We've Screwed Relations With Latin America

As some of you might surmise, I have always maintained a keen interest in Latin American affairs.

I read many Latin American newspapers on the internet and so far this year have spent a month in Buenos Aires, Argentina and just returned from Costa Rica last week and Carmen and I will be leaving again for Costa Rica in 10 days to spend Xmas and New Years there and will be gone for almost a month. We have spent some time in Mexico this summer also.

Having said that, I would like to comment on our country's almost total neglect of Latin America for the last 8 years.Folks, there are over 600 million people south of us which is double our population. It has some of the most beautiful cities in the world and is loaded with natural resources. It has a fast growing educated professional middle class.

While I was in Costa Rica last week, I happened to be there when the Chinese President Hu made a visit there in San Jose and they blocked off part of downtown when he toured the gold museum and National Opera House.

Here is a Chinese guy in our backyard. He announced the building of two hospitals that will be a gift to Costa Rica and was there to dedicate the "Confucius Center", which is a huge complex where the Costa Rican people can learn about the Chinese culture and language.

I was reading the San Jose newspaper La Nacion and was somewhat surprised that these "Confucius Centers" were being built in all the capitals of the Latin American countries. Also China was building many hospitals throughout Latin America and has executed many bilateral trade agreements with each country.

In reading the newspaper, I see where Russia was pumping money into some of the large infrastructure projects all over Latin America. I read where Russia was holding joint military and naval operations with Venezuela with a large flotilla of Russian navy ships there in Venezuela.

What has the US been doing the last 8 years. Nada, nothing in the way of help or public relations. We have completely ignored Latin America for the most part with the resultant fact that many of the leaders of those countries are now Anti-American government(not anti-American people). Our diplomats have been kicked out of
Peru and anti-American leaders have been elected all over south America.

We made Chavez a national hero when our CIA with the help of the oligarchy tried to engineer a coupe de tat in 2002 after he was Democratically elected. Is it any wonder he became so Anti-American?

We have lost much of our influence and good will down south and I wonder if it can be regained. China and Russia obviously have a plan to replace the U.S. as the big influence down south in our backyard while we have been sticking our finger up you know where.

Building a fence on the southern border certainly didn't help as there have been only two other fences built between political boundaries in my life time. The Berlin wall and Israel's fence dividing up Palestinian territory. We have completely bungled relations with Cuba because it's Socialist yet we deal with China and
Vietnam which are Socialist. This is the epitome of cognitive dissonance. We could have opened up and influenced Cuba long ago by allowing the free flow of goods and people between us.

We have mucked up our foreign relations so bad in the last 8 years that I'm not sure they can easily be repaired no matter who is President.

I was a student in Mexico city when JFK made a visit and hundreds of thousands of people lined the streets to see him pass in an open convertible sitting on the back waving and smiling. You would have thought it was the second coming of Christ.

We've come a long way from that for sure.

Funny things happens to people who travel outside the US--they get a different perspective.

Bob