Despite Obama charm, Americas summit boosts U.S. isolation
From Reuters:
[div class="excerpt" style="border-left: 1px solid #bfbfbf; border-top: 1px solid #bfbfbf; border-right: 1px solid #bfbfbf; border-radius: 0.3077em 0.3077em 0em 0em; box-shadow: 2px 2px 6px #bfbfbf;"]Despite Obama charm, Americas summit boosts U.S. isolation[div class="excerpt" style="border-left: 1px solid #bfbfbf; border-bottom: 1px solid #bfbfbf; border-right: 1px solid #bfbfbf; border-radius: 0em 0em 0.3077em 0.3077em; background-color: #f4f4f4; box-shadow: 2px 2px 6px #bfbfbf;"](Reuters) - President Barack Obama sat patiently through diatribes, interruptions and even the occasional eye-ball roll at the weekend Summit of the Americas in an effort to win over Latin American leaders fed up with U.S. policies.
He failed.
The United States instead emerged from the summit in Colombia increasingly isolated as nearly 30 regional heads of state refused to sign a joint declaration in protest against the continued exclusion of communist-led Cuba from the event.
--snip--
Seen as an instrument of U.S. policy in Latin America during the Cold War, the OAS has lost ground in a region that is no longer content with being the backyard of the United States.
"It seems the United States still wants to isolate us from the world, it thinks it can still manipulate Latin America, but that's ending," said Bolivian President Evo Morales, a fierce critic of U.S. policy in Latin America and staunch ally of Venezuela's leftist leader Hugo Chavez.
"What I think is that this is a rebellion of Latin American countries against the United States."
We are seeing an historic cultural and political revolution in South America- one long overdue- and to miss out on participation in that...as a partner and not as a ruler...is an epic failure of vision. Our blind stubbornness is reminiscent of our tacit support for the Mubarak regime in Egypt until it could no-longer be justified by any means.
It would be so nice to have a President who didn't keep pulling policy bromides from the Big Book Of American Empire. Surprisingly, just a few years ago (and after being elected president), the President had a much more conciliatory tone towards South America and Cuba.
Like so many policy shifts, I'm left wondering exactly what is going on in the President's head, strategy-wise. It's like he's been bitten by the status quo snake. There was some brief period during which the President was more outspoken and then "bipartisanship" kicked in. What a cruel joke. After "bipartisanship" the next excuse for continuing the debacle of so-called American Exceptionalism is ensuring re-election in 2012.
Presumably, after a re-election in 2012 the really, real real President Obama will come through.
Unless, I suppose, the Republicans keep the Majority in the House. In which case I can only hope the really real real President comes out in the eventual memoir, $29.95 on Amazon. It'll be nice to at least read about all the groundbreaking changes he wanted to make.
PB
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