A Latin voice speaks!On the Road With Bush and Chávez
By FERNANDO BÁEZ
Published: March 11, 2007
Caracas, Venezuela
WHEN I was a little boy in San Félix de Guayana, a Venezuelan village on the banks of the Orinoco, the doctors who worked in the poorest communities were from the United States. My father, an honest lawyer who was unemployed his entire life, felt a genuine sense of pride in the United States, and in time, he transmitted this pride to me. One of the first books he ever gave me, covered in an olive-green dust jacket and stamped with gold-foil letters, was an illustrated biography of John F. Kennedy, his personal hero.
All of this feels like nostalgia now. Today, the doctors in my hometown are Cuban.
One of the most significant battles to determine future relations between the United States and Latin America is being waged at this very moment, under a cloud of old antagonisms and with pitfalls lurking at every turn. President Bush’s Latin American tour — he is scheduled to visit Brazil, Uruguay, Colombia, Guatemala and Mexico before returning home on Wednesday — is a diplomatic counterattack, clearly aimed at the growing influence of Venezuela’s president, Hugo Chávez.
The ultimate goal of this tour is to create an alliance that would give Brazil, the world’s 10th-largest economy, a key, if restrained, regional and global role. Supported by the four other nations Mr. Bush is visiting, Brazil would balance Mr. Chávez’s growing radical influence.
Here in Caracas, the debate is intense and never-ending when it comes to this peculiar struggle for control over the economies and the sources of energy in the hemisphere. I must confess that I share the skepticism of the many Venezuelans who do not believe that any real changes or diplomatic miracles will take place in the region.
In the streets and cafes, Mr. Chávez’s supporters repeatedly invoke Simón Bolívar’s phrases about imperialism. But this is not the scared, defensive rhetoric of the days when America was seen as an unstoppable force. Rather, the tone is usually one of exasperation.
Unfortunately, I think Mr. Bush’s efforts to turn this tide are too late. All the last-minute gestures of good will — like the pledge last week of $385 million to help underwrite mortgages for working families in the region and to send a Navy hospital ship, the Comfort, on a tour of 12 ports — are simply not enough to take back the aimless, lost years that have passed us by.
Time is the one thing that the current White House administration has most flagrantly wasted, and given the electoral campaign that looms on the horizon, the Republicans’ rush to reactivate the dialogue with Latin America isn’t seen as a step forward in the development of constructive policies. On the contrary, the visit seems to underscore an ever-growing discrepancy between American desires and those of the leftist movement championed by Venezuela along with Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua.
Anti-American sentiment, always strong in Latin America, has only grown more acute in recent times, largely because Washington has treated us with indifference and disrespect since 9/11. The American obsession with the Middle East undermined whatever basis there was for a sustained continental integration. Money once spent on foreign aid programs that not only fought drug trafficking but also supported education and social justice has been diverted to the war on terrorism.
President Bush has arrived in a region with some 570 million inhabitants, of whom at least 40 percent are living in poverty and 50 million subsist on less than a dollar a day. There are more than 30 million indigenous people, a forgotten population that represents perhaps 80 percent of the most desperately impoverished even though many of them are members of tribes and residents of villages that share their lands with oil and mining companies.
Will Mr. Bush help to change this? Poor people believe that someone who builds a wall along the border with Mexico is not the kind of person who has faith in the benefits of free trade agreements.
Hugo Chávez also went on tour last week, holding a rally in Buenos Aires at the same time Mr. Bush was just across the Río de la Plata in Montevideo, Uruguay. The event was planned by Argentina’s president, Nestor Kirchner, and was clearly intended to signal that American efforts to form a friendly bloc in Latin America will be countered by Mr. Chávez’s radical networking.
In the papers and on TV here, there is lively debate over the reasons for Mr. Chávez’s trip, and over the wisdom of his trying to pre-empt Mr. Bush. But I expect Mr. Chávez will come out on top — his great talent is adapting to circumstances quickly and reading the crowd, two things American policy makers in Latin America have never been good at.
The rival visits were fitting, as Mr. Chávez was the furtive impulse behind Mr. Bush’s tour. The American strategy is about seeming to pay attention, not about overcoming the tunnel vision that has characterized the Bush State Department’s view of Latin America. For this, and for so many other reasons, I count myself among those who have resigned themselves to another lost opportunity, another failure to effect real change.
Fernando Báez is the author of the forthcoming book “A Universal History of the Destruction of Books: From Ancient Sumer to Modern-Day Iraq.” This article was translated by Kristina Cordero from the Spanish.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/11/opinion/11baez.html
"Some have learnt many Tricks of sly Evasion, Instead of Truth they use Equivocation, And eke it out with mental Reservation, Which is to good Men an Abomination."
I don't have to attend every argument I'm invited to.
HAKUNA MATATA
And who might this be?Originally Posted by bateman
Fortitude.....The strength to persist...The courage to endure.
Maybe it is Xerxes, using another name ... spreading lies about America's greatness
If we contrast the rapid progress of this mischievous discovery of gunpowder with the slow and laborious advances of reason, science, and the arts of peace, a philosopher, according to his temper, will laugh or weep at the folly of mankind. - Edward Gibbon
50 million live on less than "a dollar a day"...
Latin "intellectuals" keep rehashing the same, tired gripes against the gringos.
The more things change, the more they stay the same;so much for the "missed opportunity".
"Just another brick in the wall."
Who lied? 27 seperate intelligence agencies arrived at the same conclusion. Bush acted on that informatioin. Saddam should not have barred UN inspectors from certain sites. That's all his own doing.
Really? Bush flew the bombers? Bush was on the streets of Bagdad? Bush was engaged in house to house fighting?
Where are these bodies? Where are the news reports? You figure the leftist media would have reported these by now. Half a million deaths over 4 years come out to be 125,000 deaths a year. There are 365 days in a year. That makes it almost 350 deaths per day. I don't see or hear this number from any of the news organization. Even Al Jazeera doesn't claim this kind of number.
Most of Iraq is pretty stable. The Kurdish north is open for tourist business. The Shiite south is safe enough for the Brits to reduce their forces. Only Bagdad area is unstable due to it being the political center and mixed factions.
You said it best. Iraq was pursuing its national interest as Iran is doing now. They are evil and we will deal with them. Would you rather live under Iranian rule or American rule? If you have to pick one that is.
"Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.
gunnut,
agree with most of the points but this one.
kurds, yes; south, well, peace is a peace ordered by militias and not by the state. little sectarian violence there, simply because there are really no sunnis there. stable...i don't know, it's a stability held up by militias and pervasive iranian influence.Most of Iraq is pretty stable. The Kurdish north is open for tourist business. The Shiite south is safe enough for the Brits to reduce their forces. Only Bagdad area is unstable due to it being the political center and mixed factions.
baghdad and the sunni triangle are far from pacified, though. and this is quite enough to suck up all of american power, even without active opposition by the likes of sadr and gang. considering the importance of baghdad with respect to the rest of iraq, i'd say that's a long way to go in terms of security...
The human mind cannot grasp the causes of phenomena in the aggregate. But the need to find these causes is inherent in man’s soul. And the human intellect, without investigating the multiplicity and complexity of the conditions of phenomena, any one of which taken separately may seem to be the cause, snatches at the first, the most intelligible approximation to a cause, and says: “This is the cause!"
-Leo Tolstoy
War and Peace
Comeone, mr pari. is he really worse than me when I first came here. He just has 14 posts, how could you judge him??I'm guessing you're silence means that I got your starter for ten right? Otherwise I'd just have to assume you're here to troll, right?
Ah I see, you've already been banned for being a troll, for being ignorant, and for abusing members. Well there you go
If we contrast the rapid progress of this mischievous discovery of gunpowder with the slow and laborious advances of reason, science, and the arts of peace, a philosopher, according to his temper, will laugh or weep at the folly of mankind. - Edward Gibbon
Iran is not evil ... and actually US is also pursuing its national interest. Have you ever been to Iran?? what do you know about Iran, that allows you to call it evil. Can I call US evil?? ... as an American would you be offended by such remarks. Do you really think that GWB is in communication with higher authority and will deal with the evil mosters such as Iran? ...
If we contrast the rapid progress of this mischievous discovery of gunpowder with the slow and laborious advances of reason, science, and the arts of peace, a philosopher, according to his temper, will laugh or weep at the folly of mankind. - Edward Gibbon
Alas for the notches on my gunbelt a better moderator than I got to him first. As for you, you demonstrated that you'd been touched by the light of reason, something he singularly failed to do.Comeone, mr pari. is he really worse than me when I first came here. He just has 14 posts, how could you judge him??
That was funnyAlas for the notches on my gunbelt a better moderator than I got to him first. As for you, you demonstrated that you'd been touched by the light of reason, something he singularly failed to do.
If we contrast the rapid progress of this mischievous discovery of gunpowder with the slow and laborious advances of reason, science, and the arts of peace, a philosopher, according to his temper, will laugh or weep at the folly of mankind. - Edward Gibbon
OK, I will clarify and rephrase.
The mullahs and Ahmaddinejad are a threat to regional stability and therefore evil.
The average Iranians are not evil.
"Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.
thank you ... but two small points. You mentioned ....
a) threat to regional stability
b) evilism
They are NOT related. A nation could be the beacon of hope and civilization, yet be stong threat to regional stability, yet it will not make it evil.
As US was when it invaded Iraq in 2003 or Vietnam or else...
Evilism is constant parameter, however "threat to regional stability" is a rotating parameter linked to where you are from. You just connected them together for your own sake. That is wrong. IMO
Iran could be ruled by the Shah and be an ally of US, yet be a strong threat to regional stability from the Soviet point of view, yet it does not make it evil.
If we contrast the rapid progress of this mischievous discovery of gunpowder with the slow and laborious advances of reason, science, and the arts of peace, a philosopher, according to his temper, will laugh or weep at the folly of mankind. - Edward Gibbon
Is this guy for real?
Friend read history, Especially the history of you OWN country. Do countries like Ireland,Scotland,India and many many other countries come to mind?
How about the ass kicking you recieved during the American Revolution from the colonies? Could the King at that time be considered a war criminal for his invasions, burnings,hangings,executions etc? Think about it.
Was the King called a war criminal? No. Even know he had done the very same as many war criminals before and after him? No.
Did we send his troops back to England with their balls in a sling? Dam right we did and we moved on and grew to become who we are then and now.
So before you go calling Bush a war criminal you better start thinking about that paper monarchy you have sitting there and HOW it got there to begin with.
Last edited by Dreadnought; 14 Mar 07, at 17:03.
Fortitude.....The strength to persist...The courage to endure.
@Dreadnought ...
you as an American patriot might be offended if someone - American or non-Americans - calls your president a war criminal/monster stuff like that .. much the sameway an Iranian conservative (not me) might complain about A-jad being called by names ... that is understandable
However, do you agree that if the Nuremberg Trials were to be put for the civilian and military leaders in regards to for example Iraq, there would be a guilty verdict. The four indictments were:
1- Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of crime against peace
2 - Planning, initiating and waging wars of aggression and other crimes against peace
3 - War crimes
4 - Crimes against humanity
so it doesnt nesscerly means that GWB is a warcriminal, he could be guilty of first and second indicment. But nevertheless, if the Nuremberg Trials were to be put intest incase of 2003 Iraq invasion, there will be casualty. If you as an American dont agree with this view, that is respected. However, your disaggrement shows that Nuremberg Trials were indeed victor's justice. Because like or not, even if the Nazi regime didnt committ genocide against Jews and other minors, were they defeated in total defeat, there would be heads rolling.
Last edited by xerxes; 15 Mar 07, at 06:39.
If we contrast the rapid progress of this mischievous discovery of gunpowder with the slow and laborious advances of reason, science, and the arts of peace, a philosopher, according to his temper, will laugh or weep at the folly of mankind. - Edward Gibbon
I wonder, what in the world is it with Latin Americans and socialism/communism? Why is it that they are obsessed with this economic model that has failed wherever it has been tried, and has driven them deeper and deeper into poverty?
Personally I think it is just a cultural thing. They may be too lazy or may lack the drive to succeed and personal initiative, because if they didnt have such qualities, then capitalism would be the obvious way to go.
Brahma Sarvam Jagan Mithya
Jivo Brahmaiva Na Aparah
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