“That is so yesterday,” quipped the Secretary of State. It was a playful response to the issue of whether America should be isolating Latin American leaders like Hugo Chavez.
The artist formerly known as Hillary Rodham Clinton has caused the World Community to gush with praise. Her whirlwind globetrot, informally dubbed the “Hey, My Bad,” 2009 tour has been defined for its conciliatory message: You were right, World Community, America does suck, and let me show you how much (it turns out, Monica taught her a thing or two.).
In China, the nation which leads Asia in greenhouse gas emissions, Clinton emitted some gas of her own, condemning America for being the world’s leading emitter. In Indonesia, Clinton bashed America’s ineffective sanctions against Myanmar. Myanmar is a place of limestone landscapes, peppered with bamboo, mangrove and coconut that flourish in the monsoon-environment. Best of all, it is a squalid Marxist hellhole, currently being raped and plundered by military thugs who have spent some forty years exploiting the resources and suppressing every citizen attempt at revolt. Truly, it is about time America take some responsibility for her big-mean sanctions.
As for Iran, Clinton made sure to point out that America’s condemnations have not caused the Iranians to give up their nuclear ambitions. Surely, America must change her ways.
But it was Latin America where Clinton shined. In Mexico, she blamed America’s appetite for illegal drugs on the narcotics trafficking across the U.S.-Mexico border. Never mind – uh, what do they call that? – the… source of the drugs. We really needn’t concern ourselves with such petty issues (such as where all the drugs are originating, and which LATIN AMERICAN nations have spectacularly failed at regulating the drug cartels).
No, the real concern – what’s really at issue – is that many Americans do a lot of drugs: a fact put squarely on display throughout the Secretary of State’s world tour.
As for building bridges with Chavez, Clinton called for America to “put ideology aside,” because “that is so yesterday.”
Chavez, a socialist demagogue who once attempted a bid for a lifetime dictatorship in Venezuela, has been hostile to the U.S. throughout the last decade (once calling President George Bush the “devil” while speaking before the UN in New York City.).
In 2007, the state department (that’s the one that the Secretary of State is actually in charge of) issues a Human Rights report, reporting that more than 6,000 have been killed by Chavez’s security forces in the last five years. It also reported 11 complaints of torture; 692 complaints of ‘cruel and degrading treatment’ (down from the previous year); that a Venezuelan Mayor, and political opponent of Chavez’s, is seeking political asylum in Peru for fear of the dictator; while another Mayor was barred from his office by Chavez’s police force. His other “reforms” include a tightening grip on the nation’s media as well as blacklisting and investigating political opponents.
Last week, after a warm embrace, Chavez handed President Obama “Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent.”
(The book documents the atrocities committed by Western nations, including the U.S., against Latin America. Indeed, it ought to fairly document the vile influence of Europe which cruelly put an end to the fun-and-fancy-free ancient barbarism of human sacrifice and cannibalism, practiced by the Aztecs and the Mayans.).
Well, as it happens, the President just died when he heard that Hillary was throwing this international soiree with the World Community without inviting him. He may have joined late – but Obama was the show stopper.
In Trinidad, President Obama silently sat through a fifty minutes of invective against America’s terrorism, delivered by Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega.
Obama, of course, came prepared with his usual arsenal of glib retorts. “I’m thankful that President Ortega did not blame me for things that happened when I was 3 months old,” he said. As for Venezuela, the President assured that this country poses no serious threat to the U.S. – surely a handshake wasn’t a breach of national security. Our defense budget it, of course, six hundred times that of Venezuela’s, Obama stressed.
I’m not sure when it became U.S. policy to only condemn those whom we fear militarily. But the current policy of executive-level groveling is pathetic. Even worse was the World Community’s response to these spectacles.
Leonel Fernandez, president of Dominican Republic, praised Secretary Clinton’s “courage” and cooed over President Obama. Obama, he said is “paving a new road,” with Cuba. Obama recognizes, “the fact that previous policies have failed. Fifty years of a policy that has not generated the originally sought purposes can be called a failure.”
What exactly do these people think we were “originally” seeking in Cuba? Cuba a piss-ant banana colony off our southern coast. It has been headed by the fascist pawn of Nikita Khrushchev for most of the last sixty years. Had the Bay of Pigs been a success, and Castro been ousted, who knows how much better the lives of the Cuban people may have been. (At the very least, they’d have had one less slobbering sloth putter his wide load down there for a propaganda film about Cuba’s marvelous healthcare.).
But, American containment of Cuba, during the Cold War, was a policy that worked fantastically – especially as America spent the nineteen-eighties stopping the Communist dominoes from falling in Latin America. Today, however, our president is pushing them back down, and falling to his knees at the same time.
Ortega, of course, had beat Obama and Clinton to the love fest for Fidel by about thirty years. In the eighties, he was a leader of the radical Sandinista National Liberation Front, which made several attempts at a Marxist coup d’état in Nicaragua. In 2006, they finally made it by winning 38% in the national elections.
When asked for comment after Ortega’s verbal assault, Clinton said, “I thought the cultural performance was fascinating.” She went on, “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.”
Overwhelmed.
“Las Venas Abiertas” is a particularly dated book (it is essentially a defense of Cuban revolution)… some parts are insightful, thought; and the prose and style, at least in the original Uruguayan Spanish, is brilliant (but on the overall I don’t like neither the book nor the writer). Mayas were never famous for their atrocities; but Aztecs had a taste for enslavemente and human flesh… their diet lacked chronically from animal proteins (Marvin Harris had some great books about food and anthropology which used to be compulsory reading at high school in Spain, and that I really recommend you).
I think that USA press is very unfair against Chávez: he has sometimes Cesar-like ambitions, but Venezuela is still a democracy, and their institutions rebel every now and then — only imagine 48% of people demonstrate and vote against Chinese or Burmese government… Of course he has a lot of criticism, both home and abroad and from the left and (especially) the right; but many of the political decisions taken recently were perfectly legal even with the pre-1999 legal framework. Nevertheless, the pressures you report against press reporting abuses and about opposition leaders are sadly true.
About the Mexican drug cartels, sadly many of them get their guns and assault weapons legally north of the border… and the drug trade between Mexico and USA proves that given a wish for illegal substances, there would be somebody that will manage to fulfill it.
Ortega and the sandinistas, for being dictators in your view, sucked at it: they vere voted out of the power in 1990. And USA financed guerrillas against them in the 90′s, the infamous contras, which led to the even more infamous Iran-Contra affair (which somehow republicans forget ins their remembrance of the Reagan years).
In the end, the ideological debate I think relates to what should be first: economical or political rights. Spain after the civil war was a textbook example of the first: a fascist dictatorship under international embargo which was lifted by Truman and so Spanish economy got more and more involved in European and Transatlantic trade, which led to a middle class that eventually pressed for democracy. Eastern Europe was an example of the opposite: the bulk of the people wanted a better economical status, which led to unrest and pushed for democracy, which went accompanied by an increase in certain economical fields (in Russia it is way more complicated). But China is the biggest USA trade partner; nevertheless, its growing middle class doesn’t seem to be pushing for the end of Earth biggest dictatorship — and we first world citizens seem happy with cheap iPods and Ikea furniture made by people who cannot vote.
Lucas – you always evoke my longest responses:
My point here was not that there arent grains of truth in what Clinton had to say.
the drug cartel does need to be stopped. The US does have a lot of power to stop it. And the US should enforce narcotics laws.
But the Sec of State going to Latin American governments and apologizing for our role is as stupid as it gets. If Clinton had it in mind that Latin American cartels have been coming across our borders and buying guns, then maybe she should have supported border security while in the senate: she didn’t.
When running for Queen last year, she said to one Mexican woman in Nevada : “no woman is illegal.” No, actually, several million are illegal.
Now Hillary wants to stop the drug trafficking? Then man our borders. Line it with the National Guard and police dogs. Don’t let anyone pass without a passport and a proper inspection for narcotics and weapons.
That’s the job of the US government. Apologizing to corrupt governments in Latin American who allow the cartels to flourish, is not.
It is also true that the US has allowed cheap trade with China to blind us to their human rights policies. All the more reason why the US Sec of State shouldn’t be apologizing to them.
She also has a point about the greenhouse gases: but this is like Charles Manson confessing his sins to Jeffrey Dahmer. China is a horrendous abuser of the environment, and they don’t even pay lip-service to environmental reform – No, they leave that to the American diplomats who come and apologize to them, before begging for more trade and purchases of US treasury bonds.
As for Chavez, I think it is contingent on a US president to defend the integrity of the US: always, without blinking. Diplomacy is a chess game, not a express-your feelings before the entire world seminar.
Chavez has been an openly hostile critic of the US. If Obama thinks some of the criticism is merited – fine. Then Obama should see where the US can improve Latin American relations, and keep a strong front. Meaning, don’t go to Trinidad and promote an image of “You were all right, we were wrong – forgive us please!”
The image of Obama making nice with Chavez as if they were old pals wasn’t greeted well here – and for good reason. Obama may not like Bush, and disagree with him politically.
But most of the world doesnt see America in terms of its political parties: they see one American president (Bush) being ridiculed by Chavez; and another American president (Obama) acting like it was no big deal that Chavez was thumbing his nose at his predecessor for 8 years.
It was a big deal. and Obama had a duty to present an image of continuity with the last US administration: meaning politics stops at the water’s edge.
also, i dont think there’s such thing as being unfair to tyrants. We condemned Castro’s govt and we should condemn Chavez’s. If Raul Castro wants to make concessions on human rights, good. We should talk. Anything short of that should be unacceptable. Same with Iran; same with Burma.
(Does that mean Bush’s “axis of evil” diatribe should be brought back? No, of course not. That was equally irresponsible. But where Bush was too harsh, Obama is too soft.)
Obama and Clinton are demonstrating incredible naivete by acting like American policy with Cuba was just a big bilateral misunderstanding. We were right to contain Cuba – and we need to keep doing it if theyre not going to concede on human rights.
And we need to quit showing our moves. If the Cuban embargo is going to be lifted, it can’t be perceived that America caved. We need to reiterate that we were (for the most part) morally right in the Cold War. But I don’t think Obama or Clinton actually feel that way.
This is the fruit of Obama and Clinton’s apology tour:
http://rabble.ca/news/2009/04/declaration-cuman%C3%A1-capitalism-threatens-life-planet
First, Robert, you know I love being a provoker, but for the better.
Starting from the last, that is the ALBA (Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas: Venezuela, Bolivia, Cuba, Nicaragua and maybe a couple more) declaration. Coming from Chávez and Ortega, even the amount of anticapitalistic rethoric is surprisingly low. The interesting part, thought, is about their “Bolivarian Alternative” to Mercosur and similar agreements. That, if it leads to bigger economic growth and to tighter economic integration of the regional economies will be without doubt good for the region.
About the Obama and Clinton speeches, I haven’t read them as a whole. I only read the press reports, and translated. But at least by Spanish-speaking press it was remarked the need for Cuba to make progresses in human rights if their government really wanted to embark in a new relationship. And Obama speeches are usually very well argumented and with powerful rethoric: after a small contrittion, usually he counterpose a bigger fault on the other part. The main impression Spanish press got was the difference between some people stuck in the 70s (Ortega, Chávez) and others that talked about actual issues (Obama, Lula…).
And Hillary was right in Nevada. No woman is illegal. Their stay in USA (or Spain, or Germany…) may be. And you seem to dismiss many of the countries present in the Americas Summit, which have democratic traditions in many cases almost as old and rich as the USA (albeit sometimes punctuated by short dictatorships: Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Costa Rica).
And about Chávez: venezuela is not Cuba, or Burma, or Spain in the 1939-1975 years. Chávez may (I think he is) a horrible president, a demagogue and commits abuses of his powers. Venezuela may be and endangered democracy. But a democracy remains. The proof of its strength is the dissent campaigns that every now and then (particularly at elections). Sadly, Chávez wins more elections than losses. But he is still a democratically elected leader in multy-party open elections internationally supervised. Venezuela has a Government, not a Regime.
And about the “domino theory” and its implemetation in the 80s, I think history (and even USA courts) have already a veredict. Acquiting that (while of course current USA administration is in no way responsible) ‘mistakens were made’ is very welcome by peoples and countries that, while believing in democracy and fight against totalitarism, profoundly deplored some attitudes and specially actions in Central America. The best way to fight against antiamericanism is killing the roots that lead to it.
(P.S.: one of the funniest attitudes in Press is the Cesarist-like subservient of the international press. For instance ome weeks ago, Obama gave a speech in which he talked about the need for reform in transport [trains] and power [wind], and in both cases he said that (among other countries) Spain was an example. Some newspapers opened with headlines like “Spain an example, says Obama”. I only missed “Cesar loves his European provinces”)
“No woman is illegal” is political rhetoric. It’s total nonsense. What Hillary did was play on people’s sympathies for an immigrant-woman struggling to survive in America, essentially saying “why, this poor woman! how can her EXISTENCE be illegal?”
well, obviously, when we say “illegal” we are ALWAYS talking about the way in which she entered the country. We aren’t saying “her existence as a human being ought to be outlawed.”
There are in fact 12+ million people who “entered” the US “illegally.”
Hillary’s rhetoric makes it sound like people who want our borders secured feel that 12+ million people’s “existence” ought to be “outlawed.”
it was a nonsensical rhetorical maneuver that won her a couple of states in the southwest; and which totally ignored the economic, political, security, and social problems that arise by allowing millions of unidentified people to migrate across unenforced national borders.
Something she got good at during her 8 years in the senate.
Probably many of these 12 Million entered (as happens in Spain) not the “hard way” (crossing the fence there, crossing Gibraltar Strait here) but came legally as tourists and overstayed… But this shouldn’t mean that because of their illegal status as residents they should be subjected to abuses. It has happened in Italy (and Spain), with great populations of illegal immigrants from Romania that after the EU enlargement have had their situation regulated ‘de facto’, and luckily now some of the abusers (whether employers who ripped them off or sometimes even criminals who raped women) are being prosecuted. I frankly don’t how to articulate a way to, while accounting for the expulsion in the cases that the legislation says so, protect the basic human rights of these persons who are not citizens nor legal residents.
Border policy and enforcement is always difficult, and even more here with the Schengen zone (and its intermix with the EU-citizens freedom of displacement)… There has been some justified hysteria with cases of former Yugoslavian Wars soldiers turned into criminals that made extremely violent assaults and kidnappings.
Of course, I agree with your political interpretation: hispanics traditionally rooted for the Clintons, and she was just paying back with rethorical pork.
P.S.: just a minor note, one of the tags is wrong, it’s sandinista (after Sandino), not sandanista.
P.S.2: http://tnij.org/c9w1, the PDF of the english version, for your personal enlightment. The Troika Obama – Clinton – Coleman will be the dawn of a vanguard for the intelligentsia.