Free Trade Area of the Americas - What Will Happen to Latin America?

An interesting article from http://www.ucg.org/ about rising Latin American economic power. This follows this post about Indonesia. For a free magazine subscription or to get the book shown for free click HERE! or call 1-888-886-8632.

Free Trade Area of the Americas What Will Happen to Latin America


article by Fred Nance


The United States can no longer take its superiority in the economy of the western hemisphere for granted. The EU's economic reach grows ever longer and its influence ever stronger.



Many people in the western hemisphere desire the "American dream." The prosperity and economic boom of the 1990s in the United States has many nations longing for open markets, so they can begin to taste some of the good times. On the planning table is the "Free Trade Agreement of the Americas" (FTAA) that would create the largest free trade agreement the world has ever seen. It is hoped that by the year 2005, the FTAA will create a market of 800 million people in the Americas, from the Arctic to Antarctica.



This past April, 34 nations participated in the Summit of the Americas in Quebec. President Bush actively took part in that summit and has been asking the U.S. Congress for authority to negotiate this agreement. "I will look south, not as an afterthought, but as a fundamental commitment of my presidency. Those who ignore Latin America do not fully understand America itself," said the president ( Latin Trade Magazine, June 2001, p. 30). He has promised that the trade zone will not only create markets for the United States, but will fortify democracy in Latin America and spread the economic benefits equitably.



Can a partnership be forged between the United States and Latin America? What is the most likely scenario for these nations, according to Bible prophecy?



As pointed out in a recent New York Times article, the combination of democracy and free enterprise in Latin America does not guarantee higher living standards. Every nation in the western hemisphere except Cuba presently has an elected government, with increasingly open markets. Yet, 224 million Latin Americans (roughly 36 percent of the population) live in poverty. Many of these nations are experimenting with democratic capitalism for the first time. As a result of this experimentation, economic benefits do not filter down to the masses, because the region's rigid social structure isn't equipped to equitably distribute wealth.



"Latin Americans get to choose their leaders, but once they are in place, it's the old cliques that make the bottom-line decisions that are suitable to their own needs, not the needs of the people," says Hernando De Soto, a Peruvian economist ("Latin America's Poor Survive It All," New York Times, June 24, 2001).



The source of divergence



Why are the United States and Canada so much more prosperous and more democratic than Latin America?



Ibero-America actually had a head start on the United States and Canada. The first permanent Spanish settlement was established in 1493 on Hispaniola in what is today the Dominican Republic. The first permanent British colony was established more than a century later, in 1607 at Jamestown in what was to become Virginia.



Venezuelan writer Carlos Rangel wrote: "As late as 1700, the Spanish American empire still gave the impression of being incomparably richer, much more powerful and more likely to succeed than the British colonies of North America" (Lawrence E. Harrison, The Pan-American Dream, 1997, p. 18). Latin America had an earlier start, yet British America surpassed it in power and influence.



Lawrence Harrison writes: "As we approach the end of the 20th Century, Latin America is roughly fifty years behind the United States and Canada in terms of the prosperity of its citizens and the solidity of its democratic institutions" (ibid, p. 18). What explains this flip-flop in history?



We can turn to Bible prophecy for the answer. God made known through Jacob that Joseph's descendants would receive the birthright promises "in the last days" (Genesis 49:1And Jacob called unto his sons, and said, Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you that which shall befall you in the last days.



See All..., 22-26). It is because of the tremendous physical blessings promised to the descendants of Joseph that the United States has prospered so much more and become more powerful. The United States was molded from British, Anglo-Protestant traditions, whereas Latin America traces its roots to Ibero-Catholic culture. These are the fundamental differences that explain the divergence between the nations of the Americas at the beginning of the 21st century.



Where will it go from here? Can a partnership be forged among all the nations of America?



Leadership needed



There are many who believe that without leadership, the United States might lose out in the competition for Latin American markets. Jenny Bates, an international economist at the Progressive Policy Institute, writes: "There is an emerging risk of the United States being slowly shut out of Latin American markets, while our competitors, particularly the European Union, gain ground. In the future, if Latin American countries face lower barriers on imports from the EU than from the United States, they will purchase goods and services, including highly lucrative capital goods, from our competitors. This potential outcome is not lost on the Europeans" ( Blueprint Series, Ideas for a New Century, 2001, p. 5).



Despite President Bush's desire to negotiate a free trade pact, many forces are at work to prevent it. Powerful U.S. interest groups, especially labor unions and environmentalists, oppose free trade. The U.S. Congress itself might be against it, as President Clinton found out when he failed to obtain the renewal of "fast track" negotiating authority that he needed to forge a similar accord.



Whether free trade is reached throughout the western hemisphere, one can be sure that Europe is watching these developments closely. Europe has a strong historical, cultural and demographic relationship with many countries of Latin America. European multinational corporations have established a major presence there.



Corporations from Spain are especially dominating in acquisitions of banking, energy and telecommunications to the point that they will soon hold pan-regional power in Latin America. A trade agreement between Mexico and the European Union was recently signed, which was Europe's response to NAFTA. Some economists believe that agreement set the pattern for possible future trade agreements between Europe and Latin America.



From "dollarization" to "euroization?"



"Dollarization," the abandoning of a country's local currency to adopt the dollar, has been occurring in some Latin American nations. Last year, Ecuador officially adopted the dollar. El Salvador began using it as legal currency on January 1, 2001. Guatemala joined the race to dollarize in May, and it is also being discussed in Costa Rica and Nicaragua. Argentina has pegged its peso one-to-one with the dollar for a decade.



Now Argentina has announced it will also link its peso to the euro. The value of the peso will be fixed at one euro, as soon as the euro rises to parity with the dollar. When the euro rises or falls against the dollar, the peso will be set at the mid value between the two currencies.



Cuba has also debated switching to the euro, although no action has been taken at this time. Might this become a trend, if poor Latin American countries see a more powerful Europe rising and the leadership of the United States declining, as Bible prophecy foretells?



Economic system foretold



Latin America's desire to embrace globalization and free markets could lead it to make an economic pact with a coming world economic system that is unveiled in the 18th chapter of Revelation. There it describes the merchants of the earth becoming rich by her (verse 3) and states they will mourn because Babylon, the greatest customer for their goods, will be gone after she is destroyed (verse 11).



The increasing presence of European multinational corporations, along with the historical and cultural ties between Europe and Latin America make the possibility of future trade alliances and monetary movements worth watching. WNP

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After Chavez’ Death, A New Burst Of Freedom

A very interesting post from www.dickmorris.com about the state of Latin America after the death of Hugo Chavez. This follows this post book to read about Latin American socialism. You can get this at your library here or from a bookstore such as Amazon at the links below.  This follows this post about a race hoax at U.T. Austin.  This follows this post about Emmit Till. In the meantime, you can read two very interesting books HERE.

After Chavez’ Death, A New Burst Of Freedom


By Dick Morris
Ding, dong the wicked witch is dead! Or his male equivalent. It couldn’t happen to a nicer guy!



Chavez ruled an empire which included effective and total control over the governments of Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia and very substantial influence over Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Uruguay, and Argentina. His nine nation block stands for tyranny, oppression, and authoritarian rule purchased by massive recycling of our oil cash to purchase food, clothing, and medical care for the poor — giving them everything they need but freedom, a job, independence, and dignity.



He died just in time. By 2016, the U.S. will have no need of his oil. He used to produce three million barrels of oil a day. New he produces only 1.5 million (after he nationalized his oil industry and chased everyone with any ability out of the country). We import 1.1 million barrels, the bulk of his production. In three years, our domestic sources plus those of Canada will fully replace Venezuelan imports. With especially heavy oil which only specially built refineries can handle, he would have found no other markets. Now, of course, his tyrannical regime, held in power by military force and phony elections, may give way to a democratic regime and we will have no need to cut off oil purchases.



We need to do all we can to encourage democratic rule in Venezuela now that God has laid the source of our troubles low.



But, behind the brutal trade of food for freedom that Chavez offered lies the unmet needs of an entire continent. Why are South and Central America so poor? They have followed neither the models of Mexico nor of Brazil.



Mexico is becoming a middle class country due to NAFTA and its deepening economic relationship with the United States, Europe, and China. Particularly with us. By contrast, Latin America only sells us as much as it buys from us each year. No trade surplus. If oil is subtracted, we have a surplus over them! But Mexico shows, as Japan, Germany, Taiwan, Korea, China and India have already demonstrated that trade with the U.S. plus foreign direct investment are the path out of poverty.



Nor have they followed the Brazilian model of energy independence, off shore oil drilling, domestic economic growth, and regional free trade.



Now is the time for Latin America to wake up and move out of poverty, not through the old combination of commodity dependence and societal exploitation, but by opening the kind of economic relationships with foreign investors and customers that have propelled a billion people out of poverty in the past two decades in Asia.



Now that Chavez is dead, we can do business.

A national disgrace : Obama’s harrassment of freedom-loving Honduras

A timely article from www.redstate.com! about our friends in Hondorus! See here for more in addition to the article below!


A national disgrace : Obama’s harrassment of freedom-loving Honduras
Supports ousted president who *actually* tried to stage a coup
Posted by E Pluribus Unum
You may have missed this crisis if you get your news from the alphabet soup partisan media, who have mostly failed to cover it except to misrepresent it in favor of Obama.
You are probably not surprised to find that Poland and the Czech Republic are not the only loyal and faithful American allies getting screwed by the Obama Administration these days. The ongoing drama in Honduras is an outrage and a disgrace, but not because the Hondurans have done anything wrong. It’s because the Obama administration is actively intervening on behalf of a thug would-be dictator whom the Hondurans properly and legally drove from power.
Shame on you, Barack.
.Follow closely, because this is an extremely important and telling example of the kind of foreign policy we are getting from Barack Obama. Let’s review what’s been going on in Honduras this year, and how the Obama administration has come down completely on the side of tyrants, cheaters, and marxists They’ve done it deliberately, and in keeping with their overall global policy of rejecting freedom and snuggling up to the thugs and bandits of the world [remember Iranian protesters after the fraud election? remember soldiers shooting them? remember Obama's reaction?].

The Scene
Honduras is one of the most impoverished countries in central America, but it has been and remains a democratic republic in a region currently overshadowed by several evil dictators who are intent on spreading the evils of drug-money fueled marxism and tyranny to the entire region: Fidel & Raul Castro of Cuba, Evo Morales of Bolivia, Rafael Correa of Ecuador, and most of all, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. [a cynic like me might add Daniel Ortega in neighboring Nicaragua to the list, as he's lobbying to change their constitution to allow him to run for president again]
Morales, Correa, and Chavez were ALL elected in free elections, then seized power by one means or another, and turned republics into their personal tin-pot dictatorships. In the crisis currently underway, Zelaya tried to do the same thing.
Manuel Zelaya ran for president as a left-centrist in 2005, but once elected, his friendship and alliances with Hugo Chavez and Raul Castro and signing Honduras onto the Bolivarian Alliance (ALBA, aka, “we hate the US club”) along with clashes with the business sector, rising violent crime rates, and a seeming lack of a coherent domestic policy led to 25% approval ratings by 2008.

The Rules
The Honduran Constitution, ratified in 1982, is the latest in a series (common among nations not named “The United States”). This one appears to have improved on previous ones, and one notable character of it is that it strives to guard against tyranny.
Article 4 (translated)
The form of government is republican, democratic and representative. Is exercised by three branches: legislative, executive and judicial, and independent and complementary relationship of subordination..Alternation in the presidency of the Republic is required..Violation of this rule constitutes the crime of treason.
Article 239 (translated)
The citizen that has been the head of the Execut[ive] Branch cannot be President or Vice-President (again). Whoever violates this law or proposes its reform, as well as those that support such violation directly or indirectly, will immediately cease in their functions and will be unable to hold any public office for a period of 10 years.
Article 272 (translated)
The Armed Forces of Honduras, are a National Institution of a permanent basis, essentially professional, apolitical, obedient and non-deliberative..They are set to defend the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the Republic, maintain peace, public order and the rule of the Constitution , the principles of free suffrage and alternation in the exercise of the Presidency of the Republic..Cooperate with the National Police in the maintenance of public order ..In order to ensure the free exercise of the vote, the custody, transport and surveillance of electoral materials and other aspects of the security of the process, the President of the Republic, put the Armed Forces available to the National Elections Tribunal, from a month before the elections, until the final declaration of the same.
.The Constitution is straightfoward enough:
It is a crime of treason to even propose to change the constitution to allow a president to have a second consecutive term. That may be a little strict or strange to you, but its intended purpose seems to have been to keep a person like Zelaya from following his baser instincts.
The duties of the military include enforcing the constitution, mentioning in particular the maintenance of the alternation of the presidency.

According to Miguel Estrada — yes, THAT Miguel Estrada, born in Honduras, educated at Columbia and Harvard Law school, apprenticed under Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, and argued cases in front of the Supreme Court as Assistant Solicitor General; the one the Democrats filibustered to keep from becoming an appellate judge purely because he was Hispanic; THAT Miguel Estrada — there are only three unamendable provisions in the Honduran Constitution:
the country’s borders
the rules that limit a president to a single four-year term
the requirement that presidential administrations must “succeed one another” in a “republican form of government.”

The Crime
As I mentioned above, Zelaya ’s been hanging around with dictators while crime rates have gone up and his popularity has gone down. Early this year, with his term winding to a close, he called a referendum for June 28, which if approved, would call a constitutional convention for the purpose of replacing the current constitution with a brand new one.
Given Zelaya ’s leanings, track record, and his waning presidency, there could be only one reason to scrap the constitution: to, in effect, amend the unamendable portions. This move was widely viewed in that light. A referendum requires a 2/3 vote of Congress to even propose to the people, and the Congress voted it down, saying it was illegal. Yet the referendum was proceeding.
Attorney General Alberto Rubi filed suit to stop the referendum, and a court order made it so. Zelaya declared the referendum would proceed, but called it an “opinion survey” . This was also halted but the courts. Nevertheless he persisted. No printer in Honduras would print ballots in defiance of the courts, so he had the ballots printed in Venezuela and flown in.
Persistent cuss, ain’t he? He wasn’t done yet.
He ordered the military to dispense the ballots to polling stations. He was refused, so he fired General Romeo Basquez, leader of the military. The Supreme Court re-instated him. Since the military was not going to dispense the ballots, on June 25, a group of Zelaya supporters marched into the Air Force installation where they were sequestered, stole them, and began distributing them.

The Consequence
At this point, AG Rubi asked for an arrest warrant from the Supreme Court on grounds of treason for violation of Article 239. He also asked the Congress to impeach Zelaya . In response, the Supreme Court, ordered the military, per Article 272, to arrest Zelaya , which was done June 28, the day the referendum had been scheduled. In a breach of protocol, the military exiled Zelaya to Costa Rica instead of placing him in custody in Honduras to face trial for treason.
So far, it would seem the Supreme Court and the military acted within their authority in enforcing the Constitution. The Congress, dominated by Zelaya’s party, voted 122-6 to remove him from office (I presume this is the impeachment Rubi asked for). Since the Vice President had quit earlier (to run for President) and had not been replaced, next in the line of succession was Roberto Micheletti, leader of Congress (analogous to our Speaker of the House, who is also 3rd in line), also of Zelaya’s party. He was appointed to complete Zelaya’s term, which expires next January. He cannot run for re-election, and has experssed no interest in doing so.

A coup?
Estrada sums it up:
It cannot be right to call this a “coup.”
Micheletti was lawfully made president by the country’s elected Congress.
The president is a civilian.
The Honduran Congress and courts continue to function as before.
The armed forces are under civilian control.
The elections scheduled for November are still scheduled for November.
.Indeed, after reviewing the Constitution and consulting with the Supreme Court, the Congress and the electoral tribunal, respected Cardinal Oscar Andres Rodriguez Maradiaga recently stated that the only possible conclusion is that Zelaya had lawfully been ousted under Article 239 before he was arrested, and that democracy in Honduras continues fully to operate in accordance with law. All Honduran bishops joined Rodriguez in this pronouncement.

Yet Obama called it a ‘coup’, and continues to do so.
President Obama said yesterday that the military ouster of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was illegal and could set a “terrible precedent,”.(snip).Obama repeated yesterday that the United States viewed Zelaya as Honduras’s president and that “the coup was not legal.”

The Meddling Outsiders - ‘it was a coup’
Since claiming from the start that it was a coup, Obama has directed broadside after broadside at the poor but courageous nation of Honduras. From the beginning, he along with OAS has called for the unconditional re-instatement of Zelaya. On July 2, he suspended military and non-humanitarian aid, and on Sept 3, that was made permanent, and apparently all aid, including humanitarian, agricultural and other, is threatened. The State Department also threatened to not recognize the results of the upcoming November election:
“Based on conditions as they currently exist, we cannot recognize the results of this election. So for the de facto regime, they’re now in a box,” said State Department spokesman Philip J. Crowley. “And they will have to sign on to the San Jose accords to get out of the box.” He was referring to the plan for Zelaya’s return, which was negotiated in the Costa Rican capital.
Further insulting Honduras, the administration has revoked the visas of Interim President Micheletti 14 members of the Supreme court, and Foreign Minister Carlos Lopez, ahead of the upcoming UN General Assembly. Oh, did I mention, the UN condemned the ouster of Zelaya?
So while Obama is putting the screws to Honduras and refusing their proper authorities entry into America for the UN summit this month, here’s a short list of despots, tyrants, dictators, and blood-soaked murders who will be welcomed onto American soil to attend the General Assembly:.Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Raul Castro, Hugo Chavez, Muammar Gaddafi..I don’t know whether that’s hope or change. I lose track.

The Conclusion
The Honduran people strongly desire freedom while their nation, as a primary corridor of drug traffic between Columbia and the United States, is racked with murder and violent crime not of their making. They have ousted, by perfectly legal means, a president who tried to overthrow their constitution.
In response, Obama and his administration have acted in the most vile and disgraceful way possible, acting against the best interests of not only a staunch ally in Honduras, but against the obvious interests of United States.
Honduras deserves a chance.
.
Honduras deserves our support.
.
And no pony for you, Barack!

Commentary: Embracing a trio of anti-American dictators won't advance U.S. foreign policy interests

A big hat tip to www.heritage.org for this article by Ray Walser about the Summit of the Americas to follow up this post http://brianleesblog.blogspot.com/2009/04/barack-stick-up-for-us-also-please.html

Commentary: Embracing a trio of anti-American dictators won't advance U.S. foreign policy interests

By Ray Walser The Heritage Foundation

The Obama administration says it's in the process of altering our nation's policies in Latin America. It promises modest steps to allow Cuban-Americans to travel more often, for example, and seems to be leaning toward further diplomatic overtures elsewhere. But "change" isn't always an improvement.

Simply put, now is not the time to return U.S. ambassadors to Bolivia or Venezuela or extend full diplomatic recognition to Cuba.

Begin with our ambassadors to Bolivia and Venezuela, both career foreign-service officers expelled last September on flimsy pretexts. President Evo Morales accused the U.S. ambassador of fomenting division in Bolivia. In Caracas, President Hugo Chavez swiftly followed suit.
An outspoken leader of Bolivia's coca growers, Morales once promised to become the United States' "worst nightmare." He's busily dismantling decades of U.S. drug cooperation and employing anti-U.S. rhetoric to consolidate his political power base. Until his government shows it's ready to lower its anti-American tone and conduct serious talks about coca production and control, a charge d'affaires in La Paz is quite capable of handling business.
President Chavez, meanwhile, sells the U.S. large amounts of oil. That makes Venezuelans good commercial partners. This aspect of the relationship works with or without an ambassador.

The problem with Chavez is his three-pronged strategy: 1) establishing a permanent Chavez-dominated political system in Venezuela; 2) developing a Latin American union to exclude U.S. interests; 3) fostering a global coalition of anti-American forces.

Even the most liberal American should blanch at the prospect of cozying up to a leader who literally hugs Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Sudan's Omar al-Bashir and proudly calls them friends.
It would be nice to push the reset button with Venezuela, but that all depends on Chavez. Given the mounting flow of cocaine through Venezuela, enabling the DEA to work with Venezuelan police would be far more important than installing an ambassador. Expelling leaders of the FARC (currently camped on Venezuelan territory) would be another positive step. Again, actions - not rhetorical overtures - would speed the return of an ambassador to Caracas.

Cuba, of course, stands apart.
Freedom House www.fredomhouse.org calls it "repressive" and ranks it with Burma, North Korea and Sudan for its disdain of human rights. Since 1959, the Castro brothers have crafted a nation devoid of votes, free media, free speech or political opposition.
Earlier efforts to normalize relations with Cuba have always failed. Over the years, the island has: been a proxy of the Soviet Union, exported revolution to Central America, launched the Mariel boat lift and shot down unarmed Brothers to the Rescue aircraft. For a small, inconsequential nation, Cuba is adept at tossing sand in our eyes.
Only one party is allowed in Cuba. It holds some 200 political prisoners. Travel freedom, media freedom and labor freedom are denied. The Cuban secret police watch for any dissident.
Perhaps for some Americans, free speech and media freedom matters less now that Cubans are allowed to buy cell phones or own personal computers (without access to the internet, of course). Perhaps the press for "change" at home has driven the U.S. to offer stimulus to an economy that's in shambles and a regime that's out of ideological gas.
President Obama says his pace of reform will be gradual and is predicated on political change inside Cuba. Right now, though, any further loosening of sanctions beyond those announced on April 13 would be more likely to benefit the Castro regime than the Cuban people.
And since Presidents Morales and Chavez seem uninterested in talking through important issues such as cooperation in curbing the Andean drug trade, prevention of international terrorism or working together to improve the global economy, there's little hope we can improve relations. Sending ambassadors would only paper over differences.
In Latin America, "change" must begin at home.

ABOUT THE WRITER
Ray Walser is a retired foreign service officer and senior analyst for Latin American policy at the Heritage Foundation. Readers may write to the author in care of The Heritage Foundation, 214 Massachusetts Avenue NE, Washington, D.C. 20002; Web site: www.heritage.org. Information about Heritage's funding may be found at http://www.heritage.org/about/reports.cfm.
This essay is available to McClatchy-Tribune News Service subscribers. McClatchy-Tribune did not subsidize the writing of this column; the opinions are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of McClatchy Newspapers, McClatchy-Tribune or its editors.

"Barack, Stick up for US also Please!"

This is a very interesting article from Pat Buchanan about the President's tour to the Summit of the Americas. Also the book link here http://www.amazon.com/Guide-Perfect-Latin-American-Idiot/dp/156833236X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1240341710&sr=1-1# is a better book to order than the one Hugo Chavez gave to Barack Obama! http://townhall.com/Columnists/PatBuchanan/2009/04/21/the_apologists

The Apologists

Pat Buchanan

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

For 50 minutes, Obama sat mute, as a Marxist thug from Nicaragua delivered his diatribe, charging America with a century of terrorist aggression in Central America.
After Daniel Ortega finished spitting in our face, accusing us of inhumanity toward Fidel Castro's Cuba, Obama was asked his thoughts.
"I thought it was 50 minutes long. That's what I thought."
Hillary Clinton was asked to comment: "I thought the cultural performance was fascinating," she cooed.
Pressed again on Ortega's vitriol, Hillary replied: "To have those first-class Caribbean entertainers all on one stage and to see how much was done in such a small amount of space. I was overwhelmed."

Thus the nation that won the Cold War, contained the cancer of Castroism in Cuba, liberated Grenada, blocked communist takeovers of Guatemala and the Dominican Republic, and poured scores of billions in aid into this region was left undefended by its own leaders at the Summit of the Americas.

Nor was this the only unanswered insult. Hugo Chavez, who has called Obama an "ignoramus" and Bush "El Diablo," walked over to a seated U.S. president and handed him the anti-American tract "Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent."
The book blames Latin America's failures on white Europeans.

It opens, "Renaissance Europeans ventured across the oceans and buried their teeth in the throats of the Indian civilizations."

Civilizations? Before Pizarro and Cortez, the Inca and Aztec empires these conquistadors overthrew were into human sacrifice.

Evo Morales, the Aymaran president of Bolivia, who is using the race card against Bolivians of European descent, implied a U.S. role in an assassination plot against him.

Argentina's Cristina Kirchner, who allegedly received black-bag money from Chavez, ripped into America for its role in the 1980s. Under Reagan, America aided Britain in the Falklands War, after the Argentine junta invaded the islands, and assisted the Contras in their war of national liberation to oust Ortega's Sandinistas.

Again, Obama offered no defense of his country.

President Lula da Silva of Brazil, who blames the world financial crisis on "white, blue-eyed bankers," told Obama that any future Summit of the Americas without the Castro brothers was unacceptable.
Perhaps Obama believes in turn-the-other-cheek diplomacy, though it is hard to find much success in history for such a policy. Perhaps pacifism is in his DNA. Perhaps he shares the indictment of America that is part of the repertoire of every Latin demagogue.

Whatever his motive, in Trinidad, there were not two sides to the story. There were the trashers of America on the Latino left and a U.S. president who wailed plaintively, "I'm thankful that President Ortega did not blame me for things that happened when I was 3 months old."

But, the Bay of Pigs, had it succeeded, would have given Cubans 50 years of freedom instead of the brutal dictatorship they have had to endure. And it took place four months before Barack was born.
Obama's silence -- signifying, as it does, assent -- in the face of attacks on his country is of a piece with the "contrition tour" of his secretary of state.
"Clinton Scores Points by Admitting Past U.S. Errors," was the headline over Saturday's New York Times story by Mark Landler:
"It has become a recurring theme of Hillary Rodham Clinton's early travels as the chief diplomat of the United States: She says that American policy on a given issue has failed, and her foreign listeners fall all over themselves in gratitude.
"On Friday, Mrs. Clinton said ... that the uncompromising policy of the Bush administration toward Cuba had not worked. ...

"The contrition tour goes beyond Latin America. In China, Mrs. Clinton told audiences that the United States must accept its responsibility as a leading emitter of greenhouse gases. In Indonesia, she said the American-backed policy of sanctions against Myanmar had not been effective. And in the Middle East, she pointed out that ostracizing the Iranian government had not persuaded it to give up its nuclear weapons ambitions."

Sandler wrote that Hillary brought to mind Bill Clinton:

"On a single trip to Africa in 1998 ... Bill Clinton apologized for American participation in slavery; American support of brutal African dictators; American 'neglect and ignorance' of Africa; American failure to intervene sooner in the Rwandan genocide of 1994; American 'complicity' in apartheid ... ."

Yet, as C.S. Lewis reminds us in "God in the Dock," "The first and fatal charm of national repentance is ... the encouragement it gives us to turn from the bitter task of repenting our own sins to the congenial one of bewailing -- but, first, of denouncing -- the conduct of others."
Bewailing the policies of Bush as failures and standing mute in the face of attacks on his country and predecessors may come back to bite Obama.
For when Jimmy Carter assumed a posture of moral superiority over LBJ and Richard Nixon, by declaring, "We have gotten over our inordinate fear of communism," it came back to bite him, good and hard.