Banana Republic

The US overthrows legitimate, democratically elected foreign governments. They do it all the time. They have been doing it for a long time. I think the Mexican War was the first but I could be wrong. A lot of times we overthrow a government and really fuck the country up for a long time and not to the benefit of ourselves, or anyone else. Mossedeq in Iran and Allende in Chile come to mind. We really fucked them up bad. Letting the Somozas run Nicaragua for most of the last century wasn't too bright, either. That came back and bit us on the butt. Sorry, Chesty, it wasn't your fault. You were just following orders.

We don't always need to be directly involved. We taught the Honduran military all about how to enact a coup. Why would we be surprised when they did it? Banana Republic coups always have the support of the Military officer corps, the wealthy elite and the Catholic hierarchy. In almost every Hispanic country these three groups pull their members from the same small group of interrelated families and share the same interests and income sources. Because the distribution of wealth in these countries is so narrow, governments which the majority has legitimate input into, almost always favor some sort of redistribution of wealth. When they threaten to begin to effect this redistribution, that's when the coup takes place. Dirty Commies.

The new government in Honduras claims they are not a traditional Banana Republic coup. But there they are. The rich, the military and the Catholic Church, all holding hands and ruffled up like guilty young lovers, the morning after. The US denies any involvement. They don't really teach that stuff at the School Of the Americas.

Walks like a duck. Quacks like a duck. It's not that hard to figure out. Everybody knows a duck when they see one. You want to pretend it's not a duck, fine. You don't need to justify it to the victims of past coups. In Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Panama, Columbia, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Iran, China, the Philippines, Thailand, Burma, and scores of others, including literally every nation in sub Saharan Africa, multiple times. There have been hundreds of millions of victims in these countries, when civil war was fomented by American instigation, over the last hundred years. The victims don't care. They're all dead. Pretend it never happened. Give a little money to the Christian Children's fund. Adopt a little, brown orphan. You'll feel better.

You know what? Why don't we just give it a rest. Stay home. Mind our own business. There will probably be plenty of war without us.