Posted on 01/28/2005 8:54:31 AM PST by livius
Forges an axis of Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Uruguay
Three fleeting visits in nine months, supplemented by discreet but abundant diplomatic activities, have sufficed to let José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero build a progressivist axis in South America, composed of Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Uruguay. He has received the commitment of their respective presidents, all leftists, to cooperate on the international level, particularly in the United Nations, with the Europeanist, multilateralist axis formed by Paris, Berlin and Madrid.
The Spanish leader began his return trip to Madrid yesterday after having visited four South American cities in four days: Brasilia, Sao Paolo, Buenos Aires and Santiago de Chile. Despite his packed schedule, Zapatero believes, according to official sources, that this visit is the fulfillment of the project that he began in the spring at the EU-Latin American Summit in Guadalajara (Mexico) and pursued in the IberoAmerican meeting in Costa Rica in November.
Aside from having the cooperation of the Mexican president, Vicente Fox, Zapatero has formed an alliance with the Brazilian president, Lula da Silva, the Argentine president, Néstor Kirchner, the Chilean president, Ricardo Lagos, and the president elect of Uruguay, Tabaré Vázquez, with whom he chatted in Chile. All of them, like Zapatero, French president Jacques Chirac and German leader Gerhard Schröder, believe in a new world order based on multilateralism, international legality and the arbitration of the UN. In addition, Zapatero has gotten them to promise to attend the IberoAmerican summit in Salamanca in the fall.
Part of "The Axis of Weasels"
Good! Let em swim to France instead of the U.S.
Ping to various possibly interested folks.
For those who don't know, btw, "progressivist" means left-winger. The more "progressive," the harder left.
Yes they are. Where's the Monroe Doctrine when you really need it?
This is definitely not a good thing. Zapatero's appeasement tactics and chumminess with AQ does not bode well for either SA or US-South American relations.
Zapatero is also a hard-line leftist who has distinguished himself, in less than a year, but setting off a conflict with the Catholic Church, as well as bringing Spain to the point where it is essentially about to hand over the Basque region to ETA.
Breaking News: It's us against the world, with only a few exceptions. (Australia and Japan.) Amazing how Japan - the only nation nuked in war by us - has turned into our best and most trustworthy friend. Bar none. Not only in military and diplomatic circles, but also economically. They have earned the title of "Ally". No other nation deserves that title besides Australia, who has been there at our side through thick and thin, without a whimper or whine.
We might as well come to terms with the fact that every other nation - in one way or another - is our enemy. Britain, Israel, all of them. Just look at their deeds, not their words. Israel is China's #2 arms supplier. Britain is leading the push to lift the EU arms embargo from China, and they lifted the embargo on Cuba. Tony Blair is a trojan horse for the EU inside the US - nothing more than that - and everyone thinks he's such a good friend. Bull. Mexico, Canada? Don't make me laugh. India? Maybe in the future. Taiwan? Nope, they're merely a stage prop for the mainland, in order to get military and industrial technology from us through the back door.
I just hope we've kept enough nukes to obliterate them all when the time comes.
I also hope that we're keeping an eye on Latin America, in particular. There's been a long standing tradition of ignoring it (well, when we weren't, under various liberal presidents, actively favoring the growth of Communism down there). I hope Rice makes this one of her first priorities.
Preoccupied as we are with the Middle East, really major dangers are festering south of the border. Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Venezuela all have leftist governments. Brazil (Lula) and Venezuela (Chavez) are vehemently anti-US. Fox in Mexico is simply an opportunist overwhelmed by a failing economy and crime-ridden society.
I agree with you on Fox. The problem is that the leftists obviously see him as ripe for the picking, which he is, and I think we're going to see him moving much more in this direction. His stupid aggressive statements to the US in recent months are obviously an attempt to prove his bona fides to the more overtly anti-American left-wing governments.
Also, I wonder what the attitude of Carlos Slim is in all of this? He's rumored to be the one who really controls Mexico.
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