AMY GOODMAN: "OBAMA'S POLICIES: THE REAL SCANDAL IN CARTAGENA"

I am glad to see someone writing about what really happened at the Summit Of The Americas. It was beginning to look like the whole prostitution thing was happening as a smoke screen for what Obama was doing in Cartagena and how totally isolated he is from both reality and every other country. I imagine that the next Summit Of The Americas will have only the U.S. and Canada in attendance. Even Columbia spoke out against Obama on Cuba. Although not against his turning a blind eye to the murder of Trade Union Leaders in Columbia. You can check out Amy Goodman's entire column at Democracy Now's website. I thought the parts on the Columbia Free Trade Agreement and Cuba were particularly important in terms of the upcoming Presidential Election.
 
 "Then there is trade. Obama and Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos also announced that the U.S.-Colombian Free Trade Agreement would take full force May 15. Colombian and U.S. labor leaders decried the move, since Colombia is the worst country on Earth for trade unionists. Labor organizers are regularly murdered in Colombia, with at least 34 killed in the past year and a half. When Obama was first running for president, he promised to oppose the Colombia FTA, “because the violence against unions in Colombia would make a mockery of the very labor protections that we have insisted be included in these kinds of agreements.” That year, 54 Colombian trade unionists were killed. AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said the announcement “is deeply disappointing and troubling.” Republicans, on the other hand, are offering grudging praise to Obama for pushing the FTA."

Then there is trade. Obama and Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos also announced that the U.S.-Colombian Free Trade Agreement would take full force May 15. Colombian and U.S. labor leaders decried the move, since Colombia is the worst country on Earth for trade unionists. Labor organizers are regularly murdered in Colombia, with at least 34 killed in the past year and a half. When Obama was first running for president, he promised to oppose the Colombia FTA, “because the violence against unions in Colombia would make a mockery of the very labor protections that we have insisted be included in these kinds of agreements.” That year, 54 Colombian trade unionists were killed. AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said the announcement “is deeply disappointing and troubling.” Republicans, on the other hand, are offering grudging praise to Obama for pushing the FTA.

On Cuba, Obama took the globally unpopular position of defending the U.S. embargo. Even at home, polls show that a strong majority of the American people and businesses support an end to the embargo. The U.S. also succeeded, once again, in banning Cuba from the summit, prompting Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa to boycott the meeting this year.
Responding to overall U.S. intransigence, other Western Hemisphere countries are organizing themselves. Greg Grandin, professor of Latin American history at New York University, told me: “Latin Americans themselves are creating these bodies that are excluding the United States, that are deepening integration, political and economic integration. This seems to be a venue in which they come together in order to criticize Washington, quite effectively.”

Grandin compared Obama’s Latin America policies to those of his predecessors: “The two main pillars of U.S. foreign policy—increasing neoliberalism and increasing militarism around drugs—continue. They feed off of each other and have created a crisis in that corridor, running from Colombia through Central America to Mexico. That’s been a complete disaster, and there’s no change.”