The Un-Coup in Honduras

Since last June I've been following the "coup" in Honduras (and just in case you haven't, the military there removed President Manuel Zelaya from power and sent him into exile the night before a referendum he backed to rewrite the Honduran constitution to allow him to serve a second term was scheduled to be held). The Obama administration quickly branded the military's action a coup and has demanded that Zelaya be returned to power, even suspending foreign aid to Honduras in protest.

My take on events though, after reading a bit about Honduras' constitution was that the military was acting to uphold the law - the Honduran constitution specifically bars anyone from serving more than one term as president and goes on to state that anyone who tries to amend this part of the constitution (like Zelaya was trying to do) must be removed from office, immediately.

Now, according to today's Wall Street Journal, the Congressional Research Service backs up my take on Honduran law - stating that they see the military's action in removing Zelaya from power: "to be in accordance with the Honduran legal system." The WSJ goes on to say in their editorial that the United States is actually pressuring the Hondurans to violate their own laws with our demand that they bring Zelaya back to power and even claims that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has "an obsession" with Honduras, though unlike the Congressional Research Service, the Wall Street Journal never answers the question of why the US is backing Zelaya or their claim that Clinton is obsessed with any research or facts.