 WASHINGTON -- Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced Thursday that the United States would formally suspend nearly $30 million in aid to the coup-installed government in Honduras. She also suggested for the first time that the United States might not recognize the country's elections this fall if the ousted president was not returned to power by then.
| Can we please give up this stupidity? It's really not the way to make friends and influence people. Not the kind of friends worth having or influencing, anyway. |
Senior administration officials said she was sending a "powerful signal" of their commitment to the restoration of democracy in Honduras, which has been the object of international condemnation since June 28, when soldiers rousted President Manuel Zelaya from his bed and loaded him onto a plane leaving the country.
Some outside the Obama administration, however, wondered whether it was much of a signal at all, saying that formally terminating the money would not have much of a practical effect because the aid had been suspended immediately after the coup. In addition, the United States will continue providing tens of millions of dollars in development and humanitarian aid.
| Oh. Just posturing for the peanut gallery, then. |
"They are doing these piecemeal steps to see how the de facto regime responds," said Vicki Gass of the Washington Office on Latin America, a human rights group. "And each time the de facto regime remains intransigent, they up the ante, but it takes them way too long."
| Ms Gass seems to thing the right response is a Dresden-style fire bombing as a first step. Ms Gass is either a vicious idiot or a fool, but definitely a bully wannabe. |
Mrs. Clinton's announcement came as she met with Mr. Zelaya, who had urged the administration to issue a finding that his ouster fit the legal definition of a military coup. Senior administration officials said such a determination -- which was not made -- would not have obligated the United States to cut aid further.
| Since we haven't, I assume the powers that be do not actually believe his ouster was a military coup. They just want to be accepted by the cool countries. |
A legal determination would have required certification by Congress, where some Republicans support Honduras's de facto government. Reaction to Thursday's announcement suggested that there might be a fight brewing anyway.
"Today's decision by the State Department to cut aid to Honduras is an outrage," said Representative Connie Mack, Republican of Florida, who called the cuts "simply over the top." |