Honduras: A Truth Stranger Than Fiction?

Imagine an America in the not too distant future:

President Obama has entered into a special trade pact with Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua. Once the treaty is signed doctors and teachers from Cuba and Nicaragua offer their services to help the American “poor.” As soon as they enter the United States and become embedded in the countryside, they immediately begin organizing and indoctrinating the “poor” as to how oppressed they are and how they are entitled to the same lifestyle, privileges and properties that the “rich” enjoy.

Honduran President Roberto Micheletti and Chris Burgard

The “rich” are now defined as anyone who has more than two bedrooms in their home. In this imaginary, future America, President Obama owns several mansions across the nation, yet he declares that it is the patriotic duty of every “rich” homeowner to turn their 3rd and 4th bedrooms over to the “poor.”

President Obama raises the minimum wage by 60% percent. The “poor” hail him as their champion. Unable to meet the federal minimum wage requirement, thousands of small businesses close. Overnight 7,740,000 Americans lose their jobs. The American economy slumps even further.

Taiwanese investors agree to build new hydro electric power plants to revitalize the failing American energy grid. However, they rescind their offer when President Obama begins to talk of nationalizing energy production. Other foreign investors take notice and foreign investment in America stalls.

Even though the country cannot afford it, President Obama starts to subsidize gasoline. He gives the” poor” free electricity. He then makes a deal with Hugo Chavez and the Iranians to give free tractors to the poor. In the most rural parts of America every public works project has a big sign on it: “This has been built for you by Barack Obama!”

The “poor” people love him for it.

President Obama also makes huge concessions to the labor unions. Teachers now get paid whether they are in the classroom or on strike. As a result instead of a 220 day school year, American public schools are now only open 70 days per year. Public school students are hit the hardest. They soon fall far behind the few American students who can still afford private school. However, with the teacher’s union in his debt, President Obama now has a ready demonstration force that can be mobilized for public rallies at a moment’s notice.

About this time, President Obama loses trust in the Secret Service and military personnel assigned to protect him. House minority leader, John Boehner and others believe that the President has his own private security force made up of Nicaraguans and other foreign nationals.

With the end of his second term in sight, President Obama decides that he doesn’t want to leave office. He banks on his charisma and the devotion of his cult followers to allow him to follow in the footsteps of Hugo Chavez.

President Obama declares that he will add a referendum to the ballots for the upcoming Presidential primaries. There will be a special box on the ballots that Americans can check in order to eliminate presidential term limits.

But Americans rise up against this attack on their Constitution. There is not a single printing company in the United States that will print the illegal ballots.

With the exception of only three legislators, the entire Congress votes against the President. Undeterred President Obama again turns to his friend, Hugo Chavez. Millions of illegal ballots are printed in Venezuela for use in the United States.

President Obama orders Joint Chief of Staff, Admiral Mullen to distribute the illegal ballots to every polling place across the nation. When Admiral Mullen refuses, the president fires him.

The US Supreme Court orders Admiral Mullen reinstated and the illegal ballots confiscated.

President Obama then takes his cause to the streets. Organizers, the unions and the “poor” rally to his side. The mob breaks into an air force base and seizes the illegal ballots by force.

In this fictional, future United States, there are no articles of impeachment, but the law does apply to all citizens equally, even the President.

Article 239

The citizen who has served as head of the Executive branch shall not serve again as President or Vice President of the Republic….He who violates this disposition or proposes its reform….shall immediately be removed from office.

The Supreme Court orders President Obama arrested. On a Sunday morning at 6am, Admiral Mullen and the military carry out that arrest warrant.

In this future, fictional United States, the office of Vice President is vacant. Vice President Biden had recently resigned, so according to Constitutional succession the speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, is sworn in as President.

World reaction is swift. Within hours, the Organization of American States, the European Union and the United Nations all stand against Nancy Pelosi’s administration. Putin, Calderon and Gordon Brown stand in solidarity with the Castro brothers, Daniel Ortega and Hugo Chavez, in demanding that Barack Obama be reinstated immediately.

With the exception of Germany, Panama and Israel, the United States stands alone against the world.

There is reported troop movement on the US Southern border. Hugo Chavez threatens to move in with Nicaraguan and Venezuelan troops in an effort to “restore democracy” and help Barack Obama avoid a civil war. Americans live in fear of foreign invasion.

Foreign operatives and paid organizers spread cash and chaos wherever television cameras are likely to be found. They threaten American citizens.

Americans are afraid to leave their houses.

The pro-Obama factions immediately take to the streets. The rallies number in the hundreds and sometimes thousands. The demonstrators call each other “comrade.” Posters of Che Guevara are predominate among the protesters. Red bandannas and clothing are every where. Communist leaders from the 1980s direct graffiti artists to blanket the capitol streets in propaganda. The protesters burn diesel fuel and tires in the streets. They carry a blind old lady off of a bus and then torch the vehicle. They fire bomb a Popeye’s restaurant while there are still women and children inside. At one demonstration, they cut holes in an airport fence and charge government forces. A young man is killed.

In response, pro-Constitution rallies soon pop up. The demonstrators wear red, white and blue clothes. They don’t litter. They don’t burn things. They don’t attack security forces, vandalize or burn businesses. The pro constitution rallies number in the tens of thousands. The biggest rally hits one hundred thousand. But the Main Stream Media focuses almost exclusively on the Obama rallies and the violence that they create. The outside world never knows the full extent of popular support that the US Constitution carries within its borders.

Fortunately for us this is a purely fictional future United States. I do not believe that President Obama would ever do these things. Unfortunately for the people of Honduras, this is their reality. Ex President Manuel Zelaya did all of these things. The story you have just read is true. The President and the country were changed to put it into an American perspective.

I spent two weeks in July and August covering the events in Honduras for Pajamas Media. I interviewed, spoke and traveled with campesinos living with no electricity and dirt floors, teachers, military officers and enlisted personnel, missionaries, business leaders, national police, the House Minority leader, the Chief Supreme Court Justice, the ex First Lady: Xiomara Castro, hard core ex president Manuel Zelaya supporters, community organizers, militant revolutionaries and the current Honduran president: Roberto Micheletti.

I lost count of how many times I heard…”We never thought this could happen to us! We are a democracy.”

Hondurans were shocked when their democratically elected leader, Manuel Zelaya, began shifting dramatically to the far left and began to adopt the policies of Hugo Chavez.

After Manuel Zelaya was arrested and removed from office, Hondurans were stunned when President Obama called this a military coup. Within hours, President Obama stood in solidarity with Daniel Ortega, Hugo Chavez and the Castro brothers in demanding the return to power of Manuel Zelaya.

Manuel Girbal, a retired Honduran Army officer wanted me to know that the Honduran military swears an oath to the Constitution, not the President. In his eyes, by protecting the constitution, the military was protecting the people.

Chief Supreme Court Justice, Magistrado Presidente Rivera explained to me that the Honduran Constitution does not have articles of impeachment, but that the law applies equally to all men, even the president. Manuel Zelaya broke constitutional law and that is why the Supreme Court issued an arrest warrant and ordered the army to serve it.

Later, as Honduran troops deployed once more to guard the Presidential Palace and the Marriot Hotel from pro Zelaya demonstrators, I was asked by an Army Lieutenant why the United States had abandoned their friends in Honduras. Honduras gets a lot of criticism from its neighbors for leasing Soto Kano airbase to the Americans. Soto Kano is strategically located and plays a huge part in stopping the flow of drugs into the US. This lieutenant had served five months in Iraq because President Bush asked him. He wanted to know why President Obama had now abandoned them.

From the president on down to the peasants, from the right to the left, Hondurans are asking their Northern cousins to come and see for themselves what is going on in Honduras.

Unfortunately for them, Michael Jackson died the same week that Manuel Zelaya was removed from office. It was Michael Jackson that dominated American television screens.

Regular Honduran Presidential elections are scheduled for November 29. Hondurans are hoping to have free elections and a new president. According to the constitution, President Micheletti is ineligible to ever hold the office of president again.

The EU has cut off over 90 million dollars in aid to Honduras. The US has cut off military aid and suspended diplomatic visas. All joint US/Honduran narco/military operations have been suspended. Labor unions across the planet have demanded that longshoremen refuse to unload Honduran fruit and coffee cargos. Between this and the US tourism warnings, the Honduran economy is taking a huge hit.

In spite of all of this punishment, Honduras is standing tall. Everyday that they do not cave into international pressure brings them one day closer to their Presidential elections.

Over and over Hondurans told me that they would rather have six months of hell, than a lifetime of communism.

In the two months since Manuel Zelaya was arrested, Daniel Ortega has declared that Nicaragua needs to change their constitution in order to extend his stay in power.

Oscar Arias, the president of Costa Rica and the man that Hillary Clinton put in charge of mediations between Zelaya and the Micheletti administration came out last week with similar demands on the Costa Rican constitution.

There are lessons to be learned here and there are friendships that should not be forgotten.

Those of us who do not learn from history are destined to repeat it. Those of us who do not pay accurate attention to the plight of our friends and neighbors may not fare much better.