Hti: Caricom drinking bush for Aristide's fever

Without mentioning the United States, the summit called for a multilateralist approach in solving most pressing global problems and vowed to combat terrorism in all its manifestations.

In a veiled criticism of US difficulties in Iraq, French President Jacques Chirac said: "Security problems that raise the use of force have become global and should be dealt with in a multilateral framework in order to be handled legitimately."

Caribbean ministers at the summit echoed Mr Chirac's call.

"All the Caricom ministers who spoke, they've made that point, particularly after our experience at the United Nations and our efforts at the security council with regard to helping Haiti," Bahamian Foreign Minister Fred Mitchell told BBC Caribbean Service.

"It just shows the necessity for the multilateral movement to be very strong," he said.

Mr Mitchell said he saw the relationship between EU and the Latin American and Caribbean region as a "counterbalance" to the world's superpower, meaning the United States.

So, Caricom is talking France's language of "counterbalance"; does that mean that Caricom is willing to play an obstructionist anti-U.S. role at the corrupt U.N.?

I would imagine it does, especially since Caricom's voting record at the U. N. is not one that supports its most reliable ally in the region and the world.

What has France to offer Caricom but the same betrayal that it handed to Colin Powell at the U.N. in the run up to the Iraq war? What does the EU have to offer, especially in light of the weakness of the various economies overburdened by the socialist welfare state?

If Caricom wants to be the mouse that roared, then it is better off acting independently of both the EU and Latin America, both of which are gradually being overrun by the Islamic horde and neither of which has economies that are doing anything much.

The irony of this all is that Caricom, willing to take American aid, would side with the malevolently powerless French who are willing to use the Islamists as a check to American power without reckoning the ultimate cost to Western civilization.