And why is that? this piece is pretty good on the subject.


Bush opened the White House Conference on the Americas on July 9th with a declaration that the United States is "an active neighbor of Latin America." In the past, coup-plotters in Guatemala and Chile, dictators in Argentina and El Salvador, and the Contras in Nicaragua might have agreed.

Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz and Rummy, however, have been busy crusading through the Middle East, and didn't get the memo that Latin Americans were in revolt against neoliberalism and the Monroe Doctrine. The U.S. influence in the region is now a fraction of the The Colossus of the North's traditional strength.

Turning away from the nightmare in Iraq for just long enough to notice that our "backyard" is seceding from U.S. control, Bush took his first-ever in depth tour of Latin America in March and on July 9th held a conference with representatives of 150 religious, business and NGO groups flown in from across the hemisphere and 100 representatives of U.S. commerce and "civil society."


LINK

There is a price for policing the world and it looks like the NeoCons have paid it by dropping the ball in Latin America.

Because they are busy in the ME, the US has assisted in the rise of the Left. Of course, BS policies like NAFTA do not help, trade is the only answer they have. The ppl are looking for a better life, whether it is under socialism or not, they care about the future and the see no good in a future tied to the US.