Bush’s hypocritics

Frank Calzon of the Center for a Free Cuba, this morning notes the hypocrisy of those critical of President Bush’s recent tough talk about Cuba:

For years, the United States was denounced for befriending Latin American right-wing dictatorships. The critics argued that the criminal repression of Pinochet, Trujillo, the Somozas and Duvaliers could not be sustained were it not for American support.
Gradually, U.S. policy shifted to supporting democracy in Latin America. Yet today, the voices raised are harshly critical of President George W. Bush for refusing to coddle the repressive, left-wing, communist dictatorship in Cuba. The irony — hypocrisy, if you will — is as astounding as it is mystifying.

Similarly, a lot of the same critics during the 1980s denounced the United States for not cutting off support for the racist white regime in South Africa and not doing more on behalf of the then-political prisoner Nelson Mandela.
But now that the apartheid regime is in Havana, the dictators are named castro and the political prisoner is named Oscar Biscet, those voices are silent — except to blame America for all of Cuba’s problems.
Hypocrisy, indeed, but the truth of what silences them probably is something much worse.