Free Republic

<p>So, is there is a real wrong person in the wrong place at the wrong time?</p> <p>Given our messy borders and chaotic response to disasters, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff seems fair game.</p> <p>During the Clinton era he definitely was the right person in the right place at the right time. Either that or really, really lucky. You see, Chertoff, a Bush 41 appointee, holds the distinction of being the only U.S. attorney not fired when Clinton took office.</p>

When Gen. Omar Halleslevens was installed Monday in Managua as chief of the Nicaraguan army, the U.S. government was represented by a mere major at the change-of-command ceremony. The slight was intentional. Halleslevens is regarded at the Pentagon as a hard-line Sandinista, whose rise to power represents profound problems in Latin America. The Sandinistas, the Marxist-Leninist revolutionary party repeatedly rejected by Nicaraguan voters, are on the verge of accomplishing what U.S. officials call a ''golpe technico'' (technical coup), stripping President Enrique Bolanos of power. It is no isolated event restricted to a small Central American country. The Sandinistas have a...

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) -- China is waging an aggressive campaign of seduction in the Caribbean, wooing countries away from relationships with rival Taiwan, opening markets for its expanding economy, promising to send tourists, and shipping police to Haiti in the first communist deployment in the Western Hemisphere. And the United States, China's Cold War enemy, is benignly watching the Asian economic superpower move into its backyard. Advertisement For decades China and Taiwan used dollar diplomacy to win over small Caribbean nations where small projects building roads, bridges, wells and fisheries go a long way. But Beijing's growing economic...

Venezuela's Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel rejected U.S. criticism of the deal to buy Russian military helicopters and 100,000 rifles, which he said were part of a policy to strengthen the nation's frontier defense. His statement was in response to comments by Roger Noriega, U.S. assistant secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere, who told CNN's Spanish-language service that Washington worried the arms may end up with groups such as Colombia's Marxist FARC rebels. Close ties between Chavez and Cuban leader Fidel Castro have rattled Washington, which criticizes the president's populist policies. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice recently called...

<p>San Antonio del Tachira, Venezuela -- Like many of the settled areas along Venezuela's 1,200-mile border with Colombia, this western frontier town is a place where the byword is ver y callar -- or "see and keep your mouth shut."</p>