Sowing and reaping

I hadn't yet started this blog when I read that the Bush administration was using what this story euphemistically describes as "heavy-handed diplomacy" (do those words ever go together?) to gain immunity for Americans from the International Criminal Court, but I remember forwarding the news to many folks to find out if they were as disgusted as I was. Now the tactics are indeed coming back to haunt us.

...More than that, some U.S. officials are also beginning to question the policy as political and military leaders in the region complain that the aid cuts are squandering goodwill and hurting their ability to cooperate in other important areas, such as the campaigns against drugs and terrorism.

In testimony before Congress in March, Gen. Bantz Craddock, the commander of U.S. military forces in Latin America, said the sanctions had excluded Latin American officers from U.S. training programs and could allow China, which has been seeking military ties to Latin America, to fill the void.

"We now risk losing contact and interoperability with a generation of military classmates in many nations of the region, including several leading countries," Craddock told the Senate Armed Services Committee.