Charlie Wilson, the quiet Congressional backer of the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan during the Soviet War who recently passed away, is known primarily for his work in Afghanistan, popularized through the recent film Charlie Wilson’s War. What is not well known is that, before backing the Mujahadeen, Wilson was a strong supporter of the right-wing government of Nicaragua, President Anastasio “Tachito” Somoza.

The Somoza family ruled Nicaragua from the 1930s until the late 1970s, and Tachito Somoza was effectively leader of the country from 1967. Wilson was a strong supporter of the right-wing Somoza, and felt that his strong anti-Communist regime was being undermined by Jimmy Carter’s wishy-washy human rights-focused foreign policy. In trying to cajoul President Carter into supporting Somoza, he fought in the House appropriations committee, and at one point threatened to wreck President Carter’s Panama Canal Treaty if the U.S. did not resume supporting Somoza.

Wilson’s admiration for Somoza was unaffected by his offer of a large cash bribe to Wilson the first time they met in person (which were unnecessary—Wilson was a true believer). And when Wilson set up a meeting between Somoza and an allegedly former CIA operative, in a small party where the booze-was flowing freely, Somoza was initially delighted at the offer of a 1000-man squad of ex-CIA operatives to fight on Somoza’s behalf. But in a drunken stupor, Somoza made the mistake of fondling Tina Simons, a secretary of Wilson who was also his girlfriend at the time. (It was not Wilson but Somoza’s mistress Dinorah, who was present at the meeting, who went into a rage and ripped Somoza from Tina.) The fiasco embarrassed Somoza, who then lost interest in the squad when he heard about the price tag of US$100 million. Wilson was so embarressed by the situation, and in his awkward attempt to hijack US foreign policy after word of the meeting leaked out, that he abandoned his support for Somoza.

The aftermath? Somoza was ousted and exiled to Paraguay where he was assassinated. Nicaragua fell to a revolution led by the Sandinista National Liberation Front, and President Reagan later authorized the CIA to support the remnants of Somoza’s National Guard, the “contrarrevolucionarios” that became known as the Contras. And Tina Simons ended up testifying against the alleged CIA operative and disappeared into the witness protection program.

Charlie Wilson was embarressed and disgraced by the Somoza fiasco, which left people thinking he was reckless and had terrible judgment. But failure is the mother of success. Wilson learned from this experience: who he should work with in the US government, what was realistic, who he should trust, and the avenues of influence and barriers to success that faced him as he sat in Congress. It was this experience that taught him what to do when going solo on US foreign policy. And that was what lead to Charlie Wilson’s War.

President Manuel Zelaya of Honduras was elected in 2006 as a left-leaning moderate, but he took radical measures after forming an alliance with Hugo Chávez, and his presidency was marked with financial irregularities, a rapid weakening of the Honduran economy, corruption investigations by Mexian and US authorities, and a constitutional crisis. And yet he was power mad—despite holding one of the lowest public approval ratings in Latin America, the legislature was commencing impeachment proceedings against him, and the Supreme Court had invalidated his push for a referendum, he nonetheless pushed ahead to try and amend the constitution in an unconstitutional manner. Before he could succeed, the military, acting on an arrest order of a Honduran Supreme Court Judge, deposed Zelaya and exiled him to Costa Rica in June 2009. This was labeled a “military coup” by the international community and largely condemned—the day after Zelaya was deposed, Barack Obama warned “it would be a terrible precedent if we start moving backwards into the era in which we are seeing military coups as a means of political transition.”

But the aftermath of the coup has been remarkably smooth. A caretaker government was lead by a member of Zelaya’s party, Roberto Micheletti. A presidential elections scheduled before Zelaya’s ouster for November 29th proceeded as planned. All political parties participated, including the far-left party that withdrew its pledge to boycott the election. Despite fears and threats of violence, the vote took place fairly calmly, with only one major clash between protestors and police. And Honduras now has a new president, Porfirio Lobo of the centre-right National Party, who won a clear mandate with 55% of the vote (primarily because the rival Liberal Party was split between backing Zelaya or Micheletti). Turnout was about what it had been in the 2005 election. Honduran lawmakers also finalized the outcome by voting by an overwhelming 111 to 14 not to allow Zelaya to return to power, despite pressure from the international community. Opinion polls show that the people of Honduras are still uneasy with the way in which Zelaya was deposed, but at this point, everyone is ready to move on.

The US is “disappointed.” Brazil has expressely stated that it will not recognize Lobo. Editorials in US newspapers are crying that “democracy loses.” For many, the removal of Zelaya by the military remains unacceptable, and everything thereafter is the fruit of a poisonous tree that cannot be accepted as legitimate. This shows how Zelaya and his backers were successful in trumpeting to the domestic and international press to label his ouster a “military coup,” which made its legitimacy hard to swallow.

But this is nonsense. The military removed Zelaya acting on an order of the judiciary, and was necessary to stop the undermining of the balance of powers. Furthermore, we need to stop thinking of the military as some sort of thuggish and fascist institution—in many developing countries, it acts as the final political safeguard. While the courts fulfill this role in most developed countries, the courts are at the mercy of other branches of government if they refuse to respect the rulings of the judiciary, because the judiciary generally has no power to carry out its rulings. In developing countries, the armed forces also tend to be disciplined and organized, a stable institution that enjoys high rates of trust by the general public, and while not perfect, we have seen bloodless coups at work recently in Turkey and Thailand.

Despite Obama’s soppy statement quoted at the beginning of this post, he was doing a good job by speaking Victorian at the time of the coup. The Bush administration made a huge blunder when it gave the mere indication that it supported the coup against Chavez in 2002, which resulted in toxic US-Venezuelan relations. Nixon and Kissinger guaranteed decades of derision and condemnation when in 1973 they refused to deny they supported a military coup in Chile. As always, you should think pagan —as I’m doing, out loud, in this post—but you should speak Victoria, as Obama has done.

But only for so long. Honduras should be commended for its smooth and careful handling of the post-Zelaya caretaker government and election, and with no percievable chance of Zelaya returning to power, now is the time to embrace the new government. Honduras has seen an ipso facto impeachment of a president and now that their great national nightmare is over, everyone should move on.

ENDNOTE: By the time I had finished writing this post, the US, Colombia, Peru, Panama and Costa Rica have indicated they will recognize the election result.

As political leaders begin to make statements bordering on the ridiculous, let me briefly recap what has happened in Honduras.

Former President Manuel Zelaya, ally of Venezuelan thug in chief Hugo Chavez, sought to illegally hold a referendum on changing the Honduran constitution. This could have allowed him to run again in violation of the country’s current term limits. It’s a classic trick of would-be-dictators and luckily did not succeed. While some in the media and elsewhere are labeling this a coup, I would not not. It’s rather a ‘coup’ in the same sense as Turkey has experienced several times whereby the military removed leadership that was violating the country’s laws.

Some may argue that the military’s removal of the president by force was not democratic. Indeed, on the surface it would seem to be illegal, however given that the president was pressing on with his illegal actions, declared so by the supreme court, congress and the military, it was in fact a fairly reasonable and foreseeable response. While of course, I do not encourage such actions by any military in general, in the case of Honduras, the constitutionally mandated checks on presidential power had failed. Since Zelaya blatantly continued his illegal activity, we can in fact be thankful that he was ousted before having a chance to rewrite the constitution and turn the country into an even poorer, worse off Venezuelan satellite. Indeed, according to top-secret Chirol sources in Honduras, there were rumors of several hundred Venezuelan trained paramilitary forces poised to enter the country from Nicaragua during the referendum to create unrest of somehow aid the process. Thus, the Honduran military has been deployed to the border in large numbers, so I am told.

My sources indicate that the former vice president did not want to assume the presidency as it would not allow him to run for president in the next election per Honduran law. Therefore, president of congress, Roberto Micheletti, has been named acting president as he would be next in line. Given that the military has not attempted to take power and has in fact followed Honduran law in terms of who would assume power, its actions can hardly be condemned but rather seen as defending the rule of law.

Barring unforeseen changes or new evidence coming to light, this author applauds the Honduran military and is happy to see another blow against the leftist fascism creeping through Central and South America, emanating from Caracas. It should therefore come as no surprise that Venezuela has even threatened military action in response! My prediction is that Zelaya will end up in Caracas living off the oil money that rightfully belongs to the Venezuelan people and serving as a living ‘martyr’ of Yankee imperialism, giving speeches and rallying support for Chavez. I also strongly disagree the remarks of both President Obama and SecState Clinton who were quick to condemn the action.

It would seem there’s a great power vacancy in Latin America and now, several powers are looking to muscle their way in. This represents a growing national security threat to the United States.

China hawks have long been concerned with Chinese involvement in Central and South America. Whether’s its economic aid, gaining potential control over the Panama Canal, or reaching out to diaspora communities, the Chinese are active in our backyard.

Recently, the Russia’s made a big, though largely meaningless show of force sending its naval forces (better at eliciting laughs than fear) to Venezuela. Russia was also apparently considering a nuclear deal with Venezuela. There was also some talk of stationing bombers in Cuba.

Speaking of which, let’s not forget potentially massive new oil findings in Brazil and Cuba (which the Canadians and Chinese are exploting).

Now, it would seem lesser powers are moving in as well.

The government of Iran is following the lead of new ally Venezuela by taking its anti-American message to Bolivia, an impoverished but strategically positioned country in the heart of South America.

A nemesis to U.S. interests in the Middle East for 30 years, Iran is now pouring millions of dollars of aid into Bolivia—including construction of a milk factory in Achacachi. Its real motive, however, is joining Bolivia and Venezuela to counter U.S. interests in Latin America, analysts said. ‘’Is Iran in Bolivia a nuisance to the United States? Of course it is,’’ said Abbas Milani, the co-director of the Iran Democracy Project at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. “Iran will try to shore up support for Bolivia’s president and help the anti-American message of its regime. And being in Bolivia will give Iran more pawns to play in its dealings with the Europeans and the United States.’’

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, a constant U.S. critic, brought Iran and Bolivia together, even though the two countries have little in common but natural gas, large stretches of desert and official antipathy toward the United States. His government flew Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to visit Bolivian President Evo Morales in September 2007. Morales traveled to Iran a year later.Chávez has organized Ecuador, Nicaragua, Bolivia and Cuba into a trade and political alliance that regularly lambastes capitalism and U.S. influence in Latin America.

While this seems to be the equivalent of moving a pawn, it could potentially be a growing threat if it continues. Low energy prices, however, may limit Iran’s involvement. South America watchers will want to play close attention to continued Iranian involvement there (as Hezbollah already operates in the Triborder region) and pay attention to Nicaragua.

Curzon recently posted on the fifteen year anniversary of Kaplan’s The Coming Anarchy . An excerpt from the book reads

West Africa is becoming the symbol of worldwide demographic, environmental, and societal stress, in which criminal anarchy emerges as the real “strategic” danger. Disease, overpopulation, unprovoked crime, scarcity of resources, refugee migrations, the increasing erosion of nation-states and international borders, and the empowerment of private armies, security firms, and international drug cartels are now most tellingly demonstrated through a West African prism.

And in today’s news from Brazil, police in Sao Paulo have invaded and ‘occupied’ the city’s biggest slum.

Hundreds of riot police occupied one of Sao Paulo’s biggest slums Tuesday following a night of clashes in which three police officers were shot. Bands of young men burned cars and tires in the streets of the Paraisopolis slum and looted cars and businesses, Sao Paulo’s public safety department said in a statement.

[...] Authorities were investigating whether the violence was ordered by the First Capital Command, a notorious gang that controls most of the drug trade in Sao Paulo’s numerous slums. Police invaded the slum carrying automatic weapons and shotguns and used armored cars to plow through the debris and assert control over the slum. It was the biggest operation of its kind in South America’s largest city since 2006.

Nine people were arrested, and the public safety department said 230 officers were patrolling the slum along with two helicopters and teams of firefighters prepared to put out more blazes if needed.

While Brazil’s problems are nothing new, increasing urbanization and mega-cities worldwide are making such occurrences more frequent rather than less. The uprooted rural poor lacking the social and familial support for their home will be especially vulnerable as the government is unable to provide services, organized crime gains increasing control and power vis-a-vis the state and rural-urban immigration outpaces infrastructure development and economic growth in the cities. Another sign of the hollow state that John Robb often discusses.

The following is an abridged and duly anonymized summary of a friend’s thoughts having arrived as a US diplomat in Caracas, Venezuela.

It’s two weeks today that I arrived, and Caracas is as every bit exciting as I thought it would be. The political scene is ramping up after Chavez called for a snap referendum early next year to vote on amending the Constitution to allow unlimited Presidential term limits. Last Saturday was the 10th anniversary of the Boliviarian Revolution—too much fun. There were crowds of folks downtown celebrating—there were even fireworks.

The embassy staff is great of course, but the government is pretty much, how can I say, ‘unfriendly’ to us. It manifests itself in little nuisances, such as in unusually long delays in the delivery of our personal shipments of cars, furniture etc from the US.. It has taken some folks a really long time to get their stuff. Ambassador Duddy was expelled back in Sept (which turns out to be only the 8th time in US History that a US Amb has been expelled) so we are without an Ambassador right now. It’s fortunate that I even made here.

The security situation here is really bad for anyone outside the embassy security bubble. There are regular acts of random violence. Caracas is the murder capital of the world. And kidnapping is for real. The brother of a MLB player was held for ransom and when the kidnappers didn’t receive payment, they murdered him. Despite all the violence, from what I’ve seen the Venezuelans are a happy bunch and enjoy going out, dining and being with friends and family.

But we live in a pretty posh neighborhood, the Embassy is situated in the hills overlooking the city and most of us live near there. The views are amazing. The weather is fabulous. It’s around 75 degrees in the morning and warms up to around 80-85 everyday by 9am. It’s been raining (more like intermittent showers) alot before I got here and now. It’s funny, this is considered the ‘winter’ for Venezuela. And when folks find out I just got here, they literally apologize to me for the bad weather. That’s happened on more than one occasion. Apparently the weather gets better (it doesn’t really need to as far as I am concerned). I can’t wait.

We spend alot of time with the Europeans and unfortunately (just kidding), the Canadians. I’ve been playing on ‘our’ soccer team which is a hodge podge of young ELOs from Britain, Turkey, Canada, France, Finland, etc. We go to each other’s functions and play on each other’s teams. It’s one big happy family.

I’m forgetting a lot of the details, but all in all, I think this is going to be an exciting tour.

From the Miami Herald, abridged:

Latin Americans are in denial on education system
By ANDRES OPPENHEIMER

A new poll shows that, amazingly, Latin Americans are much happier with their countries’ public education systems than people in other regions that score much better in international student achievement tests and university rankings.

When asked whether they are happy with their countries’ public education systems, including elementary schools, high schools and universities, 85% of Costa Ricans, 84% of Venezuelans, 82% of Cubans, 80% of Nicaraguans, 77% of Salvadorans, and more than 72%of Colombians, Jamaicans, Hondurans, Bolivians, Panamanians, Uruguayans and Paraguayans said they are happy with their countries’ public education.

Comparatively, only 66% in Germany, 67% in the United States and 70% in Japan are happy with their respective countries’ public education, the study says. However, standardized international tests of 15-year-old students show that Venezuela, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia, Honduras and the Dominican Republic, where respondents were happier with their public education than Japan, score about 35 percent lower on average than Japanese students, the study says.

Why? The reasons may be (1) wrong focus and (2) comparative progress. The article reports that many Latin Americans judge their education systems by the adequacy of their school buildings, or the treatment their children get from their teachers, rather than by how much students learn in school. But that being said, we should also remember that literacy rates have doubled since the 1930s.

Then there’s the Gap-Core issue. People in countries such as Chile, Peru, Mexico and Argentina—where about half of the population or less are satisfied with their countries’ public education—have seen greater improvements over the last few years. For the rest of the region in Northern South America and Central America, people are generally satisfied despite the fact that the schools are crap. That provides further justification for my conclusion about the state of the world in twenty years from last week: “The qualify of life in the parts of the world that are developing will continue the recent trajectories since the end of the Cold War and continue to improve… the parts of the world where there has been no real healthy growth are going to get even worse.”

If you are into high stakes angling, it seems Nicaragua is the place to be.

Locals in Tasbapauni and Bluefields have been fishing for the elusive “white lobster” — 35 kilo bales of cocaine. Drug trafficking routes from Columbia and Nicaragua pass by these villages. Frequent patrols force traffickers to toss their cargo overboard. The bales of coke wash up on shore or are caught in fishing nets. The locals then sell the blow back to the suppliers for a profit, and use the money for local infrastructure. Now thats entrepreneurship!

PS. I thought about titling this post “Development-in-a-dimebag” with apologies to Enterra who created Development-in-a-box.

Breaking News:

Fidel Castro announces retirement

Cuba’s ailing leader Fidel Castro has announced he will not return to the presidency, in a letter published by official Communist Party paper, Granma. “I neither will aspire to, nor will I accept, the position of president of the council of state and commander in chief,” he wrote in the letter. Mr Castro handed over power temporarily to his brother, Raul, in July 2006 when he underwent intestinal surgery. The 81-year-old has ruled Cuba since leading a communist revolution in 1959. In December, Mr Castro indicated that he could possibly step down in favour of a younger generation.

While Florida is surely celebrating, the move means little in reality as Castro hasn’t been seen in since last July. Unfortunately for the Cuban people, the circumstances that led to the transfer of power were about as favorable towards authoritarianism as could be. Will this help ease the US embargo if Castro is out? And his brother is 76, how much more time does he have? Do any Cuban hands known the next in line after that?

As if Venezuela couldn’t get any crazier with Chavez engaging in battles of insults with the King of Spain and President of Colombia, everyone’s favorite buffoon-president is now signing oil production agreements with Belarus of all places (showing once again that birds of a feather flock together). Belarus and several Latin American countries are also teaming up to create a competitor to the IMF. And fresh from his constitutional referendum to become eligible for president for like, Chavez has created Venezuela’s own time zone, which is full of more potential wisecracks than I care to imagine:

Venezuela creates its own unique time zone on Sunday, putting the clock back half-an-hour on a permanent basis. President Hugo Chavez says that an earlier dawn means the performance of the country will improve, as more people will wake up in daylight. “I don’t care if they call me crazy, the new time will go ahead,” he said. But critics say the move is unnecessary and the president simply wants to be in a different time zone from his arch-rival, the United States. The new time puts Venezuela four-and-a-half hours behind Greenwich Mean Time, and out of step with all its neighbours.