Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief-of-staff to Colin Powell, on why the US badly needs a new policy towards Latin America and Cuba.
Whoever is the new president in January 2009, two things need to happen with regard to Latin America and Cuba. First, Cuba, never on the front burner, needs at least to be put on the stove. Second, U.S. relations with Latin America should be completely refurbished. And there is the connection: no more effective and swifter way exists to signal a new approach to Latin America than to effect a rapprochement with Cuba as the opening gambit. Mr./Madam President, over to you.
Off topic this one but I thought it is worth spreading. I don’t know if you know of this guy but he pulls together some really interesting facts and does it with humour, have a wee look.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8957268309327954402
The U.S. needs a new policy not just toward Latin America, but toward the whole rest of the world. The cost of our neo-imperialist foreign policy has become quite high. It’s time we stopped creating new enemies to fight.
In a globalized economy, Smithian capitalist theory demands that capital be circulated throughout. Foreign (and economic) policies that create and support vast sewers of poverty may benefit global monopolists, but they don’t create a healthy economic system. And they create pools of hopeless people ready to give their lives to strike a blow at “the enemy”– meaning us.