The Obama administration further tightened the screws on Honduras last Thursday, declaring the ouster of President Mel Zelaya “a military coup.” According to Honduras’ constitution, Zelaya’s removal June 28 was neither. Still, the hemisphere’s third-poorest nation is being denied $150 million in aid.

The cutoff presumably is aimed at inciting a hungry-man’s revolt and pressuring the government to reseat Zelaya. This is ironic: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called Zelaya “irresponsible” for trying to re-enter Honduras in July because of likely violence. The aid cutoff, intended to do the same, is just as “irresponsible” — and insulting to Hondurans to boot.

Friday’s news out of Latin America was no better. Colombia stood alone at a Star Chamber-like interrogation at the summit of the Union of South American Nations, a defense organization, in Bariloche, Argentina.

Its “crime”? It gave the U.S. military access to seven bases. All Colombia wants is to end what President Alvaro Uribe called “its long dark night” of struggle against murderous traffickers and terrorists.

South America’s soft-leftist leaders have done little to help. Instead, they live as if it was still the 1970s, when regional armies, not terrorists, were the bigger threat. That’s not the case today.

The leaders condemned Colombia’s move as militarism, and contrary to the spirit of regional integration (read: closeness to the U.S.)

Neither Colombia nor Honduras, both U.S. allies, should have to answer for what are in fact internal affairs. But both are, and the Obama administration is doing nothing.

The one who should be answering questions is Venezuela’s brutal dictator, Hugo Chavez, who has trashed democracy in his own country and precipitated both crises abroad through real meddling — buying off a leader in Honduras and bankrolling FARC terrorists in Colombia. Yet the U.S. acts as if good relations with Chavez is a high priority, but ties with allies Honduras and Colombia aren’t.

In an atmosphere like this, is it any wonder that citizens are taking matters into their own hands?

There’s a global march against Hugo Chavez brewing for Sept. 4 — organized by the same Facebook Colombians who launched last year’s 20-million strong global march against FARC.

Is it any wonder that tiny Honduras’ Supreme Court conducted an entirely constitutional, but messy, ouster of Zelaya just to save its democracy? It was armed with a constitutional mandate, but it stumbled into uncharted territory by exiling the unpopular leader.

Is it any wonder that citizens in other ruined democracies, like Nicaragua, are looking at Honduras and starting to get ideas?

Is it further any wonder that, as elections approach over the next two years, electoral polls show a sudden rightward shift in countries like Chile, Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay?

In two years’ time, the current collection of soft-left leaders who coddle Venezuela’s brutal dictator are all going to be out of power.

All of these actions are taking place because of the Obama administration’s indifference to Chavez, treating him as a democratic leader like any other. The White House is oblivious to these powerful, emerging new currents and seems to think the future lies with soft- left Latin American leaders — like Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Chile’s Michelle Bachelet, who both routinely condemn Honduras and Colombia, but not Chavez.

Obama would be wise not to follow them. Neither Brazil nor Chile are big targets for terrorists. Nor are they sources of drugs and illegal immigrants. Their risks are fewer and responsibilities smaller than those of the U.S. And their irresponsible diplomacy reflects it.

The U.S. wants nothing more than to have good relations with Venezuela’s Chavez. They don’t get that Chavez needs the U.S. as an enemy. Unwilling to confront Obama, a darling of the left, he’s going after America’s allies, picking them off, discrediting them, one by one in a bid to reduce U.S. influence.

The White House is going along with it — to our detriment.

Source: IBD Editorials