Amerika Convenes Anti-Castro Panel

CBS News

One might think that the with the current scrutiny of the Amerikan administration's behaviour at home and abroad they might take time to pause for thought before embarking on any new escapades. Not so it seems - as this link points out, Condi has now taken charge of the group planning regime change in Cuba. Missile Crisis it is not and one has to ask what it will take to keep the US from meddling in other countries' affairs.

The irony is that the preaching of so-called "democracy" is back-firing with a venegence. Bolivia is the latest Latin American example of a people more than willing to use the ballot box to democratically elect a government - only to produce a regime that disagrees with Amerika on just about everything. If democracy were to be forced on Cuba, who is to say the result would be any more to US liking than Castro's government. Changing the power structure will not change the culture.

It is also the obvious lesson of Iraq. It will now be January before all the votes of their recent ballot can be counted, but they too embraced the actual democratic process to a greater degree than expected. Whilst rumours of Amerikan "fixing" of the process in some places abound, early results indicate massive support for religious parties which means the new "democracy" will not only be rife with sectarianism, but also united in distrust of Britain and Amerika. If we do manage to get out, it will be no surprise if local divides being Iran back into the equation and all the meddling will have backfired again.

Democracy by decree is an absurd mismangement of foreign policy. It is not even absolute - as the western world's relationship with and dependency on China exemplifies. We don't actually give a damn about democracy when market forces and the economy are favourable to us. Self interest rules as the impotence of the Hong Kong trade negotiations proved. The only thing that might make us wake up is if Latin America and the Middle East used their "democracies" to deny us access to the Oil and Gas reserves we are so keen to swindle out of them. The urgency of change needed to our own lifestyle would then become starkly transparent and the charade of our own elected governments' ability to cope with future reality exposed.

Later.