Brian Latell's Castro's Secrets

I read Brian Latell's Castro's Secrets: The CIA and Cuba's Intelligence Machine (2012). Based on interviews with high-level defectors, especially "Tiny" Aspillaga, it tells the story of the cloak-and-dagger struggle between the United States and Cuba in the 1960s.

The book's main attention has come from the claim that Fidel Castro had prior knowledge of the Kennedy assassination. I actually found this the least interesting part of the book, as there is no firsthand knowledge so dots are connected with speculation. And, admittedly, because I am uninterested in Kennedy conspiracy theories.

Of much greater interest is the clear professional--though obviously not ideological--admiration Latell (himself former CIA) has for how quickly Fidel and Raúl put together one of the most effective intelligence services in the entire world. It's quite remarkable. Time and time again, and even now, the U.S. government has underestimated Cuba and has guessed wrong. In the 1960s, moreover, Cuba's DGI routinely fooled the U.S. with double agents.

Today, what the U.S. knows about the inner workings of the Cuban government largely comes not from intelligence operations but from the Cubans who decide--for whatever reason--to leave on their own. Latell quotes multiple CIA sources as admitting they had lost the espionage war.

As with any account of U.S.-Cuban relations, there are a number of references to crazy ideas. My favorite quote from the book is about Desmond FitzGerald:

His most notorious idea, quickly discarded, seemed to his staff like a three-martini idea, except that it occurred to him one morning while shaving. He wanted the Agency's "dirty tricks department"--the technical services staff--to devise a waterproof explosive seashell (p. 159).

Maybe U.S. intelligence just needs some more martinis. In all, it's a fun glimpse at a particularly twisted relationship.

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Paraguay and legality

Events in Paraguay are moving fast--see boz for updates. The Senate is expected to vote on removal by 4:30 pm EST today. Fernando Lugo has been fighting Congress and facing coup rumors since he took office. The essential point here, as in other cases (I couldn't help but think of Bill Clinton) the complaints are political rather than criminal. The opposition just doesn't like what he's doing.

Yet it corresponds to the constitution, which is vague on this point. From Article 225:

El Presidente de la República, el Vicepresidente, los ministros del Poder Ejecutivo, los ministros de la Corte Suprema de Justicia, el Fiscal General del Estado, el Defensor del Pueblo, el Contralor General de la República, el Subcontralor y los integrantes del Tribunal Superior de Justicia Electoral, sólo podrán ser sometidos a juicio político por mal desempeño de sus funciones, por delitos cometidos en el ejercicio de sus cargos o por delitos comunes. 

La acusación será formulada por la Cámara de Diputados, por mayoría de dos tercios. Corresponderá a la Cámara de Senadores, por mayoría absoluta de dos tercios, juzgar en juicio público a los acusados por la Cámara de Diputados y, en caso, declararlos culpables, al sólo efecto de separarlos de sus cargos, En los casos de supuesta comisión de delitos, se pasarán los antecedentes a la justicia ordinaria.

What is "mal desempeño de sus funciones"? A rough translation is "poor performance of his duties." It's up to the legislature to decide what that means. It can, in fact, mean anything they want it to as long as they have the votes. I am not saying this is good; I am saying it is constitutional.

This made me think about an odd point, namely that the political left and right in Latin America are constantly accusing each other of conducting nefarious plots legally. As far as I've seen, Lugo has argued that the actions are illegitimate, but not that they are illegal.

We constantly hear that actions taken by Rafael Correa and Hugo Chávez represent the development of a "constitutional dictatorship" because they fall within the constitution but are undemocratic. Yet the right now says Paraguay is totally different because the right is acting within the constitution. Both the left and the right often seem to acknowledge the legal nature of their opponent's actions.

There are three conclusions we can take, some of which are contradictory. I am not yet convinced of any of them, but offer them as thoughts in process.

First, too many extreme political maneuvers are legal in Latin America. Constitutions are jam packed--Paraguay's has 291 articles. There is extraordinarily broad scope that allows for too much. I should mention, though, that the Paraguayan constitution has tremendous detail, yet the impeachment article is left vague.

Second, endemic corruption can adapt to any legal form. Who cares what the constitution says if the driving force of regime change is the entrenchment of corrupt elites? Lugo had powerful enemies, so they would figure out some way of ousting him.

Third, it's positive that all sides at least on the surface adhere to the laws. Manipulating constitutions is not new, but should we applaud the fact that the military has publicly said it would remain neutral? This is preferable to the clearly unconstitutional actions in Honduras three years ago.

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Academia-policy divide

Josh Busby has a great post at Duck of Minerva about the academia/policy divide. This is well-trodden ground but well-worth periodic revisiting. He had just attended a workshop intended to bridge the gap between the two.

I'm a strong proponent of academic engagement with the policy world and the media. Blogging and tweeting is part of that engagement. I understand all the concerns he also lays out, such as time drain and oversimplification. Untenured faculty need to be particularly mindful of these. Nonetheless, I've found that writing blog posts, crafting op-eds, giving periodic talks in DC and/or talking to reporters is useful because it forces me to be more concise and clear. Beyond that is the satisfaction that to some small degree my own work becomes known and thought about outside academia.

Being too declarative is problematic, but on the other hand you don't want to say "on the other hand" so many times that you end up with ten hands. If you wrote an article or a book on a topic of great interest to you, then boil it down into an op-ed and see what happens. Yes, it will take you some time, but even if it's never published--or just published as a blog post, perhaps--it will require you to think about your core argument, stripped away of the fluff. And that's good for your research.

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Farms and immigration in NC

I hadn't noted the recent op-ed in the Charlotte Observer about immigration by the president of the NC Farm Bureau.

North Carolina has enacted no laws such as those in Arizona and Alabama, but the rhetoric surrounding those laws has impacted our farming and business communities. Such laws place pressure on N.C. legislators to take similar action. Right now, the Supreme Court is reviewing the Arizona immigration law. Even if the court decides that states can enact such laws, the fact remains that the laws negatively impact state and regional economies. Only a federal fix can solve the problem. 

We need look no farther than Georgia and South Carolina to see the effects of such laws. In both states, farmers have cut back on production for fear they will not have enough workers to harvest their crops. The effects of these laws are already spilling over into North Carolina.

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/06/13/3312010/overreaching-state-immigration.html#storylink=cpy

The state legislature decided--quite prudently given the legal costs involved--not long ago to wait on the upcoming Supreme Court ruling before doing anything. If the court upholds key parts of the Arizona law, then of course there will be pressure to do the same in North Carolina--odds are very good the Republican-dominated legislature will do so. Just because you can, though, does not necessarily mean you should.

At this point, the political backlash is not so much from the Latino electorate, because Latinos constitute only just over 1% of registered voters. Instead, growing concern is coming from farmers and religious leaders. Farms and religion both matter in North Carolina, so a coordinated political strategy targeting individual elected officials is the main way to block such a bill.

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More on Romney and immigration

I'm repeating myself here, but it's irresistible. Here is Mitt Romney in June 2012:

“What I can tell you is that those people who come here by virtue of their parents bringing them here, who came in illegally, that’s something I don’t want to football with as a political matter,” Romney told Fox.

Let's set aside the matter that "football" is not a verb. Now here is Mitt Romney six months ago:

"For those who come here illegally, the idea of giving them in-state tuition credits or other special benefits I find to be contrary to the idea of a nation of law," he said.

The turnaround is stark. Even more notable is that the Republican leadership is trying not to talk about it at all. In other words, President Obama blindsided them completely. A Bloomberg poll shows 64% of likely voters approve of his decision.

I still don't think this will be a major issue for voters, but the post-primary Romney is a very different guy. Unfortunately for him, his effort at moderation is so vague that he is getting no support from anyone.

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Aponte vote

Take a look at the vote on Mari Carmen Aponte's nomination to be U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador, and you will see the disappearing Republican moderates. They've been voted out (Lugar), scared off (Snowe), and/or backed off past moderation (McCain and Graham). There aren't many more.

It's notable, though, that Marco Rubio voted in favor as he could not afford to alienate his Puerto Rican constituency.

On the vote, see also Mike Allison and Tim's El Salvador Blog.

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Copper Law bill

Andrés Velasco, the hugely popular former Finance Minister of Chile, has an op-ed in La Tercera about the legislation to replace the Copper Law. In short, he hates the proposal. The basic problem, he argues, is that the new proposal still privileges the military in an undemocratic manner. Further, it adversely affects social spending:

Para ver lo insensato de esta ley, imaginemos que el país debe reasignar recursos para enfrentar una contingencia mayor, como un terremoto. De acuerdo a la “ley Allamand”, para financiar la reconstrucción no se podrá tocar el presupuesto de armamentos y la presión del ajuste caerá sobre el gasto social. Esto es exactamente lo que hizo Pinochet el año 82 para financiar el rescate de la banca. El gasto en defensa no se tocó y al final pagaron el pato la educación, la salud y las pensiones.  ¿Es eso lo que queremos para Chile en el futuro?

The underlying problem is the rigidity. As is the case now, elected officials would not have the authority to make major changes to defense spending. Further, the controversial budget floor is based on a level of spending that no democratic government has ever been able to change and, as he points out, also based on a period of time that corresponded with high copper prices.

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Axe and Bors' War is Boring

David Axe and Matt Bors' War Is Boring is a curious graphic novel ostensibly about the coverage of global conflicts but mostly about self-loathing. Axe has waded into most of the violent conflicts around the world, but starts to wonder why he's bothering. He starts to realize that it's all about him as opposed to any desire to alleviate suffering or to bring attention to little-known tragedies, though this doesn't really change anything he does.

He admits in the Afterword that "The more different people I meet, the less I believe in their humanity." He sees people in their very worst moments, indeed wants to, and feels misanthropic as a result. If anything, it will make you feel less sympathetic toward war correspondents (a title that he also insists he does not like).

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Romney's response

Remember way back when Mitt Romney was against the DREAM Act? Well, actually it was as recently as January when he said he would veto it. How times have changed since he got the nomination. His response to President Obama's DREAM-like Act actually suggests he wished Obama had gone even further.

"It's an important matter to be considered and should be solved on a long-term basis so they know what their future would be in this country," Romney said. Obama's executive order to allow some illegal immigrants to obtain work permits and stay in the U.S. legally was problematic, he said, because "an executive order, of course, is a short-term matter. It can be reversed by subsequent presidents."

This is clearly the tack he's chosen, which is to criticize Obama's failure to pass anything without acknowledging that he himself is on record as opposing passing anything.

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Sorta dreamy

The Obama administration announced it would implement a modified DREAM Act. Here's the relevant info:

According to DHS, eligible immigrants will now receive “deferred action,” which essentially means a two-year reprieve from deportation along with a permit that allows them to work. The deferral will be available to any immigrants who came to the United States under the age of 16, have lived in the country continuously for at least five years, and are currently in the country. They must be currently in school, have graduated from high school, have obtained a general education development certificate, or are honorably discharged veterans of the military or the Coast Guard.

It's a step in the right direction, but when you boil it down, it simply means you'll be deported later rather than sooner. I suppose a glass-half-full view would that there would be enough to support to pass the DREAM Act within two years, thus making deportation moot.

I don't see this as enough to boost Latino political participation in the November election on its own. However, if Mitt Romney and other Republican leaders make a point of railing against it, it could well help Obama at the margins. The problem for Obama is that he's made so many promises on immigration and immigrants that have not panned out.

Update: Roque Planas told me via Twitter that DHS mentions it is "subject to renewal." No more details than that.

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Evangelicals and immigration

An Evangelical group is starting to organize in favor of immigration reform. I remain skeptical about how much this will matter. The problem?

When asked how evangelical voters might square immigration with other hot-button issues such as abortion and gay marriage, Land, who heads the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, said it’s a matter of individual conscience. 

“That’s a decision that each individual person has to make,” he said. “We tell people they need to vote their values, their beliefs, and their convictions. When they’re faced with a choice where they agree on some and not on others, they need to prayerfully decide for themselves what their hierarchy of issues are.”

I don't see immigration reaching that kind of level. In fact, I blogged about this exact issue two years ago, and nothing has changed since. Back then I just said to stay tuned, but there still isn't much to tune into.

There is a very real undercurrent of religious support for immigration reform, but up to this point it has fallen far short of becoming politically influential. Until it can tap directly into Congress, it will mostly be the topic of periodic newspaper stories.

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FRUS as e-book

Very cool. The Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) series of volumes is now becoming available in e-book format. It worked perfectly and instantly on my iPad. For Latin America, there are two volumes currently available: Guatemala 1952-1954 and the Cuban Missile Crisis. They note an as yet unresolved problem with page numbers, which is obviously a problem for citations, but the document numbers remain the same.

When I first started graduate school I had to go to the library and look at/photocopy the volumes there, because you couldn't even check them out. Moving to online and then e-book is a huge step forward for public accessibility.

h/t Chad Black on Twitter (@parezcoydigo)

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Copper Law proposal

Under the direction of Defense Minister (and longtime part of RN's leadership) Andrés Allamand, the Piñera administration is proposing a bill to end the Copper Law in Chile, which gives 10% of sales to the armed forces. The Concertación repeatedly tried and failed to do so from 1990 to 2010.

Now the legislative battle centers on creating a budget floor for the military, which some within the Concertación oppose. The floor is what helps make it palatable to the pro-military right. I find it hard to believe that this would be a deal breaker for the center-left, though, because the Copper Law has a very high symbolic value. Nonetheless, I have no idea what the vote count looks like. Piñera sent a reform bill to the legislature just over a year ago that died out.

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Twitter insults

Too funny. José Cárdenas just got a Twitter feed (@JoseCardenasUSA), and his first tweet was to think I was agreeing with him on a rant against Ecuador at Shadow Government--he refused to respond to a rebuttal from the lawyer representing Ecuadorians:

@GregWeeksUNCC Thanks for your concern but responding to paid flacks is a waste of my time.

Then he didn't like my response:

Facts or flacks are a waste? RT@JoseCardenasUSA @GregWeeksUNCCThanks for your concern but responding to paid flacks is a waste of my time

So his second tweet was to insult me without knowing anything about me:

@GregWeeksUNCC I also don't have time to play word games with assistant professors with too much time on their hands

Bienvenidos a Twitter!

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Alvaro Uribe on Twitter

Former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe may well qualify for whiniest ex-president. He is also very active on Twitter (@AlvaroUribeVel), which means periodically he shoots off scathing diatribes against Hugo Chávez and Juan Manuel Santos. Is there a full moon today? Because he is really mad at Santos:

Gobierno Santos pone a Colombia en incertidumbre y como país impredecible al abrir puertas de impunidad y elegibilidad de terroristas

Irate about Chávez:

Hay que evitar caer en el engaño de democracia que aparenta la Dictadura Chavista en elecciones, sabemos que pasa despues

Oh, and he hates Eva Golinger:

EvaGolinguer sirve a la dictadura Chavista como verdugo contra el periodismo libre

It's an interesting use of social media, and I think unique for former presidents, both in terms of using Twitter and criticizing a successor. Also of note is that people shout back at him on Twitter (just click on the links above to see responses). It does not constitute a dialogue, but Twitter does become a type of forum for people to air their views publicly and directly to the ex-president.

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Immigration blame game

A lengthy article in the Washington Post looks at Obama and immigration. The administration makes an argument I've not heard before, and one that is unconvincing:

Administration officials have said the rise in removals resulted from sharp spending increases on enforcement passed by Congress before Obama took office, while the advocates argued that the administration could take many steps on its own to limit the threat to otherwise law-abiding people.

So the buck is passed entirely. Elsewhere, Obama tells reform advocates to blame Congress for not passing legislation, but also blames Congress for legislating enforcement spending. What this misses is that Obama does have authority over how the money is spent, and despite his calls for a focus on criminals that hasn't been happening in practice.

He and his aides signaled privately to lawmakers in the months that followed that some middle-ground resolution was in the works. Eventually, the administration would enact a policy of “prosecutorial discretion,” calling on immigration officials to focus on deporting serious criminals, repeat border-crossers and others considered security threats rather than students, veterans or seniors. 

The policy, which would later include a case-by-case review of deportation cases, seemed like a potential victory for immigrant advocates. But so far, they have found the results to be disappointing. Only a fraction of cases would be closed under the review, and advocates remain wary.

The "Blame Congress" game can only take you so far, especially when your administration is deporting more people than in the entire history of the United States.

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Peter Bryant's Red Alert

I read Peter Bryant's 1958 novel Red Alert, which was the inspiration for the movie Dr. Strangelove. The two diverge in very significant ways that ultimately highlight Stanley Kubrick's creative talents, not to mention Peter Sellers'. The novel is earnest and dead serious. A rogue general (the novel's Quentin becomes Jack D. Ripper in the movie) decides the only way to save the world is to destroy the Soviet Union's nuclear arsenal, even though that means killing millions of people. He uses a top secret plan that tells bombers to attack, then puts his base on lockdown so that no one can recall them.

What Kubrick saw was that the story was so serious, crazy, and yet ultimately rather believable that the narrative deserved to have a mocking tone. Dr. Strangelove is not in the novel, nor are there references to "precious bodily fluids," or George  C. Scott's goofy gum chomping general, or the Colonel Bat Guano's constant references to commie "preverts." The novel, in fact, does not have the Doomsday Machine either. Instead, there is the very human drama of a U.S. president agreeing to allow the destruction of a U.S. city (Atlantic City) if a Soviet city were hit first. It shows some optimism about how human beings can work together, whereas the Doomsday Machine is out of any human hands.

The most important difference between the two is that the serious work had a happy ending and the farcical work ended with the destruction of the planet.

Anyway, if you haven't seen Dr. Strangelove, or haven't seen it recently, check it out again, as I did. There's always something new to find in it.

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IACHR flap

Manuela Picq has a great take on the IACHR human rights flap in Al Jazeera. We should focus less on ideology and more on speaking to power.

Cases involving extractive industries also blur the lines between political parties on the right and the left. The form may vary, but the substantive content of these cases does not. Following in the footsteps of authoritarian governments before them, progressive governments on the left from Bolivia to Brazil are being taken to court for human rights abuses. Beyond the inevitable disillusionment with the arrival of the left to power, the current situation shows that human rights violations transgress familiar political and ideological camps.   

The point is not to tar political parties on the right and the left with the same brush, however, but rather to point out that it may matter less whether the right or the left is in power as much as to call attention to the fact that that it is in the nature of power itself to resist and deny mechanisms of accountability. And that is precisely why the IACHR will always be necessary.

Governments don't like human rights criticism. Period.

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More on Cuba policy

Roberta Jackson speaking to a Senate subcommittee:

In Cuba, the Obama administration’s priority is to empower Cubans to freely determine their own future. The most effective tool we have for doing that is building connections between the Cuban and American people, in order to give Cubans the support and tools they need to move forward independent of their government. U.S. citizens, engaging in well-defined, purposeful travel, are the best ambassadors for our democratic ideals.

Where to start with this? The United States has made a massive effort to make sure there are as few connections as possible with Cuba. We aren't giving Cubans anything but a policy that helps keep the dictatorship in place.

Further, the "well-defined, purposeful travel" is an insult. In a free country you should not have the government defining your travel for you. I should be able to do as much undefined, purposeless travel that I want. According to the government's logic, Jack Kerouac should have written On the Well-Defined, Purposeful Road.

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Latinos and the presidential race

News 14 Carolina came over to my office yesterday to interview me about Latinos and the presidential race. The bottom line: the Latino electorate votes in smaller numbers but could play a role in the outcomes of some states. And naming Marco Rubio or some other Hispanic politician as VP could help Republicans, though not very dramatically.

And I appreciate the video plug of my book.

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AMLO and Mockus

The Mexican presidential race seems to be getting tighter. See boz, Aguachile, and Americas Quarterly. The big story is AMLO's resurgence. What I keep wondering, though, is whether this is like the 2010 Colombian election. Antanas Mockus received a lot of attention as election day neared, with polls showing him close to Juan Manuel Santos, then he got hammered, with only just 21.5% of the votes.

Or maybe AMLO could also be compared with Marco Enríquez-Ominami, the Chilean presidential candidate who had no chance but also generated a lot of press. He's in Mexico advising AMLO. One major difference is that AMLO is not even pretending to run outside the established party system.

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Supreme Court and immigration

An interesting look at how the Supreme Court decision on SB 1070 (which is supposed to come later this month) will affect the presidential race. I disagree with Steven Camarota on most everything, but on this I think he's on target.

"Neither of them is sure whether the position that they've staked out on immigration hurts or helps them on balance," said Steven Camarota, director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington, D.C., think tank that favors vigorous enforcement of immigration laws. "Obama doesn't want to alienate all kinds of voters in battleground states that he might (if he emphasizes immigration reform on the campaign stump). And it's the same with Romney: He's just not sure."

Indeed, the key is "battleground." The election is not won nationally, so Obama and Romney will tailor messages to particular states. Take North Carolina, for example, which went to Obama in 2008 but is an uphill climb this year. Since the Latino electorate is so small, Obama will not likely trumpet immigration since it could in fact rub other voters the wrong way.

Another point is that the election is five months away, so will outrage last that long? The answer could potentially be "yes" if the decisions gives the green light to states and leads to a rash of new restrictive laws.

As always, though, we need to be very careful not to overstate. Overall, this election may hinge more on Greece than anything else.

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Syria and ALBA

There are very good reasons to be concerned about military intervention in Syria, for reasons ranging from sovereignty to pure national interest. However, this is an embarrassment. Whatever you think the optimal U.S. or global response should be, please do not copy ALBA and pretend the Syrian government is doing anything in good faith.

"We value the Syrian government's steps in attending to the legitimate demands of those who have protested peacefully ... and the program of reforms carried out, as well as its willingness to implement the peace plan of (mediator) Kofi Annan," the ALBA statement added in praise that contrasted with a chorus of disgust against Assad elsewhere round the world.

Oh please.

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Border Tunnel Preventish Act of 2012

Well, they passed it. The Border Tunnel Prevention Act of 2012. I mentioned it back in March. This bill is so short and so useless that courtesy of Just the Facts I will paste here in its entirety for your perusement, if that is a word. It might not be.

H.R.4119 -- Border Tunnel Prevention Act of 2012 (Enrolled Bill [Final as Passed Both House and Senate] - ENR)--H.R.4119--
H.R.4119
One Hundred Twelfth Congressof theUnited States of AmericaAT THE SECOND SESSIONBegun and held at the City of Washington on Tuesday,
the third day of January, two thousand and twelve
An Act
To reduce the trafficking of drugs and to prevent human smuggling across the Southwest Border by deterring the construction and use of border tunnels.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the `Border Tunnel Prevention Act of 2012'.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

Congress finds the following:

(1) Trafficking and smuggling organizations are intensifying their efforts to enter the United States through tunnels and other subterranean passages between Mexico and the United States.

(2) Border tunnels are most often used to transport narcotics from Mexico to the United States, but can also be used to transport people and other contraband.

(3) From Fiscal Year 1990 to Fiscal Year 2011, law enforcement authorities discovered 149 cross-border tunnels along the border between Mexico and the United States, 139 of which have been discovered since Fiscal Year 2001. There has been a dramatic increase in the number of cross-border tunnels discovered in Arizona and California since Fiscal Year 2006, with 40 tunnels discovered in California and 74 tunnels discovered in Arizona.

(4) Section 551 of the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2007 (Public Law 109-295) added a new section to title 18, United States Code (18 U.S.C. 555), which--

(A) criminalizes the construction or financing of an unauthorized tunnel or subterranean passage across an international border into the United States; and

(B) prohibits any person from recklessly permitting others to construct or use an unauthorized tunnel or subterranean passage on the person's land.

(5) Any person convicted of using a tunnel or subterranean passage to smuggle aliens, weapons, drugs, terrorists, or illegal goods is subject to an enhanced sentence for the underlying offense. Additional sentence enhancements would further deter tunnel activities and increase prosecutorial options.

SEC. 3. ATTEMPT OR CONSPIRACY TO USE, CONSTRUCT, OR FINANCE A BORDER TUNNEL.

Section 555 of title 18, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following:

`(d) Any person who attempts or conspires to commit any offense under subsection (a) or subsection (c) of this section shall be subject to the same penalties as those prescribed for the offense, the commission of which was the object of the attempt or conspiracy.'.

SEC. 4. AUTHORIZATION FOR INTERCEPTION OF WIRE, ORAL, OR ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS.

Section 2516(1)(c) of title 18, United States Code, is amended by inserting `, section 555 (relating to construction or use of international border tunnels)' before the semicolon at the end.

SEC. 5. FORFEITURE.

Section 982(a)(2)(B) of title 18, United States Code, is amended by inserting `555,' after `545,'.

SEC. 6. MONEY LAUNDERING DESIGNATION.

Section 1956(c)(7)(D) of title 18, United States Code, is amended by inserting `section 555 (relating to border tunnels),' after `section 554 (relating to smuggling goods from the United States),'.

SEC. 7. SENSE OF CONGRESS.

It is the sense of Congress that--

(1) success in combating the construction and use of cross-border tunnels requires cooperation between Federal, State, local, and tribal officials and assistance from private land owners and tenants across the border between Mexico and the United States;

(2) the Department of Homeland Security is currently engaging in outreach efforts in California to certain landowners and tenants along the border to educate them about cross-border tunnels and seek their assistance in combating their construction; and

(3) the Department should continue its outreach efforts to both private and governmental landowners and tenants in areas along the border between Mexico and the United States with a high rate of cross-border tunnels.

SEC. 8. REPORT.

(a) In General- The Secretary of Homeland Security shall submit an annual report to the congressional committees set forth in subsection (b) that includes a description of--

(1) the cross-border tunnels along the border between Mexico and the United States discovered during the preceding fiscal year; and

(2) the needs of the Department of Homeland Security to effectively prevent, investigate and prosecute border tunnel construction along the border between Mexico and the United States.

(b) Congressional Committees- The congressional committees set forth in this subsection are--

(1) the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs of the Senate;

(2) the Committee on the Judiciary of the Senate;

(3) the Committee on Appropriations of the Senate;

(4) the Committee on Homeland Security of the House of Representatives;

(5) the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives; and

(6) the Committee on Appropriations of the House of Representatives.

Speaker of the House of Representatives.
Vice President of the United States and
President of the Senate. 

So, tunnel burrowers, do you feel deterred? It will serve as a preventish, or if you like, a deterrentish, measure. The federal government is going to do a bit more, tacking onto your sentence, at least in the unlikely even you're caught. And that whole thing about how our current immigration system attracts illegal migrants and, by extension, your illegal and violent presence? No worries, because that isn't going away. You keep making a lot of money and just have to pay your lawyer a bit more if you're caught making the tunnels the U.S. often doesn't find until they're empty.

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Debating legalization

The New York Times has a "room for debate" section on drug legalization in Latin America. Unfortunately, it's not very useful, since it consists of short sound bites for an enormously complex issue. Case in point the argument that we should not legalize drugs because that would put a lot of criminals out of work. The unhappy unemployed criminals will therefore commit more crimes than before, and we'll be worse off. Therefore, apparently, we should allow them to remain in their current place of employment.

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Press abuses in Latin America

G. Philip Hughes, who was an Ambassador to Caribbean countries during the administration of George H.W. Bush, has an op-ed in U.S. News & World Report criticizing Barack Obama for failing to condemn press abuses in Latin America. Like many such op-eds, he notes only Venezuela, Ecuador, and Argentina (Cuba wasn't mentioned, though lack of any press freedom there is obvious).

Yet according to Reporters Without Borders, the Latin American countries with the worst abuses against the press are Mexico, Colombia, and Honduras. But since all of them are U.S. allies, he conveniently decides not to mention them. Or, in the case of Mexico, he claims that abuses are now gone because it is democratic.

In short, I don't disagree with the basic premise, namely that the Obama administration should be more vocal about attack on the press. But any such statements would have to start with government friendly to the United States.

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Chilean civil-military relations

One thing that became quite clear after hearing a number of paper presentations at LASA this year is that scholars of civil-military relations still don't agree on much. How do we know "civilian control" when we see it? How do we know if civilian authority is "effective"? Indeed, what should militaries be doing in a democratic context? What incentives exist for civilians to pursue democratic civil-military reform?

This was driven home to me when I gave my own presentation on civil-military relations during Chile's Concertación era (1990-2010). I discussed how economic reform--particularly the Copper Law--has been very elusive while some political reforms have been enacted. I added that the lack of economic reform did not conform to many rational choice analyses suggesting that politicians had an incentive to go after resources as a way to boost their own re-election chances.

From the audience came a very reasonable question--why? If Chile is so democratic, the armed forces are under control, and politicians naturally want access to resources, then why are these reforms not happening? Similarly, as I mentioned last week, the Brazilian government went so far as to announce its refusal to discuss the country's amnesty.

I didn't have a good answer. This is an empirical question worth chewing on. In no particular order, let me map out some possibilities, which can overlap.

1. The military is making some type of threat behind the scenes
2. The right (however defined) is blocking the reform efforts
3. There is insufficient political interest/lack of incentive across the ideological spectrum
4. The president believes the effort would distract too much and so won't pursue reform
5. Reform is not broadly seen as necessary in the first place

On the surface, none of these appear to fit Chile all that well. But something is going on under the surface.

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Opposite day for Cuba

This is the ultimate in logic for those who still believe in the Cuba embargo: "pro freedom" now means "stifle freedoms." So if you love freedom, apparently the best thing to do is to deny freedom of speech. Or if you don't like what is happening in a country, then copy that country!

This reminds me of when my kids proclaim that it is "opposite day," meaning that whatever they say should be taken as the opposite. For Cuba policy, this is how we should understand proclamations that the embargo will help the Cuban people.

My previous rant on this is here.

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Osama Wazan's The Last Moderate Muslim

Not long ago I met Osama Wazan, author of the novel The Last Moderate Muslim. He said he cried as he wrote parts of it, which I can imagine. It is a coming-of-age story during the Lebanese civil war. The main character, a boy named Ziad, sees terrible atrocities committed by both Christians and Muslims and tries to come to grips with his Muslim faith, his family, and his country. What a great book.

As the title suggests, ultimately it is a call for moderation, but Ziad has experienced his own feelings of intense religious fervor and hatred toward non-Muslims so that message does not come off as naive. Rather, it is a clear-eyed view of someone who looks pragmatically at what extremism on all sides actually achieves. Lebanon was ripped up, its population alternatively fled and killed each other, corruption flourished and the normal opportunities afforded young people were hard to find or non-existent (Ziad, for example, goes to college late because of the war, then finds the university periodically closed because of violence).

Unfortunately, it will likely also leave you feeling pessimistic about the outcomes of current Middle Eastern civil wars (or, indeed, almost any civil war). In the novel, Ziad is one of the few people who can overcome the true horror of war. It would be no easy thing.

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LASA 2012 paper

Later this afternoon I will be presenting my LASA paper on the military and the Concertación in Chile. It is really a basic overview that will become part of an edited volume examining Chilean politics during those years. You can see the paper here. Certainly a lot of progress has been made, but it is quite remarkable how much remains untouched--the amnesty, the copper law, lack of legislative oversight, etc. Even when you view reforms in terms of incentives the lack of progress in some area doesn't make much sense. There is a lot of money politicians could tap into if they reformed the copper law, but they have not done so.

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Cheyre on the Chilean military

Here at LASA I attended an interesting talk by former Chilean Army Commander in Chief Juan Emilio Cheyre, who had been central to publicly acknowledging the Army's human rights abuses. Today he discussed the concept of "participative professionalism," where the military would seek to be more integrated with society without becoming politicized (e.g. natural disaster response). He emphasized again the need to keep human rights front and center. Unlike many retired officers, he used words like "dictatorship." I plan on mentioning this in my talk on Saturday. It's nice to hear this sort of thing from someone who is so widely respected.

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Brazil amnesty

We need more research to answer why to this:

El gobierno de Brasil descartó entrar en cualquier tipo de discusión, nacional o internacional, sobre la ley de amnistía de 1979 que exoneró a los responsables de abusos de derechos humanos cometidos durante los gobierno militares entre 1964 y 1985.
...
"No nos vamos a meter en el debate sobre la ley de amnistía, ni domésticamente, ni a nivel internacional", dijo la comisionada del gobierno para los derechos humanos, María do Rosario.

My scholarly work on civil-military relations is periodically critiqued for being too negative in its assessment, but this is yet another example of how civilian governments stop short of dealing with sensitive issues. If the military is not a problem, is not politicized, will not be a distraction, then why refuse even to discuss the amnesty?

For a scholarly (and often pessimistic) look at Brazilian civil-military relations, Jorge Zaverucha has written a lot.

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El Americano in Cuba

David Grann has a lengthy article in The New Yorker on William Alexander Morgan, a U.S. citizen who fought for Fidel Castro during the revolution, and then was executed by firing squad as he became an opponent of the new regime.

It was March 11, 1961, two years after Morgan had helped to overthrow the dictator Fulgencio Batista, bringing Castro to power. The revolution had since fractured, its leaders devouring their own, like Saturn, but the sight of Morgan before a firing squad was a shock. In 1957, when Castro was still widely seen as fighting for democracy, Morgan had travelled from Florida to Cuba and headed into the jungle, joining a guerrilla force. In the words of one observer, Morgan was “like Holden Caulfield with a machine gun.” He was the only American in the rebel army and the sole foreigner, other than Guevara, an Argentine, to rise to the army’s highest rank, comandante.

Interesting stuff, including J. Edgar Hoover, Rafael Trujillo, Robert F. Kennedy, and of course Che Guevara, who didn't like Morgan (they were the only two foreigners to hold the title of "Comandante").

Especially these days, when you see the geriatric dictatorship that Cuba has become, it can be hard to imagine how romantic the revolution was, and how much hope it generated at the beginning.

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Level of speech

A new study argues that the speeches of members of Congress are now one grade lower than they were seven years ago:

Today’s Congress speaks at about a 10.6 grade level, down from 11.5 in 2005. By comparison, the U.S. Constitution is written at a 17.8 grade level, the Federalist Papers at a 17.1 grade level, and the Declaration of Independence at a 15.1 grade level. The Gettysburg Address comes in at an 11.2 grade level and Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech is at a 9.4 grade level. Most major newspapers are written at between an 11^th and 14^th grade level. (You can find more comparisons here)

We need to be careful about over-reacting to this. Comparing to the original documents of the country is not fair, because they were written by highly educated people for highly educated people. A better comparison would be the speeches by members of Congress once less educated people started getting elected.

Level of speech is an interesting thing. A few years ago I was a fellow at the Institute for Emerging Issues at N.C. State University, which was a great experience. A major goal of that program is to get scholars doing research on issues of interest to North Carolina (in my case, immigration) to translate their research into op-eds that could inform and contribute to public debate. In one workshop with a Communications professor, he told us to keep the op-eds at a high school level (incidentally, did you know Microsoft Word can tell you what grade level your document is? I did not know that before). The reason? Newspapers have broad audiences, and editors will more likely accept op-eds if they are accessible. I published several that reflected my research perfectly while using language more people could relate to.

In other words, we want to be educated but that does not mean we use fancy language just for the sake of it. The fact that MLK's famous speech was at a 9.4 level is an important reminder of that. It was pitched broadly while retaining eloquence.

It makes me think, in fact, that many academic articles and books might be greatly improved by making them more accessible. That doesn't mean dumbing them down. Rather, it means making them more clear.

h/t The Monkey Cage

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Warrior Dash 2012

Yesterday I ran in the Warrior Dash, a 5K that is both bizarre and really fun, while also raising money for St. Jude's Children Research Hospital. Throughout the race there are 14 obstacles, including three separate mud pits (one of which was too deep to stand up in), two climbing walls, rope ladders, jumping over fire and even running over junked cars. It took me almost an hour to run, at a 17:37 pace. When you go through mud, then try to go uphill on a slippery slope, you can't go too fast. Or at least I can't.

After you finish and get hosed off, you turn in your chip for a free beer, which at that point goes down very nicely. If you're in the Charlotte area, I highly recommend it.

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My Iran-Latin America op-ed

Another alarmist Latin America-Iran op-ed. It is too easy to refute--that one is a real doozy, including an acknowledgment that the argument sounds "comical"--and I've done so more times than I want to bother counting, so instead I offer you an easy-to-use template to write your own op-ed. If you use it, then just slip my name in there somewhere for credit.

First, assert that there is a bloc of leftist governments in Latin America that all think and act exactly alike.

Second, assert that Iran plans to join these countries in some sort of unified military operation.

Third, discuss Iranian activities in the region. There are a few real ones, but be sure to include several based on either anonymous sources or no sources at all.

Fourth, discuss how the United States is ignoring the threat and express amazement at its lack of leadership.

Fifth, throw in a few non sequiturs about drugs or immigration. That's always good.

And there you go!

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Cubans and LASA

The State Department is allowing Mariela Castro to visit the U.S., in part to attend the Latin American Studies Association conference next week. The bizarre thing is that other, less controversial, Cubans were not allowed to attend.

A copy of one visa denial letter, issued last week and obtained by The Washington Post, stated that Soraya Castro Marino, who directs a study institute in Havana and was a visiting scholar at Harvard in 2010, was found ineligible this time because her presence would be “detrimental to the interests of the United States.” All rejected applicants reportedly received the same letter.

This is flat out dumb. There is nothing, and I mean nothing, any of these Cubans can do that is detrimental to the interests of the United States. This has been a bone of contention for years with LASA, and for a while even prompted the organization to meet outside the U.S. in protest (which over time became an untenable decision). It doesn't make any sense at all.

They will come and speak their minds; much of that will have nothing to do with Cuban politics and will focus instead on their own research. This is called free speech, which is not present in Cuba. Why in the world would the U.S. want to censor Cubans while condemning censorship in Cuba?

Even if they do talk about Cuban politics, as indeed Castro will, then we can all listen and make up our own minds. There will be plenty of contrary opinions published everywhere. Again, this is called free speech.

Finally, this decision to allow some and reject others highlights the completely arbitrary nature of this policy. The Obama administration does not seem even to bother trying to follow any coherent logic.

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Economy and election in Venezuela

Here is another indicator of why Hugo Chávez will be hard to beat in October's presidential election:

Venezuela, South America’s largest oil producer and a founding member of OPEC, experienced economic contractions of 3.3 percent in 2009 and 1.4 percent in 2010, before expanding 4.2 percent last year. 

Of the 30 countries that have already reported first quarter growth, Venezuela’s was the fourth fastest after China, Latvia and Indonesia. The 5.6 percent expansion matched that of Kazakhstan, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. 

Net income for Petroleos de Venezuela SA, the state oil company, surged 42.4 percent last year to $4.5 billion as the average price for the country’s crude oil rose to a record $101.06 a barrel. The price averaged $112.04 in the first quarter, according to preliminary figures by the Oil Ministry.

He's ahead in every poll (though the margin varies widely according to who is reporting) and when oil money keeps rolling, it is even harder to put a dent in his solid--if not spectacular--approval ratings. Thus far his health and lengthy absences, not to mention secrecy, do not seem to be affecting the presidential race much. If he can maintain an image of recovery and a semblance of energy, those issues may never matter.

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LASA app

The Latin American Studies Association conference is next week in San Francisco, and there is an app for that (for iPhone and Android). It's actually very cool. It has the entire program, maps (click on a panel and you can immediately see where it is). You can make your own schedule, type notes, or even tweet. I had hoped it would provide access to the papers themselves, but that might be asking too much (you can see them here).*

At large conferences, you get a program the size of a small phone book, and you flip through it constantly to figure out where you want to go and how to get there. Having it on my phone will be nice.

* I am old enough to remember photocopying 25 or so copies of my paper, then carting them to LASA, where a large room was dedicated to hard copies of the papers, which you paid about $1 each for.

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John Grisham's Calico Joe

I read John Grisham's Calico Joe on a whim, being in a baseball mood.

The narrator is a man whose father--a complete jerk--used to be a pitcher for the Mets, and in one fateful game in 1973 pitched to a young Cubs phenom named Joe Castle. Grisham mixes real players--as a boy the narrator even chats briefly with Willie Mays--with fictional, wrapping them together in a story about bad parents, adulation, pain and forgiveness. As always with Grisham, there are also bucolic, small town Southern scenes that make you want to sit out in the porch with a drink.

Corny? Well, yes. If you don't like baseball, you might gag.  Read the Amazon reviews and you'll see people who are really angry that this is not a legal thriller, or a thriller of any kind, or even unpredictable. I got the impression that Grisham really enjoyed writing this novel, with many references to baseball history, records, and especially unwritten rules of conduct--e.g. don't show up a pitcher when you hit a homer--that would never fit in The Firm or some such novel. I found it a quick and very enjoyable read.

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Cubans and the state

Robert Jackson gave a speech and this paragraph caught my eye.

Regarding Cuba, we have a positive policy—one that seeks to support Cubans’ right to freely determine their future. The Administration has taken steps to ease travel restrictions and increase the flow of information and remittances for ordinary Cubans, as well as allowing more exchanges for religious, academic, or cultural purposes. We believe that these policies are enhancing the independence of the Cuban people from the state, and we will be the first to cheer when a democratically chosen government in Cuba resumes its full participation in the inter-American system.

Sounds nice, but it's not reasonable to argue that U.S. policy has any measurable effect on Cubans' ties to their state. The Cuban government is cutting those ties on its own, with economic liberalization. If the U.S. wants to give Cubans more economic space, then it should end the embargo.

Short of some sort of disastrous invasion, the U.S. cannot do anything about the political ties between the Cuban people and the state. We don't know when--or if--a Cuban spring will occur, but it will not come from Washington, DC or Miami.

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McCain on Romney on immigration

John McCain says that Mitt Romney will do a 180 on immigration and ignore everything he's said repeatedly in public for months.

“Look, Mitt Romney understands that we have a challenge with the Hispanic voter. I believe, as this campaign moves on, that you will see him addressing this issue of the need for immigration reform. We all know what we need to happen.”

I am not sure what "we" he's referring to. Certainly it has not included Mitt Romney. But I am not complaining: if Romney wants to pander and thereby do the right thing in a naked attempt to get more votes, then I am all for it.

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U.S policy according to Granma

Granma has an analysis of U.S. policy toward Latin America that is remarkably free of ideological fervor. As a matter of fact, I think this largely hits the nail on the head:

However, Carlos Oliva Campos, a faculty member at the University of Havana, commented to Granma, "The fact that the region is not a priority for a given administration does not mean that the region has lost its critical importance within the heart of U.S. foreign policy. Practically, throughout our entire history, we have served as a laboratory for policies and a proving ground for strategies." 

"Although the Middle East, Asia, and Russia under Putin, are priorities, Obama’s policy toward Latin America and the Caribbean is essentially a continuation," he said. 

"The Summit of the Americas was very important because the region is no longer the same. Now there is another relationship of forces, very interesting, because it’s the ‘left’, not just socialists, which is complicating the U.S. response. What’s more, the U.S. is no longer the only defining external factor for markets or trade in the region."

The "laboratory" angle is the subject of scholarly books by both Greg Grandin (Empire's Workshop) and Brian Loveman (No Higher Law). The point is that even though the United States appears to be "ignoring" Latin America (whatever that means precisely) it is keeping Latin America in a global perspective (e.g. all the talk about Colombian counterinsurgency and counternarcotics operations being applied in Afghanistan). Meanwhile,  Barack Obama has not changed the policies of George W. Bush all that much.

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Losing or gaining?

Andres Oppenheimer's current column is an example of the difficulties many people have in figuring out Latin America's relationship with the United States. So we start with the notion that the U.S. is losing ground in Latin America:

My opinion: Washington has lost some of its former economic clout in Latin America, but that started under former President George. W. Bush, and is not an irreversible tragedy.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/05/12/2795531/us-parties-next-clash-who-lost.html#storylink=cpy

But then a funny thing happens when he examines this "tragedy":

As Latin America’s commodity-based radical populist fad of the past decade begins to unravel, Washington will no longer be an almighty superpower, but a big first among equals.

Aha! The tragedy is more equality. Therein lies the rub. There is considerable discomfort with the idea that the United States does not dominate the hemisphere as it did during the Cold War. Make no mistake about it, the U.S. is still by far the most powerful and influential state in the region. But it is not so dominant.

That's a good thing for everyone involved, including the United States. But it is leading to quite a lot of whining, even by those--like Oppenheimer himself--who have been at least in rhetorical support of greater equality.

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No Cuban transition

Jonathan Benjamin-Alvarado and Gregory A. Petrow, "Stability, Transition, and Regime Approval in Post-Fidel Cuba." Political Science Quarterly 127, 1 (Spring 2012): 73-103.

Abstract (gated):

JONATHAN BENJAMIN-ALVARADO and GREGORY A. PETROW examine Gallup World Poll data from Cuba to evaluate both the level of Cuban regime approval, as well as its causes. They conclude that Cubans are satisfied overall with their leaders, and that part of this satisfaction stems from equating the regime with the state.

The authors come up with what they call a Collective Esteem Model, based on World Gallup Data. They call for a more sophisticated quantitative approach to understanding Cuban politics. Their basic argument is that dissatisfaction with the regime is the key requirement for political transition, but that dissatisfaction is not present.

It's not really clear to me, though, how this is different from qualitative analyses of Cuban politics, though it has an additional challenge that the authors address only briefly, namely the quality of the data. In a dictatorship, we would expect respondents to be more positive than in a democracy for fear of retaliation--even if the questions are framed in a way to make them non-life threatening, people will naturally be more nervous.

Whether you are a policy maker, media commentator, or scholar (of any methodological stripe) the fundamental point is the same: there is no sign of a Cuban Spring--see my recent article in Military Review on U.S. policy options--and we don't know when it will happen.

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Polling in Venezuela

Venezuelan state media reports that 57% would vote for Hugo Chávez, and only 21% for Henrique Capriles. Further, Chávez has 66% approval, at least among those age 18-29.

These numbers were much higher for Chávez than what I'd been seeing, so I was not shocked to find that the group who did the poll, Grupo de Investigación Social Siglo XXI is headed by one Jesse Chacón Escamillo, a former Chávez cabinet member who participated in the 1992 coup. A quick look at their website suggests that Venezuelans are happy about everything Chávez does.

Polling in Venezuela is far more politicized than any other Latin American country. Different organizations publish radically different results about the same topic. Expect this is to get increasingly intense as the election nears, especially if Chávez remains of the country for long chunks of time and concern about his health grows. Except for GIS XXI, which will likely report that Venezuelans are happy about whatever he's doing.

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Engagement as war

John Boehner jumps wholeheartedly onto the Iran threat bandwagon, and argues that free trade--perhaps with greater imports of orange tanning lotion--is the answer. He does not explain how those two things connect. Even worse, he frames U.S. engagement as a "war."

"We must be clear that we will be there, with our friends and partners in the region, committed to fighting and winning the war for a free, stable, and prosperous hemisphere," Boehner said in a speech to the Council of Americas, which represents companies that do business in Latin America.

Listen, people. There is no hemispheric war, and the U.S. will isolate itself even further by framing it that way. And I will repeat for the umpteenth time that Latin America does not view Iran as a threat, so the U.S. will isolate itself by huffing and puffing so much.

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Quote of the day: immigration

Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney (R) is “still deciding what his position on immigration is,” as RNC Hispanic Outreach Director Bettina Inclán termed it.

And that quote is from one of his own supporters!

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Colombian economic growth

In the Financial Times, former Colombian Finance Minister (under Ernesto Samper) José Antonio Ocampo serves up a rare dish, namely a discussion about Colombian economic growth and investment that does not include a) any mention of the time it took to ratify the U.S.-Colombia FTA; or b) wide-eyed accolades for the benefits of a more open economy.

Instead, he places Colombia squarely where it should be, namely as another Latin American country riding a commodity boom and needing to enact policies recognizing that fact.

Mining and oil exports have grown sevenfold since 2003. At $37bn in 2011, they accounted for two-thirds of exports. Traditional exports, such as agriculture and manufacturing, have also grown – but only by three times. Coffee, the traditional staple, represents only about 5 per cent of exports. 

High energy and mining prices are a mixed blessing, however, as they threaten to undermine diversification of the economy, traditionally one of its strongest characteristics. As a capital-intensive activity, mining also generates limited employment, a big concern in a country that, despite significant improvements, has struggled to shrink unemployment. At an average rate of 10.8 per cent in 2011, it remains one of Latin America’s highest.

Exactly.

[The] redistributive possibilities of fiscal policy also need to be enhanced. This is particularly important in a country that, over the past decade, has largely missed the improvements in income distribution enjoyed by the rest of Latin America. Colombia now has one of the worst income distributions in a region famed for its inequality. At 0.578 the Gini coefficient is Latin America’s worst after Guatemala. Bettering that is essential to sustained and prolonged growth.

Also true. It's nice to go beyond the rah-rah attitude that the vast majority of editorials have about Colombia. The FTA is no magical being, and has multiple effects, some of which are negative. Like everywhere else, Colombia would benefit from a focus on diversification and explicit acknowledgment of potential problems even while enjoying the benefits of the boom.

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Putting Malvinas money where your mouth is

Argentina's ambassador to the UK says the Malvinas issue is regional and that British trade will soon suffer.

Argentina warned yesterday Britain’s trade with South America would be hit unless it handed the Falklands over to them. 

Alicia Castro, the country’s ambassador to London, attempted to drag its neighbours into the row after she described the islands as a “colonial enclave”. 

She added: “Argentina is very happy having this ­colonial enclave in the south of our country. 

“It’s not an Argentinian cause, it’s a regional cause. The United Kingdom, by not wanting to have a proper dialogue with Argentina, it’s turning its back on Latin America as a whole. 

“If Britain wants to improve is relations with Latin America, they have to settle this dispute.”

I doubt this. Yes, Argentina gets some rhetorical support from South American governments, most loudly from Hugo Chávez, and some countries even have blocked ships flying the Falklands flag. That is a far cry, however, from governments deciding to damage their own economies by imposing some sort of trade sanction on Great Britain. Latin American trade with Britain has jumped recently, especially with Brazil, and I can't see President Rousseff jeopardizing that for Argentina.

This is a classic example of words being cheap.

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Jim Bouton's Ball Four

I hadn't read Jim Bouton's Ball Four since I was a teenager in the 1980s, when a lot of the cultural references from 1969 went over my head but I had found it really funny. Reading it years later, it's even funnier. Bouton was once a Yankees ace, but arm trouble led him to take up the knuckle ball and by 1969 he ended up on the original Seattle Pilots team, and then the Astros after a trade. The book is his account of that season, by turns thoughtful and vulgar.

The key to Ball Four, as with Dirk Hayhurst's two excellent books, is the high level of honesty. He does not pull punches at himself, which makes the book real without being vindictive. He does not view himself or anyone else as exalted because they're major league baseball players, and always notes how what people are supposed to say (e.g. "I'm doing this for the team") often contradicts the truth ("I'm doing this to stay in the majors"). He skewers hypocrisy, but he's not a malcontent as he wants to stay on the team so swallows his pride when he feels it's necessary.

And it's so funny because he questions everything, especially things that aren't supposed to be questioned, like the eternal wisdom of managers and pitching coaches, who demand total control even if their decisions are illogical and/or contradictory. As he writes about his constant fight to be allowed to pitch more on the side, "What the hell was he talking about? Except that I knew. I was asking to do something unorthodox, and unorthodoxy does in baseball what heresy does in the priesthood."

It has a very well-deserved label as the classic book on baseball.

Trivia: Jim Bouton also invented Big League Chew, a staple of my little league days.

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FDI in Latin America

The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean just released its report on foreign direct investment in Latin America, which reached a record high of $153 billion in 2011. Given the growing conventional wisdom about the rise of China and the decline of the United States, I was curious to see if that was reflected in FDI. The answer: not exactly.

U.S. companies comprised 18% of FDI in 2011, down from 23% in the 2006-2010 period. But can you guess what country had the highest total in 2011? The Netherlands. The report notes the obvious point that these are companies based elsewhere. But where?

Meanwhile, China represents just 1% of FDI in the region. More important is Spain, which went from 9% to 14%, and Japan, from 3% to 8%.

So the U.S. has been playing a smaller relative role, but not because of China. Why don't we ever hear the media talk about Japan? And why don't we ever hear about strange goings-on in the Netherlands?

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Policy Options for a Cuban Spring

In the latest issue of Military Review, a main journal of the U.S. Army, I have an article co-authored with a Latin American Studies graduate student on U.S. policy options for a Cuban Spring. We discuss both the legislation and official policy (both toward Cuba and general) currently in place, and further put it in the context of the Arab Spring.

The upshot: in the event of regime change in Cuba, the U.S. has a constructive role to play, but engagement should multilateral and non-military. Otherwise it would be counterproductive both for U.S. policy and for Cuban democracy:

The history of U.S.-Cuba relations and the experience of the Arab Spring provide a useful context for identifying the optimal policy responses to an eventual Cuban political transition. There is a fine line between caution and passivity, but this line is one the United States must walk. There will be strong resistance to a foreign presence, and the possibility of blowback is very real. The United States can and must play a role in Cuban democratization, but it cannot create it.

Gregory Weeks and Erin Fiorey, "Policy Options for a Cuban Spring." Military Review May-June 2012: 88-95.

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Cuban feminism

An article in the New York Times Rendezvous blog argues that Cuba might be the most feminist country in Latin America. The very first piece of evidence? The number of women in parliament. You know, that institution that rubber stamps whatever the Communist Party wants. But lots of women get to do the rubber stamping. Another piece of evidence is membership in the Communist Party, so apparently lots of women are also ordering what needs to be rubber stamped.

It is not clear to me how that necessarily equates to feminism, particularly since every single important decision in the dictatorship has been made by the same two men for the past 53 years.

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