Obama to leave Latin America early

Source: Associated Press

Obama to leave Latin America early
By JIM KUHNHENN, Associated Press

Tuesday, March 22, 2011 at 2:12 p.m.

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador — President Barack Obama will end his Latin America tour ahead of schedule, returning to Washington a few hours early Wednesday to deal events in Libya, where U.S. and international forces are engaged in military action.

The White House announced the schedule change from El Salvador, Obama's final stop on his five-day trip. Much of the visit has been overshadowed by developments in Libya, and Obama aides have juggled the president's schedule to make time for briefings and conference calls with his national security team.

Obama met Wednesday with El Salvador's President Mauricio Funes, and both leaders were to take questions from the press.

(Photos from the trip at link.)

Read more: http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2011/mar/22/obama-to-leave-latin-america-early/

lol

The politicians such as President's have a way of positioning and posturing so that it justifies anything controversial.

Is this going to be another war by the USA that has become just another frivolous event that doesn't require the POTUS to do anything special like staying in the USA or debating with Congress?

The problem is that Bush set an agenda of abuse. Our Presidents are now next to dictators with the right to do anything without question. Democrats such as Nancy Pelosi really perpetuated this abuse of rights by not impeaching Bush, and thus any President henceforth will attempt to push his power and envelope. Had Bush been impeached you can bet Obama and every subsequent POTUS would have refrained from taking liberties.

as they do in to appearing to run the country efficiently.

I heard all kinds of stuff is happening.

:hide:

Hardly surprising given the US's record in Latin America .

:hi:

edit: too not to - hand smack.

it's not up to your usual grammatical standards!

;)

Never mind.

:hi:

He's now dividing up his time. A timely visit to Latin America and an emerging economy and coming back to take care of his foreign policy fallout.

Makes sense to me...

I'm not getting the real issue people have here...really...

to be distributed among Central American nations to fight narco-trafficking and spiraling violence. He did not say which countries would get the funds, only that Funes would be in charge of spreading it around. (Be interesting if Nicaragua's Ortega gets his share.)

A visit to a Mayan pyramid outside of San Salvador was canceled.

Once again he repeated at a news conference that "Gadaffi must go."

There were protests in San Salvador, as there were in Rio and Santiago.

What corporations are being handed the 200 millions in grants is the real question.

and now ...



(That is a literal translation of the Spanish-language insult "Obama, andate a la mierda."

There were some pretty crude anti-Obama banners and posters in Rio and Santiago too.

Did you not read the statement that you are commenting on? Sheesh.

in an absurd drug war that has gone on in perpetuity, while needy Americans are increasingly doing without any assistance. You did see "60 Minutes" about the homeless US children?

We're paying millions to fight a problem we spent billions to create.

No wonder we're bankrupt.

/for 200 million a year we could pay for treatment programs for these people and we wouldn't have to lock up millions of Americans who might otherwise be productive taxpaying members of society. Also thousands along the border wouldn't be tortured and murdered every year.

South America not buying the whole liberal, peace prize winning, man of the people persona?

and lets be honest here with facts. American presidents and or other country heads do have protest in each country they visit, especially here in the US. Thats something that you guys, gopers want to take away here in the US.

If it wasn't for the liberal ideals, this country would suck even more. Pres O knows what he is doing. Shit with all the attacks day in and day out, he's handling it with pride and grace. I'm glad I voted for him and trust me, I'm voting straight Dem or Indy, hehehehehehehe

,

and they cleared 30 blocks in Santiago to make sure there would be no disturbances.

Latin America is not every country and Obama's LatAm policy is more hawkish than Bush's was. This is not lost on the residents of the region.

granted, you do seem to have a childlike trust in Obama.
refreshing to see such transparent innocence, in this age of cynicism.
and i agree with your premise, that Obama knows exactly what he's doing.

well he has to earn the Peace Prize somehow.

There is no issue that unites Latin American leaders more quickly and solidly than U.S. aggression. I'm sure that yet another U.S. war in the 'Global South' went down like a lead balloon in the countries that Obama dared to touch down in. The new leftist democracy leaders--Lula da Silva and (I'm sure) his successor Dilma Rousseff), and Hugo Chavez, in particular have a common policy that world peace is essential to Latin America's future and prosperity. The biggest threat to world peace this century is the U.S. Brazil's new president may well have taken the U.S. assault on Libya, while visiting Brazil, as an insult. Brazil abstained from the UN Sec Council resolution on this. Obama cancelled a public address in Rio. I think big demos were being planned. I don't think Rousseff would have been inclined to try to suppress them. And I doubt whether MORE U.S. killing in the world went down well even with the rightwing billionaire president of Chile.

It is quite notable what countries Obama DIDN'T visit--three huge U.S. military investments: Colombia, Honduras, Mexico. Colombia is a human rights disgrace--with $7 BILLION in U.S. military funding being no small part of the reason. Honduras (U.S. engineered coup) is also a human rights disgrace (though not as well known here). Both feature many U.S. military bases and "School of the Americas" trained military. And now Mexico is getting the U.S.-funded murder-and-mayhem treatment. The U.S. is quite literally destroying democracy in these countries, by its promotion of fascist/militarist forces as the necessary condition for U.S. "free trade for the rich."

Funes is in a dicey position. He clearly got threatened--I think quite directly--when the U.S. took down Honduras' president Mel Zelaya for joining ALBA (Venezuela-Cuba organized barter trade group). Funes had El Salvador's application to join ALBA pending. He immediately withdrew it. El Salvador was obviously next. And as his "pat on the head" for obedience, he gets an Obama pop-in visit and some millions of dollars to spend buying gunboat helicopters and fancy crowd control weapons from U.S. war profiteers.

El Salvador has much to fear from Honduras--the historical and current U.S. launching pad for aggression in Central America. Now that Honduras has been secured against democracy, the Pentagon is building new military bases there. Their main target is Nicaragua, as in the 1980s. It's fascinating that armed leftist guerrilla movements, now turned into political parties--the FMLN in El Salvador and the Sandanistas in Nicaragua--have both won the presidential elections and are running the governments. Look at a map, though, and you'll see why Funes feels he has to be careful in his dealings with the U.S. El Salvador is very small, hovering there on the Pacific, with the two potentially contending parties--U.S.-run Honduras vs independent Nicaragua--hovering massively over it. There are also remittances and immigration issues in El Salvador. Funes has to look out for his peoples' interests as best he can.

Some of these leaders must just want to vomit when the U.S. comes calling.

BRAZIL-US
Libya Attack Sours Obama-Rousseff Meeting
By Fabíola Ortiz

RIO DE JANEIRO, Mar 21, 2011 (IPS) - The first black president of the United States visited the first woman president of Brazil: their meeting resulted in modest progress in bilateral relations, but a bitter taste could not be avoided over the announcement, in Brazil, of the U.S.-led air attack on Libya.

On Saturday, Obama announced in Brasilia the launch of air strikes against the Libyan regime, in line with the Mar. 17 United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973, which ordered Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi to call a ceasefire against rebels demanding his resignation, and authorised the use of force to impose a no-fly zone over the country.

Brazil, currently a non-permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, had opposed the military measures and was one of five Council members to abstain from voting.


------ snips ------------

"Obama failed to respect Brazil when he came to our country and declared war on another state from here," historian Socorro Gomes, head of the Brazilian Centre for Solidarity with Peoples and the Struggle for Peace (Cebrapaz), told IPS.

Cebrapaz coordinates the campaign against military bases in the Americas, and was among the few dozen organisations that organised a peaceful demonstration involving about 500 protestors in Rio de Janeiro Sunday.

In Gomes' view, "Obama's policies are basically a continuation of U.S. supremacy and military power. We want people to know that there is no consensus about Obama in Brazil."

http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=54937

-------------------------

Re IPS -- take a look at what it is -- way superior to AP, Reuters, NYT, BBC and all the others. I have been reading it for years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inter_Press_Service

--------------------

Funes -- I can understand his position. He cannot jeopardize the massive remittances the country gets ($3.54 billion in 2010) from Salvadorans in the United States (estimated at 2.5 to 3 million). Those remittances comprise about 17 percent of the country's GNP.

came up here. Many if not most to the San Francisco Bay area. My friend used to tell me stories about former guerillas and former death squad members that lived within blocks of each other in our neighborhood.

now live in the United States. Do not know the number of those who are illegal immigrants, but it could be the majority. The rest (the fortunate ones) apparently live under TPS.



Obama paying homage this evening to "La voz de los sin voz." ("The voice for those who have no voice.)

(For those unfamilar, Monseñor Oscar Arnulfo Romero was shot to death by a right-wing death squad member while Romero celebrated Mass in a small, San Salvador church on March 24, 1980, during the U.S. backed wars in Central America.)

is one of the countries that the Lydian leader want to defect to. I think it took some guts to go there to the Latin countries and here in Los Angeles many of the Latin people who are from there, here at least they were happy to see Pres O go to their country and as they claim even their families were too who still lives there. Geez, the corporate media loves to bring as much negative crap out as possible, don't they. Now when Bushie was in office I did not read, hear nor see from the corporate media with many negative talk, uh.

People who found time to find out the WMDs did not exist in Irag knew it was total BS. Where the F were the papers and corporate media then? I have read over 100,000 died b/c of the BS reason to attack, where the F were the critics then besides some Dems.

A funny thing happened in the Middle East, they want what we have, democracy. Hopefully it will come, and as I believe, Nato will be the lead. Oh my gosh, hmmmmmm, I remember a similiar event happened during the Clinton years, and my understanding it avoided another European war, which, more than likely, the US would be sucked in like I say, WW2 and the Korean War, oh my.

So I guess, let them fight it out, involve all the countries in that area, and maybe after awhile, after a full outright war, then we can step in, sorta like WW2 but this time it could be WW3.

that Gadaffi ever intended to "defect" (your word) to Brazil? Link would be helpful.

Also, fyi IPS is hardly "corporate media;" it deals not in spot or breaking news, but in in-depth analysis and commentaries on the news.

??

s

I don't understand how the Republicans who loved to explain how Bush could rule the world from his ranch, car, and plane can criticize Obama for not staying in D.C. :banghead:

and not enough common sense and demands by constituents for competence and complete honesty. I just re-registered Independent so that no Party is going to take me granted. I try to understand the issues and form an opinion based upon my belief system, but I refuse to give politicians a pass just because they are of a certain Party. We need to demand leadership that benefits the greater good starting with benefiting Americans.

Obama Ending Americas Tour, Cuts Mayan Visit
Obama's Latin America tour slightly trimmed as president attends to Libya
The Associated Press
SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador March 23, 2011 (AP)

President Barack Obama is leaving Central America earlier than scheduled, cutting short a tour dominated by the U.S.-led military action in Libya.

The president eliminated a visit to Mayan ruins from his itinerary Wednesday, permitting him to leave a few hours earlier. Aides have taken pains to portray Obama as fully engaged in the deployment of missiles and warplanes in North Africa even as he devoted his public time to bridge-building with Latin American leaders.

But he couldn't escape the juxtaposition of missions.

The three-country, five-day tour meant to re-establish U.S. leadership in the region. The president traveled to Brazil, Chile and El Salvador, countries that have undergone political transformations over the past decades.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=13199509

Maybe deal some good events!

I bet he heard that more than once and didn't want his bubble to burst here as LA is not so tilted that they would consider him a progressive.