The Ends Don't Justify The Means

There's an excellent, excellent Herald editorial on the Honduran military coup that I thought I would highlight in a separate post.

Deputy Attorney General Roy David Urtecho revealed on Wednesday that his office had issued an arrest warrant for Mr. Zelaya on charges of treason and abuse of power. And, by golly, he can't figure out why the president was sent to Costa Rica instead of an Honduran court. That, apparently, is news to Roberto Micheletti, the newly installed president, who insists that the soldiers were complying with Supreme Court orders.

Trying to sort this out, Mr. Utrecho could only come up with this face-saving explanation: ``There were events that don't comply with the law.''

[...]

Mr. Urtecho had the right idea. If the president did wrong, investigate him and file charges. Arrest him if necessary and hold a trial. Snatching him out of bed, putting a gun to his head and tossing him on a plane turns what might have been a conventional political process into a bizarre melodrama that discredits his adversaries, regardless of what Mr. Zelaya was accused of doing.

Mr. Zelaya was clearly asking for trouble by pressing for a plebiscite or referendum that might have served as a springboard for trying to extend his term of office. But it's not about Mr. Zelaya -- it's about the institutional integrity of Honduras, where democracy remains a fragile seed and needs to be nurtured rather than trampled on.

"It's not about Mr. Zelaya--it's about the institutional integrity of Honduras..."

This is a critical point that the-end-justifies-the-means crowd will never, ever grasp or fully understand. The means become irrelevant to these people when the end is the one they want.

Whether it be removing a troublesome president from power, installing a president that we want, or extracting information from a suspected terrorist, compromising our integrity and values to accomplish our goals only serves to make us more like the people we bitterly despise.

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