While the Middle East goes ape, Latin America goes left

While our attention is being riveted on Iraq and the obscene atrocities that continue to take its people and our troops, the western hemisphere has taken a very pronounced drift to leftwing politics, some of it dangerous in the extreme. Hugo Chavez of Venezuala is attempting to take over control of the nation's media and revise its constitution to give him dictatorial powers. His left-wing politics verge into the kind of totalitarianism that was characteristic of the Iron Curtain.

However, other countries with decidedly communist leaders are:

• Bolivia -- Evo Morales
• Ecuador -- Rafael Correa
• Nicaragua -- Daniel Ortega (Ronald Reagan's old nemesis in the Iran-Contra scandal)

Other countries in Latin America are in the leftist camp to a more moderate degree:

• Brazil -- Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva
• Argentina -- Nestor Kirchner
• Peru -- Alan Garcia
• Chile -- Michelle Bachelet

With Iraq drawing so much of our attention, resources, and diplomatic energies, we cannot help but wonder what troubles are getting ready to erupt in our own neighborhood.