November 8, 2006

U.S. meddles in Nicaraguan election, gets burned

Former Sandinista boss Daniel Ortega was elected President of the Central American country, following a campaign in which the American ambassador repeatedly meddled in favor of an opposition candidate.

Interfering in Nicaragua during the Cold War was ugly but necessary during our struggle with the Soviet Union. But it's ridiculous to portray Venezuela as the new Soviet Union justifying American fiddling in countless minor countries. The current leftist surge in Latin America probably won't do Latin American any net good, but it's an indigenous response to very real problems in Latin America, and it needs to work itself out without the U.S. constantly interfering to prop up the wealthy white ruling classes of various little countries.

In reality, we're returning not to the Cold War but to the early 20th Century tradition of the U.S. government throwing its weight around at the behest of various special interests within the U.S. (See Marine Corps Gen. Smedley Butler's bitter "War is just a racket" speech about all countries he occupied to make more profits for specific American companies.) This is just like the sugar growers getting huge financial breaks from the American government -- it doesn't pay for you and me to organize to eliminate these favors because it would cut our sugar bill by a dollar a year or so per person, but it sure pays for the Fanjul family to buy some Congressmen to raise the price for them. Likewise, the impact of Nicaraguan economic policies, good or bad, on the overall American GDP is vanishingly small, but it does make a difference to certain interests within America.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

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