coup. Responses ought to be commensurate to the offence, and cognisant of the wider political context in which the offence occurred. They are elsewhere; in criminal law as in constitutional law, and owing to that there is an onus on those who would change the norm to justify it, rather than expecting those in the position of orthodoxy to do so. One good reason for proportionality of a sort is that it discourages actors from taking extreme measures; if the penalty is the same for assault as for murder, or for organising a peaceful demonstration and referendum as for raising a militia army, which would one rationally choose, all else being equal?

It’s fair enough to argue that the Honduran coup was justified on the basis that Zelaya’s actions warranted it by their nature or severity, but you can’t legitimately argue that a coup was justified simply because he breached the constitution.

I agree in this case that some action was necessary to bring Zelaya back into line, and I agree with your premise that the rule of law must be defended. But advocating the military overthrow of heads of state for every constitutional transgression, when other avenues exist to rein them in, is immoderate at best and foolish at worst.

L

Placing the word “real” in quotation marks (while conceding that the difference is still one of degree) doesn’t rebutt my case. Why do the differences of degree warrant differences of response?

The substantial offence is the same. The President of Honduras swears to uphold the Constitution. That means all of the Constitution, not just the bits that spell out the various democratic rights, or the politically useful bits, the whole Constitution. You have also ignored the other points.

Why should a President who violates one part of the Constitution because its politically useful to violate it respect any other part of the Constitution?

In the event of a President violating the Constitution without being held to account for it, what do we have to protect our rights? I have answered that question: all we have without constitutional government and the rule of law is the benevolence of politicians. I don’t know about anyone else, but I am not prepared to trust in benevolence.

It should be noted that the military has a job to protect and defend the constitution. This means it is their job to defend the constitution against a democratically elected government that is trying to destroy the constitution.

The Economist magazine has two good articles about the situation in Honduras, and make two facts:
1) The Honduran constitution states that referendums can only be held with the consent of congress. As the referendum had not been approved by congress, the referendum itself was against the constiution of Honduras.
2) The head of the army refused to take part in the referendum, and as a result Zelaya tried to sack him.

Put together, this means:
1)Zelaya broke the constiution by having a not only illegal but unconstitutional referendum on an illegal change to the constitution (which meant that he was stripped of his Honduran citizenship, and removed from office for 10 years from a legal viewpoint, without the coup).
2) Zelaya tried to sack an army officer, because he refused to break the constiution with him.

The article also point out that Zelaya had an approval rating of 30% in opinion polls before the coup, and if he tried to contest a fair (note the word fair, if Zelaya thinks breaking the constitution is OK, whats the odds he will think rigging elections is OK) election for a second term would have probably been defeated at the ballot box (and deserved to be defeated).

Chris, Fo and Nicholas: do you really want the military to be the ulitmate arbiters of political disputes in a democracy?

The ultimate arbiters in a democracy should be the courts (if impartial) and the people. However, when these arbiters are not avaliable (due to rigged elections and courts stacked with political cronies), and when the constitution or basic democratic freedoms are under threat, it should be the military who should step in.

How about you answer this question:
Should the military refuse to carry out orders by the Supreme court, for the arrest of a “President” for treason, who breaks his countries constitution by holding an illegal referendum, tries to sack a military officer for refusing to break the constitution, and according to the constitution be stripped of his Honduran citizenship and removed from office for 10 years without any coup?

I’d love to hear your answer to that question. I will talk about other coups in Latin America in a different comment.

The difference between a democratically elected leader initiating torture, removing freedom of speech/press/assembly (etc) on the one hand, and a democratically elected leader deciding to junk the constitution and the law on the other hand is a difference of degree only. There is no real difference.

Not to speak for Pablo, but differences of degree are “real”. All breaches of law or constitution simply are not equal. A given response needs to be justified on grounds of principle (that a breach has occurred) and on grounds of severity (the extent or nature of that breach).

L

Pablo, you’re attacking a strawman. The military did not act unilaterally, they carried out an order from the Supreme Court, and (before Zelaya’s exile) they refused to carry out an unconstitutional order. This not a military coup as most would understand it (i.e. the military deciding of its own accord to take over)

Your discussion of left/right is, in the case of Honduras, a red herring. The reason it is a red herring is that Zelaya had already moved outside the law. He had already starting undermining and destroying the democratic rights that you claim to cherish. I notice that you have ignored the three points I made on this subject. I will reiterate them in case you didn’t see them:
1) The difference between a democratically elected leader initiating torture, removing freedom of speech/press/assembly (etc) on the one hand, and a democratically elected leader deciding to junk the constitution and the law on the other hand is a difference of degree only. There is no real difference. This is because the preservation of our democratic rights depends on governments obeying the law and the constitution. When governments move outside the law, the only thing that keeps our democratic rights intact is the benevolence of those who have broken the constitution and the law. Without some real means of keeping leaders (even democratically elected leaders and popular leaders for that matter) within the law, then the only protection for our rights is the benevolence of those in charge.

2) Zelaya already started the process of destroying democratic freedoms:
a) Eliminating the right to privacy as well as the right to protection against unwarranted search and seizure (universal phone tapping)
b) Denying the right of the peoples’ representatives to investigate the government (Zelaya said Congress couldn’t investigate him, and he refused to submit his Government’s budget to them)
c) Suppressing freedom of the press (mandatory government broadcasting)

3) The suppression/destruction of private property rights is a violation of democratic freedoms of the type you describe because the actual exercise of those freedoms depends on private property.

FP: Gracias companero. Ojala esto se resuelve pacificamente.

Chris: by virtue of European colonisation and being located in the Western Hemisphere, Latin America is considered part of “Western” civilisation. Thus your comment about “Western views,” and the vulgar stereotypes you mention, are not “Western.” Do you mean “Northern” or “Anglo-Saxon?”

Fo: the comment by the Supreme Court justice that Chavez was ruling Honduras by Zelaya as proxy replicates a standard accusation by conservative Latin American elites regarding Left leaders. Allende was accused of being Castro’s proxy by the 1973 Chilean coup leaders and their civilian allies. Joao Goulart was accused of being a socialist puppet of Castro by the Brazilian generals in 1964. The same goes for the Sandinistas in the 1980s. It is a tired canard, and underscores my point about why the military really intervened: it was about drawing a line in the perceived Boliviarian sand much more than about Zelaya’s actions per se.

Chris, Fo and Nicholas: do you really want the military to be the ulitmate arbiters of political disputes in a democracy? Do you really believe that this is a good precedent? Have you really thought through what that exactly means (having the military as the ultimate determinants of who gets to rule)? It strikes me that you may not have lived through a coup or under a military regime (which I have) because otherwise you would be much less absolute in your convictions on this matter.

Without wanting to appear pedantic, and reiterating that I have lived through and been a participant observer in several LATAM coups as well as having professionally written about coups at some length, let me point out some additional facts:

Military coups are the product of push and pull factors. Pull factors are events external to the military that pull them into political intervention. These include civil unrest, institutional failure and civilian elite pleading. Push factors are factors internal to the military that push them to intervene. This include corporate prerogatives and organization, internal factionalisation, inter-service rivalries and strategic perspective. In the Honduran case, there was no mass civil unrest or institutional failure present at the time Zelaya was ousted. Instead, it was conservative civilian elite pleading that pulled the military into intervening on their behalf, which demonstrates their lack of confidence in civilian political institutions. Nothing Zelaya has done could not have been resolved via civliian institutional channels, but in asking for early military intervention the conservative elites abdicated their responsiblities to do so. Remember that the Supreme Court and military are among the most conservative elements in Honduran society. Now, though their actions, they have preciptated both an insitutional and socio-political crisis that could have been averted or resolved via peaceful means.

The push factors that led to this intervention have been outlined in the post, and have mostly to do with the Honduran military’s visceral distaste for anything that smacks of “communism.”

Which brings up a larger point. What is the common denominator between the Brazil coup of 1964, Argentine coups of 1966 and 1976, Uruguayan and Chilean coups of 1973, the half dozen Bolivian coups betewen 1970-1990, the US military intervention in the Dominican Republic in 1966, and the CIA involvement in the Guatemalan coup of 1954 (among others)? In all cases democratically elected, purportedly Left leaders were ousted by conservative civlian-military coalitions with US backing amid accusations of being puppets of foreign communist or socialist interests. Could it be that the Latin American Right simply cannot accept any form of Left-leaning rule, democratic or not? Is not the changed US stance in this case a sign of positive change towards a more nuanced, multilateral and respectful approach to ist regional neighbours?

Moreover, why is that, other than the Cuban and Sandinista revolutions (both initially widely supported by the majority of the population), all modern Left-leaning governments in Latin America have been democratically elected into office, only to have the disloyal conservative opposition turn to coup plotting as a means of removing them rather than work through institutional channels? Is this conservative unsurpation of the popular will not a bid odd to you? Could it be that you are casting a blind eye on this discrepency due to ideological bias?

The good news is that the US has already suspended economic and military aid to Honduras, its neighbours and other Latin American nations have closed their borders to all forms of Honduran trade, the EU has suspended trade relations and the OAS will suspend its membership in the organisation if Zelaya is not restored this weekend. Needless to say, Venezuela has suspended Petrocaribe oil shipments to Honduras. For all intents and purposes, the golpistas have been backed into a corner by the international response. Thus, the writing is on the wall for the coup-mongerers, which is why a political compromise will now be worked out.

I shall leave aside for the moment what I know about US involvement (or non-involvement) in the machinations before the coup, but suffice it to say that the move was not orchestrated from Washington although it may have been aware of it in advance.

Pablo at Kiwipolitico looks at the Honduras Coup and if a coup is ever justified. A very good analysis….