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Between the prostitute scandal (11 SS and 5 military sent home) and the demand to include Cuba, this trip doesn't seem to be going well.
Scandal mars Obama's wooing of Latin America - Yahoo! News (http://news.yahoo.com/scandal-mars-obamas-wooing-latin-america-002040977.html - broken link)
In a major embarrassment for Washington at the Summit of the Americas attended by more than 30 heads of state, 11 U.S. Secret Service agents were sent home and five military servicemen grounded over "misconduct" allegations in a hotel.
..
Argentina's foreign minister said the final summit declaration was stalled over the issue of Cuba, with 32 nations supporting its inclusion in the next Summit of the Americas, but the United States vetoing that.
"We have decided not to participate in future 'Summits of the Americas' without the presence of Cuba," said the leftist ALBA block of nations, founded by Venezuela's theatrically anti-U.S. president, Hugo Chavez.
Hmmm. I guess you're right, this is a real black eye for President Obama. After all, I'm pretty sure he personally selects the Secret Service agents who go on his trips, supervises them to make sure they follow the rules and laws they are subject to, and follows them in and out of their hotel rooms to make sure they don't get up to any nonsense with prostitutes.
For the first time, conservative U.S-allied nations like Colombia are throwing their weight behind the traditional demand of leftist governments that Cuba be in the next meeting of the Organization of American States (OAS).
Diplomats said the dispute could block the final declaration planned for Sunday at the closing of the meeting, and originally intended as a hemispheric show of unity.
"The isolation, the embargo, the indifference, looking the other way, have been ineffective," summit host and Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said of the Cuba issue.
A major U.S. ally in the region who has relied on Washington for financial and military help to fight guerrillas and drug traffickers, Santos has become vocal over Cuba despite his strong ideological differences with Havana.
Cuba was kicked out of the OAS a few years after Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution, and has been excluded from its summits due to opposition from the United States and Canada.
Heck as A Canadian with Castro is almost ready to kick the bucket maybe we should both let them in it would show that Canada and the U.S. heard their message and if that is what they want then why not the cold war is over and might as well end the embargo Harper and Obama are right there and could talk it over a bit.
Location: By the sea, by the sea, by the beautiful sea
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Whatever the Secret Service agents were doing is hardly Obama's responsibility, but he deserves a black-eye for continuing our asinine policy towards Cuba.
I'll bet he'll score some good Columbian Coke while he'd down that way to share with his WH buddies.
I'd bet he can even get it past customs and TSA.
Check his nose when he returns.
Are you talking Dubya here?
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