Trial Of Honduran Ex-President Reveals Washington’s Protection Of ‘Narco-State’

In private, Juan Orlando Hernández vowed to “stuff the drugs right up the noses of the gringos,” while in public, he was heartily embraced by Obama administration officials, including the current US president, Joe Biden. Despite possessing intimate knowledge of Hernández’s criminal activities, officials in the Obama White House worked tirelessly to keep his presidency afloat. While drug war refugees and narcotics from the country flooded American streets, Washington transferred over one billion dollars into Honduran state coffers.   In the pre-dawn hours of June 28, 2009, roughly 100 masked Honduran soldiers stormed the residence of President José Manuel Zelaya, guns drawn. The special forces unit marched Zelaya into the street at gunpoint, loaded him into a vehicle and onto a plane destined for a US-run military base. From there, soldiers shipped him off to neighboring Costa Rica, where he arrived on a deserted tarmac before sun up, still in his pajamas.  Honduras rapidly deteriorated into a hellish narco state worthy of Hollywood treatment.