Rummy brings his Midas touch to CAFTA

Not content to rest on his laurels in Iraq, Rummy takes to the op-ed pages and turns his unfailingly wrong-headed condescension to the idea that "The coming vote on CAFTA is a national security vote."

Yale undergrad Sarah Stillman remains unconvinced. Writing in Huffington Post, she says:

Members of Congress, beware: a vote against CAFTA is a vote for Osama. Or so Donald Rumsfeld might have you believe, if you read his recent op-ed in the Miami Herald in which he ominously warns, “The coming vote on CAFTA is a national security vote. Let there be no doubt.”

But how is it that CAFTA--a free trade agreement negotiated in secrecy and tailored primarily to the needs of multinational manufacturers, agribusiness, and pharmaceutical companies--will help combat “the violent extremism that is threatening civilized societies”?

Since I’m having a hard time following Rummy’s line of reasoning here (it’s been known to happen on occasion), maybe I should ask the widow of a man named Jose Sanchez Gomez--an indigenous representative of the Campesino Unity Committee who was shot and killed by Guatemalan army forces while attending one of the many peaceful protests against CAFTA in the highlands of Huehuetenango last March.

Or perhaps I should ask Marta Maria Caballero, a young woman who faces another version of “violent extremism” from her managers every morning when she arrives to work at a Nicaraguan auto parts factory. In the wake of her recent efforts to organize an independent trade union after enduring years of unsafe working conditions and sexual harassment, Caballero must now confront an escalated barrage of vicious threats and intimidation.

But I somehow doubt either of these women will agree with Rumsfeld's declaration that Central America is currently reveling in a so-called “magic moment” of freedom and human rights. The only hocus pocus they're likely to confirm flies straight from Rummy's pen-cum-magic-wand, which he's long utilized to transform chaotic realities into convenient opportunities for promoting U.S. military and corporate interests abroad.

Read the whole post