Marxism simply could not withstand its confrontation with reality. It promised paradise on Earth and spawned 20 horrendous dictatorships. It left 100 million dead. It impoverished half a planet. It retarded the scientific and technical progress of numerous nations and debased several generations of people who were forced to lie and...]]> Tue, 07 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0500 The U.S. ambassador to Honduras, Hugo Llorens, an extremely competent diplomat, tried hard to keep Congress from ousting President Manuel Zelaya. After his arguments and pressures were exhausted, and faced with something that seemed inevitable, he did something that ennobles him: He sheltered the president's son in his residence to save him from any violent outcome.

Fortunately, Zelaya's expulsion from the presidency and from his country was bloodless. It wasn't exactly a military coup: The Army obeyed the orders of the Supreme Court after continued violations of the law by a leader intent on getting reelected, even if by violating the Constitution, and dragging the nation to Hugo...]]> Wed, 01 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0500 The United States, the OAS, the European Union, Hugo Chávez, Fidel Castro -- most of all, Chávez and Castro -- want Manuel Zelaya immediately restored to the presidency of Honduras. He was expelled from the country on the morning of June 28.

Almost by unanimity, the Honduran Congress, supported by the Supreme Court, had removed him for breaking the law and ignoring the rulings of the Electoral Tribunal. But that was a technical excuse. The deep truth is a lot more dramatic: Zelaya, obstinate and rash, intent on being reelected at any cost, heedless of all the warnings of the judiciary and the legislature, intended to drag the nation in the direction of Chávez,...]]> Tue, 03 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0600 Poverty in the United States is generally experienced in dwellings that may be gray and uniform but are supplied with electricity and running potable water. It does not exclude the possession of an automobile, air conditioning, color television, telephone, mail service, free education, food coupons, sewage, access to emergency medical services, police protection, a system of justice and a certain amount of money. In Venezuela, the setting usually is infinitely worse. No need to describe it; we all know the horror of tin-roof shacks, violence and privation that signifies being poor in Venezuela (or in Nicaragua, Bolivia and almost all of Latin America.)

Ignoring the people's...]]> Tue, 06 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0600 Once he attains the first two objectives, Raúl Castro would practically liquidate what remains of the embargo. With the third, he would please Fidel Castro, who is determined not to die until his ''hardest'' agents return to Cuba. Naturally, despite the general clamor that demands deep political changes, neither Fidel nor Raúl would even think about opening the margins of participation in Cuban society. They intend to maintain a communist state with a single party and a total absence of freedoms.

Fidel's firm grip

Obama should harbor no illusions regarding Cuba. Ten U.S. presidents before him have bashed heads with the regime of the Castro brothers....]]> Tue, 30 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0500 For Vladimir Putin -- who is really the one in charge in Russia -- it is a good thing to have the Russian flag defiantly waving around the Americas aboard a ship that carries the name of one of the people he admires most. Putin has a picture of Emperor Peter the Great in his office, and he is probably one of his most important sources of inspiration. After all, this absolutist monarch decided to defeat the West by imitating it.

Sarah Palin's neighbor

Peter learned to build ships from the Dutch and reorganized his army following the German model to face the Swedes, Poles, and Turks. He then set out to fashion Russia into a European power -- even into the...]]> Tue, 19 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500 Opportunity to strike

Burdening Moscow's budget with adventurous and inept leaders who were uncontrollably beggarly and ruinous administrators -- such as Fidel Castro, the Ethiopian Mengistu and the Nicaraguan Daniel Ortega -- to a great extent had provoked the financial collapse of the Soviet empire.

At that moment, Moscow's deficit amounted to some $80 billion. Cuba's subsidy alone, through 30 years of sponsorship, had exceeded $100 billion. It was the first time that the colonies had sacked and ruined the metropolis.

Among the reformists close to Kozyrev, in addition to the certainty that the conquest of the world had been too costly and counterproductive an...]]>