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Clinton's Latin American Blunders
Offensive remarks on Honduras, gratuitous insults in Brazil – Hillary Clinton's Latin American tour has not been a success
Hillary Clinton's Latin America tour is turning out to be about as successful as George W Bush's visit in 2005, when he ended up leaving Argentina a day ahead of schedule just to get the hell out of town. The main difference is that she is not being greeted with protests and riots. For that she can thank the positive media image that her boss, President Obama, has managed to maintain in the region, despite his continuation of his predecessor's policies.
But she has been even more diplomatically clumsy that Bush, who at least recognised that there were serious problems and knew what not to say. "The Honduras crisis has been managed to a successful conclusion," Clinton said in Buenos Aires, adding that "it was done without violence."
This is rubbing salt into her hosts' wounds, as they see the military overthrow of President Mel Zelaya last June, and subsequent efforts by the US to legitimise the dictatorship there as not only a failure but a threat to democracy throughout the region.
It is also an outrageous thing to say, given the political killings, beatings, mass arrests, and torture that the coup government used in order to maintain power and repress the pro-democracy movement. The worst part is that they are still committing these crimes.
Today nine members of the US Congress - including some Democrats in Congressional leadership positions - wrote to Clinton and to the White House about this violence. They wrote:
"Since President Lobo's inauguration, several prominent opponents of the coup have been attacked. On 3 February, Vanessa Zepeda, a nurse and union organiser who had previously received death threats linked to her activism in the resistance movement, was strangled and her body dumped from a vehicle in Tegucigalpa. On 15 February, Julio Funes Benitez, a member of the [water and sewage workers] trade union and an active member of the national resistance movement, was shot and killed by unknown gunmen on a motorcycle outside his home. Most recently, Claudia Brizuela, an opposition activist, was murdered in her home on 24 February. Unfortunately these are only three of the numerous attacks against activists and their families ... "
Clinton will meet on Friday with "Pepe" Lobo of Honduras, who was elected president after a campaign marked by media shutdowns and police repression of dissent. The Organisation of American States and European Union refused to send official observers to the election.
The members of Congress also asked that Clinton, in her meeting with Lobo, "send a strong unambiguous message that the human rights situation in Honduras will be a critical component of upcoming decisions regarding the further normalisations of relations, as well as the resumption of financial assistance."
This was the third letter that Clinton received from Congress on human rights in Honduras. On 7 August and 25 September members of Congress from Hillary Clinton's own Democratic party wrote to her to complain of the ongoing human rights abuses in Honduras and impossibility of holding free elections under these conditions. They did not even get a perfunctory reply until 28 January, more than four months after the second letter was sent. This is an unusual level of disrespect for the elected representatives of one's own political party.
For these New Cold Warriors, it seems that all that has mattered is that they got rid of one social democratic president of one small, poor country.
In Brazil, Clinton continued her cold war strategy by throwing in some gratuitous insults toward Venezuela. This is a bit like going to a party and telling the host how much you don't like his friends. After ritual denunciations of Venezuela, Clinton said "We wish Venezuela were looking more to its south and looking at Brazil and looking at Chile and other models of a successful country."
Brazilian foreign minister Celso Amorim responded with diplomacy, but there was no mistaking his strong rebuff to her insults: he said that he agreed with "one point" that Clinton made, "that Venezuela should look southwards more ... that is why we have invited Venezuela to join MERCOSUR as a full member country." Clinton's rightwing allies in Paraguay's legislature - the remnants of that country's dictatorship and 60 years of one-party rule - are currently holding up Venezuela's membership in the South American trade block. This is not what she wanted to hear from Brazil.
The Brazilians also rejected Clinton's rather undiplomatic efforts to pressure them to join Washington in calling for new sanctions against Iran. "It is not prudent to push Iran against a wall," said Brazilian president Lula da Silva." The prudent thing is to establish negotiations."
"We will not simply bow down to an evolving consensus if we do not agree," Amorim said at a press conference with Clinton.
Secretary Clinton made one concession to Argentina, calling for the UK to sit down with the Argentine government and discuss their dispute over the Malvinas (Falklands) Islands. But it seems unlikely that Washington will do anything to make this happen.
For now, the next crucial test will be Honduras: will Clinton continue Washington's efforts to whitewash the Honduran government's repression? Or will she listen to the rest of the hemisphere as well as her own Democratic members of Congress and insist on some concessions regarding human rights, including the return of Mel Zelaya to his country (as the Brazilians also emphasised)? This story may not get much US media attention, but Latin America will be watching.
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36 Comments so far
Show AllClinton is a neocon democrat and an enthusiastic supporter of the Iraq war and totally devoted to sacrificing US interests to save Israel.
Not a neocon, but a neoliberal -- very similar. Both are ruthless imperialists and fascists.
Interesting that you blame Clinton for these contretemps. All of the items you mention are the result of policy decisions - which she doesn't get to make.
It is also interesting to note that, in the vast majority of her interactions with the world, she has garnered nothing but praise for her adroitness and diplomatic skills. Yet on this tour, nominally espousing policies that seem very much at odds with her outlook, she is ineffective and even offensive.
Looks to me like she's been ordered to speak to someone else's talking points, someone with a propensity toward naivete combined with arrogance - I wonder who that might be?
You're half right. You'd be entirely right if you realized that Obama and Hillary Clinton have the same worldview.
And quite frankly, I don't know whom you've been reading, but I've never seen any sign of "adroitness and diplomatic skills" on her part. Lots of diplomatic shills supporting her, now as before, of course.
Outside of US propaganda efforts--Clinton is less than useless. And she does naivete combined with arrogance very well on her own in her aim to be a big mean bully man.
"in the vast majority of her interactions with the world, she has garnered nothing but praise for her adroitness and diplomatic skills"
Who gave her praise? Was it mainstream media?
And how is that a sign that she ISN'T a neocon huckster?
To put it as adroitly and diplomatically as possible, Clinton is only "garnering praise" from never-say-die sycophants.
One who occasionally comments here is always good for a laugh.
Speaking of which, here's a definitive report that captures the essence of Secretary Clinton's diplomatic skills and personal charm:
http://www.theonion.com/content/video/u_s_condemned_for_pre_emptive_use
· Yr Obd't Servant
Clinton is Secy of State for one reason only: to protect the dictators and apartheid states--from Latin America to Israel--that the US ruling class upholds with taxpayer money. At this, Clinton is competent because she is, at heart, a bully, a neocon, and is clueless about diplomacy. That Obama selected her for this position only attests to his own imperialist tendencies.
-"given the political killings, beatings, mass arrests, and torture that the coup government used in order to maintain power and repress the pro-democracy movement. The worst part is that they are still committing these crimes."
Well, the Obama Democrats are hardly in a position to complain about the coup, (Hillary prefers "regime change"), and the Honduran government's ongoing killings, beatings, mass-arrests and torture (again, Hillary prefers "enhanced interogation techniques").
That would put Obama's "don't look back" policy, to ignore US war crimes, into question, wouldn't it?
Not only that, but as a lengthy article by Luke Mitchell in the June 2009 issue of Harper's demonstrates, we're still torturing. A .pdf of the article is available at http://ccrjustice.org/files/09.06.16_Gitmo_stilltorture_Harpers.pdf.
Good point.
Obama, the President, tortures U.S. prisoners. Even McCain wouldn't do that.
Obama escalates an obscene, horrific war in Afghanistan. Even Bush didn't do that.
Obama murders hundreds of innocent civilians in Pakistan with drone attacks, and sows the seeds of civil war and a larger regional war—perhaps leading to the next world war. NO ONE else would do that!
Obama looks more and more like a psychopath.
But, Hillary, the Secretary of State, uses some clumsy language in a speech and the drunks run out of the bars screaming.
It's a testament to the power of media to prejudice and stampede the intellectually lazy.
Obama, torturer, murderer, war criminal, psychopath. Hillary, tough talker.
Let's put things in proper perspective.
CLINTON in visiting Brazil -- her HOSTS -- tried to "isolate" Venezuela...and got a "diplomatic" rebuff - both BEFORE and after her speech...
what does that say about she hasn't actually impressed or cowed anyone there?.
they could see right through the USA Strategy - the usual - of "isolating" an offending country (venezuela) by trying to get the others as "allies" ...
but they already know that this is what the USA CONSTANTLY does to countries...and ANY of them could be next.
it is that simple.
the GAME is UP. on USA "strategy" of isolating countries.
it is actually trying to do that with CHINA on the Iran nuclear issue.
as it did with WMD's against Iraq.
it's going to try to do that with Russia - but they aren't playing ball...
who ELSE is next?
countries are simply finding that there is a consensus ABOUT the USA .
IT is the one that should be ISOLATED!
"countries are simply finding that there is a consensus ABOUT the USA .
IT is the one that should be ISOLATED!"
Too true.
and long overdue
Either Mr. Obama has delegated foreign policy decisions to Hillary Clinton or he has not, or only partly. In the first case the critical attack should indeed be directed at her. In the second and third cases "the buck stops at Mr. Obama's desk" and he should be critically attacked instead of Hillary Clinton.
Nope, sorry. In all cases BOTH should be blamed.
If you had read Mr. Weisbrot's posting more carefully than you apparently have you would have found that Mr. Weisbrot does not include Mr. Obama in his critique of his administration's Latin American policies which is exactly why I wrote what I wrote. If Mrs. Clinton acted completely on her own Mr. Obama can only be criticized if he does not fire her. Understanding history is not served by wild statements like yours. Try again next time.
Nope, sorry. They both deserve blame. Perhaps not equal amounts, but they are both responsible authority figures. I don't understand why you have a trouble with that rather elementary concept.
"Whose next?" you ask.
Costa Rica makes sense. No standing army... No air force. Some expatriate USAns. No big deal. And we get to fire depleted Uranium ammo into their tropical national parks.
Then we can sell them our weapons so they can defend themselves.
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One good thing about getting Colin Powell into the Whtie House will be we will get Hillzilla Rodham Klanton out as secretary of state.
AD
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
Give me a fucking break. Collin Powell is an upper-class military/petrol industrial complex errand boy and traitor to the Constitution DELUXE who lied about bogus satellite imagery of an Iraqi armored battle group approaching the Saudi Arabian border to get us into Gulf Oil War I which led to sanctions that killed over half a million Iraqi children, and then lied again, this time using George Tenet's Weapons of Mass Destruction lies that got us into Shrublette's Af-Iraq-Pak fiscal insanity. Malcolm X had a name for black fascist lackeys like Powell, Condileeza Rice and Barrack Obama.
Thanks for your post, Metal, except for the oft-quoted Cicero whom Michael Parenti refers to as a member of the then oligarchy. He has a video on Youtube re. the assassination of Caesar--very interesting stuff and very appropos of our times.
It is quite curious that some people see an MLK or a Malcolm-X in any and every African-Am. politician. I must reread Malcolm-X's autobio.
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
Parenti's take on Roman history is selective to put it mildly. Cicero's eloquence as a litigator and the fact that his speeches have been intensively studied with a view towards improving the profession of the law and the study of rhetoric for 2,000 years speaks for itself. The fact that he, as a prominent Roman attorney and former Consul, publicly spoke out against the decline of the Republic and the threat of dictatorship in the final days of the Roman Republic was a rare and admirable fact in and of itself. He was hardly an oligarch, nor was he an aristocrat, and he had to borrow money from an aristocratic Senator to buy his house on the Palatine Hill. The strongest criticism that can be laid against him was that he was a "slum lord" because he, liked many prominent officials, owned apartments that he rented out in Rome. The Triumverate of Julius Caesar, Pompeius Magnus and Marcus Crassus WAS the prevailing oligarchy of its time. Crassus was one of the richest men in Roman history and a "slum lord" on a scale that dwarfed Cicero's rental holdings. Cicero opposed Caesar in court and as dictator and, after Caesar's assassination, paid for siding with the assassins with his life. "Sic semper tyrannis" is a saying dating from that period.
Metal, obviously your knowledge of that period far surpasses mine. I have enough of a time trying to figure out what is happening today. It would be interesting to have you and Parenti debate Caesar's virtues or lack thereof.
Colin Powell is an order following sycophant who plays by the rules established by whomever is in power. If he ever has an independent thought, he has the prudence not to reveal it. He is no more than that, no less.
Joe
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
Billary is stamped out of the same bloody, unaffordable foreign policy cookie cutter as Madeleine "500,000 dead Iraqi children were worth it" Albright and Dick "I never saw a bombing of the right civilians whom I didn't like that I didn't like" Holbrooke.
She's a neo-liberal Democratic Leadership Council tool through and through just like her hubbie and every bit as big a traitor to the working- and under-class. To the dumbass Hillary apologists: If she didn't like the BS she was told to spew re Central and South America (if, in fact, she didn't actually support every word), then she has the open option to display some integrity and formally resign.
Has anyone noticed how haggard she looks? The lies she knowingly spews and her sense of the hypocrisy of so many US policies should make her look haqggard.
"Clinton said "We wish Venezuela were looking more to its south and looking at Brazil and looking at Chile and other models of a successful country.""
Too bad that Weisbrot didn't add the next sentences uttered by Clinton where she, in effect,said that Chavez should quit applying democratic socialism and embrace free market systems in order to help all poor Venezuelans get rich quick like the people in the US. I saw the video of her speaking and there is no refutation of the fact that she was not speaking to a "yes ma'am" crowd. (I can't remember the link because I had a late work day and was doing a quick sweep of sites before going to bed.)
Anyway, I had to snicker, no, guffaw really. I feel, see and hear how the poor people in North America are appreciating free market systems, expecially the formerly employed and middle class (the working class have long been used to being one paycheque from the streets) and you have to wonder what drugs is she on?
Just today, when I got down the escalator to the Metro, a woman who was dressed impeccably like most city female professionals and office workers, was standing with her hand out and a paper cup at her feet with the tears streaming down her face, visibly humiliated for having to beg. I mean, she was shaking with emotion! She said she had lost her job and had no more income (while waiting for EI) and after paying her bills, had no money for food (we don't have food stamps in Canada and the woman may not have known about food banks in the city.)
This is the marvelous free booter, I mean free market system that Clinton thinks so great that all Venezuelans should enjoy the fruits (the elite there already do). Maybe she should take the Metro once in a while too so she can see the growing phenomenon of (formerly) middle class, mature women reduced to begging in the Metro malls. This is an ongoing tragedy of our commons and I have to say, it brings tears to my eyes and heart too. I don't have a permanent job and depend on short-term contracts so I wouldn't be surprised to find myself in the same circumstances.
Why are some Americans so stupid? And why do we allow them in "leadership" rolls?
Why doesn't latin america do what israhell does on an all too regular basis without payback. Assassinate the bitch.
Hillary is haggard and hideous. Both inside and out. She has a tremendous amount of energy that she tirelessly applies to an amoral agenda.
She is the weapons salesperson to the world. After selling war planes and weapons to both India and Pakistan, she had the nerve to say we had to keep troops in the Middle East to prevent India and Pakistan from fighting.
She traipses through the world trying to get everyone on board to isolate Iran, Venezuela and anyone who is not a blind follower of the US militaristic, civilian murdering and coup sponsoring lead. Thank goodness more and more countries are pushing back.
Joe
Have you heard of this guy, Obama, at all?
The ancient Romans had RENT?
Gosh. I wish they had told me that in high school. I might have made different life choices.
How did they keep their books, what with their lack of the Decimal System? Was it meant to confuse the Plebes?
Several people have told me that Hillary Clinton is a "closet lesbian." I have wondered what this might have to do with Policy.
I admit to being rather naive on such a question, as I am a hetero male.
But note that it used to be argued that we needed to keep homosexuals out of the State Department because they might be compromised by the USSR!
Are Lesbians homosexual? I have no idea. I have my own ideas while I admit to being really naive. Really!
If Hillary were to turn up in "secret" videos as a flaming female raconteur what would be the result?
Who doesn't want to go there? ABC's Diane Sawyer of Louisville? And what is that former New York Governor's name who was caught being a hetero?
Obama's most brilliant move was naming Hillary Secretary of State, thus neutralizing her. She knows it. She had to accept. And she and Bill, who is semi-brain-dead since his heart operations and the anesthesiology, are eternally BITTER. They are under control.
The Chicago School. Not coastal. Great Lakes. With a history of failing to understand their strengths, and a history of political assassinations under the first Daley Administrations: Fred Hampton and Mark Clark.
Justify that, President Obama.
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Compared to the current president and his predecessor, Colin Powell is a peacenik. He opposed the anything but humanitarian intervention in the Balkans by Slick Willy, he privately opposed the Iraq War, he backed the Democratic national ticket in 2008 to oppose a foreign policy of endless war, but Barak Obombus turned out to be a good impersonator of W and enabler of his policies both domestic and foreign. If I F Stone were alive he would likely be saying vote Powell for peace the way he once said vote Ike for peace back in the 1950s.
All this hatred of Powell is silly. He surely has his flaws, but he has come out strongly for ending the crazy "Don't ask, don't tell" policy on gays in the military as far back as about the 2008 election. Were he in the White House he would end it I'd say with the stroke of the pen and an executive order which any president as commander in chief has the authority to do. He has shown leadership in recent years. His flaws are primarily the fact that he served under much more flawed presidents. Guess what. When someone serves in a cabinet office that person serves at the pleasure of the president. When he couldn't endure W's BS he quit. That's what having integrity is all about.
Don't forget Powell lied to the United Nations about his personal knowledge of "intelligence" proving Iraq had WMD, when he knew the opposite was true.
Don't forget he endorsed Obama for president, AFTER Obama had pledged to follow the Bush Doctrine and unilaterally launch military attacks inside Pakistan (a war crime), and after Obama had publicly opposed the Sanders amendment to ban mercenaries from Iraq and Afghanistan (following numerous reports of rapes, murders and torture they had committed), and after Obama had declined to vote for the Feingold-Reid amendment to end the war in Iraq (requiring removal of all combat troops by June 2008).
And, don't forget he covered up the My Lai massacre in Vietnam in 1968.