Latin America by Coletta Youngers,
The Response by John Feffer,
How Things Should Change
by Miriam Pemberton and John Feffer,
Afterword by Susan F. Hirsch

excerpted from the book

Power Trip

U.S. Unilateralism and Global Strategy After September 11

edited by John Feffer

Seven Stories Press, 2003, paper

 

Latin America
by Coletta Youngers

p152
U.S. POLICY TOWARD THE REGION

Across Latin America, a general malaise has set in due to the never-ending and escalating economic crisis, deep-rooted corruption, and the inability of democracy to truly take root. Years of following Washington's prescribed free-market economic policies have not only failed to pay off, the region has moved backward-poverty has increased, privatizations have led to rampant corruption and often skyrocketing prices for basic services, and inequality is worse than ever. The combination of economic and political instability can be deadly for weak governments, as was so brutally illustrated in the protests in Argentina in December 2001 that brought down the de la Rua government. Yet the Bush administration's response to the Argentina crisis is symbolic of its present approach to the region. Like an angry father, former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill scolded Argentina and suggested that it get its own house in order, and the rest of the Bush administration largely adopted a similar tone.

This may not be what President Bush intended upon assuming office, when he promised to develop a special relationship with Latin America and with Mexico in particular. Encouraged by Mexican President Vicente Fox and fueled by the desire to capture more of the Hispanic vote at home, the Bush administration began moving in the direction of a radical reform of U.S. immigration policy, which could have significantly reshaped not only U.S.-Mexican relations, but also, more broadly, U.S.-Latin American relations. All of this, however, was derailed by September 11.

U.S. policy toward the region in the wake of September 11 has largely returned to the "rollback" framework adopted by the Reagan administration at the height of the Cold War. Latin America is viewed as a region where "terrorist" threats are to be eliminated, particularly in the tumultuous Andean countries and Communist Cuba. As such, the region is viewed not as an opportunity for constructive international engagement but as a threat. This strategy was unleashed full force in the wake of September 11. Speaking of Colombia, Representative Henry Hyde (RIL), chairman of the House International Relations Committee, went so far as to warn that "three hours by plane from Miami, we face a potential breeding ground for international terror equaled perhaps only by Afghanistan. The threat to American national interest is both imminent and clear."

p154
THE VENEZUELA DEBACLE

... the Bush administration's first major foreign policy debacle in the region took place in Venezuela as a result of an apparent military-led coup against President Chavez. Several days of business and labor protests in that country culminated in a massive march on April 11, 2002, in which unidentified gunmen killed at least eighteen people. Chavez's foes moved against him later that night, taking Chavez prisoner and announcing his resignation from office. Business leader Pedro Carmona was asked to head the unconstitutional, military-installed government. Carmona's rise to power, however, was short-lived. Within two days, Chavez, who claimed never to have resigned, was back in the presidential palace.

In stark contrast to its attitude toward most Latin American governments, the Bush administration immediately accepted the illegitimate Carmona government, issuing an unusually undiplomatic statement on April 12 that blamed Chavez for his own fall. U.S. involvement in the coup attempt itself is not at all clear; however, it does appear that the administration had decided that Chavez had to go.

As the fourth-largest supplier of U.S. crude oil to the United States, Venezuela has been an obvious target for U.S. hegemonic designs, particularly in light of Chavez's preferred policy of cutting production to keep prices high. Moreover, Chavez had angered many in Washington with his overtures to "rogue" rulers in Iraq, Libya, and particularly Cuba.

Months prior to the coup, a steady stream of Venezuelan opposition leaders made their way to Washington, many with the support of the National Endowment for Democracy, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and right-wing think tanks. They met with a range of U.S. officials who, while maintaining opposition to an outright coup, likely made it clear that they would very much like "Chavez to go away," ideally via a constitutional maneuver. A strong message of support for some sort of action was sent.

The Bush administration's quick embrace of the short-lived Carmona government was criticized across the region, providing "Latin Americans cause to wonder," according to analyst David Corn, "if the United States is continuing its tradition of underhandedly meddling in the affairs of its neighbors to the south." It also sent a dangerous message about the weak U.S. commitment to democratic principles. The U.S. stance toward Chavez, as well as interventions in electoral campaigns in Nicaragua, Bolivia, and Brazil in favor of or in opposition to particular candidates, sends the very clear message that Washington supports electoral democracy-as long as its candidate wins.

CASTRO'S CUBA

The impact on the Bush administration of Chavez's relations with Cuba's Fidel Castro cannot be underestimated. The appointment of Otto Reich as President Bush's first assistant secretary of state for Latin America was widely interpreted as a payback to the conservative, Miami-based Cuban-American community for its support of Bush in the Florida recount, as well as "pay-forward for their continued support in the 2002 gubernatorial and congressional elections.'' A Cuban-American and former lobbyist for Bacardi, Reich has strong ties to that community. Despite growing support on Capitol Hill for a reform of U.S. policy toward Cuba, the Bush administration has remained firm in its commitment to the U.S. economic embargo and to continued isolation of the Cuban government, with no significant policy change likely in the foreseeable future.

In an explosive speech before the Heritage Foundation on May 6, 2002, John Bolton, undersecretary for arms control and international security, went even further, bluntly stating: '`The United States believes that Cuba has at least a limited offensive biological warfare research and development ~ effort. Cuba has provided dual-use biotechnology to other rogue states." He also noted that Castro had recently visited Iran, Syria, and Libya, all states designated by Washington as sponsors of terrorism. Administration officials frequently repeat a statement allegedly made by Castro on his visit to Iran that operating together, Iran and Cuba could "bring America to its knees." Bolton offered no evidence to support his assertions of biological warfare, which were quickly deflated by former president Jimmy Carter's historic May 2002 trip to Cuba. Carter said that he was told by U.S. officials that "there was no evidence linking Cuba to the export of biological weaponry," and while in Cuba, he was given complete access to the country's biomedical facilities.

p157
The Impact of the U.S. Embargo on Cuba's Health and Nutrition

Drugs and Medical Equipment:
The Cuban Democracy Act (1992), by forbidding foreign subsidiaries of U.S. companies from selling to Cuba, posed new and almost insurmountable obstacles to the sale of medicines and medical supplies.

Food Security:
U.S. sanctions reduce Cuba's import capacity for basic foodstuffs. Shipping regulations and the ban on direct and subsidiary trade in food close Cuba off from an otherwise natural market.

Water Quality:
The embargo contributes to serious cutbacks in supplies of safe drinking water and was a factor in the increase in morbidity rates in the 1990s.

HIV Infection and AIDS:
The embargo limits access to life-prolonging drugs for Cuban HIV/AIDS patients, and otherwise impairs prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and research in this field.

Women's Health:
The U.S. embargo directly contributes to lapses in prevention, diagnosis, therapeutic and surgical treatments of breast cancer; diminished alternatives for contraception; gaps in availability of in-vitro genetic testing resources; reduced access to medications associated with pregnancy, labor and delivery; and deficient nutrition during pregnancy.

Children's Health:
Cuba's economic crisis, exacerbated by embargo restrictions, exacts a toll on children's health, particularly in neonatology, immunizations, pediatric hospital care, access to medicines, and treatment of acute illnesses.

Hospital Care:
The economic crisis and the U.S. embargo have seriously eroded surgery, radiology, clinical services, and access to medication, hospital nutrition, and hygiene.

Oncology:
The U.S. embargo bars Cubans' access to state-of-the-art cancer treatment under U.S. patent, subjects all diagnosis and treatment-related imports to delays due to the shipping ban, and hinders domestic research, development, and production due to the ban on biotech-related exports.

Cardiology:
The U.S. embargo constitutes a direct threat to patient care, by denying Cuban heart patients access to lifesaving medications and equipment only available in the United States.

Nephrology:
The embargo limits the chance of survival of Cuban patients with chronic renal failure, increases their suffering, and adds significant expense to already costly care.

Professional Advancement and Scientific Information:
The embargo remains a formidable barrier to the free flow of ideas and scientific information between Cuban medical researchers and their colleagues in the United States.

Humanitarian Donations:
Donations do not compensate to any major degree for the hardships inflicted by the embargo on the health of the Cuban people. There are restrictions placed on charitable donations from the United States. similar to those placed on commercial trade. Contributions rarely match needs in terms of specific drugs, equipment, or replacement parts.

 

Source: American Association of World Health, "The Impact of the U.S. Embargo on Health and Nutrition in Cuba," 1997.

 

The Response
by John Feffer

p176
... European leaders are well aware of the U.S. strategy, leaked to the press in 1992, of discouraging "the advanced industrial nations from challenging our leadership or...even aspiring to a larger regional or global role." The European Union boasts a new currency, is about to absorb ten new members and may grow to more than thirty by the end of the decade, and generally pursues a different approach than the United States to a range of problems from global poverty to global warming. European countries bristle at being treated as irrelevant, weak-kneed, or insufficiently mature. As one EU official put it, "It is humiliating and demeaning if we feel we have to go and get our homework marked by Dick Cheney and Condi Rice." These frustrations, coming to a head in the late l990s, pushed the Europeans to explore an independent military capability, the European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP), backed up by a sixty-thousand-strong rapid reaction force. The creation of this force by the target date of 2003 is unlikely because of internal politics, but few doubt that Europe will eventually develop what Dutch Prime Minister Wim Kok and others have championed, namely a "counterweight to the United States."

European frustrations are intensified by feelings of impotence. "America is waking up to the huge preponderance of its military power," editorialized The Economist. "Europe, realising this, is worried both about the wise application of that power, and its own relative weakness." The Bush administration's 2002 military budget increase of $48 billion is twice the size of the German military budget. In the early 1990s, it was not uncommon for analysts to predict the formation of three roughly equal blocs of power defined more by economic than military might-the European Union, the North American Free Trade Area, and the yen bloc. While economic power is distributed more evenly among industrialized countries, military might remains the domain of the United States, and Europeans are being relegated to peacekeeping and humanitarian tasks. Disagreements over trade, which have proven so acrimonious in the past, will only intensify in such an atmosphere of resentment.

European countries became even more uncomfortable with U.S. policy as a localized strike against the Taliban and al-Qaeda quickly became a global war. The January 2002 "axis of evil" speech marked a turning point in European reactions. Tony Blair and conservative prime ministers in Italy and Spain applauded Bush's words. Everyone else was appalled. Viewed from Brussels or Bonn, there is no axis of evil, just three very difficult diplomatic challenges. With the exception of Ireland and France, every member of the EU has extended diplomatic recognition to North Korea, and the EU has strongly backed the engagement policy of South Korean president Kim Dae Jung. European leaders have reached out to moderates in Iran, setting up a comprehensive dialogue on nonproliferation, human rights, and trade (the EU is Iran's major trading partner). And European countries, with the exception of Britain and Spain, went to great lengths to avoid a war with Iraq.

Europe and the United States also look at terrorism very differently. Europeans put more stress on addressing the root causes of terrorism, which is not surprising, since countries such as Britain and Spain have been forced to approach their own "terrorists" with more than mere firepower. European leaders have stressed the importance of addressing global poverty in the wake of September 11, but such calls, even from Bush ally Tony Blair, have "found little resonance in Washington, DC." There have also been legal differences. According to the European Convention on Human Rights, European countries cannot extradite suspects to countries with the death penalty, and some countries have refused to send anyone to U.S. military tribunals. Even Britain, the strongest U.S. ally in the war on terrorism, refused to extradite two suspects because of lack of evidence. The United States, meanwhile, has unsigned the International Criminal Court treaty and has promised to go to extraordinary measures to prevent U.S. soldiers from being tried for war crimes at the Hague. We won't send our soldiers; they won't send their suspects.

p181
... politicians the world over acknowledged the dire threat of global terrorism, then quickly took advantage of September 11 to advance their own states' interests. Authoritarian leaders in Central Asia traded their strategic support for U.S. military and economic aid that was free of accompanying demands for democratic change. Colombia and the Philippines took advantage of the changed geopolitical climate to prosecute their own civil wars more harshly. Countries as diverse as Azerbaijan, Djibouti, and Ecuador lined up to receive military handouts from the Pentagon. Regardless of how much U.S. unilateralism rubbed countries the wrong way, they were not above taking advantage of the new dispensation.

 

How Things Should Change
by Miriam Pemberton and John Feffer

p188
... the hawks in the Bush administration-Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz-are anything but conservative. They have pushed at the very limits of traditional military doctrine: embracing preemptive strikes, contemplating the use of nuclear weapons in warfare, violating long-standing arms control treaties, and spreading weapons everywhere from Uzbekistan to outer space. There is a dangerous liberality in these policies. Weapons are being given away liberally; arms control treaties are being interpreted liberally. This liberality verges on the libertine: the United States is acting without moral restraint in its military policy.

This inability to act with restraint extends to the field of resources. The American addiction to petroleum propels our policies in the Middle East and justifies the expansion of U.S. military operations into West Africa, Central Asia, and Latin America. The more oil we burn, the more oil we need, and neither arctic wilderness nor human rights abroad has interfered with getting our fix. The Bush administration's ties to Big Oil, "just say yes" approach to increased oil consumption, and reluctance to redirect U.S. policy toward renewable energy sources have made a bad situation considerably worse.

p189
According to polls, Americans believe that foreign aid constitutes roughly 20 percent of the federal budget... in fact the United States provides less in foreign aid (as a percentage of GNP) than any other industrialized nation: a mere sliver of one percent.

p192
Barbara Lee's (D-CA) solitary vote against going to war in Afghanistan, Russell Feingold's (D-WI) solitary vote against the U.S.A. PATRIOT Act.

 

Afterword
by Susan F. Hirsch

p197
Current efforts toward U.S. global domination-through military, political, and ideological means-repeat the serious political and moral flaws of previous attempts, although perhaps on a larger scale... First, attempts to dominate are routinely accompanied by a lack of interest in areas of the world not of direct and immediate concern to what the U.S. government perceives to be its economic and strategic goals. Obtaining knowledge about marginalized regions of the world and the people living there holds low priority. For example, in the rush to achieve influence in both the emerging states of the former Soviet Union and the new markets in Asia, U.S. attention toward much of Africa declined in the 1980s and 1990s. Ironically, directing support to fledgling democracies in regions such as Eastern Europe coincided with ignoring human rights and civil liberties violations by virtual dictators in Africa and other regions.

Rather than examining the African continent's political complexities, the United States propped up the likes of Mobutu Sese Seko in Zaire and Daniel arap Moi in Kenya in an effort to maintain stability. As the United States built new embassies in Eastern Europe and Asia, it allowed many in Africa to deteriorate with respect to facilities and security, including those in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi. Disinterest in African nations, and insufficient respect for African people, is a tragic and recurring consequence of policies that put U.S. power and gain before thoughtful, egalitarian connection with other nations, especially the poorest. Unstable and threatening situations are likely to result, as well as strained relations with people and nations that might have been reliable allies. Moreover, the dearth of knowledge means that ossified stereotypes persist. For example, the confrontation of "radical Islam" and "the West" leaves out of the picture large moderate Muslim populations, especially those living throughout Africa.

A second major flaw of U.S. power moves is that they are pursued with little concern for the severe inequalities of current global economic relations. The U.S. drive to dominate proceeds as if unaware of the rising resentment of large segments of the world's population that suffer under crushing debt burdens, crumbling infrastructures, and weakened health and education systems. Disenfranchised people doubtless view power in the face of economic injustice as corrupt and illegitimate. No one should be surprised if they mount, join, or support struggles to bring down that power. For instance, women's organizations, Ogoni liberation groups, and ordinary West African people have long contested the environmental degradation and labor exploitation that Shell and other multinational oil companies are responsible for in Nigeria. Little known to American consumers are their protest tactics, which include sophisticated Internet sites, work stoppages, and a traditional practice whereby women remove their clothes in public to shame those who ignore pleas for relief from oppression. Because they do not touch the lives of most Americans, such inequalities and such protests remain largely invisible to those who pump Nigerian oil into their cars.

p199
... many victims of September 11 argued strenuously against the war in Afghanistan, although their voices were muffled by the media emphasis on conventional representations of patriotism. Amber Amundson, whose husband was killed while working at the Pentagon, wrote in a Chicago Tribune editorial: "I have heard angry rhetoric by some Americans, including many of our nation's leaders, who advise a heavy dose of revenge and punishment. To those leaders, I would like to make clear that my family and I take no comfort in your words of rage. If you choose to respond to this incomprehensible brutality by perpetuating violence against other innocent human beings, you may not do so in the name of justice for my husband."

p201
... a candid discussion of the: U.S. role worldwide requires considerable attention to the global economic inequality that U.S. foreign policy exacerbates. Many people and groups worldwide are working for global economic justice. The goals and commitments motivating these groups serve as counterpoints to current U.S. goals, which amount to little more than military and political support for economic expansion, ultimately benefiting l only a few.

p201
Julius Nyerere, the first Tanzanian president, said in 1996

"Each of us, as individuals, as 'workers by hand or by brain,' and as leaders, has the responsibility to act against the oppressions of poverty, ignorance, and disease.... Neither public recognition nor lack of it provides an excuse for slackening our efforts. Without violence or hatred, we must work for a world where all human beings can live in peace and justice."


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