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.

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.

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”)

http://rabble.ca/news/2009/04/declaration-cuman%C3%A1-capitalism-threatens-life-planet

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.

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.