NP? Bush chooses Reich

[Doug Millison]

Back to the bad old Reagan-Bush days that Pynchon skewered in Vineland...


http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2002-02/15landau.cfm

"[...] George W. Bush has appointed 56 year old Otto Reich, a Cuban born
right-wing Republican, to direct Inter American affairs at the State
Department. [...] Reich, in his key role at the Office of Public Diplomacy,
routinely lied to the public about US involvement in writing assassination
manuals, mining Nicaraguan harbors and ultimately about what became the
facts of the Iran-Contra scandal. But, true to the formula for success in
Washington, he got promoted for his astute dissembling and became US
ambassador to Venezuela.

While serving in that post he helped President Bush I circumvent
immigration laws and reject advise from the FBI in the successful attempt
to get a notorious terrorist named Orlando Bosch special immigration status
so he could return to the United States where, naturally, he continued his
terrorist plotting against Cuba.

Reich subsequently served the public interest by lobbying for the tobacco
industry, selling arms to third world countries and serving the cause of
the Bacardi (rum) family as a kind of personal emissary for the booze
giants.

Last summer, President Bush announced that he would appoint Reich to the
lead Latin America post at State, but Reich had accumulated such an
impressive record of misdeeds that even Republican Members of the Senate
became aroused and together with the Democratic majority on the Foreign
Relations Committee successfully stalled his nomination.

I breathed a sigh of relief. But not for long. During the Congressional
break, George W. Bush made a "recess appointment." That means he
circumvented the need for Senate approval. So, welcome Otto Reich as
Assistant Secretary of state for Western Hemispheric affairs. [...]
Florida, as we saw in the 2000 election, means life or death for
Republicans. And the extreme anti-Castro Cuban-exiles see Otto Reich as
their supreme insider representative in the interminable war with Cuba.
Bush has shown them that money put into his and his brother's campaigns
brings high level rewards. Remember, Jeb will face Janet Reno in the
upcoming Florida governor race.

The fact that Reich will damage US-Latin American relations seems
unimportant for the White House. Forget when Bush talked about wanting to
unify people, when he called for consensus, when he promised he could work
with his opponents.

Reich stands out as the embodiment of blatant, sword heavy imperialism that
cost the lives of more than 100,000 Central Americans in the 1980s, an
imperialism that maintains an irrational embargo and travel ban on Cuba
and, most dramatically, places narrow domestic interests over the larger
international good.

Reich stands for Bacardi, weapons and tobacco sales; for freeing those
terrorists who hate Castro and for dissembling in public office.

Reich has no support from Latin American governments or major parties, none
from our closest European allies and not even from the most prudent members
of the Republican Party. Is this what Bush means when he calls for
hemispheric harmony?

Reich will serve almost a year before the Senate must confirm his
appointment. He can do a lot of damage in that time period. [...]