> Ah, Otto Reich...
And realize that some may not know to whom I refer.
Chief of anti-Castro, anti-Sandinista propaganda under Reagan, previously publicity agent for anti-Castro Miami Cuban terrorist murderers, now Asst Sec of State for Latin America. A recent brief bio in CounterPunch is at http://www.counterpunch.org/ottoreich1.html
this piece concludes:
"The return of old Reagan Contra-warriors like Abrams, Negroponte, and Reich--not to mention outfits like the Office of Strategic Influence--do more than just summon old grudges and sad memories. The US right has recently begun clamoring for intervention in Colombia's civil war, where death squads and a corrupt military--frequently acting together for what Eduardo Galeano aptly termed the Colombian "democratorship"--combat two aging insurgencies.
Recast as a theater in the new "war on terrorism," the Colombian civil war reminds us instead that the horrors of torture and war--and the more massive scourges of poverty, illiteracy, and inequality--have not left the hemisphere that gave the English language a dreadful word, "the disappeared."
Bush's move to circumvent the confirmation process in appointing the ex-propagandist Reich recalls that more contentious time in U.S. relations with Latin America, when secrecy, expediency, and inept self-interest were far more familiar than any "public diplomacy.""