Our Son of a Bitch, by Hans Vogel

The U.S. has never had a problem cozying up to dictators, especially of the Latin American variety. From Hans Vogel at unz.com:

Bolsonaro and Trump are trying to bring back Brazil into the US Empire.

“He may be a son of a bitch, but he is our son of a bitch.” This observation has been attributed to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who is reputed to have made it with reference to Nicaraguan strongman Anastasio Somoza. Allegedly, FDR said the same about Spanish leader Francisco Franco. Secretary of State Cordell Hull is supposed to have uttered the same words to refer to Rafael Trujillo, dictator of the Dominican Republic.

Even if the remark may be apocryphal, it is an accurate reflection of the way US political elites have long tended to think about Latin American leaders, and in fact the leaders of many other countries which they usually do not hold in high esteem. On a more general level, the remark also reflects the profound contempt for anything “Latin” or even foreign, one often encounters in the US. Since many Americans are convinced that the US is heaven on earth, this particular mindset is hardly astonishing. These days that same line of thought conditions US attitudes vis-à-vis Ukrainian usurper Zelenski.

Although America’s “backyard” known as Latin America has been getting less attention worldwide than during the days of brutal military dictatorships in the 20^th century, the fundamental aspects of the problematic US-Latin American relationship have not changed a bit since the end of the 19^th century. In those times, as US foreign policy was beginning to take shape, the primary focus was on Latin America, especially Central America and the Caribbean. Cornerstone of that policy was the Monroe Doctrine, the US claim to be the sole decider of the political fate of Latin America.

Merely on the basis of demographic and economic details, a certain US sense of superiority was quite understandable. After all, while just prior to the First World War the US had over 90 million inhabitants and a giant, booming economy, Latin America had only 80 million people, of whom 24 million in Central America and the Caribbean. At that time, the latter had what has been termed “dessert economies,” providing coffee, sugar, cigars and bananas.

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