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Security

GOP Defunds OAS On The False Basis That It Is ‘Perpetuating’ Venezuela’s ‘Ability To Destroy Democracies’

By Ali Gharib on Jul 21, 2011 at 12:31 pm

Yesterday, the House Foreign Affairs Committee engaged in a marathon mark-up of the State Department budget authorization bill. One of the most stunning votes was a party-line 22-20 victory for an amendment that defunded the Organization for American States (OAS), the multilateral group of Western hemisphere democracies formed under U.S. leadership in 1948.

The funding, which accounts for about half of OAS’ budget, doesn’t amount to much — just $48 million. So why did House Republicans, led by right-wing Committee Chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), vote for Rep. Connie Mack’s (R-FL) amendment eliminating it? Because, Mack said, the OAS was supporting U.S. foes. The Associated Press reported on the mark-up:

Mack insisted that the measure did not represent isolationism but rather was targeted at an organization that backs Venezuela and its U.S. foe, President Hugo Chavez.

“Let’s engage our allies and friends, but let’s not continue to support an organization that’s perpetuating some countries’ ability” to destroy democracies, Mack said.

Likewise, Rep. David Rivera (R-FL) criticized Cuba’s human rights record as the amendment was being debated.

But the OAS’ close allegiance with Cuba and Chavez’s Venezuela are both highly suspect — as in: not actually true.

Cuba is not even a member of the OAS, as Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-NY) pointed out. At Foreign Policy, Josh Rogin adds that in 2009 the OAS lifted its ban on Cuban membership, but the democratic threshold for membership remains in place — and so Cuba, for now, is out.

And the OAS has actually strongly criticized Chavez and Venezuela twice in the past two years. In early 2010, the OAS issued a blistering report about Venezuela’s human rights record and slipping democratic credentials. In January of this year, OAS Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza criticized a Venezuelan law passed in December as being “completely contrary” to the Inter-American Democratic Charter passed by the OAS in 2001. Insulza added that the issue would likely come before the OAS.

As Daniel Larison points out at the American Conservative, the OAS might not do a whole lot, but its work is “fairly innocuous or even constructive when it comes to election monitoring and development aid.” At such a small cost — 0.02 percent of what the U.S. will spend in Iraq and Afghanistan this year — it hardly seems worth cutting and running from OAS by the logic of completely flawed and hollow reasoning.

Politics

Hugh Hewitt echoes Hugo Chavez: Obama is ‘invading Haiti.’

By Amanda Terkel on Jan 21, 2010 at 11:46 am

Yesterday in an interview with writer Christopher Hitchens, conservative pundit Hugh Hewitt argued that President Obama had “invaded Haiti” in the aftermath of last week’s earthquake, in a way that was less legal than what President Bush did in Iraq:

HH: We’ve invaded Haiti. We dropped troops on the presidential palace yesterday. The difference between Bush invading Iraq, and Obama invading Haiti, is that Bush had Congressional authorization. I’m glad that President Obama has done this, but don’t you find it odd that the left is all quiet as to this extraordinary exercise in presidential prerogative unguided by, unauthorized by simply unilateral on the part of the President?

CH: Yes, not seeking any international body, and as far as we know, though it’s very hard to be sure, no permission, not that I think their constitution would allow them permission, from a Haitian government, either.

HH: That’s right. I mean, we just took over.

Hewitt added that he thinks it’s “great” that the United States is in Haiti, but continued to argue that what Bush did in Iraq and Afghanistan was more “constitutional.” One of the few other public figures who have made Hewitt’s argument is Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who has said the United States is “occupying Haiti undercover.” U.S. forces, however, are providing security at the request of the Haitian government. (HT: Instaputz)

Update

Mark Krikorian of the right-wing Center for Immigration Studies wrote on the Corner, “My guess is that Haiti’s so screwed up because it wasn’t colonized long enough.”

Security

Chavez Attacks U.S. Efforts In Haiti: ‘They Are Occupying Haiti Undercover’

By Faiz Shakir on Jan 18, 2010 at 10:30 am

obamachavezYesterday, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez issued a condemnatory broadside against the Obama administration’s efforts to help Haiti recover from the recent devastating 7.0-magnitude earthquake:

I read that 3,000 soldiers are arriving, Marines armed as if they were going to war. There is not a shortage of guns there, my God. Doctors, medicine, fuel, field hospitals, that’s what the United States should send,” Chavez said on his weekly television show. “They are occupying Haiti undercover.”

“On top of that, you don’t see them in the streets. Are they picking up bodies? … Are they looking for the injured? You don’t see them. I haven’t seen them. Where are they?”

Chavez’s claims are wholly uninformed. While there are nearly 6,000 U.S. military personnel assisting in Haiti (with another 7,500 on the way), they are enabling the recovery effort to proceed. Thanks to efforts by the U.S. military to secure the airport, the pace of the air traffic into Port-au-Prince carrying food and supplies for victims “has increased from 60 flights to about a 100 a day.” U.S. forces are providing security at the request of the Haitian government.

Moreover, more than 250 personnel from the Department of Health and Human Services “are in the process of deploying to Haiti and over 12,000 personnel could possibly assist in the coming days.” Additionally, “2 planeloads of medicine, medical equipment and supplies from HHS have arrived in Haiti with a third” on the way. The Navy hospital ship USNS Comfort “has left its home port of Baltimore to support relief efforts in Haiti.”

Lastly, there are 26 international search and rescue teams in Haiti, including teams from Fairfax County Virginia, Los Angeles, Virginia Beach, two from Miami, and one from New York. U.S. teams have rescued at least 26 individuals already.

As for the U.S.’s intentions in Haiti, we are not there to occupy but rather “to save lives.” As President Obama said last week, “this is a time when we are reminded of the common humanity that we all share. With just a few hundred miles of ocean between us and a long history that binds us together, Haitians are neighbors of the Americas and here at home.  So we have to be there for them in their hour of need.” Denis McDonough, chief of staff for the National Security Council, added, “The one thing I don’t think any of us will apologize for is the hard work in support of relieving the suffering of the Haitian people.”

Yglesias

Hugo Chavez’s Strange Speech

By Matthew Yglesias on Nov 23, 2009 at 9:14 am

225px-Idi_Amin

I think an underrated success of the Obama administration has been the way he pulled us back from the brink of a pointless Cold War dynamic the Bush administration had landed us in in South America. And he did it pretty easily—basically just resolving to stay out of any wars of words with Hugo Chavez, shake hands, and focus on concrete issues. It turns out that for all the huffing and puffing, there’s really no actual conflict between the United States and Latin America’s leftists.

But this seems to have left Chavez a bit adrift and looking to push the envelope. How else to explain the idea of praising Idi Amin in a speech:

About former Ugandan President Idi Amin, Mr Chavez said: “We thought he was a cannibal… I don’t know, maybe he was a great nationalist, a patriot.”

Idi Amin seized power in 1971. About 300,000 people were killed during his eight-year rule.

That’s really not the kind of statement that bolsters one’s confidence in the man’s commitment to liberalism and democracy. I would link to a Human Rights Watch report on Chavez’s impact on Venezuela’s political institutions but everyone knows that HRW is a non-credible group obsessed with unfair slams on Israel so their criticism of Chavez must somehow be part of their vast conspiracy.

Politics

Venezuelan president floats the possibility of Obama assassination.

By Andrea Nill Sanchez on Jul 15, 2009 at 5:35 pm

hugo-chavezThis past Sunday, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez broadcasted a series of anti-Obama comments over his “Alo Presidente!” show, at one point even toying with the possibility that President Obama might be assassinated. The Hill quotes Chavez:

On the “imperial” U.S. forces that Chavez thinks killed JFK: “I hope they do not kill Obama, because Obama is biting off more than he can chew.”

Chavez also demanded that Obama “stop dithering” on the military takeover of Honduras. Obama, however, has strongly condemned the Honduran coup and “diffused” Chavez’ charges. Earlier this year, Chavez called Obama a “poor ignoramus” who has the “same stench as Bush.” Obama, however, has vowed to turn a new page in hemispheric relations and it seems that, for the most part, Latin American leaders and their constituents believe him.

Yglesias

Obama and Post-Cold War Latin America

By Matthew Yglesias on Apr 21, 2009 at 12:44 pm

img-article-yglesias-chavez-handshake_163014730719

I have a new column up at The Daily Beast about the handshake of doom and the need for a shift to a post-Cold War policy toward Latin America:

Nowadays, the Soviets are long gone. And with them, all rationale for looking at the region through this lens. There’s just no way to imagine a military threat to the United States emerging from Latin America. For all the rhetorical heat generated by Chavez’s clashes with the American right, all he really wants from America is for Citgo to sell us oil and gas. And guess what? All we want from Venezuela is the ability to buy oil and gas. Latin America is close by, and, over a century, American meddling in its affairs has generated a lot of ill will. That ill will generates a certain number of movements powered by America-bashing rhetoric. The absolute worst thing we can do is respond by entering into a downward spiral of recriminations and cold shoulders that only builds more ill will. The best approach is to recognize that our interests in Latin America are limited in scope, so we should just do our best to be polite—cooperate with those governments who want to cooperate with us, and shake hands with the rest while perhaps making some small talk.

Instead, conservatives would have us double-down on decades of failed Cuba policy by extending the same treatment to Chavez and perhaps others such as Bolivia’s Evo Morales, Ecuador’s Rafael Correa, and Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega. Realistically, all such a policy can achieve is antagonizing other Latin American leaders who don’t have the luxury of imperiously “isolating” their neighbors to create a self-fulfilling prophesy of an anti-American bloc. Look around at reviews of Obama’s performance at the summit, and outside the fever swamps of the American right the only criticism you hear is that the administration isn’t going far enough toward improving relations with Cuba. And that’s about right. After all, what was achieved by excluding Cuba from the meeting of hemispheric leaders? Citizens of all the countries of Americas should hope that the Obama-Chavez greeting won’t be the new president’s last controversial handshake.

A related angle on this, as per Daniel Drezner, is that Obama’s approach to foreign policy is about setting priorities and not wasting national energy and credibility on third-tier things like a spat with Venezuela.

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