Bush & Chavez: Invoking Bolivar

by Rick Rockwell

President George W. Bush heads to Latin America today, hoping for a foreign policy boost.

Where else can the president turn? Vice President Dick Cheney just returned from an Asia tour, but his trip was marred by an assassination attempt. Asia is still clouded over whether North Korea is serious about trading away its nuclear weapons. The president can’t go to Africa without dealing with the uncomfortable subject of genocide in Darfur. The Middle East is dominated by his failed policies in Iraq. Europe is no refuge, when NATO won’t send enough troops to help in Afghanistan. So what’s left?

That’s just how the folks in Latin America feel. They are what’s left. They have felt ignored for most of the president’s time in office so the reception may not be a warm abrazo.

The pundits tell us the president is heading south to counter the inroads of leftists like Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez. The White House denies this. But Chavez is taking the trip personally: he’ll be leading an anti-Bush rally in Argentina on Saturday while Bush is across the border discussing trade in Uruguay.

And why else would Bush be invoking Simon Bolivar in his pre-trip speech to the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce this week? Bolivar is the historic figure who Chavez has used in his campaign to promote Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution.

For instance, at a speech before the U.N. in 2005, Chavez said, “Simon Bolivar, father of our country and our revolutionary guide, swore not to give his arm any rest, or repose to his soul, until America was free. We also will not rest our arms or give repose to our souls until we have contributed to saving humanity.”

At the Hispanic Chamber, Bush compared Bolivar to George Washington as liberators who fought colonial powers. Further, Bush said, “We are the sons and daughters of this struggle, and it is our mission to complete the revolution they began on our two continents…. By extending the blessings of liberty to the least among us, we will fulfill the destiny of this new world and set a shining example for others.”

Let’s face it though. If Simon Bolivar was alive today, the Bush administration would not see him as a hero. They would not see him as the Great Liberator, who threw off Spanish rule. No, instead they’d see him like they see Chavez, as a threat.

Bolivar was clear-eyed about the U.S. and the intentions of the country, which came up with the paternalistic Monroe Doctrine, something that is still practiced today and a policy that makes folks in Latin America chafe. Near the end of his life, Bolivar was quoted as saying: “The United States seems destined by Providence to plague the American continent with misery in the name of liberty.”

Now, before he invokes Bolivar again, has President Bush seen that one?

(For more on Chavez, please see, "Venezuela: Politics, Propaganda and Polarization.")

(White House photo of President Bush at the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce by Paul Morse; the photo is in the public domain.)

politics
George Bush
Hugo Chavez
Latin America
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