US Pardons Drug Lord, Calls it 'Democracy Promotion'
Mainstream outlets celebrate or condemn presidential pardons based on partisan lines, but rarely dissect why certain foreign leaders became useful to US interests in the first place. Hernández, a man convicted of drug trafficking by a US court in March 2024 (AP, March 8, 2024), was once lauded by Washington as an anti-corruption ally. This, despite strong evidence of his deep ties to cartels
emerging years before his indictment, conveniently ignored while he governed Honduras after a 2009 US-backed coup ( The Nation , July 29, 2009) that ousted a democratically elected leader who dared to suggest social reforms. So, a convicted drug trafficker gets a presidential get-out-of-jail-free card from a US president. One might wonder if this is about justice, or merely tidying up loose ends
for a foreign policy apparatus that consistently prioritizes 'stability' (read: compliant regimes) over actual democracy or rule of law. How many more 'democratic partners' will be exposed as criminals, only to be pardoned by the very nation that installed them?