Monday, April 20, 2009

Dealing With Latin America

Ah, so that's where all this 'talking' gets ya. Cheap one-upsmanship by a smiling Chavez, and grandstanding by Morales. Obama looks sophomoric, allowing himself to be upstaged by such silly people.

Obama could have done two things which would have massively changed the entire situation in Latin America, as well as the tenor of the past week:

Lift the trade embargo with Cuba and all travel restrictions and legalize drugs.
(Yes, all of them.)

In both of these cases there are criminals with a lot of power precisely because these laws are in place. Take away the laws and you take away their power. Meanwhile, others become empowered. You just can't buy off judges and fund armies when the price of your product collapses.

Can you imagine what the scene would have been like if the U.S. had unilaterally changed those two laws before Obama's little trip? I wonder how many of the people in the room would have correctly interpreted the changes as a threat to their own power? (Of course, the changes also happen to be the right thing, but politicos always think in terms of their own power.)

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