Obama hails best relations with Americas in 'decades'

[Bacchus4.0]

Source: AFP



Kingston (Jamaica) (AFP) - President Barack Obama said US relations with other countries in the Americas were the best they have been in decades, as he headed to a regional summit in Panama starting Friday.


Ahead of a two-day summit that is expected to see the first substantive meeting between US and Cuban presidents in half a century, Obama said decades of mistrust were easing.

"It's no exaggeration to say that our relationship with the Americas is the best it's been in many decades," the US leader said, in an interview with Spanish news agency EFE.

"The new chapter of engagement that we’ve begun with Cuba has been welcomed across the region and is an historic opportunity to also advance regional cooperation and progress."


Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-hails-best-relations-americas-decades-170846774.html

[tridim]

1. Obama needs to give himself more credit

Things are changing for the better all over the World because our President is so well respected and amazing.

[Bacchus4.0]

2. I like his optimism. n/t

[geek tragedy]

3. ending the Cuba embargo is the key. nt

[quadrature]

4. the Middle East is on fire ...

consider Syria
250,000 dead
8 million refugees or DPs

on the other hand.
relations with
El Salvador have never been better!

[Blue_Tires]

5. You do know Assad killed that 250,000 and not Obama, right??

[quadrature]

6. consider the sequence of events.

NATO warplanes help
get rid of Ghadaffi of Libya.

..............leads to............
unrest in Syria, Yemen, Mali

no one person,
is responsible for all this.

however,
some actions were not helpful,
since we had settled with Ghadaffi,
and in Syria, we at least
had diplomatic relations.

we now have perpetual war.

[Blue_Tires]

7. ok...The U.S. isn't going to have sterling relations with everyone all the time...

And right now things in Central/South America *have* been going well...

[Comrade Grumpy]

16. Uh, Assad didn't kill 250,000.

That's the number of people who have died in the civil war.

Pro- and anti-Assad fighters have been killed in about equal numbers, with a lesser number of civilian dead. (Still way too many.)

That said, bad events in the Middle East shouldn't tarnish Obama's accomplishments in this hemisphere.

[Adrahil]

8. Hey Blame that fuckstick Bush for the M-E

If Gore had been President in 2003, we would NOT have invaded Iraq and caused a general destabilization of the Middle East.

[quadrature]

9. 'two bads' don't add up to a 'good' ...nt

[Adrahil]

10. What is the second bad, exactly?

Obama can't whip out his super cape and calm everything down. Many of the ISIS leaders are former Iraqi Baathists. ISIS wouldn't exist if it weren't for Shrub. And gagnabbit, I oppose pouring more blood and dollars into that mess.

[quadrature]

11. knocking off Ghadaffi, was a bad move.

that move set the whole
Middle East on fire,
as it fed into the so-called
"Arab Spring' movement of 2011

[Enrique]

13. Latin America has a population of 500 million people

and is much closer to the U.S., and much closer tied in terms of Americans' origins than the Middle East, which has far fewer people as well.

And yet Latin America gets virtually zero attention from the media and from Americans politicians. I welcome any attention to that region, and my question is whether what Obama says is true about our relations.

[quadrature]

14. so which countries.. would be better off being destabilized?

my opinion is that
Latin America is better off without
the US.


so how is the new country
of East Libya doing these days?
......same question for West Libya.

[geek tragedy]

15. "Latin America is better off without the US"

Lol.

Which is why Mexico is always talking about sealing the border and cutting off trade with us.

[Bacchus4.0]

18. How would the "without the US" thing work exactly? nt

[Reter]

12. As he puts sanctions on Venezuela...

n/t

[Comrade Grumpy]

17. Yeah, that's a stupid move. And the rest of Latin America thinks so, too.

But, hey, at least he isn't Bush or Reagan.

[hack89]

19. He put sanctions on a few individuals, not the country.

They will have zero impact on Venezula.