In the previous maladministration, the constitution was viewed as an annoyance. That made it hard to make a fuss when other presidents in other countries violated their constitutions. In Colombia, President Uribe sought to keep office despite constitutional term limits. While Uribe courted the previous maladministration by participating in its ‘drug war’, it distinguished itself by building up body count figures to court more U.S. funds by murdering civilians and re-labeling them as the enemy. That was overlooked by the then U.S. maladministration in its big rush to get ‘free’ market trade going with Colombia despite the atrocities involved.

How embarrassing, now Uribe is visiting the U.S. under Obama while President Zelaya of Honduras is kicked out for seeking to do the same thing Uribe is seeking to do. While we can’t officially announce that a coup has happened because then we’d have to cut off all aid to Honduras, our government, along with most of the world, is sternly admonishing the army, Congress, courts and presently installed president of Honduras to take him back.

This would make great comedy material, except that it concerns serious concerns of worldwide emergencies. In June, 2008, riots in Honduras and neighboring countries protested hunger, a problem that is on the increase as the world suffers from the greedy manipulations of deregulated financial industry in the U.S.

Concerned humanitarians of the world still look on the security of a country as the well-being of its people. The Guardian features one expression of those humanitarian aims.

We condemn the military coup and kidnapping of the democratically elected president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya. On Sunday 28 June, President Manuel Zelaya Rosales was kidnapped, removed from his home by force, rendered incommunicado for several hours and expelled from his country. Soldiers also seized Honduran foreign minister, Patricia Rodas, and the ambassadors of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela. The military and coup conspirators are trying to suppress popular demonstrations and news by blanket military presence, curfews and intimidation of reporters.

President Zelaya was working to free his country from decades of hunger and poverty. This military coup is an illegal attempt to use armed force to overturn the course of democracy and social progress chosen by the Honduran people at the polls. We urge every government in the world to demand the restoration of the democratically elected president and to pledge not to recognise the illegal government put in power by a military coup.
Colin Burgon MP, Ken Livingstone, Dr Francisco Dominguez Venezuela Solidarity Campaign, Tony Woodley Unite, Gerry Doherty TSSA, Matt Wrack FBU, Brian Caton POA

While the U.S. lost the right to represent itself as an example to follow, in the last maladministration, it has the opportunity now to represent our basic decency and get out of the process of making world affairs purely a business.

The public interest has not lost out to profit motive in much of the world. The U.S. can turn that around now, by cutting out support for tyrants and leaders who violate their constitutions and undercut their people.

The visit of Uribe would make a great opportunity for just that. We overlooked the attempts of Uribe to overthrow the constitution of Colombia, along with his regime’s brutality. We have violated our nation’s principles in seeking good relations with regimes that violate their own people’s rights, and their interests. What a good time to turn that around, by ending our partnership with Uribe and the pretense of a ‘war on drugs’ that has failed there and throughout the world.

President Obama can depart from the very bad example set by his predecessor by giving our support to people rather than to big business interests. This would be a major advance back into civilization from the atrocities of the previous regime.

(This post also at http://cabdrollery.blogspot.com/ )

Part of a new campaign for the International Society for Human Rights (ISHR):

As the latest in the ongoing saga of Alvaro Uribe’s potential third term, Defense Minister and loyal Uribista Juan Manuel Santos resigned from his position Tuesday in order to prepare for a presidential bid in 2010. That bid, however, comes with an important caveat; “if the president decides to run, he can count on my support,” said Santos. “If he does not do it, I will be a candidate.”

Uribe, for his part, is still playing coy on the issue. He has previously called the decision a “personal dilemma,” adding that he is “convincing his soul” not to run. Some prominent publications, including The Economist, are trying to convince him of the same.

Although Santos has an “intuition” that Uribe will seek a third-term, he has doubts about the prudence of such a move. Back in January, he told the Washington Post that “history will judge him much better if he leaves now than if he risks staying for four more years,” Santos said.

**a variation of this post originally appeared at Americas Quarterly

On Tuesday, former Mexican President Vicente Fox added his name to a growing list of prominent political figures urging the legalization of marijuana. He painted the current militarized approach as misguided and ineffectual, saying “it can’t be that the only way is for the state to use force.”

It’s not the first time Fox has publicly supported legalization. During his term in office, Fox urged the Mexican Congress to pass a similar measure, only to veto it when it reached his desk. Pressure from Washington, it is speculated, compelled the change of heart. At present, however, Fox’s position alligns with notable politicians this side of the border.

Back in November, both Michigan and Massachusetts voted to slacken marijuana laws, and in California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has acknowledged that “it’s time for debate” about legalization. For many in the Sunshine State, that debate is already decided: medical marijuana is currently the state’s largest cash crop, and Democratic state congressman Tom Ammiano has introduced legislation that would legalize the drug, generating billions in revenue via a $50 levy on every ounce sold. In the middle of an economoic recession, in a state with a sizeable hole in its budget, the opportunity seems too good to pass up.

And the benefits don’t end there: legalization would not only swell state revenue, it would shrink expenditures. It’s estimated the bill would save $1 billion a year by reducing the number of arrests, prosecutions and inmates from possession charges. Given the US’ world-leading incarceration rate, it’s small wonder officials in the federal government are also questioning the logic behind our drug war, if only in rhetoric.

Gil Kerlikowske, the Obama administration’s Drug Czar, told reporters Thursday that he wants to “banish the idea that the US is fighting a ‘War on Drugs.’” Though the position is largely one of semantics at the moment, it does signal a new, more liberal approach to drugs and criminal justice.

The significance is no doubt apparent to Former President Fox, who acknowledged that any effort by the Mexican government must “be done in conjunction with the United States.” Nevertheless, the Mexican congress has taken the lead, passing a bill that decriminalizes simple possession of marijuana and cocaine. President Felipe Calderón, a conservative, is expected to sign it soon.

Fox is not the only prominent Latin American politician to come out in favor of legalization this spring. In April, three other former Latin American presidents – Fernando Henrique Cardoso of Brazil, Cesar Gaviria of Colombia, and Fox’s predecessor Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico – urged the same as a means of staunching drug cartels’ principle source of revenue and mitigating Mexico’s rampant drug violence.

“The problem is that current policies are based on prejudices and fears and not on results,” said Gaviria.

(Originally posted at Americas Quarterly)

“It makes no sense for us to buy rice from Asia when we could buy it from the United States,” Cuba’s ex-Foreign Trade Minister Raul de la Nuez

Acting on the water-tight reasoning of the recently deposed de la Nuez, US Senator Max Baucus is expected to announce legislation this week that would increase US agricultural exports to Cuba. Those working to drop the embargo no doubt appreciate the agricultural interests at the heart of Baucus’ move.

Indeed, for all the contradictions of the Cuban embargo, this is perhaps the most novel: the grassroots and big business share a common ground. But where activists see a moral issue, big business sees a lucrative market — before the 1962 embargo, Cuba was the top destination for US rice. If trade circumstances become favorable once again, the industry predicts that exports to Cuba could reach 400,000 metric tons per year.

Positive developments in the direction of letting go of the failed embargo on Cuba are really welcome. It is past time for the U.S. to haul in its military and ‘intelligence’ in the operations of other countries. The posture that President Obama has taken of learning, not skulking about being divisive, makes that possible to hope for.

As Diane noted earlier this week,The only ones who have gained under the embargo have been the emigre enclave in Florida and their bought and paid for politicians, giving them far more political power per capita than any group in the nation.

Our role as a self-proclaimed ‘leader of the free world’ was never good for this country. Now it is counterproductive. In the previous maladministration, our powers were so misused that any interference has become yet another expression of ignorant aggression. Michael Kinsley, writing in WaPo, has a few good observations about our misapprehensions that lasted for decades, a disservice to the country.

If you want to test a proposition about, say, the relationship between democracy and free trade, you can’t just set up a bunch of countries to experiment with. You have to take what you find, and there will always be some exception or complication to defeat your pretensions to science.

For the past four decades, however, we have been conducting something pretty close to a scientific experiment on one of the most important practical questions the world has ever faced. This question has dominated American politics, off and on, for almost a century. We have conducted this experiment at no small cost and have ruthlessly ignored the results. The question is: What is the best way for free nations to defeat totalitarian regimes in general and communism in particular?

Communism was never a monolith. Even in its heyday it came in lots of flavors. There was Tito’s Yugoslavia, which always kept a foot outside the Iron Curtain and turned out to be 150 or so countries united only in their loathing of one another. There was China, the subject of Americans’ most paranoid Cold War fantasies and now the subject of paranoia of exactly the opposite sort. There was Albania, a black hole from which no information could escape. There was the romantic Latin flavor that was more about the revolution itself than about nationalizing the means of production.

And from 1917, when Russia went communist, to 1989, when the Berlin Wall came down, the United States tried almost every conceivable variety of policies toward these various styles of communist nations. Sometimes we were hostile; sometimes we were friendly. We had summits, we had boycotts. We launched secret wars in Latin America, made secret visits to China, tore apart our own society through wars in Vietnam and Cambodia that can still break up a dinner party. (It’s like arguing about the Civil War in 1905.)

To this day, there is one communist country toward which American policy has been unrelentingly hostile. One communist government with which we have never even attempted detente. One communist country that we invaded without even a fig leaf of an invitation from a legitimate government. One communist country where we have never tried the seductive power of capitalism and instead have maintained a total trade embargo. And now, 20 years after communism collapsed almost everyplace else, in this same country a communist government survives unreformed and unapologetic.

If any conclusion can be drawn with scientific certainty about any question in the field of political science (or maybe it belongs to “international relations,” an even fuzzier academic subdivision), it surely is that the United States’ Cuba policy has not worked.

Just as the war criminals in the White House over eight years of misrule insisted that they attacked Iraq because of WMDs, and al Qaeda was active there before their invasion, the increasingly ludicrous mandate was maintained - that direct shipping to Cuba would support an enemy government there. As our invasion in the Middle East invigorates dissidents there, our blind continuation of hostilities toward Castro’s government does Castro no end of good in the eyes of his supporters. The beginnings of new world wisdom that President Obama is displaying gives hope that we can begin tunneling back out of the hole we’ve dug our country into.

Wisdom instead of belligerence would be a 180 degree turnaround that the U.S. badly needs.

It may be that our country can join with our neighbors to the south instead of endlessly trying to insert our puppet governments where their own choices should be respected.

(This post also at http://cabdrollery.blogspot.com/ )

Most have no doubt already heard that Obama lifted travel restrictions to Cuba for Cuban-Americans, as well as restrictions on remittances to the island. What’s getting less attention, however, is the following:

Specifically, the President has directed the Secretaries of State, Treasury, and Commerce to take the needed steps to…

• • Authorize U.S. telecommunications network providers to enter into agreements to establish fiber-optic cable and satellite telecommunications facilities linking the United States and Cuba.

• • License U.S. satellite radio and satellite television service providers to engage in transactions necessary to provide services to customers in Cuba.

For some time now the Cuban government has been claiming that the US restrictions, and the resulting inability to get widespread internet access, have hamstrung the country’s development. Now, with US telecoms allowed to run fiber-optic cable to the Cubans, Castro & Co. are in a position to prove the point.

That is, if they want to. Most likely they don’t.

In a country where citizens are allowed access to one news source - the state rag Granma - it’s hard to believe structural and technological obstacles alone barred the way to widespread Cuban connectivity. The notion that Cubans will now be granted unfettered access to an unregulated medium such as the internet is ludicrous. The majority of Cubans will remain strangers to the web.

Of course, there is the possibility that the Cuban government will allow access to the internet while severely censoring sites and content it finds unsuitable, a la China or Vietnam. This, however, is unlikely, given the complexity of such a task; the proliferation, and geographical diversity, of Spanish-language sites far outpaces that of Chinese and Vietnamese sites.

So, rather than interpret this as a harbinger of better things to come, I’m playing it pessimistic. A sober analysis of the situation justifies the position; the economic embargo on Cuba benefits two groups; the Cuban government, which consolidates and justifies its power on the back of the embargo; and the hardliner Cuban-Americans in the United States. What incentive does the former have to embrace this opening? The most conspicuous, and foreseeable, effect would be diminished control of the Cuban government.

For all the hope of this moment, in reality it is little more than a return to pre-Bush policy. Unless there is some further, more significant step yet to come, this is small potatoes. The brass in Havana has every reason to act grateful on the surface, seeking opportunities to poison the embargo debate behind the scenes. One way to assure their continued iron grip on the island is by stirring up the hornet’s nest that is the anti-Castro community and coaxing them into blocking further legislative reform.

(originally posted at MWC News)

While the U.S. superpower has meddled in many far-flung nations around the globe in the name of enhancing its security, as prior to 9/11, it has ignored a threat much closer to home. In recent years, the Bush administration blithely blamed Mexico for the flow of illegal drugs into the United States and virtually ignored the raging mayhem involving Mexican drug cartels south of the border.

That rampant violence is now spilling into the United States as crime. Yet again, the Bush administration has handed off a tar baby to the Obama administration. And yet again in the security area, the Obama administration has improved on the Bush policy (it’s not hard to do) but needs to go farther.

Instead of merely blaming Mexico for the problem, the Obama administration has acknowledged that the $65 billion annual demand for illegal drugs in the United States is part of the problem. In fact, it is the driver of the problem.

Unfortunately, although admitting that the United States shares blame for the problem because of its burgeoning demand is a start, the Obama administration is still focused on the long failed U.S. government policy of interdicting the supply of drugs.

The administration will send almost 500 federal agents south to the border, accompanied by more electronic surveillance and x-ray machines, and will also focus on stopping the flow of guns and tens of billions of dollars in payments going south to the suppliers.

Last year, U.S. officials were able to seize less than $1 billion in illicit drug proceeds of the estimated $18 to $39 billion routed back to Mexico. Even more snooping into the bank accounts of Americans will likely occur in what will probably be a futile effort to appreciably increase the percentage snared.

The new Obama policy is analogous to an alcoholic admitting to a drinking problem, but then blaming beer distributors and trying to have them arrested. The analogy to alcohol can be taken a step further. According to the Justice Department, the biggest organized crime threat in the U.S. today is the presence of the Mexican drug cartels in 230 U.S. cities. Similarly, in the United States, organized crime got a huge boost by the prohibition of alcohol in the 1920s and 1930s.

So if there has been a failure working on both the supply side (even having a fortified border still results in tens of billion of dollars in annual drug imports) and demand side (drugs are illegal, yet many people still do them), then why not try a fresh, if counterintuitive, approach that many economists favor? Why not legalize drugs for adults 21 and over?

Most of you probably don’t know that under the late unlamented maladministration trucks not licensed in the U.S. were allowed to operate here over the Mexican border. The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers’ Association made a lot of trouble over that, for several reasons, and of course not the least of those was its own business.

The Sierra Club and Public Citizen, along with the Teamsters, raised objections about safety and environmental standards, but were of course driven over by a White House that thought the public interest was interference with its absolute power. However, these were issues that concerned all of us, as Mexico does not require a lot of the safety measures that have developed in the U.S. Another issue was raised here about language ability and training. Last month Congress ended that experiment in unsafety at any speed.

Rescinding that measure, whose legality was always questionable, has created a stir with Mexico that has resulted in their placing tariffs on items like grapes from California. That was a direct slap back at Speaker Nancy Pelosi who was instrumental in ending the measure. Other growers affected by the tariffs have been outspoken in asking to return the commerce at any cost.

The long-simmering dispute over allowing Mexican trucks onto U.S. highways is escalating into a trade war that could cost Washington state agricultural interests millions of dollars in lost sales and present the Obama administration and the Democratic-controlled Congress with an early test of their trade policies.

Washington’s pear, cherry, apricot and Christmas tree growers find themselves in the middle of a trade clash not of their own making and facing 20 percent tariffs on their exports to Mexico.

The biggest impact, however, could be on the state’s potato growers and processors. Mexico buys $83 million worth of frozen potato products annually, the bulk of them from Washington state, where 10 plants employing 20,000 people produce frozen French fries, hash browns and Tater Tots.

On the other side, organized labor, led by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, and consumer groups continue to insist Mexican trucks and their drivers present a major road hazard to U.S. motorists. They also charge that Mexico illegally imposed the tariffs without living up to its obligations under the North American Free Trade Agreement.
(snip)
The dispute dates to 1995, when the United States refused to allow Mexican trucks across the border as required under NAFTA. The trade agreement, which also includes Canada, allowed for cross-border truck traffic, but U.S. officials said Mexican trucks and their drivers were unsafe.

Rather than allowing Mexican trucks free access to U.S. roads and highways, a pilot program was launched that allowed a limited number of trucks into the United States while safety issues were resolved.

Earlier this month, in approving a $410 billion spending bill, Congress killed the pilot program. Within days, Mexico retaliated by imposing tariffs on nearly 90 U.S.-produced goods worth about $2.4 billion.

The tariffs covered such products as cherries, pears, apricots, frozen potato products, Christmas trees, strawberries, onions, fresh grapes, pet food, books, shampoo, pet food, toothpaste and dishwashers.

Mexican Economic Minister Gerardo Ruiz Mateos said Congress’ decision to eliminate the pilot program was “wrong, protectionist and clearly in violation of the treaty.”

Teamsters President James Hoffa said Mexican trucks and drivers still don’t meet U.S. safety standards and records on Mexican driving violations are often incomplete and inaccurate, records of how many hours Mexican drivers have driven can’t be found and there were questions about certified testing facilities to detect alcohol and drugs in drivers.

“Mexico has had 15 years to meet safety standards set by Congress and until they are met, the American public doesn’t want these unsafe trucks on our highways,” Hoffa said in an e-mail statement.

The NAFTA agreements have never looked like a plus to the U.S. anyway, but safety standards are a real issue in Texas, where most of the traffic would occur. The last eight years gave us a feel for what total lack of public interest spending and regulation would be like. We can do better than let poorly maintained vehicles with overworked drivers loose on our roads.

Another issue raised locally has been the increasing refusal of U.S. drivers to go south of the border because of the mayhem there. Without traffic from the U.S. going south, it is reasonable to assume truck business would increase for the Mexican trucks.

Trade wars may be a burden to growers in other states, but safety should be a big consideration in Transportation Secretary LaHood’s agenda. Having driven in traffic that was largely huge trucks to get to various places, I really would want to know that the trucks at least had met basic safety standards. I’ll buy the grapes from California myself, thank you.

(This post also at http://cabdrollery.blogspot.com/ )

After Raúl Castro sacked three popular and prominent Cuban ministers there was much speculation as to the motive. It was mostly idle - many theories but little clarity. Of all the theories proposed, however, that of Jorge Castañeda, a former foreign minister of Mexico and a distinguished professor at New York University, succeeding in raising the most eyebrows.

From the previously linked piece, which ran in Newsweek:

The problem, of course, is that, as in the Soviet Union when Stalin died, or in China after Mao’s death, we don’t really know what is going on. Yet there are solid reasons to believe that something along the following lines took place: for at least a month or so, Lage, Pérez Roque and others were apparently involved in a conspiracy, betrayal, coup or whatever term one prefers, to overthrow or displace Raúl from his position. In this endeavor, they recruited—or were recruited by—Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez, who in turn tried to enlist the support of other Latin American leaders, starting with Leonel Fernández of the Dominican Republic, who refused to get involved.

Well, those “solid reasons” referenced by Castañeda were never explicitly given in the piece, and many people in the Latin American policy community were naturally incredulous. Since Newsweek showed no initiative on the follow-up story, another major US media company swooped upon the scene. From the always irreverent “BoRev—Dispatches from the Bolivarian Revolution”:

Yesterday CNN (CNN!) dispatched an investigative reporter to look into that OMG so-obviously sketchy Jorge Castañeda column in Newsweek about Hugo Chavez plotting to overthrow Cuba, I mean really, Cuba? And duh yeah it turns out that he just made it all up. How do we know this? Because they ask him (taking notes, Newsweek?) His reply is just nuts.

From that CNN column:

“He resorted to a baseball metaphor on the occasion of the World Baseball Classic to praise Dominicans for not participating (the team’s plans had been unclear) and to claim that Chavez’s baseball players, ‘as good and young’ as they might be, were no match for ‘Cuba’s seasoned all-stars,’ “… Castaneda says Castro was thanking Dominican President Fernandez and sending a veiled message to Chavez.

Always happy to critique a voice they consider to their right, BoRev indulged in a little schadenfreude with its poll, “What kind of liar is Jorge Castañeda, exactly?”

This is, no doubt, amusing, but before we accept or applaud BoRev’s ridicule of Castañeda, we should question their own background information. Do they know that Jorge Castañeda Gutman, the Jorge in question, is the son of Jorge Castañeda y Álvarez de la Rosa, the Mexican Secretary of Foreign Affairs from 1979-82? Does the author know that de la Rosa was one of the few, if not the only, Latin American official on good terms with both the US and Cuba during that Cold Warrin’ period? Does the author know that Jorge Castañeda Gutman trained as a guerrilla in Cuba for a brief period during his youth, and has close contacts in the Cuban intelligence community?

I’m guessing the author did not, and does not. Rather, this seems to be a case of sentimental allegiance trumping informed speculation. I’m not saying Castañeda’s right, but I am saying he has a much better view of the playing field from his position.