Between a self-proclaimed military marching into Libya’s parliament and Thailand’s military declaring martial law, it seems that coups d’etat are becoming more fashionable.
Unless you’re in the State Department, that is, as the policy there continues to be not recognizing anything as an actual coup, and is insisting neither of these cases count.
The State Department has disavowed the Libya takeover, conducted by a long-time CIA asset, but seemed supportive of the Thai military’s move, declaring it “constitutional” and saying the military had promised the US their takeover was “temporary.”
The US doesn’t have a great history of recognizing when coups happen, either, as with the Egyptian military’s summer coup last year. The Egyptian military took over a democratically elected government, and continues to rule to this day, but because a formal recognition of a coup would require the US to suspend aid, the Obama Administration openly insisted they would never recognize it as one.
The Pentagon remains keen on military ties with Thailand, which would explain the reluctance to “notice” a coup there, but since the Libyan National Army isn’t even a real army, the reluctance to see what’s happening in Libya as a coup attempt seems to reflect an overall administration policy of not noticing things like that.
Of Course.
They still haven't accepted the Nazi Junta coup in Ukraine.
Thailand, Egypt, Ukraine there is NO DIFFERENCE. Each Country has had its legitimately ELECTED GOVERNMENT ovrthrown BY FORCE and the GREAT DEMOCRACY has not even had the courage and internal fortitude to acknowledge these facts.
Jason might want to read a website called antiwar.com. There he could learn about the strange coincidences related to the coup in Libya, and how the US was moving military support into position before the coup began. And of course made no use of this odd pre-knowledge to try to stop the coup.
But the easiest rule to follow is that no election is valid, no ruler properly 'democratically' elected, unless their votes were counted by Diebold.
"… a formal recognition of a coup would require the US to suspend aid…"
And that alone is the reason for the semantic games the USG plays. If they had acknowledged the Egyptian coup and cut off aid, the warmongers and anti-Muslim crowd in the US Congress would have gone berserk and Obama was not up to putting up with the hassle of defending his non-Muslimism during an election year.
not true until officially denied