. Gavin Esler has the scoop!
There is trouble ahead for Uncle Sam in his own backyard. Big trouble.
It is one of the most important and yet largely untold stories of our world in 2006. George W Bush has lost Latin America.
Fortunately Mr Esler has found it down the back of his sofa. He dropped it there in the 1980s while having a little cry after the Sandinistas lost an election. And elections are the point here – as “Dumcisco” observes,
“Gavin Esler’s view that Nicaragua sums up what has been wrong with US policy for 20 years is simply ridiculous. What has happened is that democracy has replaced dictatorships”
What Mr Esler appears to mean by George Bush “losing” Latin America seems to be that, the US having in his administration consciously dropped the more “realist” traditional American policy that might be summed up by Roosevelt’s words, “Somoza may be a son of a bitch, but he’s our son of a bitch”, some elections are giving results that cause George Bush distress. Well, that’s democracy for you. There is considerable evidence, starting with his own words, that Dubya is rather a fan of democracy. Amazing as it may sound, it may even be the case that he he has noticed that sometimes the party you don’t like wins, and yet remains a fan anyway.
Concerning the same BBC article, Will found and commented on a nice little example of BBC terminology concerning the Peruvian left-wing presidential candidate, Mr Humala:
The presidential frontrunner is Ollanta Humala, a retired army commander who led a failed military uprising in October 2000 and who is now ahead in the opinion polls.
Will asks,
Would that be a coup if carried out by nasty right wing military types?
Many of the comments on Mr Esler’s post are similar to those made by Alvaro Ruiz-Navajas, the author of this post on Off Topic (a blog dealing with Latin American affairs). He writes:
The BBC on Latin America: Peru and Venezuela
Yesterday, the BBC started a series of reports about what they call “one of the world’s most under-reported big stories”. They are referring to Latin Ameica’s shift to the left. Yesterday’s report was about the forthcoming Peruvian elections -read Ollanta Humala- and Chavez. You can see the report here (about 1hr. long).However, I must say I was dissapointed with the report. The report’s hypothesis is very simplistic: the root of the current political situation in Latin America is the US’s war on terrorism. Because of the war on terrorism, the US has neglected its backyard and is about to lose it. The report goes on to say that the US has undermined more than 40 Latin American governments and, basically, is the cause of widespread poverty in the region.
And
Also, besides Puerto Rico, all countries in the region are independent, which means that their success or failure does not depend on the US. So, the current situation cannot be fully attributed to what the US does or does not do. The root of Latin America’s political situation -to the extent things can be generalized- lies in the countries themselves. Widespread corruption, weak institutions, decades of interventionist and populist dictatorships/governments and lack of incentives to private investment did the trick.
Ironically, one of the effects of Esler’s blather about George W Bush having “lost” Latin America is to give the impression that Esler thinks Latin America was Bush’s to lose. Bush himself doesn’t seem to think so. Let us hope Elser catches up.
While the BBC bleats on about overcrowded prisons we have this gentleman imprisoned for 6 months for saying almost the exactly the same thing Ken Livingstone recently said.
TottenhamLad
Incredible. So this guy gets jailed for tellng Muslims to go back where they came from (excellent idea, by the way) but a Muslim can wear a suicide bomber belt to a demonstration with impunity?
The sickness of the UK ‘authorities’ runs so deep it’s practically incurable.
Esler also misquoted the 200-year Monroe Doctrine to suggest that it stated that the US had to dominate South America.
The Monroe Doctrine was named for President Monroe 1823 but it was actually THe British Empire which introduced it and enforced it. It was George Canning, British Foreign Secretary who devised it to prevent France gaining control of South America after France invaded Spain in 1823.
So Britain wanted to recognise independence of states such as Chile where Cochran was fighting for their independence, and Britain wanted to develop these new markets without colonising South America – it therefore developed the Monroe Doctrine which it persuaded President Monroe to declare but since the US has no navy it was enforced by the Royal Navy and The British Empire which was not a “European” power but a global one.
Esler should learn some British History
Non BBC imperialist history, would show. That the more bloody colonial wars were not between British troops and the indiginous populations. But were between us and other rival colonial powers especialy the French. Whos imperial history is much more intrusive than ours. Our moral justification for empire was that it was always better for the people to be under British rather than Dutch, French, or Spanish rule. Disraeli ( a JEW ) wanted to just make trade and lotts of money, more like the later day USA. Gladstone ( a christian preacher )wanted to bring religious salvation more like the Spanish and French. Indiginous people allied to the British generaly, as the lesser of two or more evils. They allied themselves to the USA, during the cold war, for simular reasons.
Now the world has changed, mainland Europe is raising its despotic socialist head again. It has never done the world many favours in the past, it wont this time either.