Latin America and the Democrats
The Gateway Pundit has a great piece today about Democrats playing Russian Roulette with our foreign policy in regards to Latin America entitled FARC You! where he catalogues Democrat hypocrisy towards our allies in that region.
The reason it caught my eye is some of the rhetoric I’ve been hearing from the Left in regards to the Bush Administration in Latin America that’s not exactly the truth. For example, Barack Obama has a statement on his senate.gov website that claims the Bush Administration isn’t engaged in Latin America;
I am, however, disappointed that the President has fallen so short in his promise to transform U.S. relations with the Americas. Our regional relationships cannot be properly attended to with one six-day trip, a series of photo opportunities, and some lofty rhetoric on collaboration.
Neglect? Why, just this week, the Bush Administration has finalized trade agreements with Peru, Columbia and Panama – to absolutely no fanfare in the press. because these trade pacts are all opposed by Big Labor. Oh, and they’re good for the US – can’t see the President getting good press over anything can we? These trade agreements give these country the ecomonic power to keep their residents at home instead sending them here as illegal immigrants. (Not to mention, it might drive the price of sugar down far enough that Coca Cola might put sugar in that drink again and make it tasty again)
In Miami this week, Obama said, “It’s not sufficient for us to have Latin American policy based on not liking Hugo Chavez and not liking Fidel Castro.” That’s pretty simplistic rhetoric, actually. The Bush administration has pretty much ignored Chavez and Castro – I don’t see any statements coming out of the White House everytime Banana-brains starts yammering paranoid rants about someone wanting to kill his useless ass. I don’t think anyone in the Administration has even acknowledged that Chavez exists. His own people can deal with him – and Castro – phht – he’ll be dead soon enough, so who cares.
President Bush even travelled around Central and South America in the Fall of 2005 – I left Panama the day before he arrived and it was the talk of the entire country. He’s a very popular figure there, despite the bad press.
Think maybe our stature in Latin America has suffered because Democrats won’t meet with our greatest ally in the region President Alvaro Uribe has been snubbed by the Congressional Democrats as well as Al Gore. This from a Mary Anatasia O’Grady piece in the Wall Street Journal from April entitled “One Righteous Gringo“;
Al Gore may not have known that he was taking the side of a former terrorist and ally of Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chávez when he waded into Colombian politics 10 days ago. But that’s not much consolation to 45 million Colombians who watched their country’s already fragile international image suffer another unjust blow, this time at the hands of a former U.S. vice president.
The event was a climate-change conference in Miami, where Mr. Gore and Colombian President Ãlvaro Uribe were set to share the stage. At the last minute, Mr. Gore notified the conference organizers that he refused to appear with Mr. Uribe because of “deeply troubling” allegations of human- rights violations swirling around the Colombian government.
It is not clear whether the ex-veep knows that making unsubstantiated claims of human-rights violations has been a key guerrilla weapon for more than a decade, along with the more traditional practices of murdering, maiming and kidnapping civilians. Nor is it clear whether Mr. Gore knew that the recycled charges that caught his attention are being hyped by Colombian Sen. Gustavo Petro, a close friend of Mr. Chávez and former member of the pro-Cuban M-19 terrorist group. What we do know is that Mr. Gore’s line of reasoning — that Colombia is not good enough to rub shoulders with the righteous gringos — is also being peddled by some Democrats in Congress, the AFL-CIO and other forces of anti-globalization. The endgame is all about killing the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement.
When Mr. Uribe got wind of Mr. Gore’s decision to stand him up, he rightly interpreted its significance: Colombia is the victim of an international smear campaign that, if left unchecked, could undermine congressional support for the pending trade deal. Rather than let the whispering go on, Mr. Uribe elevated the matter, calling two press conferences over two days to refute the charges, which he says are damaging the country’s interests. He also asked Mr. Gore to look “at Colombia closely” so he could see the progress that has been made.
By the way, President Uribe’s father was killed by terrorists – tough for them if he’s a little harsh in dealing with them. Since when is Al Gore willing to trade our friends down the river because he heard an unsubstantiated rumor somewhere? Â
So how exactly is Bush damaging our relations in Latin America? He’s got Democrats undermining his efforts with their petty politics, Democrats winging their way to Venezuela to gladhand with blood-soaked tyrants while they turn their backs on the people who are helping fight our enemies.
Just like in the Middle East where Democrats have tea with our enemies and snub our allies. Maybe we have all of these problems because we present a fickle foreign policy – towards all of our allies and our enemies. Our foreign policy is ambiguous because we have 525 ambassadors in Congress – not to mention the ancillary ambassadors who are former presidents and vice-presidents.Â
I’m pretty certain that the founding fathers intended that the president be the sole voice of our nation to other nations. Maybe we need to impeach all of these extraneous diplomats floating around the world operating under a false flag.
Category: Economy, Foreign Policy, Hugo Chavez, Politics, Terror War
Hey Jonn, just to play Devil’s advocate, I can almost understand why some people, on the surface, might agree with Obama regarding Bush’s policies toward Latin America. His policies weren’t terribly defined because he had to deal with that small event commonly known as September 11th — perhaps you’ve heard of it? Ok, yes, obviously I’m being facetious. But when Bush had to choose between dealing with Islamo-fascists who killed 3.000 Americans on American soil versus paying attention to Latin American countries –many of which were relatively stable in the early part of the decade– I, as a Colombian-American, am glad he chose to devote his efforts to the former. Additionally, as correctly noted, Bush has devoted a great deal of time pushing FTAs through in Latin America, as well as participating in other economic agreements, most notably APEC of 2004 — I was living in Santiago during the summit in November. With regard to speaking out against Chavez and Castro, he can only say so much before those two –the former being an aspiring autocrat, the latter being an out-of-touch dinosaur– unleash sophomoric retorts about imperialism and Mr Danger. Let’s be honest: why engage in this sort of dialogue, if one could even qualify it as such, when one will only end up looking like a petulant child for dignifying such vitriole? Also, he doesn’t have a great deal of many in Congress to push through any crucial initiatives (I’m most particularly thinking of Rangel and Payne.) In sum, perhaps Bush could have done a better job in more actively engaging the region, at least on a higher profile level, but there were and are matters which take precedence. Also, on a similar note, why is it just the responsibility of Bush to reach out to the Latin American nations? Why can’t Latin America be more pro-active in requesting help/advice/aid/etc. from the US? (Is it their fear that Chavez will call them lacayos del Imperio? Uf.) Bilateral relations are just that: bilateral. Yes, I realize that sounds like a stupid statement, but for this type of relationship to work,… Read more »