Hyde, chairman of the House International Relations Committee, made the remarks at Ft. Benning, GA. to the first graduating class of the Democratic Sustainment Course.
A complete text of Hyde’s speech:
Thank you for the opportunity to speak to the graduating class of the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation.
This Institute has a broad and important mandate: to train soldiers, law enforcement officers, and civilians from the Western Hemisphere to enhance security in their countries and the region as a whole, while also strengthening democracy, deepening the rule of law, and safeguarding human rights. This mission is in keeping with the very real challenges we face in the 21st Century: peacekeeping, resolving border conflicts peacefully, responding to natural disasters, and – as ideological conflict has given way to new threats – combating the illicit drug trade and international criminal organizations.
Today, I would like to address the future of our hemisphere. This is fitting because you, as professional soldiers, law enforcement officials, and civilian leaders, have an important role to play in seeing that this vision becomes a reality.
The United States is a global power, with global interests and responsibilities. Given this open-ended outlook, it is not surprising that our attention is thinly spread and easily captured by the many pressing problems of the world. At times it seems that the United States has become the world’s fire brigade, racing from one alarm to another, battling an unending series of conflagrations in far-off places, with most of the other countries watching it all from the sidelines. Whatever its merits, this ad hoc approach comes at a great cost: our agenda is shaped more by a scattered, reflexive response to the latest problems than by a conscious effort to shape events in pursuit of our long-term interests.
This certainly has been the case with Latin America, which has long been relegated to the periphery of U.S. foreign policy. Despite this inattention, it will come as a surprise to many that the United States has been presented with an opportunity of enormous consequence: to bring into being a permanent zone of peace, prosperity, and security throughout the entire Western Hemisphere, a self-sustaining equilibrium that could well become a model for the rest of the world. This initiative could rightly be termed the Commonwealth of the Americas.
This is not a utopian vision; much of the foundation for this Commonwealth has already been laid, the product of several decades of effort that extends to virtually every country in North and South America. Its most prominent achievements include the spread of democracy, the embrace of free markets, the defeat of communism and other threats to freedom, and a growing recognition that the interests of individual countries are best advanced through cooperation and an openness to the world. Despite their undoubted benefits, however, these accomplishments have no guarantee of permanence. In fact, many are under threat even as we speak. If they are to be made lasting, if their promise is to be fully realized, we must seize this historic opportunity to reshape our hemisphere and preserve its blessings indefinitely.
For the United States, establishing an overall objective of securing this hemispheric Commonwealth would allow us to weave together and give focus to our current assemblage of individual policies toward the region. But the United States is only one part of the necessary equation: the prerequisite for the Commonwealth is a recognition by all of the countries of the hemisphere that each shares a common interest in the well-being and security of the region and that each country must shoulder its share of the responsibility for sustaining these.
The idea of collective responsibility will sound new to some ears due to the old stereotype of a powerful U.S. imposing its will on the smaller states to its south. The truth, however, is that the U.S. now is as much acted upon as acting. Let me cite one example: the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). This historic agreement committed Mexico, the U.S., and Canada to the creation of a continental economy, one with far-reaching effects beyond the purely economic. I believe this agreement is very much in the long-term interests of the United States. However, and contrary to the popular imaginings, NAFTA was not a U.S. initiative, but a Mexican one, not a U.S. device to exploit Mexico but an embrace sought by Mexico to advance its entry into the modern world. It represents a long-delayed recognition that the interests of both Mexico and the U.S. are best advanced through cooperation and that the distance and hostility that have characterized our relations for two centuries have imposed great costs on both countries.
I cite the NAFTA both as a model for a broader cooperation and also to emphasize that every country has a role to play in setting the common agenda. That agenda may contain many things, but I believe that its core should center on promoting economic opportunity, security, and political freedom throughout the hemisphere.
Economic Opportunity
Our hopes for this hemisphere rest upon the economic advancement of all. Fortunately, our prospects are quite positive: during the 1990s, almost every country in our region embraced the free market and implemented a far-reaching series of economic reforms, thereby laying the foundation for sustained growth. We are only at the beginning of that process, however. Too many people in this rich hemisphere remain poor; too many are denied access to opportunities to better their lot and that of their families.
There are many obstacles that need to be overcome, and every country has an unfinished agenda. But one easy way to expand economic opportunity for every country in this hemisphere is to remove our antiquated and self-limiting barriers to trade. This is what the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) represents: the recognition that protectionism is a dead-end street and that the economic interests of each country are best advanced through cooperation and an openness to the world.
President Bush has rightly made the FTAA the centerpiece of U.S. policy towards the hemisphere, but it faces many hurdles, especially in the U.S. We are in the ironic situation that the greatest advocates of this agreement are the countries of Central and South America which formerly blockaded themselves against virtually every U.S. proposal for expanded cooperation. Now it is they who are knocking on our door, preaching the benefits of cooperation, only to be met by repeated delays and excuses on our part. I believe that, ultimately, good sense will prevail in the U.S. and the FTAA will have a belated birth, but it will not be an easy fight.
Security
The defeat of the Soviet Union freed the world from a malevolent force that was the enemy of freedom everywhere. Today, our hemisphere is confronted with other formidable threats. Chief among them is the drug trade because the criminal empire behind it has joined forces with armed insurgencies in a number of areas. In the Andes there is the unsettling prospect of democratically elected governments being overcome by challenges too great for its resources to handle. But an even more disturbing scenario is that of criminal organizations freeing themselves from the restraints of government altogether, becoming masters in their own territory and virtually sovereign actors in the world. Can any government, any person in our hemisphere not regard that prospect as frightening?
Many believe that the drug trade is the United States’ problem because we are the principal consumers. But the belief that other countries can serve merely as transit routes, and perhaps even profit from doing so while remaining untouched, is a great error. Everywhere the drug trade produces massive corruption, cultivates violence, undermines the authority of governments, bankrolls insurgencies, and eventually turns its malevolent focus on the local population.
I cite the drug problem as one that requires cooperation throughout the region, but I could list many others as well. Given that cooperation, even a goal as ambitious as making war impossible in our hemisphere is within our grasp, beginning with the renunciation of all territorial claims by one state against any other. Similarly, preventing the intrusion of any outside power requires only a common determination on our part. But the content of any list is less important than the recognition that the establishment of a secure environment throughout the entire hemisphere is a responsibility shared by every country in the region. Once that is secured, everything else becomes possible.
Political Freedom
Political freedom, prosperity, and security are all related; each requires the others if it is to be fully realized and made secure.
The 1990s witnessed great strides forward for democracy in the hemisphere. But even as we celebrate this enormous progress, we recognize that it is threatened in many areas. Those threats come from many sources, both internal and external.
While we must respect the right of countries to determine their own course through democratic means, we cannot accept the overthrow of democracy or the suppression of human rights in any of them, however pressing the emergency. We have a collective responsibility to oppose the seizure of power in any country by anyone, especially by the unelected and the self-appointed, and also to ensure that human rights are fully respected in practice as well as on paper.
But political freedom consists of more than simply free elections, although these are its indispensable precondition; and liberty is more than a series of grand pronouncements. Political freedom cannot be a grant of government, to be limited or withdrawn altogether when those in power see fit to do so. To be secure, it must exist as a permanent right and rest upon institutions of civil society that are sufficiently robust to be able to withstand any adverse pressure from the government.
That brings me to the role of U.S. assistance. The U.S. does have a role to play in promoting prosperity, security, and political freedom throughout the hemisphere, one we share with every other country. But that aid must be formulated in the recognition that the responsibility for promoting these benefits lies with the individual countries and societies, and that all the aid in the world cannot substitute for their indifference. Given that understanding, any assistance we provide should be aimed at promoting the private sector and strengthening the institutions of civil society, without which there can be no stable democracy or economic progress.
Conclusion
Following Columbus’ accidental discovery of our continents, the Old World of Europe was transformed by the wealth found here and further enriched by the dreams these new lands made possible. Among the greatest gifts this New World held was the promise of a new beginning, one unencumbered by the oppression, the rigid structures, the limitations of the Old. In this new land, the dead hand of the past could be thrown off and possibilities that appeared utopian in their homeland could here be made real.
In many ways, we have lived up to that hope, but much remains to be accomplished before this hemisphere’s promise is fully realized. The first step in that process is to recognize that our fates are joined together. The second is a commitment to act together to make real the opportunity that lies before us: to bring into being the Commonwealth of the Americas and to make of our hemisphere a New World for all the ages to come.
False, false, false.
you can't reach proper conclusions from faulty premises.
Bump! That brings me to the role of U.S. assistance. The U.S. does have a role to play in promoting prosperity, security, and political freedom throughout the hemisphere, one we share with every other country. But that aid must be formulated in the recognition that the responsibility for promoting these benefits lies with the individual countries and societies, and that all the aid in the world cannot substitute for their indifference. Given that understanding, any assistance we provide should be aimed at promoting the private sector and strengthening the institutions of civil society, without which there can be no stable democracy or economic progress. ***
Bump!