Source: http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=296263144364791
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Wednesday, May 21, 2008 4:20 PM PT
Decision '08: John McCain's big speech on Latin America Tuesday projects a leadership that will go down well in our southern hemisphere. Instead of focusing on dictators, he aims to shun tyrants and champion people.
Read More: Election 2008 | Latin America & Caribbean
Zeroing in first on democracy's biggest black hole, McCain in Miami warned the Castro oligarchy that "Cuba is destined to be free" and he didn't intend to stand passively nor buttress the Castro regime on its last legs by inviting them to tea in the White House. Winds of change are coming.
"I will provide more material assistance and moral support to the courageous human rights activists who bravely defy the regime every day, and increase Radio and TV Marti and other means to communicate directly with the Cuban people," McCain said.
It was a startling contrast to Democratic contender Barack Obama, whose plan to free Cuba seems to revolve around getting the Castro brothers' permission. Obama has offered unconditional talks with the regime, as if murders of Americans, state sponsorship of terror and raising the dictatorship's prestige didn't matter.
"We have refused to talk to people we don't like," Obama said, as if that, and not the dictatorship, was the problem. Just as "Jimmy Carter went over and kissed Brezhnev," McCain responded.
By contrast, McCain not only gave hope to Cuba's oppressed people, but alluded to the common idea that once fueled independence across the Americas — democracy, the unique inheritance of every country in our regional neighborhood.
The McCain approach is more sophisticated, given the quickness with which decayed tyrannies like Cuba's can collapse. It also is in tune with what has happened in the past 30 years in the region, including the switch to democracy and the rise of the private sector.
Instead of focusing on Cuba's dictators, with the vague hope of "nudging" the Castros toward democracy, as Obama supporter Bill Richardson explained it, McCain emphasized that he intended to "give hope to the Cuban people, not the Castro regime."
That meshes well with the rise of the Internet, the cell phone and mass travel, all of which have been transferring new democratic ideas and rising expectations. Those changes are vividly impressed on Latin America's youthful population. Obama's focus on dictatorships and talk, instead of real people, doesn't sound like "change."
Instead of talk, McCain's policy would project both hard and soft power to boost democracy and build the private sector. He tells the Castros to empty the political prisons, free the media and legalize labor unions and political parties. He also wants free elections, which Cuba hasn't seen since 1958. And that was just his carrot.
For his stick, McCain admonished the Castroites that human-rights tribunals, drug-trafficking prosecutions, yanked visas and other consequences await them — so they should think twice about their repression once the tide of history moves against them.
McCain's focus also was echoed in his impassioned plea for Colombian free trade, a cost-free treaty that benefits 44 million Colombians by making trade relations permanent and ends $1 billion in tariffs on American businesses.
To please his Big Labor backers, Obama would rather shut out those 44 million Colombians than help them. He hasn't bothered to visit Colombia's democratically elected leader, President Alvaro Uribe, even as he promises to hobnob with the Castros.
In short, McCain is serious about Latin America, Obama isn't.
McCain made an impassioned plea for treating Latin America as "partners" rather than "little brothers." Obama has yet to put anything major on his Web site about the region, let alone about our ally Colombia, which he only has managed to insult.
It shows. The only open endorsement that Obama has gotten from Latin America has been from Nicaraguan dictator Daniel Ortega, who called him "revolutionary." The only other endorsement, albeit oblique, came from Castro himself.
By contrast, McCain claims a growing number of Latino voters and real endorsements from Latin Americans who know a friend when they see one. Paying attention to the region's people, not rewarding its dictators, shows that he gets what's going on there.
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