Michael Shifter of the Inter-American Monologue is the epitome of DC-based conventional wisdom on Latin America. So it’s no surprise that he’s a big cheerleader for Bush’s lame LatAm charm offensive scheduled for next week. Shifter’s answer to just about all of Latin America’s woes is that the U.S. simply must “engage” the region. Apparently, if they only knew how pure our intentions are, they wouldn’t worry their silly little heads about our Divine role steering them toward peace, prosperity, and Protestantism.
Today, Shifter explains that the Bush Administration is finally “attempting to make up for a long stretch of neglect.” At long last! So what’s wrong with this reasoning? A few things jump to mind:
>>> After 60 years of bloody U.S. “engagement” (Guatemala ’54, Panama ’58, Cuba ’61, Panama ’64, Dominican Republic ’65, Guatemala ’66, Chile ’73, El Salvador, Nicaragua & Guatemala throughout the entire freaking 1980s, Grenada ’84, Bolivia ’87, Panama ’89, Venezuela ’02, and Haiti ‘04), the good people of Latin America might just be content with a merciful period of “neglect.” Helps you catch your breath and, you know, hold proper funerals.
>>> Considering that Washington Consensus forced-reforms of the 80s & 90s led to Latin America’s worst period of economic stagnation in history, perhaps its time to condescend to allow the region to solve it’s problems their way. They couldn’t possibly do it any worse.
>>> If yesterday’s buffet-freezing, priest-pissing, bull-in-china shop blundering stab at diplomacy is any indication, this ain’t the administration to be going anywhere near “engagement” with a justifiably torked-off region.
Let the “dialogue” begin. I think Bush is going to get an earful.
