BUSH'S LATIN AMERICA TRIP- AN UNMITIGATED DISASTER

November 8, 2005

Bush's Latin America Trip -

An Unmitigated Disaster

By Wayne Madsen

11-7-5

Bush trip to Latin America an unmitigated disaster. Although the

corpo-media is painting George W. Bush's trip to an Americas Summit

in Mar del Plata, Argentina and his visits to Brazil and Panama as

a " nothing lost, nothing gained " venture, in reality, it was a total

disaster. Bush was clearly afraid to personally confront Latin

America's most popular leader, Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez

Frias. Instead, Bush waited until he arrived in Brazil to accuse

Chavez of not providing for his people. Bush and his support team

carefully choreographed Bush's movements at the summit to prevent any

encounter between him and Chavez. The Venezuelan leader emerged from

the summit as the clear victor, Bush as a dejected loser.

Ironically, while poverty, long-term unemployment, and savings have

plummeted for Americans during Bush's term, Chavez has shared his

nation's oil revenues with its poorest citizens. The only Venezuelans

who have had to make a sacrifice are Venezuela's wealthy elite, the

natural allies of Bush and the neo-cons who tried to overthrow Chavez

in a coup in April 2002. Chavez and a group of other populist

leaders, including the presidents of Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, and

Paraguay, managed to scuttle Bush's Free Trade Area of the Americas.

That plan is now as dead as Bush's social security reform initiative

and his plan for an outbreak of democracies in the Middle East.

Bush's visit generated massive street protests in Argentina, Brazil,

and Panama. Observers believe that Bush's visit to Panama was sending

a message to Latin American leaders who oppose Bush. It was in

December 1989 that Bush's father invaded Panama and overthrew its

leader, one-time Bush family drug and arms smuggler Gen. Manuel

Noriega.

After his disastrous trip to Latin America, Bush arrives back in

Washington just in time to see his party take an anticipated drubbing

in off-year elections on Nov. 8 and the arrival in Washington of

Iraqi National Congress head and Iraqi Oil Minister Ahmad Chalabi,

the source of much of the bogus intelligence that was used to justify

the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

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