Today’s Washington Post editorial explains how the Obama administration’s Latin America policy is failing:
IN THE COURSE of the past month, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez has been exposed as a supplier of advanced weapons to a terrorist group that seeks to overthrow Colombia’s democratic government. In his own country, he has shut down 32 independent radio stations. His rubber-stamp National Assembly has passed laws to gerrymander districts in next year’s parliamentary elections and eliminate the autonomy of universities. Mr. Chávez has pledged to purchase dozens of tanks from Russia, and he has scheduled a trip to Tehran next month to reinforce his support for beleaguered Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
So, naturally, Latin American leaders are planning a summit in Argentina this month to urgently confer about . . . an unremarkable U.S.-Colombian agreement for American forces to use a few Colombian military bases for counternarcotics and counterterrorism surveillance operations.
The bilateral deal has yet to be signed or officially unveiled, though negotiations on it were completed last week. Yet already it’s perfectly clear that it would not bring about a significant increase in U.S. military operations in Latin America or pose a threat to anyone other than the drug traffickers and terrorists of the FARC movement — the group that Mr. Chávez has been supporting in clear violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions and the Organization of American States charter. U.S. planes and ships have been conducting surveillance missions in the region for years; U.S. personnel have been stationed in Colombia for nearly a decade. There would be no U.S. control over any of the bases in Colombia, and the operations would be limited to Colombian territory.
The Obama administration has chosen to ignore Chávez’s actions against his neighbors and against his own people. Saturday’s demonstration in support for Globovisión and other opposition media was tear-gassed and hosed down.
The Devil’s Excrement has a report on the demonstration.
Video (in Spanish, but it’s clear enough without translation),
The point of the WaPo’s editorial is (emphasis added)
But mostly the controversy reflects another successful effort by Mr. Chávez to deflect attention from his own behavior while putting the Obama administration on the defensive.
Successfully, at that.
Due to a minor household emergency (hopefully the repairman is on his way) there was no podcast this morning and the Carnival is running a little late. Thank you for your patience.
