[speaker001:] opinion on uh domestic or our policy towards uh Latin America is that especially during the Reagan now Bush administrations we seem to have a double standard in place over um how we treat them countries down there for example a left wing regime or communist regime is God awful and uh basically uh you know Satan incarnate while nations like for a long time uh El Salvador and uh uh Guatemala with with right wing regimes we kind of just winked at things like death squads and alike yeah we found Nicaragua to be the most horrible thing in the earth
[speaker002:] right
[speaker001:] and I just felt and it's the same thing with Cuba that we we really seem to have this kind of double standard down there whereas if your regime doesn't want to bother us a reason of threat to us we'll kind of ignore you you can do whatever you want but if you invite the commies in you know look out
[speaker002:] or if it it doesn't even have to be commies if it's just a little left of uh of uh what the prevailing attitude is in the United States it was bad somehow and um certainly the right wing death squads were just as uh  deadly if not more so than anything set up by any of the left wing governments uh and and that uh showed in the uh who allowed to to come into this country
[speaker001:] um-hum
[speaker002:] um if people are coming from left wing countries uh it was viewed that they were uh only seeking uh economic uh benefits and not actually escaping uh death threats whereas if uh they were coming from right uh am I saying this correctly or if if if they were coming from um right wing regimes um
[speaker001:] you wouldn't want them in
[speaker002:] we wouldn't let them in yeah
[speaker001:] yeah yeah it's like Guatemala how many Guatemalan and El Salvador refugees have we seen and heard about in the last ten years yet Nicaraguan refugees for the longest time were welcome with open arms as escapees and
[speaker002:] um-hum
[speaker001:] and and any communist type of regime down there I mean the whole the whole farce in Granada
[speaker002:] oh gosh what an embarrassment
[speaker001:] right was it just I mean it was the most ridiculous thing and this is the kind of policy that we have down there I mean then we have this fake drug war
[speaker002:] no with uh
[speaker001:] down there and that seems to be well we'll give you aid but oh no not to feed your people no we want you to clean up uh our drug problem for us here's some money go shoot people with it you know
[speaker002:] right what was the whole thing with Panama I mean here we were paying uh Noriega for years and and then suddenly we go in and bomb his country and uh in Panama and and and try and indite him I I don't understand what that was all about
[speaker001:] well it's the same thing that happened with Iraq for years and years here we are sending money over here playing these people off of each other it's was same thing in Iraq playing Saddam Hussein off off you know off of Iran in this case Panama off of Nicaragua and uh Cuba and any of the other left wing regimes down there here we are giving them all this money and they're crooks and then when they don't do something that's suitable to our particular policy we have to go and invade them
[speaker002:] and uh
[speaker001:] and for what what does it leave us with absolutely nothing I mean it wouldn't surprise me it wouldn't have surprised me if uh Noriega got off on all of the charges that you know instead of being found guilty and then let him go just isn't we're an embarrassment you know
[speaker002:] truly truly
[speaker001:] and and I just think you know we have this kind of short term we are not interested in developing the region unless there's big business involved and wants to get involved down there we we tend to treat them as sort of like a backyard and you know I'm just just like Mexico
[speaker002:] right it's sort of it's our our little colony is that they do just if they provide the labor and the debiting of uh of Ford or uh uh the united fruit then that's fine
[speaker001:] yep
[speaker002:] but uh if they're actually trying to educate