Amid the tumult of recent years – particularly the heated debates over the Islamic War – the rapid spread of a red plague across South and Central America has largely been ignored by both the public and our leaders. Yet the resurgence of communism to the south has serious security and economic implications for the United States and its allies.

How bad is it? It’s about as bad as it gets. Within the last decade, the communists and other anti-American socialists have rapidly won power across the region. In addition to Fidel Castro in Castro and Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, the ranks of Latin American leftists have been swelled by the addition of Evo Morales in Bolivia, Lula da Silva in Brazil, and Néstor Kirchner in Argentina. Even Chile, the land of my beloved Augsto Pinochet, has recently turned to socialism. They may soon be joined by radical anti-American leftists from nations such as Nicaragua, Peru, and (most significantly) Mexico.

Now, admittedly these men differ in their degree of commitment to the cause – from an open communist dictator like Castro to dictators in all but name like Chavez, to more moderate leftists such as Lula and Kirchner. However, all of them – regardless of the extent of their political sinfulness – pose a serious danger to the national interests of the United States.

How, some may ask, do the (more or less) democratic choices of Latin Americans pose such a danger? That is simple enough: we are faced with an era of true global economic competition and, therefore, we face two very real dangers created by these regimes. First, we face the threat of expanded Chinese economic and military influence within our region. This is already manifesting itself in countless ways, as Chinese companies move into Latin America to play the role which American corporations once played. Further, the reality of economic failure which is the universal legacy of socialist and communist regimes everywhere in the world is certain to exacerbate the already-severe illegal immigration problem within the United States.

It is significant, for example, that Venezuelan oil production has plunged since the inauguration of Hugo Chavez. That failure is being masked, for the time being, by high oil prices. But what will happen when the prices fall (and, surely, they will sooner or later)? The same holds true for Bolivia, whose uneducated backwoods Marxist President recently nationalized the nation’s natural gas supply.

And what is to happen when the dreams of these regimes fail? Are we to expect that the ill-educated and ignorant Latin masses which voted people like Chavez and Morales into office will turn to neo-liberal reformers? It is not far more likely that the current leaders will be replaced by even more racial leftists? Is it not also likely that some of them will be propped up by foreign money – almost undoubtedly Chinese money – supplied to ensure Chinese access to desperately-needed natural resources and to cause trouble for America in its own backyard?

We are facing the possibility of a continent full of Castros – a continent full of radical leftists hostile to the United States and kept in power through a combination of resource wealth and foreign money.
Such an outcome would be a disaster, resulting in America distracted at home and unable to devote its full attention to combating its enemies abroad. It would even give China the capability to ultimately station some military forces in the Americas, greatly complicating the US response to any Chinese aggression in Asia. Such a day must never be allowed to dawn.

So what, then is the right response? For once I agree with my dear friends on the left in that I believe that war, to be frank, is not the answer. War would be too expensive, probably counter-productive, and would strain American resources. Indeed, I see no reason to war when there’s a far better Latin American tradition to turn to: the coup.

While buck-toothed Marxist populists may command the affection of illiterate peasants and their industrial equivalents, they certainly have no real claim upon the love of the middle and upper classes of their nations. Most of them would be glad to be rid of all of this socialist nonsense. Indeed, I’m sure that there are already armed groups and coup plotters active in virtually all of the nations which have fallen under the sway of socialism.

All they need – all they want – is a little push and a little help. America (though not the leftist-infiltrated CIA) ought to provide all that they need and encourage them to keep the restive masses under control using the same methods that we used during the Cold War. A few executions of leaders here, a few “disappearances” there, and we ought to be able to get everything squared away nice and neat in next to no time.

Indeed, I suspect that the one coup attempt against Chavez was probably assisted by the CIA for the simple reason that it was so incompetently conducted. To make that coup work – to rid us of that turbulent man once and for all – would have been child’s play. The moment Chavez was arrested, he should have been immediately executed in order to prevent his return to power (the Soviet coup plotters in 1991 made a similar mistake when they failed to immediately kill Gorbachev) and the communist crowds which gathered to oppose the coup should have been fired upon.

Now, some might find my advocacy of overthrowing various “democratically” elected governments in Latin America to be hypocritical in view of my support for President Bush’s policy of promoting democracy in the Moslem world. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. In dealing with our enemies (and in foreign policy everyone who is not our true friend is ultimately our enemy), the one and only fixed principle that I hold is that I support anything which keeps them from power and keeps our guys in. If an Iraqi election appeared likely to send Iranian-style Islamists into power, I’d support ignoring and overriding those election results too. Democracy, while it is a superior system of social organization, is not a suicide pact.

More to the point, in dealing with threats to our existence, our single moral consideration in terms of our actions has to be whether or not an action will be effective in promoting American security.